[Peace-discuss] News notes 11/25 (part 1 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

NOTES ON THE WEEK'S NEWS, FOR AWARE MEETING, 11/25 (part 1 of 2))

[NB: This week's notes are, by request, organized chronologically, day by
day.  Each note is followed by an indication of source.  At the end of the
notes are two longer analyses.]

KEY TO SOURCES: [AFP] Agence France-Presse; [ALL] major papers; [AP]
Associated Press; [AW] Antiwar.com; [BBC] British Broadcasting
Corporation; [BG] Boston Globe; [BH] Boston Herald; [CD] Commondreams.org;
[CHE] Chronicle of Higher Education; [CMW] CBS Market Watch; [CNN] Cable
News Network; [CP] CounterPunch; [DPA] Deutsche Presse-Agentur; [EC] The
Economist; [FR] French papers; [FR2] France 2 (TV); [FT] Financial Times
(London); [GL] Guardian (London); [GM] Globe and Mail (Toronto); [GR]
German papers; [HI] Hindu (India); [HRZ] Ha'aretz (Israel); [HT] Hindustan
Times (India); [IHT] International Herald Tribune; [IL] The Independent
(London); [IPA] Institute for Public Accuracy; [IPS] Inter Press Service;
[LAT] Los Angeles Times; [LM] Le Monde; [MI] Mirror (UK); [MSN] MSNBC.com;
[NA] Nation; [NBC] NBC Network News; [NI] News International (Pakistan);
[NJ] National Journal; [NR] New Republic; [NST] New Scientist; [NWK]
Newsweek; [NY] New Yorker; [NYP] New York Post; [NYT] New York Times; [OL]
Observer (London); [OS] Orlando Sentinel; [PG] The Progressive; [PR]
Progressive Review; [PV] Pravda; [RT] Reuters; [SC] The Scotsman; [SJM]
San Jose Mercury News; [SMH] Sydney Morning Herald; [TEL] Telegraph
(London); [TI] Times of India; [TL] Times (London); [TM] Time Magazine;
[UK] British papers; [UPI] United Press International; [UST] USA Today;
[WP] Washington Post; [WSJ] Wall Street Journal; [WT] Washington Times

* SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

(1) Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Afghan president ousted by the Taliban in
1996, returns to Kabul. His 1992-96 regime was marred [sic] by violent
power struggles that killed around 30,000 people and destroyed large parts
of the capital. [WP] Rabbani's government still controls the Afghan seat
at the UN. [LAT]

(2) Thousands of protesters marched across London on Sunday calling for an
end to the war. Demonstrators of different ages, religions and backgrounds
chanted "Bush, Blair, CIA, how many kids have you killed today?" and waved
placards urging "Stop the War" and "Not In My Name".  The Stop the War
Coalition estimated that 100,000 people attended the march, which they
said was the biggest of its kind since the Vietnam War three decades ago,
But police said there were 15,000 people at the march, which snaked
through London from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, where anti-war
campaigners such as Bianca Jagger and former Labour politician Tony Benn
spoke to a cheering, whistling crowd. [RT]

(3) Marches have taken place in Glasgow, Australia, western European
capitals and even the US since the Allies' bombing campaign began . . .
Veteran Labor MP Tony Benn told the rally he hoped Sunday marked the start
of a movement for world peace. He said parliament was "passive" and Tony
Blair's cabinet was "cringing" in its failure to question the UK's role in
the bombing campaign. ... Fellow Labor MP Paul Marsden accused Tony Blair
of being "drunk with power" in his handling of the war on terrorism. [BBC]

(4) GEORGE MONBIOT: But the size of the demonstration was not its only
unexpected feature. It soon became obvious that the crowd was thinking
about more than just Afghanistan. To thunderous cheers, speaker after
speaker linked the war to the other means by which the rich world
persuades the poor world to do as it bids: namely its power over bodies
such as the World Trade Organization. It is not only the peace movement
which hasn't gone away, it seems, but also the anti-corporate movement,
whose death has been so widely proclaimed since September 11. Just as the
peace campaigners have drawn strength from the internationalists, the
internationalists are building on the peace campaign. The battle against
corporate power has resumed. [GL]

