[Peace-discuss] News notes, 12/9 (Part 1 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

NOTES ON THE WEEK'S NEWS, FOR AWARE MEETING, 12/9 (Part 1 of 2)
 
[NB: This week's notes are organized chronologically, day by day.  Each
note is followed by an indication of its source.  At the end of the notes
is an article on how assumptions about a liberal/conservative division
don't apply to the anti-war movement.]

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2001

Paul Krugman writes that the Bush administration's insistence that budget
deficits are the result of the economic slowdown and the war on terror,
not the tax cut, "is flatly untrue." [NY TIMES]

Enron Corp. filed the largest-ever bankruptcy case and sued Dynegy Inc.,
seeking $10 billion from the rival energy trader for canceling the
takeover that was supposed to rescue Enron.  Enron and 13 of its units
listed total assets of $49.8 billion and debts of $31.2 billion, dwarfing
Texaco Inc.'s 1987 Chapter 11 filing of $35 billion in assets.  Citigroup
Inc.'s Citibank unit, with two loans totaling $3 billion, is listed in
court papers as Enron's largest unsecured creditor. Bank of New York
represents bond claims totaling $2.4 billion, Enron said. "By every
measure, this is the largest Chapter 11 case in history,'' said Peter
Chapman, president of Bankruptcy Creditors Service Inc. "If Enron were a
sovereign nation, it would be the 30th-largest in the world between Egypt
and Malaysia.'' Enron said it will dismiss a ``substantial'' number of its
21,000 employees and use the Chapter 11 filing to emerge as an
energy-trading company owned in part by unidentified financial
institutions. [BLOOMBERG.COM]

Enron paid out $55 million in bonuses to executives and other employees
two days prior to filing for bankruptcy. [FORBES]

The Bush administration is asking Congress for a second major expansion of
federal surveillance powers that legal experts say would radically change
laws that have long protected the rights of Americans. A Justice
Department proposal would eliminate the chief legal safeguard in the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). A CIA proposal seeks legal
authority to gather telephone and Internet records from domestic
communication companies. The still-secret proposals would build upon and
expand new intelligence-gathering powers that were granted to the FBI and
the CIA under the USA. Patriot Act. Signed into law Oct. 26, that
anti-terrorism bill laid the foundation for a larger and more powerful
domestic intelligence-gathering system. [WASH POST]

AG Ashcroft told Fox News Sunday that military tribunals would be limited
to non-US citizens and "not just normal criminal activity, but war
crimes." He refused to rule out military tribunals for any foreigners
detained on US soil. "Can you imagine apprehending a terrorist, either in
the deserts of Afghanistan or on the way to the United States to commit a
crime, and having to take them through the traditional justice system?"
Ashcroft asked. "Reading them the Miranda Rights? Hiring a flamboyant
lawyer at public expense? Having sort of Osama television ... allowing
that kind of propaganda to go out, jeopardizing American assets in the
intelligence community and in the war? Putting a courthouse and a
community as a target for terrorism?" Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a conservative
former federal prosecutor, said he opposed tribunals for any suspect
detained on US soil. "I'm not worried about tribunals, for example,
overseas, but domestically we have to abide by the Bill of Rights," he
told ABC. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the former vice presidential
candidate, said he supported using tribunals for terrorists who engaged in
acts of war but opposed them if used against people legally in the United
States. [AP]

SC Justice Antonin Scalia at U. Kansas: "No one wants to bring bin Laden
back here and have him tried by Judge (Lance) Ito for two years," he said,
tongue-in-cheek, referring to the oft-criticized judge who handled the
O.J. Simpson criminal case ... Scalia, who had been asked whether a
national identification card would violate privacy rights, said he
interprets the Constitution through the precise words used by its writers
two centuries ago.  The Fourth Amendment doesn't mention a national ID
card, he said. [KC STAR]

