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To: xcr600 who wrote (373)	3/11/2004 11:31:23 PM
From: Bucky Katt	Respond to of 1338

ALERT-ALERT>>>South Korean President Is Impeached Violence Breaks Out Among Legislators TOKYO, March 12 -- President Roh Moo Hyun became South Korea's first leader in history be impeached on Friday, plunging Asia's fourth-largest economy deeper into a roiling political crisis and leaving South Koreans more deeply divided than at any point since the restoration of democracy in 1987. After a drama in the National Assembly as pro- and anti-Roh legislators came to violent blows before, during and after the vote, Roh's opponents secured 193 votes for impeachment -- just above the 181 needed to pass the measure. Roh faces automatic suspension from office for up to six months pending a ruling by South Korea's nine-member Constitutional Court, leaving Prime Minister Goh Kun temporarily in charge at a pivotal time. South Korea faces political chaos as the nation is struggling with a fragile economic recovery and totalitarian North Korea has vowed to become a nuclear power. "There will be major fallout from this for South Korea; impeachment will mean increased economic and political uncertainty," said Hahm Sung Deuk, a leading political analyst at Korea University in Seoul. "This is a time when we need stability, and instead, we have the opposite."

To: xcr600 who wrote (373)	3/12/2004 12:36:33 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1338

Investigation of Bombings in Madrid Yields Conflicting Clues The flood of conflicting evidence and clues that emerged from the carnage of the Madrid bombings yesterday pointed in two very different directions, leaving counterterrorism officials in a country painfully familiar with terrorist violence struggling to identify a culprit. Just hours after the bombings, the Spanish authorities blamed the Basque separatist group known as ETA. Hours later, the same officials announced the discovery of new evidence they said left open the possibility that Islamic militants had been involved. "Could it have been Islamic fundamentalists?" one senior Spanish antiterrorism official asked last night. "It could have been. Spain is clearly a target of Al Qaeda; Osama bin Laden has said so himself." The scale of the violence, the indiscriminate nature of the killing and the near-simultaneity of the 10 bombings yesterday were all reminiscent of Al Qaeda. In addition, the Spanish interior minister said the police had found detonators and an audio tape of Koranic verses inside a stolen van that was parked near the station where three of the four bombed trains originated. In a sign of concern that the violence might not be limited to Spain, France raised its national terrorism alert from the lowest level. A senior French security official said in the days before the Madrid bombings that they had indications of possible terrorist attacks on railways in France and other European nations. Yet in the chaotic aftermath of the bombings, antiterrorism officials cautioned that other evidence seemed to implicate ETA. One Spanish official who spoke on the condition he not be named said the dynamite-like explosive used in the attacks, Titadine, had been used before by ETA, which stands for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom. Most recently, the official said, the police found the same explosive in a vehicle they intercepted last month as it was driven to Madrid by ETA militants. The police also found bomb-laden backpacks like those used in yesterday's attacks when they foiled a bombing at a Madrid train station on Christmas Eve, an event they linked to ETA. Yesterday's bombings also came after months of intelligence reporting that ETA was planning a major attack, several Spanish officials said. The timing of the violence — with national elections scheduled for Sunday — seemed to suggest ETA's hand as well, they said. But even as the interior minister, Ángel Acebes, was blaming ETA directly for the carnage, another senior Spanish counterterrorism official questioned privately whether the Basque group would wantonly kill so many innocents, most of whom were the sort of working-class people to whom ETA's Marxist-oriented leaders have traditionally tried to appeal. The death toll yesterday, at least 192 people, was nearly one fourth of the nearly 850 people ETA had killed since 1968. "I'm not so certain," said the official, who has investigated Basque terrorism for more than a decade. "The problem is that ETA has never taken a step of this magnitude before. This would be off the charts for them." ETA has long demanded an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southern France. The group has been under increasing pressure from both governments in recent years, and officials said they believed its capacity for violent action appeared to have declined. The Spanish authorities reported arresting 125 ETA members and accomplices last year. The French arrested 46 others, including some senior leaders. Last year, ETA was blamed for three killings, two fewer than the year before. Those numbers were far lower than the 23 people who were killed in 44 ETA bombings and other attacks in 2000. "Neither ETA nor Grapo maintains the degree of operational capability it once enjoyed," the American State Department reported this year, referring also to a smaller radical organization called the First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group. "The overall level of terrorist activity is considerably less than in the past, and the trend appears to be downward." Some in Spain fear that yesterday's bombings could be an indication that the crackdown could be driving radical young Basques into the ETA underground. nytimes.com ______________________