WORLD NEWS: Asia/Russia

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US insists all North Korea's nuclear programs must be addressed
BEIJING (AFP) - The United States has told China there is no change in its demand that all Pyongyang's nuclear programs be addressed in the search for a resolution to the festering nuclear standoff, the US embassy said.

US envoy Joseph DeTrani conveyed the message to China's pointman on North Korea (news - web sites) Ning Fukui in talks here described as "in-depth" by Beijing.

"In these meetings, DeTrani is conveying the well-known US position which includes the necessity for any resolution to the North Korean nuclear problem to address all North Korean nuclear programs," said an embassy spokesman.

China is North Korea's closest ally and host of six-party negotiations to resolve the issue. It has called for Washington and Pyongyang to show more mutual trust.

According to US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, Washington's chief negotiator at the six-party talks, North Korea acknowledged at the last round in June that most of its nuclear programs were weapons related.

At that third round of talks in Beijing, Pyongyang proposed freezing its nuclear weapons programs for rewards, including energy aid, the lifting of sanctions and North Korea's removal from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.

But the United States has said the proposal lacked detail and was vague.

Of particular concern was that it ignored the Stalinist state's pre-2003 plutonium nuclear weapons and its alleged uranium enrichment program.

The United States, for its part, made an offer calling for a step-by-step dismantling of Pyongyang's plutonium and uranium weapons programs in return for aid and security guarantees and the easing of its political and economic isolation.

The embassy said DeTrani continued his meetings Friday on preparations for a next round of six-party working group sessions which would precede a fourth round of full-blown talks.

After meeting the US envoy, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for the talks to be reconvened as soon as possible so they could work on how to "implement the first stage of nuclear abandonment".

"All concerned parties should hold the working meeting ... as soon as possible in line with the consensus reached in the third round of six-party talks," Wang was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

The US embassy said DeTrani was "flexible" on dates.

Japanese media has reported that the working level talks would take place in August, although there has been no confirmation of this.

Aside from the United States and North Korea, the other parties at the talks are host China as well as Russia, South Korea (news - web sites) and Japan.

The standoff erupted in October 2002 when the United States accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium, violating the 1994 nuclear freeze of its separate plutonium producing program.

Pyongyang has denied running the uranium-based program, but has again fired up its once-mothballed plutonium-based program.


US intelligence authorities say North Korea is believed to possess at least one or two nuclear bombs.

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China Official Threatens War With Taiwan
By STEPHANIE HOO, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - A senior Chinese official warned that Beijing won't rule out war with Taiwan if the island's president pursues his plan to adopt a new constitution by 2008, the government's China Daily newspaper reported Friday.

Wang Zaixi, vice minister of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, also said it would be an "unwise move" for Taiwan to buy more advanced weapons from the United States, the paper said.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has said he plans to introduce a new constitution for the island when his term ends in 2008. China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid civil war, but Beijing claims Taiwan is a part of its territory and has long said that formal independence would lead to war.

Chinese officials have said for months that Chen's constitution plans show he wants independence for the island and therefore endanger "peace and stability" across the Taiwan Strait. Chen has said any constitutional changes wouldn't touch on sovereignty issues.

"New tensions and even a serious crisis in the cross-Straits situation may arise, if Chen obstinately pursues his timetable," Wang said in an interview with the China Daily.

"We cannot completely rule out the possibility (of a military conflict) though it is not at all what we hope for," the paper quoted Wang as saying. The paper, writing in English, inserted the parentheses itself.

Wang said there was "no way" political tensions could be eased unless Chen accepts that Taiwan is a part of China. "What we can do is just work hard to prevent bilateral relations from deteriorating," Wang said.

In Taiwan, Chen criticized China's recent suggestions that it might adopt a law mandating that Taiwan reunify with the mainland.

"The Chinese communists want to undertake a legal battle to turn Taiwan into a special political district," Chen said during visit to southern Taiwan on Thursday, the United Daily News reported. "Can the 23 million Taiwanese not be wary about it?"

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China Warns U.S. on Taiwan Opposition
By STEPHANIE HOO, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - China's No. 2 leader warned visiting U.S. senators Monday that the Beijing government would never allow Taiwan to be independent, state television reported.

Wu Bangguo, who is chairman of China's legislature, said the Taiwan question is the most sensitive issue in U.S.-China relations, the report said.

He said Washington must abide by the one-China policy, which opposes formal independence for the self-ruled island, it added.

Wu was speaking to a delegation led by Ted Stevens, a senior Republican senator from Alaska, and which included Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Republican from Tennessee.

His comments followed a telephone conversation between President Hu Jintao and President Bush (news - web sites) Friday in which the Chinese leader voiced Beijing's strong opposition to American weapon sales to Taiwan.

China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid civil war, and the Beijing government has threatened to retake the island by force if it makes its de facto independence official.

Taiwan is considering a plan to spend $18 billion on anti-missile systems, planes and submarines from the United States — drawing howls of protest from Beijing.

The United States has no official relations with Taiwan's democratically elected government but has strong unofficial ties and is the island's top arms provider.

Wu also told the senators that China's growing relationship with the United States was in the interests of the people of both countries as well as the stability of the world, the report on China Central Television said.

He said the two sides should resolve any differences through increased dialogue and cooperation, the report said.

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China, Taiwan Ratchet Up Rhetoric on Tensions

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters) - China and Taiwan blamed each other Friday for a dangerous escalation in tensions, underscoring the hostility between the arch foes and analysts' fears that the two might be heading for war.

Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu characterized relations with China as a state of quasi-war, saying Beijing was waging a diplomatic and economic battle against the island.

In Hong Kong, a top Chinese official on Taiwan affairs described the situation as on "the verge of danger."

Beijing views the self-ruled island as a breakaway province that must eventually be recovered, by force if necessary.

Lu, known for her controversial statements such as calling Chinese missiles pointed at Taiwan a form of "state terrorism," said war was not limited to military attacks and Beijing was already seeking to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and undermine its economy.

"Under my observations, cross-Strait relations have already entered a state of quasi-war," Lu told Super Taiwan radio in an interview.

She said war was not restricted to a missile attack or invasion and China would use all sorts of diplomatic methods to isolate Taiwan.

On the same day, Vice Minister of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, Wang Zaixi, said Beijing would resolutely stop any move toward Taiwan independence.

"Taiwan independence and splitting (from China) has become a real threat. The relationship between the two sides of the Strait has reached the verge of danger," Wang said during a visit to Hong Kong.

"Developments show that the forces supporting Taiwan independence and splittism are using different means in a planned and intentional way to achieve the aim of Taiwan independence," he added.

China has labeled the fiercely pro-independence Lu as a "traitor" and "scum of the nation," and is convinced that President Chen Shui-bian plans to formalize Taiwan's separation from China with a declaration of statehood.

China's People's Liberation Army has been staging mock invasion exercises and many analysts see the Taiwan Strait as the most dangerous flash point in Asia.

Beijing also uses its political and economic power to prevent the island from joining international organizations that involves sovereign states, and insists that Taiwan participates in the Olympic Games (news - web sites) under the title "Chinese Taipei."

Lu's comments came after government officials said China had pushed for the removal of posters supporting Taiwan's Olympic team from 500 baggage carts at Athens airport.

Lu urged Taiwan supporters traveling to the Greek capital to bring two placards, one saying "Taiwan go go go!" and the other reading "Shame on China."

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Hundreds Held Hostage in Russia School
By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Attackers wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya (news - web sites) on Wednesday, taking hostage about 400 people — half of them children — and threatening to blow up the building. At least two people were killed, one of them a parent who resisted an attacker.

The attack was the latest violence blamed on secessionist Chechen rebels, coming a day after a suicide bomber killed 10 people in the capital and a week after near-simultaneous explosions caused two Russian planes to crash, killing all 90 people on board.

President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) interrupted his working holiday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi and returned to Moscow. On arrival at the airport, he held an immediate meeting with the heads of Russia's Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, the Interfax news agency said.

The school seizure began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school year, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children to the facility which covers grades 1-11. The attackers forced children to stand at the windows and warned they would blow up the school if police tried to storm it, said Alexei Polyansky, a police spokesman for southern Russia.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that hostage-takers released 15 children, but Ruslan Ayamov, spokesman for North Ossetia's Interior Ministry told The Associated Press that 12 children and one adult managed to escape after hiding in the building's boiler room. He denied that any hostages were released.

Gunfire broke out after the raid and at least two people were killed, including a father who had brought his child to the school and was shot trying to resist the attackers, said Fatima Khabolova, a spokeswoman for the regional parliament. She said most of the attackers were wearing suicide belts.

An attacker also was killed, and nine people were injured, including three teachers and two police officers, Polyansky said. More gunfire and several explosions were heard about three hours later, the Interfax news agency reported.

Suspicion in both the school attack and the Moscow bombing fell on Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. "In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

The latest violence also appears to be timed around last Sunday's presidential elections in Chechnya, a Kremlin-backed move aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed along with more than 20 others in a bombing on May 9.

The school attackers demanded talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who aided hostages during the deadly seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.

The hostage-takers also demanded the release of fighters detained over a series of attacks on police facilities in neighboring Ingushetia in June, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing regional officials. Those well-coordinated raids killed more than 90 people.

Regional emergency officials said about 400 people including some 200 children were being held captive, ITAR-Tass reported. A regional police official said the hostages had been herded into the school gymnasium.

There were 17 attackers, both male and female, Interfax said, citing Ismel Shaov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service.

In television footage from outside the school in Beslan, a town about 10 miles north of the regional capital of Vladikavkaz, men in camouflage with heavy-caliber machine guns took up positions on the perimeter and other men in civilian dress with light automatic rifles paced nervously.