ROSE MOSS: A lifetime ago, I emigrated to America, became a citizen and,
like millions of others, wept and cheered at our love and courage on Sept.
11. I have come to love the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the
history of Americans who have given their lives that government of the
people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Throughout the world, people know what America stands for, the principles
that lie at the heart of our democracy, prosperity, and allure. Heartsore
and fearful, I am grieving for what has happened to America. I came to
this country shortly after the apartheid government authorized the
minister of justice or subordinates to detain anyone suspected of guilt or
innocent knowledge of something implying someone else's guilt for crimes
like terrorism. The detained could be kept for 90 days, infinitely
renewable this side of eternity. The detained had no right to see a
lawyer, doctor, minister or family. When this law passed, it seemed
inevitable that prisoners in secret detention would be tortured and
killed. Sure enough, prisoners started to fall from the 10th floor of the
Johannesburg police building. A prisoner slipped down a flight of stairs,
which explained the bruises on his corpse. Another slipped on a bar of
soap, which explained his cracked skull. A prisoner's poem confessed that
he had hanged himself on a bar of soap. I knew. Others knew. An Austrian
businessman in Cape Town told me recently, ''We knew but we didn't want to
know.'' While he built his business and bought a home overlooking beaches
and bays and flew to Austria for skiing vacations, prisoners groaned and
died, their torturers protected by deliberate ignorance. I did not know
how to shut my eyes. When the 90-day law passed, I'd been reading about
how the Nazis rose to power by seizing executive power. They subverted the
Legislature and the judiciary. A frightened population allowed the Nazi
rise. Some supported it for a promised triumph over poverty, humiliation,
and communism. Few cared to be bleeding hearts about the Jews - more
aliens in the country than real Germans anyhow - or communists or cranks
protesting that freedom depends on the rights of all. It was lonely to
hold my views. The people I worked with were busy with their families,
private lives, businesses and leisure in a beautiful, sunny country. They
did not have nightmares about a tortured people, who, despairing of
nonviolence, had started what they called an armed struggle against
apartheid. If anything, people around me were pleased that leaders of the
armed struggle had fled into exile and that their political leader could
be sent to prison on Robben Island. Like the CIA, they knew Nelson Mandela
was a terrorist. Like people who painted slogans on walls or organized
political rallies. Soon, more atrocities were necessary. More blindness.
More repression. We know what happened. South Africa's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission has drawn out enough evidence of atrocities to
convince even South Africans who preferred ignorance. In the end, nothing
was enough. I could not bear it and emigrated to the United States in
1964. Should I use the past tense? We were the world's last best hope. But
at a recent party I spoke with a woman who said Americans would never
stand for secret detentions. I told her about the 641 detained, one
already dead, the numbers, names, and allegations secret. It was news to
her. At Thanksgiving dinner, a lawyer argued that secret trials might be
necessary. Too bad about torture. Another asked what I would do about
people who refuse to talk - ''Get legal permission to wiretap. Put
microchips in their shoes. Watch them breathe with infrared
surveillance.'' Our sophisticated technology means we do not need
executive end runs around the judiciary and Congress. If torture and
secret trials worked, the Inquisition would still rule Europe; Hitler and
Stalin would still be heroes. I hope that we the people will not accept
blindness. I want to hear, ''You can't do that. This is America.'' The
Thanksgiving lawyer warned that next year I'll be in prison for my views.
He had already said, ''Scratch an Arab and you'll find an anti-Semite.''
That is, a terrorist. Ouch! I was back in apartheid South Africa, my heart
cut by that scratch. I am heartsore. [BOSTON GLOBE]