(5) Jingoistic, sugar-coated, superficial - those are just some of the
criticisms leveled at US television networks' coverage of the conflict in
Afghanistan in recent days - and not just by the foreign competition.
Columnists for ... the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have
deplored what they describe as the networks' shallow and soft-focus
reporting. The Journal's Tunku Varadarajan has attacked the superficial
analysis offered by CNN's "parachute" journalists, while the Times' Caryn
James lamented US television's knee-jerk pandering to the public mood.
Weighing into the US cable stations and networks for their "myopic view",
James criticized editors for caving into patriotism "rather than informing
viewers of the complex, sometimes harsh realities they need to know." At a
media industry conference this week in Barcelona, Spain, the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC's) news chief said he was startled by the
contrast between US and European small-screen coverage of the 40-day-old
war. "It's like watching two different wars ... The BBC (British
Broadcasting Corporation) has focused very much on the humanitarian issues
in the region ... ", while NBC, ABC and CBS had anchored their reports
"almost exclusively" around Pentagon briefings, he explained.  "There
seems to be a real reluctance on the part of the US television media to
dwell on the human impact"; he also noted that the "uncritical,
hyper-patriotic" reporting differed remarkably little between the three
national networks, who he felt were all toeing the administration line.
"They're in lockstep with the administration ... and there's no
distinction between the networks, which is unusual in a competitive
environment." [SMH]

(6) Yahoo! has adopted an aggressive policy against anti-U.S. language in
relation to the conflict on its message boards. The policy ranges from
deleting insultingly worded posts to deleting sometimes rationally worded
opposing points-of-view. One Muslim U.S. student, Usman Sheikh, claims to
have repeatedly tried to post messages foregrounding civilian casualties
in the U.S.-led war only to see them deleted, while anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim posts have remained up despite complaints by himself and
others.  In the past, "we would err on the side of 'If it's distasteful,
let it stay,' " said Stephen Killeen, president of Terra Lycos U.S. "Now,
we err on the side of 'If you want to post this kind of information, you
don't have to do it here.' " "The sentiment in the United States changed
on September 11 about what's acceptable and what's not in terms of what
you can say," Killeen explained. [WP]

*MONDAY 19 NOVEMBER

(7) The International Monetary Fund and World Bank wrapped up a weekend
meeting today with fresh calls for increasing aid to developing countries,
but resistance to the idea by the United States raised doubts about how
much new assistance would be forthcoming.  A "substantial increase" in
current levels of official development assistance would be required in
coming years, the World Bank's policy-setting development committee said
in a statement. The bank's president, James Wolfensohn, said ... at a
press conference after the meeting of the panel, which represents the
World Bank's 183 member countries, said there has been a "growing
realization" since Sept. 11 that aid "is not just charity; it's self
interest" for donor nations.  Wolfensohn acknowledged, however, that the
most powerful member of the committee, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul H.
O'Neill, was by far the least enthusiastic about that proposition.
Exhortations by Wolfensohn and others underscored the view among aid
advocates that the chance and the need for mobilizing more assistance for
poor countries was greater than ever since Sept. 11. That is because the
slowing global economy has hit developing countries particularly hard,
which has raised concern about a worsening of conditions that foster
anti-Western sentiment. ... At a press conference, O'Neill agreed that
rich nations "need to pay attention and try to do something" about the
millions living in poverty, but he gave the idea of more aid a cold
reception. "Over the last 50 years the world has spent an awful large
amount of money in the name of development without a great degree of
success," he said.  Rich countries need to concentrate on "producing
results" in poor countries, O'Neill said. "It's time for us to become
determined and purposeful about making a difference in living conditions
[of the poor] by creasing real economic development and not just more
giving," he added.  The disparities over aid between the United States and
its allies is a longstanding source of tension. U.S. aid contributions
total about 0.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, the lowest
among the Group of Seven major industrial countries. That amount compares
with an average 0.22 percent of GDP for all rich nations, with several
European nations contribution about 1 percent of their GDP. In remarks
today to the development committee, O'Neill urged his colleagues to rally
behind a U.S. proposal, first advanced last summer, that the Bush
administration has cited as evidence of the "compassionate conservatism"
behind its aid philosophy. Under the proposal, up to half the World Bank's
aid to the poorest nations would be converted from loans to grants.  The
administration, however, has proposed no additional contributions to the
World Bank to pay for the plan, which has raised European suspicion that
it was intended to starve the bank of funding. [WP]