At one point, a girl in a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair ran around a corner apparently after fleeing from the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier, followed by an older woman. Russian news reports said about 50 students managed to escape, some after hiding in the school's boiler room during the raid.

"I was standing near the gates, music was playing when I saw three armed people running with guns, at first I though it was a joke, when they fired in the air and we fled," a teenage witness, Zarubek Tsumartov, said on Russian television.

The attack was the latest in a string of violence that has tormented Russians and plagued the government of Putin, who came to power in 2000 vowing to crush the Chechen rebels.

Terrorism fears in Russia have risen markedly following the plane crashes and the suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday night. The blast by a female attacker tore through a busy area between the station and a department store, killing 10 people and wounded more than 50.

A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing on behalf of the "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed responsibility for the airliner crashes. The statements could not immediately be verified.

The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow against Putin, "who slaughtered Muslims time and again." Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.

Several female suicide bombers allegedly connected with the rebels have caused carnage in Moscow and other Russian cities in a series of attacks in recent years.

Many of the women bombers are believed to be so-called "black widows," who have lost husbands or male relatives in the fighting that has gripped Chechnya for most of the past decade. Investigators of the plane crashes are seeking information about two Chechen women believed to have been aboard — one on each plane.

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S.Korea Enriched Uranium Close to Atom Bomb Fuel
By Jack Kim and Louis Charbonneau

SEOUL/VIENNA (Reuters) - South Korea (news - web sites) has admitted that government scientists enriched uranium four years ago to a level that several Vienna diplomats said was almost pure enough for an atomic bomb, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday.

Although only a minute quantity of uranium was involved, two Western diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the enrichment was below but "very close" to the threshold for bomb-grade uranium.

"It was well beyond the level that would be needed for a civilian program," one of the diplomats told Reuters. "The government says that its program is peaceful and the IAEA is not making any judgments on that issue."

South Korea said in a statement the U.N. nuclear watchdog was investigating the disclosure. It said the experiments, which involved enriching uranium with lasers, were carried out by a group of scientists without government knowledge and soon ended.

"This is enrichment of uranium," a government official told Reuters by telephone. Other government officials had earlier said the experiments did not go as far as enriching uranium.

The IAEA said in a statement that Seoul had told the agency that "these activities were carried out without the government's knowledge at a nuclear site in Korea in 2000."

At the same time, a Vienna diplomat said the scientists were government employees working at a government-run facility.

South Korea has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which gives inspectors the right to conduct more intrusive, short-notice visits to nuclear sites than normal NPT safeguards permit.

"With the Additional Protocol in force, it would have been difficult for Korea to keep this a secret," the diplomat said.

The IAEA said a team of inspectors was now in South Korea and would be returning to Vienna early next week. The agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, would present the inspectors' findings to the IAEA Board of Governors when it meets on Sept. 13.

CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE NPT, DIPLOMATS

The experiments clearly did not constitute a violation of the NPT because they were not an attempt to build nuclear weapons, the South Korean official said.

However, several diplomats on the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors said that South Korea had clearly violated its obligations under the NPT, which requires that such activities be reported to the IAEA. They said the board had no choice but to report such violations to the U.N. Security Council.

"This will have to be reported to the Security Council, but the board would want that to be with the consent of the South Korean government, similar to what we did with Libya," one Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Earlier this year the IAEA board reported Libya to the Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, though the report was purely informative and praised Tripoli for coming clean about its past secret atomic weapons program.

Another Western diplomat close to the IAEA said that the agency would naturally want to fulfill its duty as the watchdog of the NPT by conducting a thorough investigation to rule out the possibility that South Korea has a secret weapons program.

The revelation could prove embarrassing to Seoul, which is a key member of six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear ambitions.

U.S. officials said in October 2002 that the North had admitted to running a secret nuclear program based on uranium enrichment technology.

Pyongyang has since denied the claim. It has yet to comment on the latest South Korean disclosure.

South Korea began a secret atomic weapons program in the 1970s under Park Chung-hee, a military dictator who was assassinated in 1979. Park's program is widely believed to have only ended with his death.

The IAEA has made similar discoveries of minute amounts of enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium in Iran, which Washington considers as evidence that Tehran is using its civilian nuclear energy program as a front for developing atomic weapons.

Iran says the United States is wrong and insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity.

The South Korean government learned of the enrichment experiments while drawing up its first report to the IAEA, submitted this month, the Seoul statement said.

The experiments were conducted in January and February 2000 as part of research in producing nuclear fuel in the country, it said. A minute quantity, 0.2 gram, of uranium was successfully enriched. All facilities and the uranium were destroyed immediately after the experiments, the statement added.

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I'm sick to my stomach...




Russians Storm School; 100 Bodies Found
By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer

BESLAN, Russia - Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. More than 100 bodies were reportedly found in the gymnasium where hostages had been held.

The extent of the casualties was not immediately known. The militants, who had been demanding independence for nearby Chechnya (news - web sites), had been keeping up to 1,500 hostages — mostly women and children — in the sweltering gymnasium for more than two days.

Regional emergency officials said at least 100 people were killed. A cameraman for the British network ITN reported seeing around 100 bodies in the gym. The correspondent for Russia's Interfax news agency reported that there were dozens of bodies in the school, including about 100 in the gym, and that some were killed when the building's roof collapsed from an explosion before the main assault began.

Other casualties were reported when militants opened fire on hostages as they fled the building and in fighting that went on for several hours afterward. Russian forces killed 10 of the hostage-takers, Interfax reported. The regional health minister reported that 409 people were wounded, including at least 218 children.

Russian authorities took control of the school in the assault, which did not appear to have been planned beforehand but may have been prompted when the hostage-takers began shooting and setting off explosives.

About a dozen hostage-takers escaped, with the Interfax new agency reporting that they split into three groups to blend in with the hostages and took refuge in a home nearby. Tank fire was heard from the area of the house, Interfax said, and gunfire rang out through the town for hours.

The White House branded the hostage-taking "barbaric" and "despicable" and said responsibility for dozens of lost lives rests with the terrorists. "The United States stands side-by-side with Russia in our global fight against terrorism," spokesman Scott McClellan said.

President Bush (news - web sites) was briefed on developments in Russia Friday morning before a re-election rally in Pennsylvania. He did not talk about the Russian terrorism during his speech.

Huge columns of smoke billowed from the school, where windows were shattered, part of roof gone and another part charred. Commandos, residents and journalists scurried around the building and soldiers climbed inside through a lower floor window, all the glass missing.

People ran through the streets, the wounded carried off on stretchers. An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood. Four armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, "A militant ran this way."

Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children — some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood — to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier. One child had a bandage on her head, others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted.

The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the militants took the building on Wednesday morning. The hostage-takers had refused to let food or water into the school throughout the standoff.

"I am helping you," a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying "It's all right. It's all right."

Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of four children and a woman, and the ITAR-Tass news agency reported at least seven people killed, including five militants.

A nurse spread clean sheets on stretchers, and told AP that Russian officials expected "very many" wounded.

The chaos erupted on the third day of the hostage standoff in Beslan, a town of 30,000 in North Ossetia, a republic near the wartorn region of Chechnya. North Ossetia's president, Alexander Dzasokhov, said the militants had demanded independence for the nearby wartorn region of Chechnya.

It began after militants had agreed to let Russia retrieve the bodies of people killed early in the raid. Explosions went off as the emergency personnel went to get the bodies at around 1 p.m., collapsing part of the roof of the building, and hostages took the noise as a signal to flee, officials said.

Militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and security forces returned fire. Once the hostage-takers sought to escape, Russian officials apparently made the decision to storm the building.

The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm it, but all indications suggested the explosions began before the assault. Russian officials repeatedly said they were not planning to invade and had earlier won the release of 26 hostages through negotiations.

The hostage takers' identities were murky. Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said the attackers might be from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected of participating in the Ingushetia violence.

Insurgents fought an earlier war for Chechen independence, a conflict that ended in stalemate. In the years since, the rebels and their sympathizers have increasingly taken to assaults and attacks outside the tiny republic.

Negotiators said the hostage-takers had repeatedly refused offers of food and water througout the standoff.

"They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless enemy," said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations. "I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request."

The school seizure came a day after a suspected Chechen suicide bomber blew herself up outside a Moscow subway station, killing nine people, and just over a week after 90 people died in two plane crashes that are suspected to have been blown up by bombers also linked to Chechnya.

In a 2002 theater raid in Moscow, Chechen rebels took about 800 hostages during a performance, a standoff that ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.

There were conflicting reports of the number of hostages being held at the school. Officials had initially said about 350 — but some freed hostages among a small group freed Thursday put the number at about 1,500.

Women escaping the building were seen fainting and others, some covered in blood, were carried away on stretchers. After the escape, commandos assaulted the building.

On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children.

President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) had said that everything possible would be done to end the "horrible" crisis and save the lives of the children.

[Obi-Stu]

It's just awful.

[Tovor]

Godamned savages.

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During School Siege, Russia Took Captives in Chechnya
By Kim Murphy Times Staff Writer

ZNAMENSKOYE, Russia — It was 6 a.m. when Russian soldiers hoisted themselves over the wall, crashed through the window and broke down the front door. Their quarries were still asleep.

Shouting, shoving and kicking, the soldiers pushed 67-year-old Khavazh Semiyev and his wife into a truck waiting outside, then went back for the others — his two sons and two nephews, his son's wife, his 52-year-old sister. Then — and Semiyev couldn't believe his eyes — they went back for his grandchildren: Mansur, 11 years old. Malkhazni, 9. And Mamed, 7.

They were driven in their nightclothes and socks through the empty early morning streets of Chechnya (news - web sites) to the Russian army's command center at Khankala. There, the men were forced onto their knees with their heads on the ground. Sacks were pulled over their heads, and their hands were tied behind their backs. For the next 24 hours, anyone who moved from that position got kicked.