It is a hidden war that the world has ignored. But the chaos, rape, murder
and pillaging that have swept southern Afghanistan are writ large on the
faces of the fortunate few who escape. Abdul Abdullah was lucky. As an
ethnic Pashtun living in a village near Herat, he fled the approach of the
Tajik and Hazara forces which captured the city. He headed for the
barbed-wire border with Pakistan. His cousin, Aziz Khan, was not so lucky.
He and his wife Fatma went west toward Iran but did not make it. They and
20 other Pashtun families were stopped at a checkpoint, one of hundreds
appearing across southern Afghanistan. The men, including Khan, were
herded up into the mountains and shot. The young women were taken away.
Abdullah will not say what he thinks happened to Fatma. But the truth
seems obvious. 'I know they let most of the women go, but they kept the
young and pretty ones like Fatma,' he said. The landscape Abdullah crossed
on his trek south is a land of warring anarchy. In many areas Taliban
forces are still in control, but in others local Pashtun warlords rule by
rape, robbery and murder. Armed gangs rob and kill lorry drivers who are
the economic lifeblood of the region. In the skies above US bombers seek
targets to destroy. Noor Mohamed saw the effects of one of those missions.
As a wheat trader plying between the Pakistani border town of Chaman and
the Afghan city of Ghazni last week, he witnessed a terrible sight. Lying
in a burnt-out, twisted mess just north of Kandahar were the smoking
remains of a 15-lorry fuel convoy. The charred remains of the drivers and
dozens of unfortunate souls who had bargained a lift from them was a sight
Mohamed will not forget. 'I saw all the dead burnt people,' he said. 'How
can you be a man if you don't feel something when you see that?' The south
is the Pashtun heartland and the core of Taliban rule. The Northern
Alliance, dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks, cannot march here.
Instead, the Alliance and its Western backers are trying to persuade
Pashtun tribal leaders and former mujahideen to revolt and overthrow a
Taliban regime weakened by US bombing and the presence of 1,000 US Marines
on a desert airstrip in the region. But the policy has created a vacuum of
power. Into the void have flooded warlords, based over the border in the
Pakistani city of Quetta, who ruled before the Taliban came. In the
villages around Kandahar there is a name that provokes horror and fear. It
is not Mullah Omar, nor is it Osama bin Laden. It is Gul Agha, the former
mujahideen governor of Kandahar, whose tribal militia is backed and
advised by the US. Ghlume Walli fled from Agha's men near his hometown of
Khalat to a makeshift tent at the border. 'Gula Agha's men would have
robbed me even of these water bottles,' he said, holding up two dirty
plastic cartons filled with brown water. His friend Mohamed Sami agreed.
He had been herding his cattle near Khalat when Agha's militia stopped him
at gunpoint and slaughtered his herd. He draws his finger across his
throat. 'They are looters. Everyone is afraid. They killed every last one
of the cattle,' he said. Agha and several thousand fighters crossed into
Afghanistan a day after Kabul fell. Police sources in Pakistan believe he
is heavily involved in the lucrative opium trade. His followers are drawn
mainly from the poor and destitute of the refugee camps. When he governed
in Kandahar the city was ruled by warlords who stripped it of everything
of value. Rape and robbery were commonplace. Pakistani intelligence
officials say Agha and another Western-backed tribal leader, Hamid
Kharzai, have struck a deal to let Agha reclaim his old governorship when
the Taliban finally falls. It is the prospect of such men returning that
has many in the refugee camps longing for the Taliban to rule as long as
possible. They fled along routes controlled by the Taliban. Many say they
owe the religious militia their lives. For the Pashtuns of the south, the
Taliban did not mean oppression and taking away women's rights. They had
never known anything different. However, the Taliban did bring freedom
from thugs and the rule of the gun. 'In the time of the Taliban I could
walk down the street with 30,000 rupees and no one would touch me. But the
men of Gul Agha will kill you even if you have nothing,' said Walli. Such
feelings have seen the Taliban win back some ground. Khalat fell for three
days to local tribal forces. The bazaar was looted while residents cowered
in their houses. Then the Taliban returned and the residents cheered.
Takhteh Pol, a vital town on the road from Kandahar to Pakistan, was also
recaptured by the Taliban last week, according to reliable Afghan and
Pakistani sources. The town had endured several days of rule by Agha's
men, when one of his commanders boasted of executing 160 Taliban
prisoners. 'They were made to stand in a long line and five or six of our
fighters used light machine guns to kill them,' the commander told a
French news agency, adding that US special forces attached to Agha had
tried and failed to stop the shootings. The US has denied the massacre
happened, but after the slaughter of hundreds of Taliban in
Mazar-e-Sharif, the Takhteh Pol killings sounded all too plausible. The
collapse of Taliban rule over much of Afghanistan has laid bare the
country's ethnic bones, exposing old hatreds. Hundreds of refugees in the
crowded camps near Chaman are from Mazar-e-Sharif. They are all Pashtuns,
who have fled rather than live under the rule of the Uzbek soldiers of
Northern Alliance General Rashid Dostum. They tell of ethnic cleansing of
Pashtuns in the north and say they had no choice but to flee south to the
Pashtun - and Taliban - heartland. Haji Khira Ghol left behind his
vineyard and market stall when he fled a day before Mazar-e-Sharif fell.
'The mercy of an Uzbek is worse than the greatest cruelty of the
Pashtuns,' he shouted angrily. He said 5,000 Pashtuns from his region had
fled their homes. Relatives arriving after him near Chaman told him how
his abandoned house had been destroyed by Dostum's men and his stall
looted of all its stock. 'I can never go back. Not with the Uzbeks there.
There is no place for the Pashtun in the north,' he said. Other stories
recounted by Pashtun refugees from Mazar-e-Sharif are similar. Mohamed
Aslan fled his farm 10 days ago. He is terrified of the Northern Alliance
and their men. He could not stay in the city of his birth. 'They know only
war. If they want to they can just kill you and go unpunished,' he said.
Just over 60 miles away from the refugee camps at Chaman, the US flag
flies over the Marines' captured airstrip. But the attention of those
forces is firmly focused on hunting bin Laden. The ravages going on around
them are ignored. Among the refugees fleeing the anarchy, the US has few
friends. 'If the Americans had brought peace, that would have been a good
thing. But instead they have just brought us war and looting and the men
of Gul Agha,' said Aslan. Above him in the bright blue sky the jet trail
of a B-52 headed north. Its target was Kandahar. This hidden war goes on.
[OBSERVER]

