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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (156263)	12/16/2002 8:45:24 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1583413

North Korea demands apology for missile incident By Christopher Torchia Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea demanded an apology Friday from the United States for what it described as “piracy” in the seizure of a ship carrying missiles to Yemen. A day earlier, North Korea declared that it would revive a nuclear power plant that the United States and its allies suspect was being used to develop nuclear weapons before it was frozen in 1994. The two conflicts threatened to disrupt cross-border railway construction and other prominent projects aimed at reconciling North Korea and South Korea, a U.S. ally. Also at stake were two modern nuclear reactors that a U.S.-led consortium agreed to build in North Korea in exchange for the suspension of the nuclear program that it now plans to revive. On Tuesday, Spanish warships seized a North Korean ship carrying Scud missiles in the Arabian Sea. The U.S. military took charge of the ship, but then allowed it to sail on after high-level diplomacy between the United States and Yemen. “This is an unpardonable piracy that wantonly encroached upon the sovereignty of the DPRK,” an unidentified spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in comments reported in English language by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The official said the missile components were part of a “legal trade contract” and that the ship was “on a normal voyage along the publicly recognized sea route.” “The DPRK has already clarified that it is not only producing missiles to defend itself from the U.S. constant military threat but exporting them to earn foreign currency,” he said. Missile exports are a major source of cash for the impoverished country, which depends on international aid to feed its people. The United States says North Korea is the world’s No. 1 proliferator of missile technology, and is therefore a threat to global stability. The United States let the intercepted shipment proceed to Yemen after receiving assurances the Scuds would not be transferred elsewhere in the tense Persian Gulf region. Bush administration officials acknowledged that boarding the ship and taking charge of its cargo probably violated international law. U.S.-North Korea relations went from bad to worse on Thursday, when the communist country announced it will restart a frozen plutonium-based nuclear reactor and resume construction on other nuclear facilities. With a bitter winter ahead, North Korea said it had no choice but to reactivate the program to supply desperately needed power after a U.S.-led decision last month to suspend oil shipments. The suspension was designed to pressure North Korea to give up a more recent nuclear program based on uranium enrichment. The oil was a provision of the 1994 U.S.-North Korean deal that froze the earlier nuclear program. U.S. allies said they were deeply worried by the collapse of the agreement. “It is extremely regrettable,” said Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda. “North Korea is abandoning its obligations under the framework agreed between the United States and North Korea.” Inter-Korean projects that are vulnerable to the tension include two cross-border roads that are set to open this month to transport South Korean tourists and workers to the North. South Korea plans to start building an industrial park in North Korea later this month. A North Korean delegation left Seoul on Friday after talks on setting customs and other rules for South Korean workers and materials crossing the border. airforcetimes.com

To: TimF who wrote (156263)	12/17/2002 1:17:36 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1583413

Al Qaeda leadership reported disrupted __________________________________________________________ 30 August, 2002 War on Al Qaeda: One Year Later By Frank Gardner BBC Security Correspondent As the anniversary of 11 September approaches, assessments are being drawn up as to how the so-called 'War on Terror' is progressing. So far, it's a mixed report. The good news is that there has been no repeat of the devastating attacks on New York and Washington. The bad news for the West is that al-Qaeda and its supporters are still out there, armed and angry. Embarrassingly for US President George Bush, neither Osama Bin Laden nor almost any other senior al-Qaeda leaders have been caught. To date, the biggest catch for the US has been Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda's suspected operations chief, who was captured in a shootout in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad in March. Washington has yet to reveal where he is being held but sources close to al-Qaeda say he is highly unlikely to be giving his interrogators any vital information. So let's take a look at where progress has been made and where it's lacking. Military On the military front, al-Qaeda has suffered a massive blow. Within three months of 11 September, the organisation had effectively lost its Afghan base. Pockets still exist and there are signs that both al-Qaeda and the Taleban are now regrouping to make small, isolated attacks on Afghan and US forces. The war on al-Qaeda and its affiliates will never be won until its root causes are resolved But the training camps which operated so openly, and through which thousands of impressionable young Muslims passed, have been destroyed. From now on they must operate in secret, without the support or knowledge of any host government. Of course the downside to this is that it is now harder to know where al-Qaeda are. The US estimates they have operatives in more than 60 countries. Western intelligence believes that it is not a question of whether they will strike again, but when. Financial The US Treasury has issued a swift rebuttal of the notion that it is losing the battle to choke off terrorist financing. It points out that together with other countries, it has frozen more than $112m in 'terrorist-related assets'. The fate of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is still uncertain It says that over 160 countries have blocking orders in force and that hundreds of bank accounts worth more than $70m have been blocked outside the US. But a leaked UN report has warned that al-Qaeda's finances are in good shape and that the early successes in choking off its funding have tailed off. A chilling reminder of the task at hand is that it's estimated the attacks of 11 September cost just $500,000 to organise and execute. Political This has been a mixed success for Washington. In the immediate aftermath of last year's attacks, almost the entire world's governments voiced their support for Washington. Even Libya's Colonel Gaddafi expressed his sympathy, and only Iraq's Saddam Hussein gloated publicly. Faced with the wrath of a wounded America, Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen rushed to cooperate with Washington, sharing data on suspects and monitoring bank accounts. There has been opposition to US treatment of Taleban suspects The attacks have also prompted new US friendships with Russia and Pakistan. But one year on, the world is already showing signs of growing weary with Washington's War on Terror. Around 600 detainees are locked up at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, denied access to lawyers or families. Many are believed to be innocent and pressure is growing for the US to try them or free them. In the UK and in Europe terror trials are collapsing for insufficient evidence, and western intelligence admits it still knows too little about al-Qaeda's whereabouts and activities. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of all this is that the US shows few signs of addressing the grievances behind Muslim extremist anger. The Palestinians remain without a free country to call their own, Iraq is still under sanctions and is probably about to be attacked, again. The Kashmir dispute remains unsolved. The war on al-Qaeda and its affiliates will never be won until its root causes are resolved.