One day into the seizure of more than 1,000 hostages by suspected Chechen separatists in the town of Beslan, Russia now had its own hostages. Altogether, an estimated 40 family members of senior Chechen rebel leaders were assembled at Khankala from Thursday, a day after the hostage seizure in Beslan, until Saturday, the day after it ended.

Semiyev's daughter, Kusama, is the wife of Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov. Around Semiyev were suddenly assembled the entire extended families of Maskhadov, the former Chechen president, and of Chechen warlords Shamil Basayev and Doku Umarov. Maskhadov's brother was in the tent where the men were kept, and his elderly sister was in a nearby building with the women and children. A 5-month-old baby proved to be a distant relative of one of the rebel leaders.

"We figured they wanted to exchange us for the hostages in Beslan," Semiyev said in an interview at his home in this small town in northern Chechnya.

"They were trying to make the people of Chechnya feel as bad as the people in Beslan," said Liza Akhmadkhanova, a neighbor of Maskhadov's brother, Lyoma. "They just hate Chechens. Whenever they have a chance to get back at us, they do."

Officially, the Russian government says the seizures were meant to protect the families. A statement from operations headquarters in the northern Caucasus said Russian forces obtained intelligence that rebel leaders planned to kill several of their own relatives and then accuse Russian law enforcement bodies of murdering them.

The headquarters staff also said there was evidence that "spontaneous groups" were being formed in various areas of Chechnya to "vent their anger" at relatives of the rebel leaders, presumably over the events in Beslan.

"There was a colonel who spoke very eloquently, and everybody was afraid of him. He said we should thank fate and God for them having taken us away on time because Maskhadov and Basayev supposedly issued an order to have us taken into the building [at Beslan] and executed with the hostages," Semiyev said.

The family laughs wryly at this. "If this was what he thought, he must be a total imbecile," said Aslanbek Semiyev, Khavazh's nephew, who was one of the detainees.

Maskhadov's spokesman in London, Akhmed Zakayev, said Russian authorities were trying to inspire terror in the terrorists — though Maskhadov had vigorously denied involvement and condemned the hostage-taking.

"They were following the standard practice developed almost a century ago by the Bolsheviks and carried on by Stalin, who believed that every single act of terror should be responded to by an even bigger, more horrendous, more terrifying terrorist act," Zakayev said. "According to this practice, it is necessary to shock terrorists, and let them know that under no condition will you agree to negotiate with them."

Maskhadov's family members said they met many members of Basayev's family for the first time. "There was a big elderly man I was talking to there," Semiyev said. "We were trying to track down his relationship to Basayev. It turned out Basayev's aunt was married to him or something. We got lost in the family tree. But it was interesting after all this time to get to know them. We even hugged each other when we left."

Across Chechnya, the reaction to the events in Beslan, where 335 hostages were killed and 700 injured, has been mixed. There has been pain on behalf of the victims, most of whom were children, and quiet resentment that the victims of Chechnya's two wars in 10 years with Russia have fewer mourners.

"Of course we feel sorry for the hostages in Beslan, but this is a situation that happens in Chechnya every day," said Buchu Abdul-Kadyrova, Maskhadov's sister, who was one of those detained last week.

Tabarik Gagayeva, who sells sunflower seeds in a market outside the Chechen capital, Grozny, said, "I was sitting watching it on TV, and I was going out of my mind. I was thinking, what kind of people could do that? What kind of people could treat children like that?"

Gagayeva's husband disappeared in 1995, though his car was discovered demolished in an area where there had been a Russian military operation. Her two brothers and one brother's sister-in-law died the same year after troops in a Russian armored vehicle pulled over and asked about her brother's arm wound, which he had sustained from shrapnel during a bombing.

"They said, 'Oh, you must be a fighter, because you're wounded,' " witnesses to the arrest told her. After that, she said, "they killed them. They tortured them first. They cut off their legs at the knee and their arms. The girl they literally ripped from throat to bottom.

"So you can see that when I'm watching what happened in Beslan on TV, I remember what great pain happened in my own family. I remember this with great trepidation, and I cry."

"It was a wrong thing to do. We don't approve of this at all," said Islam Islamov, a 27-year-old resident of the Chechen town of Turbino. "The hostage-takers were talking about withdrawing Russian troops from Chechnya, but I don't think it would be a good idea at all to withdraw the troops. If that happens, this [republic's] really going to be a mess."

But the arrest of the rebel leaders' families also drew a negative reaction, especially since at least two family members suffered broken bones and several others severe bruises from being beaten and kicked.

"They just nabbed some elderly grannies. What did they have to do with either the field commanders here or the hostages in Beslan?" Magomed Akhmadov, 27, said. "I think they did it out of hatred. I think they wanted to demonstrate that they were strong."

Abdul-Kadyrova, 67, said Russian interrogators roughly asked her about her contacts with her brother, with whom she said she had not spoken since he was ousted from the presidency in 1999 and disappeared into the mountains to lead the rebels.

"There were people making very frightening comments about us [the family detainees] like, 'They should be turned into ashtrays.' I don't know what turning a person into an ashtray means, but it sounds very menacing," Abdul-Kadyrova said.

"Whenever there's a terrorist act, they say, 'Oh, there's Maskhadov's hand in this, there's a Chechen trail in it.' They know these lines so well they could recite them if you woke them up in the middle of the night," she said.

Most of the detainees said the Russians were seeking information about the possible perpetrators of the Beslan hostage-taking, but all said it was also clear that the arrests were a message to the rebel commanders: We know where your families are.

"There were people there 4 years old, babies, toddlers — they simply wanted to keep us prisoners," Abdul-Kadyrova said. "People were saying, 'Remember how [Russian President Vladimir V.] Putin gassed his own people in Moscow [during the rescue of hundreds of hostages at the Dubrovka Theater in 2002], that's what they're going to do to us now.'

"People were afraid. You know, the Russians can do anything."

Abdul-Kadyrova said she was sure her brother would never have ordered the seizure of children as hostages.

At the same time, she said, she was sure that imprisoning his family would not affect his decisions on behalf of the separatist movement.

"My brother is fighting for Chechnya's independence. He wants the Chechen people to be free, he doesn't want them to be subordinate to Russia," she said. "My brother will never give up his cause, and if he does, he cannot be considered a man anymore….

"My brother would rather kill all of us than give us over to the Russians."

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Thousands in Russia Rally Against Terror
By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Waving flags and banners, tens of thousands of Russians demonstrated against terrorism Tuesday, massing outside the Kremlin in response to calls for solidarity by President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites)'s government after a series of deadly attacks that have killed more than 400 people.

The growing crowd stood still for a moment of silence in memory of victims, starting the rally after a clock atop the Kremlin's Spassky Tower struck 5 p.m.

The demonstration, which was organized by a pro-government trade union and advertised on state-controlled television, came as residents of the southern city of Beslan held a third day of funerals for the at least 330 victims of a hostage-taking at a school, which officials have blamed on Chechens and other Islamic militants.

Putin has called for unity in vast, multi-ethnic Russia and sought to rally its people against enemies he says have aid from abroad. Ahead of the demonstration, prominent actors went on television urging citizens to turn out to say no to terror.

Demonstrators massed under intermittent rain on the cobblestones outside St. Basil's Cathedral brandishing banners with slogans such as "Russia against terror," "We won't give Russia to terrorists" and "The enemy will be crushed, victory will be ours."

"I have been crying for so many days and I came here to feel that we are actually together," said pensioner Vera Danilina, 57.

"We came here to show that we are not indifferent to the series of terrorist acts that have taken place," said Alexander, an 18-year-old student at a Moscow technical college who did not give his last name.

There was, however, criticism of the gathering. The Gazeta.ru Web site commented that there was "no doubt that its organizers, in the first place, will express solidarity not with the victims of terrorist acts ... but with President Vladimir Putin."

In an interview late Monday with a group of foreign journalists and academics visiting for a special conference, Putin vehemently denied a link between Russia's policies in Chechnya (news - web sites) and last week's hostage-taking. He again rejected Western calls for negotiations with Chechen rebel representatives, Britain's Guardian and Independent newspapers reported.

"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?" the Guardian quoted Putin as saying sarcastically.

"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these *******s, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?"

Putin said foreigners should have "no more questions about our policy in Chechnya" after the attackers shot children in the back, and said the Chechen cause was aimed at undermining all of southern Russia and majority-Muslim regions of the country.

"This is all about Russia's territorial integrity," Putin was quoted as saying.

He also said his government would conduct an internal investigation but not a public one — warning that a parliamentary inquiry could turn into "a political show." Two opposition politicians had called Monday for an investigation, including into the questions of whether the authorities had prior information about planned terrorist attacks, and what the government was doing to stabilize the situation in Chechnya.

Beslan's streets were crowded with funeral processions Tuesday. At the muddy cemetery, where gravediggers have opened up two new tracts over the past three days, relatives opened the tiny coffin of 8-year-old Vasily Reshetnyak, touching his forehead and kissing him goodbye. One of his favorite toys, a red car, was placed alongside the body.

In Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital about 18 miles south of Beslan, hundreds gathered on central Freedom Square to castigate local authorities for failing to prevent the tragedy.

"Today we will bury our children and tomorrow we will come here and throw these devils out of their seats, from the lowest director up to ministers and the president," said one of the speakers, who refused to identify himself to reporters.

Militants seized the school in Beslan on Sept. 1, a day after a suicide bombing in Moscow killed 10 people and just over a week after two Russian passenger planes exploded and crashed, killing all 90 people aboard — two attacks authorities suspect were linked to Russia's war in Chechnya.

A prosecutor said the militants belonged to a group led by radical Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev. A man identified by authorities as a detained hostage-taker said on state TV that he was told Basayev and separatist former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov were behind the attack.

