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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (52759)	10/17/2002 6:36:54 PM
From: Ish	Respond to of 281500

<< I have even heard scientists claim that certain oil resevoirs are refilling, though I don't know the rights of it.>> I have seen a theory that oil isn't from dead lizards but is released from the Earth's core as it cools. That's one theory, not mine and I won't argue about it.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (52759)	10/17/2002 6:48:55 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

An update from The "Sydney Herald" on Bali. Megawati gets tough but inquiry in confusion By Neil Mercer in Kuta, and agencies October 18 2002 In her strongest move yet against extremist Islamic groups, the Indonesian President, Megawati Soekarnoputri, is to bypass parliament and issue an emergency decree giving police wide powers to act against terrorist suspects. The emergency decree, which will be issued today and will allow police to hold suspects for nearly a year without trial, comes as Indonesian authorities give conflicting accounts of their progress in the investigation of the Bali bombings. An international team of investigators is hunting for clues that might link radical foreign and Indonesian Islamic groups to the bombings. In Jakarta, police said they were questioning four men. Other reports from Bali said the investigation was focusing on eight men. Contradicting earlier denials from Jakarta, Bali police said they were still questioning a former member of the Indonesian air force over the bombing. At a press briefing yesterday, the Bali police chief, Budi Setyawan, said the man was "believed to have helped design the bomb". Another senior police officer, the commissioner in charge of information, Y Suyatmo, told the Herald the suspect had trained in bomb disposal but had not completed the course. He said the man, who has been detained for two days, had been expelled from the military, adding that he was not co-operating with police and has made no admissions. No further details were forthcoming. But this version of events was contradicted within hours by Jakarta authorities, who said the man was not a suspect. The Australian Federal Police has so far said little about the inquiry for fear of offending their Indonesian counterparts. In Jakarta, police spokesman Saleh Saaf said: "We haven't arrested anyone yet. We were doing intensive questioning of two people, but this is now four." The four were described as residents of Bali but not ethnic Balinese. No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but suspicion has fallen on al-Qaeda and an Indonesian-based group, Jemaah Islamiah, which has links to al-Qaeda. Mr Saaf said the explosives that demolished the Sari Club were packed in a Mitsubishi L300 van. "That car was left on the street. That is from analysis because there was no human flesh found inside it," he said. Investigators have said the C4 plastic explosives that were used were not made in Indonesia. Earlier yesterday, an Indo-nesian newspaper reported seven foreigners, led by a Yemeni and a Malaysian, masterminded and carried out the Bali bombings. The group, which entered the country through Semarang, the main city in central Java, on October 10, also included a European and two with links to a series of bombings in the Philippines, the Jakarta Post said. The paper, citing a "top level" intelligence source, said the terrorist cell was led by a Yemeni and his Malaysian deputy. The Jakarta Post said that among the clues obtained by the intelligence services were telephone calls made to the Middle East from a house in Surakarta, a city 80 kilometres south-east of Semarang. Surakarta is one of the main bases of hardline Muslim groups which had in the past threatened to go after United States tourists in local hotels. Agencies Police chiefs know each other's language, culture Graham Ashton, who heads the Australian Federal Police team investigating the Bali bombing, is known for his ability to dig around in things that others might find tangled and dirty. In 10 years as a federal policeman he has chased drug barons, counterfeiters, people-smugglers and pedophiles. He spent three years as a liaison officer in the Australian embassy in Jakarta, learning the language and getting to know the local police structure. Mr Ashton, who is in his early 40s, has had a meteoric rise from detective sergeant to an equivalent rank of assistant commissioner as commander of the southern unit in Melbourne. General I Made Pastika, the police chief leading the Indonesian investigation, is seen as relatively straightforward and trustworthy. As head of the police service in the troubled Papua province, the Balinese-born General Pastika has been prepared to stand up to the army in high-profile investigations he has run. Australian embassy diplomats have found him easy to work with due to his well-spoken English and understanding of Western values. Garry Barker and Matthew Moore