(8) The American air force is again bombing targets around the town of
Gardez, about two hours' drive southeast of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The
area fell to anti-Taleban tribal forces last week, soon after the Taleban
withdrew from Kabul.  Even so, US airplanes kept up the bombing of targets
to the east of the town, killing seven people and injuring three others.  
The victims were a family of refugees sheltering near buildings belonging
to a United Nations mine clearance agency which were destroyed overnight.
It was the second bombing in 24 hours. [BBC]

(9) A catastrophic error [sic] by carpet-bombing US Air Force warplanes
was blamed yesterday for the deaths of about 150 unarmed Afghan civilians
in a densely populated frontline town ... Terrified refugees fleeing the
town of Khanabad yesterday told The Independent that American planes had
bombed the area a few miles from Kunduz daily since Thursday, seemingly
oblivious to the fact that the buildings they were bombing were civilian
homes ... "I saw 20 dead children on the streets," said Zumeray, one of
the refugees. "Forty people were killed yesterday alone. I saw it with my
own eyes. Some of them were burned by the bombs, others were crushed by
the walls and roofs of their houses when they collapsed from the blast."
Khanabad lies 10 miles from Kunduz, one of only two major population
centres in Afghanistan still under Taliban control. The refugees said they
had endured three days of bombing before the Taliban ordered them out of
their homes and told them they were free to cross the front line. [This
may bring deaths from US bombing to around 1,000, not counting starved
refugees.] [IL]

(10) Defense Department strategists are building a case for a massive
bombing of Iraq as a new phase of President Bush's war against terrorism,
congressional and Pentagon sources say. Proponents of attacking Iraq,
spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, are now arguing
privately that still-elusive evidence linking Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein's regime to the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 is not necessary to
trigger a military strike." [UST]

*TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER

(11) American forces attacking Taleban fighters in Afghanistan are under
orders to take no prisoners, the US Defense Secretary said last night.
Donald Rumsfeld also ruled out suggestions that thousands of al-Qaeda
mercenaries trapped in the northern city of Konduz might be allowed to
negotiate safe passage to a third country ... 'The United States is not
inclined to negotiate surrenders, nor are we in a position, with
relatively small numbers of forces on the ground, to accept prisoners,' he
said ... General Mohammad Dawood Khan, commanding the Northern Alliance
forces that face the Taleban on three sides of the city, told The Times:
"If a country accepted them as refugees, we would have no problem, they
can go free. We have been in contact with the UN over this" ... "The idea
of their getting out of the country and going off to make their mischief
somewhere else is not a happy prospect. So my hope is that they will
either be killed or taken prisoner (by the Northern Alliance)." [TL]

(12) US B-52 bombers today attacked Taliban positions around Kunduz, the
regime's last stronghold in northern Afghanistan ... an estimated 3,000
foreign fighters, including a significant contingent of the Egyptian
terrorist group, al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, bitterly oppose surrender, fearing
that the Northern Alliance will kill them, according to recent Taliban
defectors. [GL]

(13) In a flurry of newspaper articles and television appearances,
prominent hawks such as former Defense Department official Richard N.
Perle and columnist William Safire are pressing the administration to make
Phase 2 of the war against terror a full-fledged effort to topple Hussein.
'As the campaign in Afghanistan has progressed, a consensus has emerged
that it is high time to remove Saddam Hussein from power,' wrote Thomas
Donnelly, deputy executive director of the Project for the New American
Century, a conservative think tank.  National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice sent the hawks' pulses racing Sunday with tough talk against Hussein
on NBC's 'Meet the Press' ... Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Al
Gore's running mate in 2000, is urging the administration to commit itself
to removing Hussein from power. [LAT]

(14) ONE REASON BUSH IS GETTING AWAY WITH IT: Because the Democrats have
people like Joseph Biden who recently said of John Negroponte, Bush aide
and Iran-Contra gang member, "I love the guy . . . All the accusations
were wrong." [PR]

(15) In contrast, Robert Levy of the right/libertarian Cato Institute
attacks Bush's military courts as being clearly unconstitutional. [WSJ]