A London-based rebel spokesman, Akhmad Zakayev, denied that Maskhadov had played any part, and alleged the detainee's televised statement had been extracted under torture.

"The claims of President Maskhadov's involvement in the terrorist act are part of a well thought-out disinformation campaign, which also includes officials' statements about the presence of Arab and African fighters and foreign mercenaries among the terrorists," he said in a statement faxed to media.

Mikhail Lapotnikov, a senior investigator in the North Caucasus prosecutors' office, said on Channel One television that investigators had established the assailants were "the core of Basayev's band" and had taken part in a June attack — also blamed on Basayev — targeting police and security officials in neighboring Ingushetia.

The official death toll of the three-day siege-which ended in explosion, fire and a gunbattle, stood at 335, plus 30 attackers; the regional health ministry said 326 of the dead had been hostages, and the Emergency Situations Ministry said 156 of the dead were children. Eleven special forces soldiers were killed, and some were being buried Tuesday in Moscow.

[T-bone]

Not for nothin, but I hope Putin takes out Chechnya completely - and soon. People like that need to know that this stuff won't be tolerated. Putin's a tough guy and I can't see him not reacting to this within days.

[maddog62]

Terror in the skies is updated with related story.

[Justin]

Post a link maddog.

[Cassus Fett]

Chechnya should b obiltorated by the Russians.

As for Nuclear weapons, every country should disarm there is no need for weapons like that.

[T-bone]

Russia Warns of Preemptive Strikes
By Kim Murphy Times Staff Writer

MOSCOW — Russia's top military commander threatened Wednesday to launch preemptive strikes on terrorist bases "in any region of the world," raising questions about how far Moscow will go to hunt down suspected Chechen separatists believed responsible for killing more than 400 people in three terrorist attacks in the last two weeks.

Russia also announced a $10-million reward for the "neutralization" of Chechnya (news - web sites)'s top two rebel leaders, Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev. Maskhadov has vigorously denied involvement in and condemned last week's hostage-taking at a school.

Both of the Russian statements marked a stepped-up attempt by the Kremlin to counter U.S. calls for political settlement with Chechen separatists and to assuage the grief of a public still reeling from the deaths of 335 hostages at the school in southern Russia.

"Military steps are an extreme measure in the fight against terrorism," Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian armed forces chief, said after meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders. "Our position on preemptive strikes has been stated before, but I will repeat it: We will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region."

He added that Russia did not plan to use nuclear weapons in such strikes.

The statement caused unease in neighboring Georgia. Over the years, Russia has accused Georgia of allowing Chechen rebels to take shelter in the remote gorges along its northern border.

A spokesman for Maskhadov in London predicted that Russia would step up attempts to kill Chechens abroad.

"Mr. Baluyevsky seems to have made it perfectly clear to everybody today that Russia will now begin to hunt down and destroy separatists and terrorists wherever they are," Akhmed Zakayev said.

In what seemed to be one such incident, former senior Chechen official Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev died in a car bombing in February in Qatar. Two Russian agents were convicted in the killing, though Moscow has denied involvement.

Russia's announcements may have been aimed in part at countering continued U.S. statements supporting a political settlement with Chechen separatists. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington's "view on the overall situation has not changed" in the wake of the hostage crisis. Ultimately, "there must be a political settlement" over Chechnya, he said.

Such remarks have clearly irritated Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, who has rejected the idea.

"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?" he asked foreign journalists Monday.

Pressed to clarify the U.S. stance Wednesday, Boucher said the U.S. did not encourage talks with "terrorists." But he did not say which Chechens the U.S. would support talks with.

"A group of people who are clearly terrorists took over a school and murdered men, women and especially children. That's not a political act," he said.

Russia was critical of the U.S. when Washington in 2002 announced its policy of preemptive strikes against perceived threats. Moscow also strongly opposed the U.S. war in Iraq (news - web sites). But the Kremlin has since updated its military protocol to allow for preventive strikes, and Wednesday's announcement did not represent a policy shift.

Timothy Colton, a Russian studies professor at Harvard University, said Moscow's warning came from a sense of frustration with four years of terrorist attacks and the unsettled situation in Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces off and on for a decade.

"Everything they've tried has not worked. They have this massive military capacity to do things kind of on the old playing field, and they're trying to let people know they feel free to use those assets wherever they want," he said.

"The whole point of mentioning that there won't be nuclear weapons is to remind everybody that they have nuclear weapons," he added, though the chances of Russia using them in such a case are "close to mathematical zero."

Alexander Golts, military analyst with the magazine Yezhenedelny Zhurnal, said it was unlikely that Russia could carry out effective strikes against Chechen rebel bases.

"Russia has up until now had great difficulties in determining the location of terrorist bases in Chechnya, to say nothing about bases abroad," he said. "Baluyevsky's statement appears to be merely an attempt to pretend to be doing something … for what has happened [at the school] is not just a terrible tragedy, it is an appalling disgrace for Russia, which shows the utter impotence and helplessness of the Russian power-wielding ministries."

Still, Wednesday's announcement in Moscow was met with anxiety in Georgia. With U.S. help, Georgia has trained its anti-terrorism forces and largely dislodged Chechen rebels from the Pankisi Gorge, most military analysts believe.

But Russian officials in recent weeks have hinted at new concerns.

Georgian Defense Minister Giorgi Baramidze said in a telephone interview that his country had "concerns" over the Russian general's pledge.

"Could Mr. Baluyevsky have Georgia in mind when he was making this statement? Even the possibility that he could have meant Georgia while making this statement makes us want clarifications," Baramidze said.

"We have offered Russia cooperation in the sphere of combating terrorism and separatism in the region. However, it needs to be admitted that this cooperation has not progressed that far yet and has not been that successful," he added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.

[Tovor]

Holy Crap. They can play this down but I hope to God it isn't what some think it was.
http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jh...storyID=6211175 (http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6211175)

[James]

What's happening in Russia is pretty awful

[Tovor]

Originally posted by Tovor@Sep 12 2004, 01:27 AM
Holy Crap. They can play this down but I hope to God it isn't what some think it was.
http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jh...storyID=6211175 (http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6211175)
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Follow up:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/09/12/nkorea.blast/

[Anguirus111]

Here's something creepy, several bad things that've happened in to the world have happened in September. WWI, 9/11, this. It's scary is what it is.

[T-bone]

North Korea Talks May Be Victim of U.S. Election
By Brian Rhoads and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hopes for a September round of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis were evaporating on Tuesday as Pyongyang hinted it was awaiting the outcome of the U.S. presidential race.

The U.S. envoy to the talks said he was disappointed that the reclusive North was "stalling" and host China acknowledged time was running out to meet a deadline set at the previous round to meet again before the end of September.

British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell said after a four-day visit to North Korea (news - web sites) that it was committed to holding six-party talks on the two-year crisis, but with the U.S. election looming had not indicated when.

Rammell said the U.S. election in November had featured in his talks and North Korea was weighing whether it would have to deal in future with President Bush (news - web sites), who early in his tenure declared the isolated state part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iran and pre-war Iraq (news - web sites), or Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites).

"I made clear to them my view that whoever wins the presidential election -- whether it's President Bush or Senator Kerry -- North Korea will be faced with broadly the same strategic policy from the United States, and this isn't just about the United States," Rammell told a news briefing after returning from Pyongyang.

"All of us in the international community have got real concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons capability and we want it resolved."

The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China last held talks in Beijing in June and agreed to hold another round by the end of September.


STALLING?

With the month half gone, no date has been fixed for negotiations on ending the crisis, which has bubbled since October 2002 when the United States said North Korean officials had admitted to pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said on Tuesday after a brief visit to China that he was eager to return.

"We remain ready and anxious to return to the six-party talks and we are disappointed with the reasons (North Korea) has given for stalling," he said in a statement released by the U.S. embassy before he left Beijing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry (news - web sites) spokesman Kong Quan acknowledged that there were difficulties and that all sides would have to redouble their efforts and be pragmatic and flexible to get the talks back on track.

But if talks could not resume in September, he said, "the sky will not collapse, China will continue to play a constructive role as it always does."

Japan appeared resigned to a delay.

"Because North Korea is possibly watching the U.S. presidential elections, I think it is difficult to hold six-party talks in September," Shinzo Abe, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told a Tokyo seminar.

North Korean officials appeared to be using the recent revelation that South Korea (news - web sites) had itself pursued a secret nuclear program as further reason for a delay, officials said. It has also questioned the need for further talks in the face of what it terms U.S. hostility.

"North Korea has hardened its stance following the revelations of South Korea's nuclear experiments, and perhaps we should not expect them to soften their stance so quickly and come to the negotiating table," a senior Japanese government source told Reuters on Tuesday.

"It is increasingly becoming difficult, if not impossible, to arrange the talks by the end of this month."

Rammell said officials had raised the existence of Seoul's program in talks but he replied that was no excuse not to return to the table. He urged North Korea to follow the example of Libya, which announced plans to unilaterally disarm in December in return for international aid.

The response: North Korea is not Libya.

[T-bone]

U.N. Calls on N.Korea to Scrap Its Atomic Arsenal

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations (news - web sites) nuclear watchdog Friday called on North Korea (news - web sites) to give up any nuclear weapons it may have and allow U.N. inspectors to return to verify that the country's atomic program is peaceful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) General Conference, an annual meeting of all 137 IAEA members, unanimously adopted a resolution that urged Pyongyang "to completely dismantle any nuclear weapons program in a prompt, transparent, verifiable and irreversible manner."

The United States believes North Korea already has atomic weapons and is worried that a recent blast could have been a nuclear test. North Korea denies having tested an atom bomb.

Pyongyang expelled IAEA inspectors at the end of 2002 and later withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The IAEA reported North Korea to the U.N. Security Council, which has done nothing with the matter, preferring to let the six-party talks handle the issue.