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2001

The American hunt for Osama bin Laden appeared to have gone tragically
wrong for the second time in two days yesterday, when US bombers were said
to have killed scores of civilians in eastern Afghanistan as well as
mujahedin fighters supporting the battle against al-Qa'ida. A senior
mujahedin commander said US strikes killed more than 100 civilians around
Agam, 25 miles south of Jalalabad, on top of at least 70 killed in air
raids on Saturday night. [INDEPENDENT]

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Sunday that the United States would
"root out" any terrorist elements in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority
-- just as the Taliban became a US target for harboring al-Qaida. "The
same message must be sent to the Palestinian Authority and to Chairman
Arafat: Anyone who harbors or turns a blind eye to terror in their midst
will be held accountable," said the senator. [AP]

A piece reports on the hospital crisis in Afghanistan. Even the public
hospital enforces a pay-first policy, and nobody can pay. Doctor salaries
have been suspended for four months, and electricity and heat are
unreliable. Construction was halted on a new surgery wing because the
charity group footing the bill also bankrolled terrorists. [US NEWS]

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 04, 2001

One of the world's most famous conductors was detained by Swiss police on
suspicion of being linked to terrorist activities. Frenchman Pierre Boulez
had his passport confiscated in the town of Basle where he had been
conducting at a music festival last month. Europe has seen a series of
anti-terrorist dawn raids since 11 September, but this must be the
strangest. Boulez was sleeping in his five star Swiss hotel when police
dragged him from bed and informed him he was on their national list of
terrorist suspects. The 75-year-old had his passport confiscated for three
hours before he was free to go. It seems that Boulez in the 1960s had said
that opera houses should be blown up, comments which the Swiss felt made
him a potential security threat. The embarrassed organisers of the music
festival where he had been conducting have now demanded an apology from
the authorities. [AP]

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 04, 2001

Israel's retaliatory strikes on Palestinian targets. Among the places hit:
Yasser Arafat's compound in the West Bank and a Palestinian Authority
building in Gaza City. Arafat was in his office about 100 yards away from
the missiles when they struck. Israel said it didn't aim to hurt Arafat.
It just wanted to get his attention. The attack in Gaza killed two,
including a kid who was walking to school. Another 100 people were injured
in the attack, 20 of them seriously. Israeli bulldozers also wrecked the
runway at Gaza International Airport. The Pentagon continued to be
skeptical of reports that US airstrikes near Tora Bora have killed scores
of civilians. "If we cannot know for certain how many people were killed
in lower Manhattan, where we have full access to the site, thousands of
reporters, investigators, rescue workers combing the wreckage, and no
enemy propaganda to confuse the situation, one ought to be sensitive to
how difficult it is to know with certainty, in real time, what may have
happened in any given situation in Afghanistan, where we lack access,"
said Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who added, "and we're dealing with
world-class liars." [AP]