(16) Israel demolished Palestinian houses in Gaza and said it would build
new homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron, a day after
the United States announced a new Middle East peace drive . . . Israel
also said it would replace mobile homes in the Jewish settlement in
divided Hebron with concrete houses, despite Secretary of State Colin
Powell's call to halt settlement construction amid nearly 14 months of
violence . . . In Geneva, Amnesty International accused Israel of
increasingly using torture in interrogating Palestinians. Israel said the
practice was banned and any complaints investigated. [RT]

(17) As this Ramadan begins, the Palestinians are in the worst situation
they have been in since the Israeli occupation befell them. Their lack of
freedom has reached a level they have never known before. Only a few
peoples in the world still live under such dire conditions of occupation,
and none of them have been subjected to occupation for such a lengthy
period. The very limited freedom that the Palestinians enjoyed until this
past year has disappeared as though it never was; now, it seems to be a
beacon of liberty in the light of their present conditions. Does anyone
still remember that once the Palestinians could travel anywhere they
wanted? During this Ramadan, Palestinian families will not be able to
gather for the festive evening meal that ends the daily fast. Family
members living in a different city or village, however close by, will not
be able to visit relatives to partake of the meal with them in the
traditional manner. The Israeli occupation, which intrudes on every sphere
of life, has this year reached their holiday tables and will decide for
them who is going to eat with whom. On top of that, Israel is also
deciding what will be served in the meals: With such a cruel, tight
closure, which has created a 40 percent unemployment rate, according to
Israeli data, poverty has turned into hunger. Many Palestinian families
will not be serving the traditional meat dishes this year during Ramadan.
The presents for the children will be more modest, if they are given at
all. [HRZ]

(18) School officials are being asked to justify a recent speech given by
peace activist Howard Zinn at Newton North High School in which he equated
the U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan with the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.  The controversial historian and former Boston University
professor stressed that the U.S. bombing raids aimed at toppling the
Taliban and hunting down fugitive terror boss Osama bin Laden were killing
children and innocent civilians.  ``The terrorists of Sept. 11 did a
horrible thing to us, so we do terrible things to the people of
Afghanistan. That is immoral and puts us on the same level as a
terrorist,'' Zinn was quoted as saying in a report in the school
newspaper.  Parents questioned exposing young teens to Zinn's opinions.
``It's unbelievable what this guy did,'' said Tom Mountain, a parent of
three Newton students who are not yet in high school.  "It's horrifying.
He told these things to an entire school audience of kids 13 to 17 who
don't know any better.'' Mountain said he has disagreed with Zinn for more
than 20 years, dating back to the 1980s when Mountain was a student at
Brandeis University rallying in support of Israel

(19) JOHN QUIGLEY, Professor of international law at Ohio State
University: "We don't seem to be doing anything to keep the Northern
Alliance within the bounds of international conventions regarding warfare
and the treatment of POWs. Since we are helping them achieve their goals,
we are ultimately responsible for their conduct. Given the past record of
human rights abuses and atrocities by the Northern Alliance, our vigilance
on this issue is of utmost importance." MARJORIE COHN, associate professor
at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego: "The bombing of
Afghanistan is not legitimate self-defense under the UN Charter, since the
Sept. 11 attacks were criminal attacks, not armed attacks by another
nation. Moreover, taking control of Afghanistan provides the U.S.
government with the opportunity to set up a permanent military presence
there ... in order to increase U.S. access to attractive routes for
transporting Caspian Sea oil."  DAVID GIBBS, associate professor of
political science at the University of Arizona: "The military intervention
in Afghanistan must be judged according to whether or not it makes us
safer from terrorism in the long run. Even if bin Laden were captured, it
would be relatively easy to reconstruct the terrorist organization; the
events of the last few months have demonstrated that the main requirement
is people willing to die for the cause. The bombing of Afghanistan may
well serve as a recruiting poster for the next generation of terrorists
and make us less safe in the long run." [IPA]