The IAEA resolution said it "particularly welcomes" the six-party talks aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its atomic weapons.

China, Japan, Russia, South Korea (news - web sites) and the United States are trying to persuade the North to ditch its suspected nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and energy aid.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has repeatedly called on Pyongyang to allow U.N. inspectors to return to North Korea, but his statements have met with silence.

The reclusive communist state refuses to take part in a fourth round of six-party talks this month on ending its nuclear ambitions and says it will never give up its deterrent.

[T-bone]

Minister: N. Korea Has Nuclear Deterrent
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - North Korea (news - web sites) says it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats and to prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia.

Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula "is snowballing," Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon provided details Monday of the nuclear deterrent that he said North Korea has developed for self-defense.

He told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had "no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent" because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to "eliminate" North Korea and make it "a target of preemptive nuclear strikes."

"Our deterrent is, in all its intents and purposes, the self-defensive means to cope with the ever increasing U.S. nuclear threats and further, prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia," he told a news conference after his speech.

In Washington, a State Department official noted that Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) has said repeatedly that the United States has no plans to attack the communist country.

But in his General Assembly speech and at the press conference with a small group of reporters, Choe blamed the United States for intensifying threats to attack the communist nation and destroying the basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear program.

Nonetheless, he said, North Korea is still ready to dismantle its nuclear program if Washington abandons its "hostile policy" and is prepared to coexist peacefully.

At the moment, however, he said "the ever intensifying U.S. hostile policy and the clandestine nuclear-related experiments recently revealed in South Korea (news - web sites) are constituting big stumbling blocks" and make it impossible for North Korea to participate in the continuation of six-nation talks on its nuclear program.

North Korea said earlier this year that it had reprocessed the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and was increasing its "nuclear deterrent" but did not provide any details.

Choe was asked at the news conference what was included in the nuclear deterrent.

"We have already made clear that we have already reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and transformed them into arms," he said, without elaborating on the kinds or numbers.

When asked if the fuel had been turned into actual weapons, not just weapons-grade material, Choe said, "We declared that we weaponized this."

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said in late April that it was estimated that eight nuclear bombs could be made if all 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods were reprocessed. Before the reprocessing, South Korea said it believed the North had enough nuclear material to build one or two nuclear bombs.

The State Department official said he hadn't seen Choe's comments but noted that the Bush administration has long believed that North Korea has at least one or two nuclear weapons. The official, asking not to be identified, said the North Koreans also have made a number of conflicting statements about how far along their weapons development programs have come.

The crisis erupted in 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear weapons program. The United States, the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia since have held three rounds of talks on curbing the North's nuclear ambitions, but have produced no breakthroughs.

"If the six-party talks are to be resumed, the basis for the talks demolished by the United States should be properly set up and the truth of the secret nuclear experiments in South Korea clarified completely," Choe told the General Assembly.

South Korea disclosed recently that its scientists conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment more than 20 years ago and a uranium-enrichment experiment in 2000. It denied having any weapons ambitions, and an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency is under way.

Choe told the press conference that North Korea wants an explanation because Pyongyang believes it is impossible that such experiments took place "without U.S. technology and U.S. approval."

He also accused President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s administration of being "dead set against" reconciliation between North and South Korea, and of adopting an "extremely undisguised ... hostile policy" toward the country after it came to power in early 2001.

"As it becomes clear that the U.S. has been pursuing the aim to stifle the DPRK by military means, so our determination to build up a powerful deterrent becomes resolute more and more," Choe said, using the initials of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

At the third round of six-party talks in June, the United States proposed that the North disclose all its nuclear activities, help to dismantle facilities and allow outside monitoring. Under the plan, some benefits would be withheld to ensure the North cooperates.

But North Korea said it would never scrap its nuclear programs first and wait to get rewarded later. Instead, it insisted on "reward for freeze."

Choe said a freeze would be "the first step toward eventual dismantlement of our nuclear program" — and that Pyongyang had intended "to include in the freeze no more manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and no test and transfer of them."

A freeze would be followed by "objective verification," he said.

[Justin]

It's funny that they are saying the US is the reason they have developed nuclear weapons, but you know they would have done it anyway.

[T-bone]

Passengers kill 6 train robbers in India with sticks and umbrellas
CALCUTTA, India (AP) - Angry passengers on Monday turned the tables on six armed train robbers in eastern India, beating them to death with sticks and umbrellas, police said.

The robbers struck as the train approached a small station, Mayur Halt, nearly 90 kilometres north of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state, said police Insp.-Gen. Chayan Mukherjee.

Passengers who were robbed alerted others in the train. As the train came to a halt, the robbers tried to flee but were chased and beaten with sticks, stones and umbrellas, Mukherjee said.

"The robbers were dead when police reached the spot," he said.

Train robberies are common in eastern India.

[T-bone]

Chechnya's New Leader Knows He's a Rebel Target

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - Chechnya (news - web sites)'s pro-Kremlin leader was sworn in as president of the turbulent Russian region Tuesday and acknowledged immediately he was a prime target for assassination by separatists.

Alu Alkhanov, a former interior minister handpicked for the job by President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), was inaugurated in a ceremony in the government complex of the war-ruined regional capital Grozny. The ceremony was kept secret until the last moment.

Alkhanov, whose predecessor Akhmad Kadyrov was assassinated in a bomb attack in May, said he recognized the risk he ran, but pledged to work to restore peace in the North Caucasus land devastated by two wars and separatist rebellion.

"I understand that as the head of the Chechen republic, which is fighting ... international terrorism, I also become target Number One for all sorts of extremists," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying after the ceremony. He won Kremlin-controlled polls in August.

"I will continue the course of the late Chechen president," Alkhanov said. "I swear to bring back law and order to Chechnya so that we can finally get rid of the nightmare of the past several years."

The site of the ceremony -- in a tent in the tightly guarded government complex, much of which still lies in ruins -- was kept secret until the last possible moment to reduce chances of rebel attacks.

The hundreds of guests included Putin's powerful envoy to southern Russia, Dmitry Kozak, who read out a message of congratulation from the Kremlin leader.

Putin made clear he would stick to his policy of leaving strong powers to local leaders -- a contrast to his drive to turn once powerful provincial chiefs elsewhere in Russia into mere clerks appointed by Moscow.

"Your election victory gives hope for further economic and social revival of the republic," Putin said.

Alkhanov's swearing-in took place with Russia fearful at the prospect of further attacks after the Chechen separatist raid on a southern Russia school in September which ended with the deaths of more than 330 people, half of them children.

Schools in Grozny were closed Tuesday for the inaugural ceremony as were most businesses. Many residents, in what used to be a bustling city of 400,000, stayed indoors.

Putin, who sent troops to Chechnya in 1999 to end the region's short-lived independence won in the first war of 1994-96, has taken the path of "Chechenization" of the conflict, encouraging pro-Moscow Chechens to deal with separatists.

Kadyrov, the former rebel mufti who preceded Alkhanov, held the region in a tight grip for nearly four years encouraging moderate rebels to change sides and fighting with committed separatists.

But his death -- Kadyrov was blown up on May 9 while watching an official ceremony in the sealed-off VIP sector of a stadium -- and a subsequent guerrilla raid on Grozny in August showed that his administration was not really in control.

Inside Chechnya, guerrillas continue to harass Russia's 60,000-strong forces, which respond with search operations that often enrage local public opinion.

[T-bone]

US scripted telephone call that mended India-Pakistan ties: Powell

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States scripted a historic telephone call between nuclear arch rivals India and Pakistan that led to restoration of diplomatic ties, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said in an interview.

As the potential for a nuclear war between the two sides began to abate last year, Powell said Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf had called him to find out whether India would respond positively if his Prime Minister made a telephone call to his Indian counterpart.

"And I'll never forget the day that President Musharraf, in one of our conversations, as the conversation was ending and the crisis had started to abate about then, said to me, "Do you think if my Prime Minister, the Pakistani Prime Minister, were to call the Indian Prime Minister, he would take the call?

"I said, 'I'll call you back in a little while.' And we set it up, the call was made. We also arranged for the call to be 'How are you?' 'Fine. How are you?' 'Fine.' -- just to begin this dialogue."


"And now the dialogue has paid off with the return of diplomatic relations, travel between the two countries, and the ministers are meeting and talking about the major outstanding issues that are still there between the two countries," Powell told the USA Today newspaper.


After receiving the important telephone call from his Pakistani counterpart, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, on April 28 last year, then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the appointment of a high commissioner (ambassador) to Pakistan and moved to restore civil aviation links on a reciprocal basis.


Prior to that, deteriorating ties between India and Pakistan had cast a large shadow over South Asia. At several points the two nuclear powers looked to be on the point of open hostilities.


India continued a huge build-up of troops along the border after blaming Pakistan for an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. Pakistan responded and for months more than one million troops were stationed in combat positions.


"And many people were telling me all week long, there's going to be a war this weekend and it might go nuclear," Powell recalled. "It didn't happen, and it didn't happen because a lot of people worked on it over an extended period of time; the United States, United Kingdom, China.


"A lot of my colleagues and I spent an enormous amount of time on this and found a way to stop that mobilization or at least freeze it until we could get it moving in the other direction," he said.


On bilateral relations with India and Pakistan, Powell said the United States saw each country as separate and distinct, "and because we treat each other as a single bilateral partner with us, it gives us more standing to encourage them to do things together.


"I think you have to keep engaged with these nations and with the personalities in these nations. And you also have to keep some perspective about where they were and where they are now and where they may be where you hope they are heading in the future."


Powell suggested that Musharraf must be give more time to implement democratic reforms as he had to carefully steer his country out of a host of problems.


"And so a little bit of understanding is necessary as you watch somebody like President Musharraf go through this process," he added.