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 06, 2001

LAURA FLANDERS: According to official documents posted Thursday to the
National Security Archive website, on December 6, 1975, the United States
offered full and direct approval to Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. As
reported by the Agence France Presse today: "The documents prove
conclusively for the first time that the United States gave a 'green
light' to the invasion, the opening salvo in an occupation that cost the
lives of up to 200,000 East Timorese." Then Indonesian President Gen.
Suharto briefed President Gerald Ford and his Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger on his plans for the former Portuguese colony when they were in
Jakarta, just hours before the invasion began. "We want your understanding
if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action," Suharto told his
visitors, according to a long-classified State Department cable. Ford
replied: "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We
understand the problem you have and the intentions you have." Kissinger
appeared to be concerned about the possible political fallout back home.
"It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly, we would be able
to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens, happens after we
return," he said. "The president will be back on Monday at 2:00 p.m.
Jakarta time. We understand your problem and the need to move quickly but
I am only saying that it would be better, if it were done after we
returned." The invasion took place on December 7, the day after Ford and
Suharto met. "Timor was never discussed with us when we were in
Indonesia," Kissinger has said since. "At the airport as we were leaving,
the Indonesians told us that they were going to occupy the Portuguese
colony of Timor. To us that did not seem like a very significant event."
The transcript of his denial is available from the East Timor Action
network, which advocated independence for East Timor. It took the East
Timorese 25 years to win independence from Indonesia and 27 years for the
truth to come out in the Washington Post (12/6/01). White House efforts to
"influence" the public have a long and successful history, and clearly we
the people are not immune to the practice yet. [WORKINGFORCHANGE.COM]

AMHERST, MA - December 6 - The students, faculty, and staff of Hampshire
College have voted to condemn the "War on Terrorism" and propose
alternative solutions. The vote, which was won by a margin of 693-121
(with 11 abstaining or ambiguous votes), is believed to the first such
decision by a college community in the United States. (A majority of the
students, faculty, and staff participated in the vote.) 
	HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE COMMUNITY STATEMENT: The tragic day of September
11, and the days following, have been a time of profound suffering for
people everywhere: firefighters in New York, secretaries in Washington
D.C., and farmers in Afghanistan. One indiscriminate act of violence has
been followed by another, a pattern seriously endangering the prospects
for a just and peaceful world. In such a time of loss, we must ask
ourselves - is there a path out of this escalating cycle of violence? Yes,
we can respond to the tragedy of September 11 as a crime against humanity,
carried out by individuals, not as an act of warfare for which a nation
must be held responsible. This path would proceed within a framework of
genuine international cooperation and be designed to bring to justice
those guilty of the crime - without destroying the lives of innocent
millions. It would employ the proven tools of transparent and conclusive
investigations, diplomatic and police efforts, and fair courts of law to
achieve its goal. At home, we can meet the immediate need for effective
security through common-sense solutions that apply fairly to everyone,
while preserving our hard-won civil liberties. Instead, the Bush
administration has embarked upon a very different path - with disastrous
consequences: - The death toll of innocent Afghan civilians killed by
inevitably imprecise bombing is mounting. - The US military campaign has
made it impossible for international relief organizations to deliver the
food aid necessary to prevent the starvation of millions of Afghan
civilians in the winter now beginning. The token and scattered aid efforts
of the United States have been roundly criticized as insufficient, or even
counterproductive, by such organizations. A massive humanitarian crisis
remains. - While the Northern Alliance has forced the Taliban from power
(certainly a welcome development), they too possess a disturbing record of
human-rights violations, especially against women and political
dissidents. - The current suffering in Afghanistan will only deepen the
conditions of loss and desperation which foster international terrorism.
Even the CIA has stated that strikes against Afghanistan are "100%
certain" to lead to terrorist reprisals. - The recent "USA.
P.A.T.R.I.O.T." Act infringes upon everyone's First and Fourth Amendment
freedoms. Rights to privacy, speech, and association remain as critical as
ever and are, if anything, more so in times of trial. - The proposed
"economic stimulus" package provides billions of dollars in corporate
giveaways and tax breaks, but almost nothing for laid-off workers and poor
communities most at risk. - Both at home and abroad, the "War on
Terrorism" is symptomatic of the racism of American society, in its
disregard for the lives of people of color overseas, encouragement of
racial, ethnic, and religious scapegoating and violence, and practice of
law enforcement "profiling." -New legislative and law enforcement
initiatives threaten specifically the rights of non-citizens, through
indefinite detentions without indictment, military tribunals, arbitrary
deportation, and unfair targeting of international students. For all of
these reasons, and many more, we, the students, faculty, and staff of
Hampshire College, have no choice but to condemn the current "War on
Terrorism," and demand that it not be expanded to Iraq or any other
countries. We call for the resumption of effective independent
humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, and the immediate halt to the US military
action that prevents it. We call for a UN-led effort to establish in
Afghanistan a democratic and multi-ethnic government, respectful of the
rights of women. Furthermore, we demand that the Hampshire administration
join us in resisting any arbitrary and unfair law-enforcement invasion of
our own community, especially efforts targeting international students and
campus activists. Finally, military action will never put an end to
international terrorism, which often stems from forces that have
previously received the support of the American government. In its place,
we must, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "rededicate ourselves to
the long and bitter - but beautiful - struggle for a new world," a world
where hunger, war, and economic injustice, the root causes of terrorism,
are eliminated. This way alone leads to safety, security, and lasting
peace. Thus, we commit the full resources and energies of our community to
this endeavor, and challenge our colleagues at schools around the country,
and all over the world, to do the same. 