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (52759)	10/17/2002 7:53:10 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Good article from The Christian Science Monitor sums up the difficulties with Korea. Difficulties for Bush By Howard LaFranchi \| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON - The acknowledgment of North Korea's nuclear-arms program may lend fresh credence to President Bush's characterization of Iraq, Iran, and the Korean dictatorship as an "axis of evil," but it also profoundly complicates the American response to the mass-weapons problem. For all the diplomatic and security knots the Iraq crisis is tying, dealing with Saddam Hussein may turn out to be much less complicated than the challenges posed by the prospect of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons on the Korean peninsula. Some observers say the administration will learn now that it was a grave mistake for Bush to equate North Korea and Iraq in his "axis" portrayal: The different approaches to the two challenges will expose the US to more charges of warmongering (in the case of Iraq) and of contradictory action. Yet while the administration struggles to balance two confrontations with weapons-wielding pariah regimes at once, analysts say there are valid reasons to treat Baghdad and Pyongyang differently ? as the Bush administration appears to be doing so far. But the way forward is also rife with pitfalls. "This [the North Korean issue] is a diplomatically trickier problem than what we have going with Iraq ? and we're seeing that's tricky enough," says William Clark, a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. Certainly some of the hard-line influences in the administration will be arguing for a tough, even threatening, line with a government that admits secretly violating the intent of a 1994 agreement aimed at stopping North Korea from acquiring nuclear arms. Administration sources say the immediate response of some policymakers was that this was a "material breach" of the 1994 accord. Its wording the US has tried to include in a UN resolution dealing with Iraq, and which the US believes constitutes grounds for use of force. But the differences between Iraq and North Korea are many, and other circumstances make it harder for the US to threaten the use of force on the Korean peninsula as well, analysts say. To start with, North Korea has a much larger army than Iraq's, and it is deployed against a key US ally, South Korea, where 37,000 US soldiers are stationed. North Korea also has large stores of chemical and biological weapons that could wreak havoc on the peninsula. Whether the North already has weaponized nuclear arms apparently remains a mystery. "It's not so easy [for the US] to threaten the use of force in this case," says David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. He notes that North Korea has enough artillery arrayed to "ruin Seoul [South Korea's capital]... tons of chemical and biological weapons too horrible to contemplate," and what he considers a "50-50 chance they already have some nuclear weapon." Mr. Albright adds, "This is a much harder nut [than Iraq] to crack." Another factor is that even though the US now knows ? as the North Koreans have confirmed ? that the North has an advanced nuclear-weapons program, it doesn't appear to know where the research and development is taking place. (The US appears to have determined the North has a nuclear-weapons program based on procurement intelligence, not satellite imaging.) That would rule out an attack to take out a site. But there are other reasons North Korea may be more reasonable than its belligerent armor indicates and can still be dealt with diplomatically. Steve Montagne, a North Korea expert at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, says the US should consider that Pyongyang has never resorted to using the chemical and biological weapons ? unlike Saddam Hussein. And, he says, recent conciliatory gestures to Japan and South Korea suggest the North is open to negotiations. "I'd expect any hard-line opponents of North Korea to push the parallels between Iraq and the North and to argue for some action down the road, maybe after Iraq's weapons are dealt with," says Mr. Montagne. "But I think that would be unwise. The openings the North Koreans are making in the region suggest there's room to explore another way out of this crisis." One way forward for the US could be to declare that economic ties with North Korea, which it appears eager for, remain on hold until Pyongyang agrees to dismantle its weapons and accept inspections. "That won't be easy to negotiate, but it might be a way out," says Albright. Still, pressing negotiations now with North Korea will likely add to criticism around the world about US belligerence towards Iraq. How do you explain to the international community, says Albright, that you're going to war with one country that is developing nuclear weapons, but you're willing to negotiate with another country that already has them? csmonitor.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (52759)	10/17/2002 7:57:10 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