Pakistan's parliament adopted a law last week prolonging Musharraf's dual role as president and army chief even though the general, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, had pledged to shed his uniform by December 31.

[T-bone]

Lawyer: Russia Becoming Anti-Democratic
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - A defense lawyer for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Tuesday anti-democratic trends were emerging in Russia under President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) with the aim of quieting political opponents.

"He was a spy, and he remains a member of the intelligence community," Yuri Schmidt said in an interview amid meetings at the State Department, members of Congress and think tank analysts.

With a smile, Schmidt questioned President Bush (news - web sites)'s conclusion, after a meeting with Putin in 2001, that "I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country."

"I know Putin well personally," Schmidt said. "He knows how to speak well, and he knows very well how to hide his true intentions."

Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint a year ago and remains in jail while the state prepares to auction the crucial production unit of Yukos, the huge oil company Khodorkovsky bought when the Soviet Union disintegrated. Schmidt insisted the case against him was purely political.

"What we are up against is the full and entire machinery of the government," said the one-time Soviet dissident human rights activist.

And, Schmidt said, the case is part of a larger process by Putin to throttle political opponents.

"If they had any sense, there would be a fair trial, with an independent court, and we would not be here now," Schmidt said in an interview in the State Department lobby.

While Putin has portrayed the case as a clampdown on corruption, the campaign against Yukos and Khodorkovsky has caused foreign investors to worry about the Kremlin's commitment to a free market and about oil production by a major exporter.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the case was "a matter of continuing interest and concern for the United States."

"We have had concerns about the possible sale of Yukos," he said. And, Boucher said, "we have had concerns all along" about the prosecution of its founder.

[T-bone]

N.Korea Sets 3 Conditions for 6-Way Talks to Resume
By Martin Nesirky

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) set three conditions on Friday to be met before it would consider returning to six-party talks on its nuclear programs.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told the official KCNA news agency the United States must drop its hostile policy and be prepared to join a compensation package in return for freezing its nuclear programs.

The North also said the United States must accept its proposal to discuss what it called "South Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear problem" first at the talks, referring to tests with nuclear materials conducted in the South by scientists in the past that Seoul said had never been authorized.

"The DPRK is approaching the six-party talks strictly in its interests," said the spokesman. "In other words, it will attend the talks if they prove helpful to it."

DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia have met for three rounds of talks but failed to meet for a fourth planned for September. Most analysts agree the North is waiting to see who wins the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election.

A proposal backed by the five other countries has offered compensatory aid -- probably from South Korea and Japan rather than Washington -- in return for a freeze as a first step to Pyongyang dismantling its atomic projects.

Washington seems unlikely to agree to provide aid yet and is also unlikely to agree to discuss the South's nuclear tests first. The North's demand about "hostile policy" is standard rhetoric that covers a shifting range of complaints.


"LOOK AT REALITY"

"The countries participating in the six-party talks must look at reality before they raise the issue of holding the next round of talks," the spokesman said, according to KCNA.

That was a possible swipe at traditional ally China, as well as at Washington and its allies Japan and South Korea. China's leadership this week urged the visiting North Korean parliamentary chief, who is second only to leader Kim Jong-il, to restart the talks.

"The resumption of the six-party talks depends on whether the U.S. is ready to fully consider the demands raised by the DPRK," the North's ministry spokesman said after listing the three conditions in a long, rambling sentence.

KCNA had already said on Thursday the prospects for more six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs were gloomy because the United States had pushed the negotiations to a stalemate.

South Korea and the United States have told the North not to wait for the result of the Nov. 2 presidential election because a win by Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) over President Bush (news - web sites) would bring little change in U.S. policy.

The latest nuclear crisis erupted two years ago when U.S. diplomats said North Korea had said it was running a covert uranium enrichment program. Pyongyang has since denied this.

KCNA said the new North Korean Human Rights Act, signed into law by Bush on Monday, was part of Washington's hostile policy to "realize its wild ambition for regime change" in the North.

The law earmarks $24 million a year to bolster human rights and market reforms in North Korea.

The ministry spokesman said the U.S. legislation was another example of Washington's "evermore undisguised" attempts to unseat the North's leadership. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim)

[T-bone]

Russia to deploy new-generation nuclear weapons system: Putin

MOSCOW (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) served notice that Russia intended to remain a major nuclear power by deploying a new weapon in the coming years that other states lack and are unlikely to develop in the near future.

"We have not only conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems," Putin told a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership. "I am sure that in the coming years we will deploy them.

"Moreover, these will be things which do not exist and are unlikely to exist in other nuclear powers," he added.

Putin failed to specify what type of complex he was referring to, but Russia has been seeking to upgrade its nuclear arsenal after the United States announced plans in 2001 to deploy a missile defense shield in abrogation of its 1972 ABM Treaty with Moscow.

Washington argues its shield would be capable of defending the United States only from attacks from so-called "rogue states" and could not stand up to Russia's massive Soviet-era nuclear arsenal.

However Putin has since mentioned plans for Russia to also develop a similar system along with new types of intercontinental missiles that Moscow claims could penetrate any space shield put up by the United States.

The ITAR-TASS news agency speculated that Putin was referring to the mobile Topol-M missile, which is analogous to the US Minuteman-3 missile and is meant to form the backbone of Russia's future strategic nuclear arsenal.

Russia this year also successfully test-fired a different new missile that its developers claim can penetrate any shield, since it flies in space on a ballistic trajectory and in the atmosphere as a cruise missile -- swerving away from interceptor rockets.

The Topol-M is the first intercontinental missile developed by Russia alone following the Soviet Union's collapse, but deployment of the land-based mobile unit -- initially set for the end of 2002 -- has been repeatedly delayed because of severe cash constraints.

The ITAR-TASS report quoted the missile's Moscow developer as saying that funding for mass production of the mobile Topol-M will be included in the military's 2005 procurement budget.

If that timetable is respected, the missiles could be issued to the armed forces in 2006. Topol-Ms have been deployed in silos since 1998.

The shift in attention to nuclear deterrence came unexpectedly because Putin has for months pointed to international terrorism as the chief threat to Russia's national security amid a wave of deadly suicide attacks from guerrillas in rebel Chechnya (news - web sites).

Putin said Wednesday that Russia still viewed terrorism as the greatest threat to its national security but should also not forget about nuclear dangers.

"We understand that the moment we turn our attention from such elements of our defenses as a nuclear missile shield, then we will be facing new threats," Putin said.

"That is why we will continue to persistently develop our armed forces on the whole, including its nuclear arsenal potential," Putin said.

Putin said that Russia should also build up its navy's nuclear capacity -- it had 10 successful sea-based test launches this year -- and generally work to modernize armed forces that remain bogged down in war-torn Chechnya for a sixth year.

However analysts point to Russia's financial struggles and question how the military intends to follow through on Putin's vow.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reported at the same meeting that the 2005 budget has only pencilled in the purchase of four intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"This proves that Russia is still working from a doctrine of nuclear dissuasion as was the case in the 1990s. This highlights the weakness of its conventional forces," said independent political analyst Alexander Golts.

"The West should not get too excited about this" because it reflects an outdated mentality, Golts said.

[Otis_Frampton]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>"We have not only conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems," Putin told a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership. "I am sure that in the coming years we will deploy them. [/b][/quote]

Hey . . cool . . it's 1961 again.

-Otis

[T-bone]

Significant changes in North Korea, say experts

SEOUL (AFP) - Significant changes may be taking place in North Korea (news - web sites) if reports are confirmed that Kim Jong-Il, the nation's hereditary dictator, is modifying his leadership style, analysts and experts said.

Officials, diplomats and analysts agreed that reports of Kim having ordered curbs on the cult of personality surrounding him for decades needed to be confirmed before conclusions could be drawn.

"Nothing has been proven yet. There is no way for us to confirm these things right now. It takes time," said an official at South Korea (news - web sites)'s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the Stalinist state.

If confirmed, the developments would be regarded as "significant," he said.

North Korea is one of the most secretive states and events inside it are notoriously hard to monitor.

However, western diplomats living in Pyongyang have reported that portraits of Kim have been disappearing from public buildings in the capital and elsewhere in recent weeks, according to diplomats and reports here.

"It is definitely happening. The question is why," a foreign diplomat based in Seoul told AFP.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Wednesday that Kim himself had ordered the removal of the portraits which hang in homes, offices, and public buildings alongside those of his father Kim Il-Sung, the founder of the communist state who died in 1994.

The order was issued three weeks ago because the leader was concerned that he "has been lifted too high," the agency said, quoting a source who has "good connections" in Pyongyang.

South Korean government officials said they had noticed no distinct change inside North Korea and there appeared to be no indications of instability.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young said Kim Jong-Il was "carrying out his job normally ..."

Some North Korea watchers said the move could signal change. The Stalinist state embarked on economic reform and opening two years ago when it eased controls on wages and prices.

But no relaxation of political control followed as Kim and his clique elite grappled with a nuclear standoff with the outside world.

Other analysts said it was more likely that, Kim, aware that his personality cult was the subject of ridicule abroad, was trying to improve his image.

Two years ago, they noted, Kim instructed the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, a pro-Pyongyang organisation grouping tens of thousands of ethnic Koreans, to remove his portraits from their premises and drop the personality cult because it triggered derision among the Japanese.

"In 2002, Chairman Kim told the (pro-Pyongyang) General Association in Japan to abolish its ideology class and remove his portraits. If its true that portraits are being taken down, this could be in line with the 2002 directive," said a South Korean official.

Kim, 63, took power after the death of his father in 1994. He built his own personality cult to rival that of his father but never took on all the trappings of power held by the elder Kim, including the title of president.

Since he took power, North Korea has lurched from one crisis to another, passing through drought, natural disasters and mass starvation to the current international standoff over its nuclear weapons drive.