FRIDAY 7 DECEMBER

By a vote of 215-214, House passes TPA -- "fast track" authority for the
executive for the first time since 1994. Many deals and quids pro quo for
those voting in favor; Senate will approve by a bigger margin. Bush now
has trade authority that Congress never gave Clinton. [NY TIMES]

Thirty Congresspeople send letter to Bush, demanding the head of Saddam
Hussein.

JACOB WEISBERG: As someone who was actually prepared to listen to Attorney
General John Ashcroft's defense of military tribunals and other security
measures, I have to say that I was completely disgusted by his appearance
before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. It was an arrogant,
bullying performance that went a long way to substantiating the views of
his harshest critics. Ashcroft declined to be drawn into any kind of
substantive discussion of military tribunals or anything else. To fair
question after fair question, his answer was essentially, "Don't you
realize there are people trying to kill us?" He haughtily dismissed those
of his former colleagues who dared to suggest they had some kind of
standing to participate in a discussion with him. With his slurs against
"Miranda rights," "flamboyant" defense attorneys, and "Osama TV," the
country's top lawyer suggested that our entire system of criminal justice
is an unworkable sham. Sen. Chuck Schumer was right to point out that the
only part of the Constitution that seems to excite his sympathy is the
Second Amendment. But the very worst of it was the way that the attorney
general cast defenders of civil liberties as witting or unwitting
traitors. Ashcroft did this at the very outset, when he declared any
skepticism about what he has done to be, in the infamous formulation,
objectively pro-terrorist. "To those who scare peace-loving people with
phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this," he said. "Your tactics only
aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our
resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's
friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face
of evil." [SLATE]

"The attorney general's implication is clear. If you do not march in lock
step with the government, you are supporting the terrorists," the Center
for National Security Studies said in a statement ... Sen. Patrick Leahy,
D-Vt., proposed legislation authorizing President Bush to establish
military tribunals calls for open trials unless public safety or national
security is threatened, right to counsel for defendants and the
presumption of innocence. Ashcroft said it's up to the Defense Department
to establish the rules. He said Congress should make their recommendations
to the department ... Ashcroft balked at a request by Sen. Russ Feingold,
D-Wis., to make sure that more than 560 people detained on immigration
charges get lawyers: "I cannot force lawyers on individuals who refuse
lawyers." he said. [AP]

A front-page story doesn't help Ashcroft's case, pointing out that US
agents now doubt that any of the 600 people detained since Sept. 11 were
involved at all with the terrorist attacks. [USA TODAY]

The US economy shed jobs at a searing pace for a second month in a row
during November as the unemployment rate shot up to its highest level in
more than six years, the government said on Friday in a report implying
the recession may bite deeper and longer than thought. The Labor
Department said another 331,000 jobs were lost last month -- far worse
than the 189,000 that Wall Street economists had anticipated -- on top of
a revised 468,000 that were cut in October. Previously, the department
said 415,000 jobs were shed in October. The October and November job
losses were the worst for any two months in more than 20 years, since May
and June of 1980, department officials said. The unemployment rate climbed
to 5.7 percent in November from 5.4 percent in October. That is the
highest level of unemployment since a matching 5.7 percent rate in August
1995, the department said. [REUTERS].

Major retailers reported the weakest November results since 1990.
Discounters and other "value" stores, particularly Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,
Kohl's Corp. and TJX Cos., had the strongest sales. Meanwhile, mall-based
merchants, especially apparel and department stores, suffered amid piles
of marked-down coats and sweaters ... Gap, whose business has dropped
precipitously, saw sales at stores open at least a year plummet 25
percent, worse than the 17 percent forecast. [WASH POST]

Batches of mail being treated with radiation to eliminate possible anthrax
contamination in Bridgeport, NJ,  caught fire ... officials said Friday
--twice.  Hundreds of large envelopes and magazines -- 90 pounds in all --
were destroyed during two fires, one Thursday and one early Friday, the
Postal Service said. [AP]

[continued in part 2]