"UPI Hears" Insider notes from United Press International for Oct. 17 ... Yasser Arafat has dispatched crack teams of police and his National Security Forces to reassert his authority over the Gaza Strip, despite pleas from some advisers that he risks launching a Palestinian civil war. Hamas chiefs in Gaza are refusing Arafat's demands that they surrender Hamas militants -- and the Hamas leadership in the Nusseirat refugee camp -- held responsible for the assassination of Palestinian Authority riot police commander Col. Rajah Abu Lahye. The PA has killed five Hamas members in shootouts since the killing. The killing of Abu Lahye was as much personal as political. Imad Aqel, brother of a Hamas agent killed by PA riot police under Lahye's command last year, has boasted of the killing. Two members of the Aqel family in the Nusseirat camp in Gaza City were arrested Tuesday, but Imad Aqel is thought still to be hiding in the camp, now surrounded by Arafat's enforcers. The camp's Hamas leaders have organized barricades and landmines to keep the PA forces out. Hamas leaflets in Gaza are now warning PA police officials -- and listing their names and addresses -- that they will be killed if they take part in any more arrests of Hamas militants. -0- Amid all the preparations for the visit by China's President Jiang Zemin for a summit with President George Bush next week, Chinese dissidents are demanding to be told when Lorne Kraner, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, will announce the next round of human rights dialog with China. Secretary of State Colin Powell reached an agreement "in principle" with his Chinese counterpart at the gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Brunei last July to hold discussions before the end of this year. But Beijing -- already playing hard to get over the U.N. Resolution on Iraq -- is stonewalling suggestions that Jiang's visit represents the right occasion to set the agenda and timing for talks. -0- Interesting details are still filtering out of the Northern Ireland spy scandal that led Tony Blair's government to suspend the experiment in self-government and resume direct rule from London. It seems that Denis Donaldson, former Irish Republican Army terrorist and the Sinn Fein boss who is now accused of using Sinn Fein's "legitimate" status in government to gather intelligence for the IRA, was just before his arrest given a gun -- by the police! Police Service of Northern Ireland officers visited Donaldson's home just one week before he was arrested to approve a safe he had installed to store the licensed firearm. Security sources say Donaldson was given the personal protection weapon only weeks earlier, after claiming he was being targeted by loyalist terrorists. -0- Proctor & Gamble has been having a hard time in Egypt trying to explain its soap powder Ariel to Abdel Aziz el Husseini, from the Committee for Boycott, Palestinian supporters who publish a list of commercial products to be boycotted in support of the Palestinian cause. P&G's laundry detergent -- said to be named after Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- is on the hit list. Husseini admitted he was approached by P&G officials trying to explain the Shakespearean inspiration behind the name. (Ariel was the sprite who could "put a girdle round about the earth in 40 minutes" in the play "The Tempest.") But Husseini was not to be fooled. "Israel's sign is on the product and its name is Ariel, how obvious can it get?" he argued. He claims that Ariel's logo, which resembles the diagram of an atom's path, was initially a Star of David modified to make the product marketable in the Arab world. -0- India is installing radars from Israel along its disputed border with Pakistan in Kashmir. The first of the 1,022 portable radars, which can detect human movement up to 6 miles away, have already been delivered and a training program is under way for border troops at Jammu. The deal, with Israel's EL-OP company for short-range radars and long-range observance and reconnaissance systems, is said to be worth close to $70 million. A competing bid by French electronics giant Thales failed. But negotiations for close-range sensor detectors from the United States, first broached in June during a visit by U.S. defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are still proceeding. -0- The Russian census is throwing up some strange results. In Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia, at least six people said their nationality was "Scythians," a people lost to history since their gold-laden bodies were entombed in classical times. Meanwhile a group of Tolkien's teenage admirers in the Urals city of Perm called themselves Hobbits and Elves. According to the law, census takers have to enter the data as stated, because the statements do not need documented proof in order to be included in the official account. Copyright © 2002 United Press International

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (52759)	10/17/2002 8:27:36 PM
From: quehubo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Our current estimated reserves are greater than the estimated reserves of 1970, after 30 years of ever-increasing pumping.>> Nadine, we went over this before. A crucial point is that essentially all of increase in reserves is in Arab Muslim lands.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (52759)	10/18/2002 11:55:19 AM
From: jcky	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

While oil is theoretically finite, I doubt that we are approaching de facto limits. Our current estimated reserves are greater than the estimated reserves of 1970, after 30 years of ever-increasing pumping. As Sheik Yamani said, "The stone age did not end for want of stones, and the oil age will not end for want of oil." I have even heard scientists claim that certain oil resevoirs are refilling, though I don't know the rights of it. The point isn't whether we are approaching de facto limits: it is whether it is in our strategic interest to be dependent upon crucial resources from countries which may be potentially hostile toward us. And since oil is also a finite resource, let's kill two birds with one stone by developing alternative energy options. Also, we are hardly "exclusively dependent" on oil -- coal, hydropower, nuclear, wind and solar energy plants are also in use. Yes, but there isn't a concerted and serious effort to decrease our reliance upon Mideast oil and channel these needs upon the other resources available to us. These are all good long range suggestions. But they do not do away with the fact that the Persian Gulf is a strategic interest for the US here and now. Wishing otherwise won't make it so. And Americans cannot walk and chew gum at the same time? It is well within our capability to simultaneously develop alternative sources of energy while transitioning away from Mideast oil. The Japanese have made great advances in the development of hybrid electric motor-combustion engine cars which can double the fuel mileage while preserving power. American automobile makers are dragging their feet (while being protected by lawmakers) and will be left in the dust in the competition for technologies of the future. Because what I think many of these individuals favor is what Fonte calls "transnational progressivism", this generation's form of socialism. Such a vision cannot coexist with an American superpower, or not very well. So they favor whatever will weaken or tie down America. So from that you made a generalization concluding people advocating containment and deterrence favor a weak America? Then I am going to put your conclusion to the test. North Korea has just admitted to harboring a secret nuclear program, and a preemptive military strike of North Korean is a non-viable option. Does this imply the president's current strategy to economically contain and deter Pyongyang is a sign that Bush is favoring a weak America? There are so many holes with your conclusion that I am not even going to begin to shoot them all down. Nothing is guaranteed. But if you look at history, you will notice that periods when the diplomatic framework did shift decisively tended to follow wars -- which is why wars remain a powerful tool of statecraft. And may I kindly remind you that not all such periods with such diplomatic shifts were to our national interests.