By deflating his own personality cult, Kim may be seeking to dodge some of the blame, say some experts. He also may be seeking to escape some criticism over North Korea's human rights record, they add.

"It may have to do with Kim Jong-Il's attempt to change his image as a demi-god, infallible leader to an ordinary leader," said Koh Young-Hwan, a North Korean specialist at Dongguk University in South Korea.

Kim has also taken a lower profile, rarely appearing in the media, since the death of a woman believed to be his wife in August after a long battle with breast cancer, experts said.

"He wasn't seen in public for a couple of months after that," a foreign diplomat in Seoul said, referring to the death of Ko Yong-Hui, believed to be his second wife.

[T-bone]

Japanese Women Staying Single Longer
By YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Writer

TOKYO - No matter how independent, fashionable or popular she may be, Japan's unwed woman has long been labeled the eternal loser — lonesome during the holidays, dreaming of the child she never had, dreading the inevitable question at family gatherings: "Aren't you married yet?" But in unprecedented numbers, Japanese women are defying the stereotype with a firm "No" — and trying to cheer up others like them.

"Women these days aren't going to marry just anybody," says Junko Sakai, whose "Howl of the Loser Dogs" has sold more than 300,000 copies.

Marriage has certainly lost some of its allure for Japanese women.

Over the past decade, Japanese government figures say, the portion of Japanese women aged 25 to 29 who never married has surged from 40 percent to 54 percent. The percentage for women aged 30-34 has increased from 14 percent to 27 percent. In the United States, according to census data, 40 percent of women from 25 to 29 are single, and 23 percent of the 30-to-34 bracket.

Men are also delaying marriage these days, but often they cite economic reasons: trouble finding a job that gives them the stability they need for married life, or reluctance to assume the responsibilities of family.

Many Japanese women, however, blame the typical male, who expects the wife to cheerfully surrender her job, or juggle a career with keeping house and raising the kids.

"It's not that we're set on being single. We're thirsting for a good marriage, but we can't find the right guy," Sakai, a single 38-year-old, said in an interview in Tokyo. "Men haven't changed their old mind-set. Women have grown too powerful for them."

It's a dramatic reversal of the Japanese tradition that praises early marriage and criticizes women who delay marriage as unattractive and selfish.

In the 1980s, a woman unmarried by 25 was dismissed as "Christmas cake" — thrown out on Dec. 26. These days the big number is 31, and women unmarried by that age are "New Year's Eve noodles," noodles being a typical New Year's Eve dish.

The change is having a profound impact on public policy, with the government worrying that the plunging birthrate augurs labor shortages and less support for the growing ranks of the elderly.

The birthrate now averages 1.29 per woman — a record low for Japan and far short of the 2.13 average in the United States, according to Japanese and U.S. figures.

Chikako Ogura, professor of gender studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, draws little comfort from government proposals to reverse the trend, such as adding child-care facilities and prodding employers to grant maternity leave.

The critical problem is that people aren't getting married at all. Young women have jobs and reject a marriage that won't deliver a more comfortable life, she says. Government studies show men spend on average less than 10 minutes a day on housework while working women put in two hours.

"Women are looking for a marital partner who'll allow them to do whatever they want. They want a marriage that's perfect, economically and mentally. There aren't that many men who can offer that," Ogura said. "And they're all taken."

In the old days, marriages were often arranged by families. Such practices are now generally seen as outdated, but no widely accepted alternative has emerged.

Frances Rosenbluth, professor of political science at Yale University, says the system of lifetime employment at Japanese companies is at fault.

In a society that assumes companies hire workers for life, maternity leave and child-rearing are treated as a costly stigma.

"Women are not satisfied with the old way, but they don't have a new way. They're stuck. The way they cope with that is by at least having some career before getting married. They figure once they get married, it's going to be all over," she said.

The one segment responding to the growing singles trend is the service industry, for example hotels and health spas, which used to shun single women customers as tightwads.

The idea of an independent woman enjoying leisure is so new that traditional Japanese hotels wouldn't even allow females traveling alone to spend the night, fearing they were looking for a place to commit suicide.

That trend is decreasing. "The options for Japanese women have grown more diverse, rather than the old formula of marriage being the only way to happiness," says Kaori Haishi, a 38-year-old food critic who has set up a Web page with other women to recommend restaurants and hotels friendly to solitary females.

Nowadays many single women feel increasingly free to choose, rather than simply cave in to social pressure, said Etsuko Moriyama, 38, who worked on Sakai's book. "Like a child, a marriage is like a blessing," said Moriyama, who is divorced. "Maybe I'll get married, maybe I won't."

[T-bone]

N.Korea Says U.S. 'Red Line' Is Trigger for War

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) said the United States had no right to unilaterally set limits on Pyongyang's nuclear activities and these "red line" limits could spark a war.

The term "red line" is used informally by diplomats from five countries involved in stalled negotiations aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear program to refer to actions by the North that could trigger a breakdown of the talks.

Analysts believe the North would breach the "red line" if it transferred nuclear weapons or a significant component of such a weapon out of the country.

"Now the U.S. bellicose forces are going to make the red line the starting point of a war," the North's main newspaper Rodong Sinmun said.

"The red line means a limit to the DPRK's promotion of (the) nuclear program unilaterally set by the U.S.," Rodong Sinmun said in an article carried by the official KCNA news agency.

DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The United States has pressured the North with "distorted rumors" about the nuclear issue, "threatening a military punishment," the newspaper said.

"This is aimed at provoking a second Korean War come what may, charging the DPRK with the possession of nuclear weapons and sponsorship of terrorism," it added.

"They (the U.S.) had better stop crying for the North's nuclear red line and make a switchover in its policy intended to stifle the DPRK," the newspaper said.


North Korea technically remains at war with South Korea (news - web sites) as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce and not a full peace treaty.

The United States has denied any intention to attack North Korea, but Pyongyang has demanded the withdrawal of what it called a hostile U.S. policy before it would return to the nuclear talks.

North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China have met for three rounds of the talks but made little substantive progress. A fourth round scheduled for September never materialized.

South Korea, China and the United States are picking up diplomatic efforts to restart the talks. They want an informal meeting of the six countries this month.

The United States has rejected the North's demand for major energy and political concessions in return for abandoning the nuclear program.

A senior State Department official said in a statement in Seoul that North Korea must play by international rules.

The countries need to encourage the North "to honor international agreements, such as the NPT and its safeguards agreement with the IAEA," Director of Policy Planning Mitchell Reiss said, referring to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the United Nations (news - web sites) nuclear agency.

North Korea unilaterally pulled out of the NPT in January 2003 after expelling IAEA inspectors.

"North Korea cannot expect to be treated as a normal state unless and until it behaves like one," Reiss said.

[T-bone]

Geez - someone tell them to put it back in their pants.

[cj790]

Absolutuely horrendous news. The footage is really frightening.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4126971.stm

[cj790]

The scale of this is terrifying. Large waves have even hit East Africa, with 9 dead in Somalia.

[T-bone]

Where were the predictions??

[DarthSolo]

This tragedy has really gotten me down.

[Sabrina Fried]

Alot of ppl who live in my building are from the parts of Asia that got hit and still have family there...they're all glued to the CBC, BBC, etc trying to get any news...it's just horrible style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

Sabrina

[DarthSolo]

I have a few friends from college from there. And alot of people from my school were probably over there doing mission work...

[bluemilk]

this is so horrible I can't comprehend it. honestly. but how can anyone style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/crying.gif I'm going to make sure I can help anyway possible-- there must be information on one of our local websites.

[Sargoth]

Originally posted by bluemilk@Dec 27 2004, 11:36 PM
this is so horrible I can't comprehend it. honestly. but how can anyone style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/crying.gif I'm going to make sure I can help anyway possible-- there must be information on one of our local websites.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


Probably the fastest way to get money there would be to donate to the Int'l Red Cross. They've been on the scene since it happened.

[Sargoth]

Originally posted by T'bone@Dec 27 2004, 07:37 AM
Where were the predictions??
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


That's the $26,000 question. Most footage shows people playing on the beaches up until the first 'big ones' hit. If they had five minutes warning, thousands of lives could have been saved. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

[DarthSolo]

Can something like this be predicted? Are earthquakes predictable? I dont know? The epicenter of the quake was pretty close to the coast of Indonesia. The people there probably had almost no time before the waves hit. I dont know though.

[cj790]

I heard on reports that it was an unanticipated tectonic plate movement, so it wasn't predictable.

That said, the tsunami's took two hours to reach Sri Lanka, one of the most devastated areas - and there had been no warning for them even though seismologists all over the world knew about the quake at that time. The problem is that there is no infrastructure in place for this kind of event; there was no-one to tell the news to, or system of warning people on the coast style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

[Sargoth]

^ I concur. There is really nothing you can do about predicting earthquakes. The science is still pretty young on that end. However, I can't imagine how the warning didn't reach the other islands after the quake hit. Any time you have that kind of seismic activity under a large body of water, there is a *huge* risk of tidal waves. Come on: "We've just had the largest earthquake in the past 50 years hit 500 miles away everyone out of the pool!!."

[Sargoth]

Lack of wave warning shocks Asia

Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Posted: 12:20 PM EST (1720 GMT)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Asian officials conceded Monday that they failed to issue broad public warnings immediately after a massive undersea earthquake in Indonesia, which could have saved countless lives from the subsequent giant waves that smashed into nine countries as far away as Africa.

India said it would consider establishing a warning system, and Australia and Japan said they would help build it. One Australian official said it would take at least a year to set one up.

Also, Thailand's Meteorological Department said the country lacked an international warning system and proper coordination to get messages of impending disasters sent across the country.

"If we had the international warning system, we could give real-time warning to people," said Seismological Bureau official Sumalee Prachuab.