*WEDNESDAY 21 NOVEMBER

(20) Iraq said it would consider accepting monitoring of its weapons
program if trade sanctions imposed by the United Nations were lifted,
Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in an interview with the
London-based Arabic-language Alhayat newspaper published on Wednesday.  
UN weapons inspectors have been barred from Iraq since December 1998.  
The last team left shortly before the United States and British launched a
bombing campaign after the weapons inspectors said Baghdad was obstructing
their work. Sabri said the UN Security Council should first lift sanctions
and rid the Middle East region of weapons of mass destruction before Iraq
would consider allowing any new monitoring. Baghdad has rejected a UN
resolution adopted in December 1999 which calls for the suspension of
sanctions if it allows weapons inspectors to return.  Sabri also said he
expected a normal rollover of the UN-administered oil-for-food deal when
it comes to an end in November 30.  The Security Council must approve a
resolution either to extend the current program or revamp it.  The program
allows Baghdad to sell oil to buy food and medicine. The oil revenues are
controlled by the United Nations, which pays suppliers of goods to Iraq.
[RT]

(21) The world has plunged into recession for the first time in two
decades [according to] the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development; it said its 30-nation zone would contract "slightly" in the
second half of this year and was forecast to stay weak into 2002. [IL]

(22) Recent Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, along with well-known
economist Paul Krugman, have of late made a flurry of public statements
critical of the policies and processes of the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the World Bank / IMF, and the proposed Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA) -- while leaving plenty of harsh words for the blatantly
pro-corporate actions of the Bush Administration. Both economists point to
the disruptive and distorting influence of large corporate entities
through their dominance over both domestic and international institutions.
Stiglitz and Krugman have begun to voice their indignation more frequently
in the press, raising many of the same concerns that social justice and
environmental advocates have long made about the disproportionate
influence of big business and the hypocrisy of "free market" dogma. [NYT]

(23) The Blair government in Britain, normally Washington's lapdog, is
acting strangely.  "Clare Short ... the International Development
Secretary, claimed the US military was hampering aid effort in
[Afghanistan] and rebuked the US government for its parsimonious
contribution to the alleviation of global poverty."  The rift seems to
arise because "London is keen to see a large-scale international
peacekeeping force established in Afghanistan, Washington is apprehensive
about the consequences of committing troops for the drawn-out process of
'nation building' ... [Ms. Short] said it was a 'paradox' that a country
which prided itself on its generosity and was made up of people from all
parts of the world gave only 0.1 per cent of its GDP in international aid
- compared to Britain's 0.3 per cent and the United Nations' target of 0.7
per cent. She added: 'The suicide bombers of 11 September appeared not to
come from poor countries, they came from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, but the conditions which bred their bitterness and hatred are
linked to poverty and injustice, there is no doubt.  It is not something
that excuses 11 September, but it is part of the breeding ground for 11
September.' Ms Short later widened her criticism of the White House saying
that the US military's inefficiencies were hindering aid agencies working
on the ground." [SC]

(24) Eight to nine million people face starvation in impoverished and
drought-stricken Afghanistan, [according to] the newly reinstated governor
of Herat, Ismail Khan, who returned to power after the Taliban's ouster
from the western province. [AFP]

(25) JIM JENNINGS, President of Conscience International, a humanitarian
aid organization, said today: "The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is
far from over -- millions still face starvation and disease. The sudden
expansion of Northern Alliance territories, although opening the
possibility of deliveries from the north, actually stopped the food
convoys from Pakistan and Iran for several days because truck drivers are
reluctant to travel into a militarily volatile situation.... Meanwhile,
the humanitarian effort is losing precious days, a critical factor because
of the onset of winter. For every day lost now, some people will die down
the line."  SARAH ZAIDI, research director of the Center for Economic and
Social Rights. said today: "The biggest obstacle to the relief effort is
now posed by U.S. partners. Northern Alliance warlords have sabotaged
supply routes inside Afghanistan, while Pakistan and other neighboring
countries continue to seal their borders and prevent desperate people from
reaching food and safety. Rather than seeking to score PR points, the U.S.
military should pressure its allies to allow free movement to Afghans and
to UN and private relief agencies. Ensuring that thousands of Afghans do
not starve to death this winter is both a moral imperative and a human
rights obligation for all parties who have contributed to the crisis --
including the United States." CESR's executive director Roger Normand said
today: "The Geneva Conventions and Red Cross regulations mandate that
relief aid be neutral, impartial and motivated solely by humanitarian
concerns. But so far the U.S. military has viewed the food crisis in
Afghanistan -- which our bombing helped create -- as a domestic PR
opportunity. Independent relief agencies have condemned our military
policy of dropping food into heavily-mined areas as not only ineffective
and dangerous, but also a distraction from the unglamorous but crucial
work of distributing the huge amounts of staple goods necessary to feed
millions of hungry people." JOHN DAVISON, Spokesperson for Christian Aid,
said today: "The main routes we had managed to establish were coming in
through Pakistan and lately virtually nothing is getting in -- I believe
only a single convoy got in yesterday.... Soon it will get to the point
that the trucks won't go out at all because of fears of getting stuck in
the snow.... Everyone is glad that the Taliban have mostly lost power but
the recent developments have demonstrated the lifesaving importance of the
pause in the bombing that we and six other major international aid
agencies had called for -- our call went unheeded and now we face this
crisis. In the Western and Central Highlands where we carry out most of
our work, about 80 percent of the population is very vulnerable.... Food
is very short and people are trying desperately to get out and they have
no means of transportation. That's hundreds of thousands of people facing
starvation." [IPA]