Governments around the region insisted they did not know the true nature of the threat because there was no international system in place to track tidal waves in the Indian Ocean -- where they are rare -- and they cannot afford to buy sophisticated equipment to build one.

And what warnings there were came too little, too late.

"No one ever told us that these things can be predicted and we can be told about them," said Sumana Gamage, a shopowner in Colombo, Sri Lanka. "Next time I hope our government can do this."

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake -- the largest in 40 years -- shifted huge geological plates beneath the sea northwest of Sumatra island, causing a massive and sudden displacement of millions on tons of water.

Indonesia villages closest to the temblor's epicenter were swamped within minutes, but elsewhere the waves radiated outwards, gathering speed and ferocity until they made landfall. The waves moved at speeds topping 500 mph.

Waves began pummeling southern Thailand about one hour after the earthquake. After 2 1/2 hours, the torrents had traveled some 1,000 miles and slammed India and Sri Lanka. Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, and Bangladesh were also hit. Eventually they struck Somalia, on the east coast of Africa, where hundreds were reported killed.

The death toll Monday topped 22,000, with millions left homeless.

Indonesian officials said they had no way to know that the earthquake had caused the earthquake-driven waves, or tsunamis, or how dangerous they might have been.

"Unfortunately, we have no equipment here that can warn about tsunamis," said Budi Waluyo, an official with Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency. "The instruments are very expensive and we don't have money to buy them."

But Thammasarote Smith, a former senior forecaster at Thailand's Meteorological Department, said governments could have done much more to warn people about the danger.

"The department had up to an hour to announce the emergency message and evacuate people but they failed to do so," Thammasarote was quoted as saying in The Bangkok Post newspaper. "It is true that an earthquake is unpredictable but a tsunami, which occurs after an earthquake, is predictable."

Kathawudhi Marlairojanasiri, the department's chief weather forecaster, said it issued warnings through radio and television beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday about a possible undertow along the southwest coast of Thailand, where tens of thousands of foreign tourists were vacationing.

But the warnings came after the first waves hit. A Web site warning went up three hours later -- but by then, at least 700 people had died in Thailand, including a jet-skiing grandson of revered monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra refused to answer reporters' questions Tuesday about tsunami alerts.

But Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he would investigate what role his country could play in setting up an Indian Ocean warning system.

Scientists said seismic networks in the region recorded Sunday's earthquake, but without ocean sensors tracking the path of the waves, there was just no way to determine the direction a tsunami would travel.

"If they had tidal gauges and a tsunami warning system, many people who died would have been saved," said Waverly Person, director of the U.S. Geological Survey national earthquake information service in Golden, Colo.

"They could have tracked the waves. They won't tell you how high the waves will be, but they can tell you when they will hit. Local authorities can warn citizens to get off the coast."

Such a system presumes, however, an organized communication system and widely understood procedures and discipline by hotel operators, fishing villages and local authorities to clear the coastline quickly in case of a coming disaster.

Most of developing Asia lacks such infrastructure, and casualties were by far highest in three highly impoverished areas -- the coasts of eastern Sri Lanka and southeastern India, and the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

An international warning system in the Pacific was started in 1965, the year after tsunamis associated with a magnitude 9.2 quake struck Alaska. It is administered by the U.S-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Member states include all the major Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America, as well as the Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand.

Tsunamis occur only occasionally, but they are much rarer in the Indian Ocean than the Pacific, where one occurs every few years.

In Japan, a network of fiber-optic sensors records any seismic activity and passes that information to a powerful computer at the Meteorological Agency, which estimates the height, speed, destination and arrival time of any tsunamis. Within two minutes of the quake, the agency can sound the alarm.

Phil McFadden, chief scientist with the government-funded Geoscience Australia, said places close to the epicenter of the earthquake would have been hit so quickly that any warning would have come too late.

But if there had been a Pacific-style alert system covering the Indian Ocean, "there would have been time for people in Sri Lanka, across in the Maldives or somewhere like that to have done something about it," he said.

[Javen]

Originally posted by DarthSolo@Dec 28 2004, 01:48 AM
Can something like this be predicted? Are earthquakes predictable? I dont know? The epicenter of the quake was pretty close to the coast of Indonesia. The people there probably had almost no time before the waves hit. I dont know though.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Actually they had two hours.

[DarthSolo]

"Indonesia villages closest to the temblor's epicenter were swamped within minutes"
umm, not according to this article...

[stormtrooper9]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif Death toll rose to 80,000 today.

[Justin]

That's incredible.

[T-bone]

Indonesia to Shun U.N. Human Rights Probe
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A United Nations (news - web sites) commission will examine Indonesia's efforts to punish those responsible for human rights abuses in East Timor (news - web sites) in 1999, Indonesia and East Timor said Friday.


Jakarta said it would "reject" such a body, which would have the power to recommend that an international tribunal try Indonesian military officers accused in the violence.


The United Nations has yet to formally announce the commission, but a joint statement from the governments of Indonesia and East Timor said "it has been learned that the U.N. Secretary-General will announce in due course the establishment of a U.N. Commission of Experts."


Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa declined to say whether Jakarta planned to cooperate with the commission. Without access to judges and court documents in Jakarta, the body would unlikely be able to produce a meaningful report.


East Timor voted for independence from 24 years of Indonesian rule in a UN-sponsored ballot in 1999. After the results were announced, the Indonesian military and its proxy militias unleashed a wave of violence. More than 1,000 people were killed; 300,000 were displaced.


Indonesia promised to punish those responsible. Courts in Jakarta charged 18 people — most from its police and military — with human rights crimes, but 12 were acquitted and four had their sentences overturned on appeal. Two other appeals are pending.


Earlier this week, East Timor and Indonesia's foreign ministers announced the formation of their own joint Commission on Truth and Friendship to investigate the 1999 violence.


Both governments have said that the body should be regarded as an "alternative" to the planned U.N. Commission of Experts.


Natalegawa said there was no need for more than one mechanism to deal with the violence, and that the U.N. commission would be "redundant."


"It has long been our position to reject the COE and any requirements that might arise from it," he said. "There is no need for a parallel body to the truth and friendship commission."


East Timor has not backed calls by rights groups to establish an international tribunal. It has said that maintaining good tie with its giant neighbor and former occupying power is more important than pushing for justice.

[stormtrooper9]

more news on the title wave death toll is now eather at or above 120,000 people.style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif

[STar war spUNK]

i'm very worried because i have family who lives in malaysia and myanmar, and we haven't been able to get through to them.

[Sargoth]

Originally posted by STar war spUNK@Dec 30 2004, 03:19 PM
i'm very worried because i have family who lives in malaysia and myanmar, and we haven't been able to get through to them.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/grouphug.gif

Stay strong, my friend. And don't ever forget the awesome power of Hope.

[STar war spUNK]

^thanks. i just feel so awful for everyone who lives over there... and how the death toll is rising every hour... and it's like... my family could be one of them.

it sucks.

[JediKeri]

Here's a positive story from South Asia about a boy named Tsunami.

Baby Tsunami (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=10&u=/nm/20050101/od_nm/quake_india_baby_dc)

Isn't that just wonderful?

[Otis_Frampton]

Go here for some amazing before and after sat imagery:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/eye/andaman-pix.htm

-Otis

[STar war spUNK]

^ newport news va? how cool... i live near norfolk.

[bluemilk]

Just another reason why sometimes, well most of the time, I really hate people. I saw this on the news the other night and found this picture at msnbc. These tourists decided they'd rather suntan and drink beer than help the people around them gather debris and dead bodies. How much of a cold-hearted SOB do you have to be to ignore the suffering of humanity around you.

[cj790]

I hope your family are ok star war spunk
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/grouphug.gif


As for those sunbathers - they'll get their reward when they get back home...

[Master Cephus]

what? a bad burn? there will always be uncaring people who are like those sun bathers.

[T-bone]

are they sure that photo is from that location?
i would think it would be a health hazard to have people in that water with dead people floating around and stuff.

something here doesn't add up.

[JediKeri]

The water does not look that healthy out there right now. I think that's a file photo or something

[bluemilk]

Originally posted by T'bone@Jan 4 2005, 08:06 AM
are they sure that photo is from that location?
i would think it would be a health hazard to have people in that water with dead people floating around and stuff.

something here doesn't add up.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


yes. pictures are taken every day by photojournalists to show what's been happening. They had similar footage on our news of other sunbathers. That was the only one I could get to from work. The captions reads "tourists lounge on Patong Beach, Thailand, Jan. 1 as clean-up teams scour the beach and drag away the debris..."

even if the bodies had been removed, they are still in a mourning period as they bury their dead, their homes are gone, they risk disease. I think it's rude and disgusting that these tourists thought it was okay to behave this way. If they didn't want to help then they should have gone home.

[T-bone]

well i'm just having a hard time believing that.

[goodwije]

i guess in my mind, even if there are a few people behaving that way there are thousands of people over there just to help out. I imagine it is not a fun or pretty job. I have been nothing but proud of the way my country and the world has reacted to this. I was watching some news program the other day and one of the voluteers said "it is like a new tidal wave.. of love and caring pouring over these people" i thought that was kind of a beautiful statement

[bluemilk]

yes well for all the good and love and hope there is a very dark side. They believe an orphaned 12 year old Swedish boy in a Thai hospital was kidnapped and sold as a sex slave. They've been speaking out how they fear this would happened to the orphaned children. They've also had reports of rapes in refugee camps.

For so much good seems balanced by so much evil.

[T-bone]

N.Korea Has Bought Complete Nuclear Bomb - Report

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington.

Seoul Shinmun quoted the source as saying the United States was checking the intelligence.

The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying.

North Korea is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight.

U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon said after a visit to the North this month that its second-ranked leader had told his delegation that it possessed nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has declared that a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, sea