(26) Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said at a Nov. 19 meeting with local
Georgia officials that to combat terrorism a Georgia sheriff could be
turned loose to "arrest every Muslim that comes across the state line."
Believe it or not, this man is chairman of the House Subcommittee on
Terrorism and Homeland Security.  He claims that this remark was a "joke,"
and that "if anybody's offended by it, I feel very apologetic toward them"
[sic]. [CP] So he's not only a bigot, he's an idiot.  The WP reports that
"Chambliss, according to sources in Valdosta, personally sought to
persuade the reporter, Bill Roberts, to kill the story using his remarks,
and asked the local sheriff to help block publication."

*THURSDAY 22 NOVEMBER

(27) The answer to the riddle of why Al Gore joined an obscure California
fund is that Wall Street wouldn't hire him. The man who would be president
had sought in earnest all year to land a top spot with one of the major
city firms because he wanted to be in the Big Apple, sources said. But
none of Gore's prospective employers, including big buyout firms and major
investment banks, would take him on, according to sources close to several
of the firms. Instead, Gore has signed on with the Los Angeles-based
financial services firm Metropolitan West Financial as a vice-chairman.
His pay and perks weren't disclosed, but sources on Wall Street said Gore
came knocking at numerous firms here, asking for a base salary of between
$2 million and $3 million. One executive here said Gore was very frank
about his job goals: Gore wanted to amass enough money quickly on Wall
Street deals so that he could re-launch his political career at the
mid-term elections in 2002 [NYP]

(28) In Britain, senior police officers back "radical reform" of the drugs
laws, in particular the downgrading of ecstasy to a class B drug and a
proposal for "shooting galleries" where addicts could legally inject
heroin. But comments by Commander Brian Paddick, in charge of the Lambeth
cannabis experiment, attract the lion's share of attention. He told the
Commons home affairs select committee that the recreational use of
ecstasy, cocaine or cannabis at the weekend bought with money people had
earned legitimately had no "adverse effect" on themselves or people around
them. He told the committee: "They go back to work on Monday morning and
are unaffected for the rest of the week. In terms of my priorities as an
operational police officer they are low down." [GL]

(29) The Portland, Oregon, police will not cooperate with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation in its efforts to interview 5,000 young Middle
Eastern men nationwide because such questioning violates state law, the
department's acting police chief, Andrew Kirkland, said. The decision is
the first known case of a city's refusing to go along with the
antiterrorism effort, which was announced by Attorney General John
Ashcroft. But top police officials in several other cities have also said
that Mr. Ashcroft's plan raises troubling questions about racial profiling
- an issue that has brought endless grief to police departments nationwide
- and may violate local and state laws about issues like intelligence
gathering for political purposes [NYT]

(30) Spain cannot extradite suspected Islamic extremists to the United
States while the death penalty is in force there, judicial sources said on
Thursday. Eight suspected members of a radical Spanish Islamic group were
detained in Spain last week, accused of involvement in the September 11
attacks ... the men [are] mostly Spanish citizens of Arab origin ... The
death penalty was abolished in Spain with the introduction of the
constitution in 1978 three years after the death of dictator General
Francisco Franco.  A total of 85 people were executed in the U.S. last
year and more than 60 have been executed so far this year. [RT]

[continued in part 2]