From the World-Wide Resourses of the Western Australia
Reserch Senter(*)
		OIL THE NEWS THAT FITS MY VIEWS   #127
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In the Run-Up to World War III, Reliably Reporting the News Relevant
to Extreme Right-Wing Democratic Socialists Everywhere
(validated for RiteThink(tm) by the Office of Our Man in Can-berra).

Our Home Page: <http://www.chickenhead.com/loserscopes/>
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US Centcom News Releases: <http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/release_list.asp>
Iraqi Body Count: <http://www.iraqbodycount.net/> [7,918+ as at 01 Dec 2003].
UN Mailing List: <http://www.kymhorsell.com/UN/>
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Selecting latest news stories and other data for you...
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I am not winning the war because I don't think the leaders of the
world are engaged enough. I feel angry, I feel distressed, I feel
helpless. What is lacking is political will.
-- UN Sec Gen Kofi Annan, 30 Nov 2003.
   World AIDS Day. Annan warns history will judge the C21 harshly for
   investing its energies in a war on terror when mns are dying from AIDS.

The matter is still under review and we'll make announcements when
there are announcements to make.
-- US trade rep, 30 Nov 2003.
   Steel tariffs. The Bush Admin is taking its time in removing
   illegal protective tariffs intro'd 18 m ago.

Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph
of the Key Judgements to know that as we said: 'We lacked specific
info on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD programme'.
-- CIA analyst Stu Cohen, CIA website, Nov 2003.
   Clear and present danger. The CIA says it had no proof of Iraqi WMD
   when Sec of State Powell told the UN Saddam posed a clear and
   present danger to the world.

It was all like building sand castles.
-- Baghdad Uni dean of sciences Abdel Mehdi Talib, 30 Nov 2003.
   Bad intel. Iraqi weapons researches say they've lied about the
   country's nuclear programs. To Saddam.

Al-Qaeda. 3. 2 wk ago.
-- Cmdr 2/101Ab Col Joe Anderson, 30 Nov 2003.
   A US cmdr says al-Qaeda operatives have been captured in N Iraq.
   There is as yet no confirmation.

The most important events are the good news stories: the liberation,
freedom, electricity improvements and the capture of terrorists.
-- Kareem Hammadi, al-Iraqiya talkshow host, 30 Nov 2003.
   The good oil. A pro-US TV channel in Baghdad is seen as slow-moving
   and short on breaking news.

Mr Rumsfeld's allegation is baseless and we invite him to produce the
evidence or retract his statement.
-- Al-Arabiya statement, 30 Nov 2003.
   Show me the evidence. Arab TV networks accused of co-operating with
   terrorists to get stories have called on Donald Rumsfeld to produce
   the photos.

Why was I captured? Because I was armed. That was the only reason I
was captured in Kabul. There was nothing against me.
-- Abdurahman Khadr, CBC, 30 Nov 2003.
   Terror suspect. Khadr has been released from Guantanamo Bay.  He
   was apparently unsuitable for a show trial.

This is a battle to stop al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and every other
enemy of freedom and modernity from turning the beginning of the 21st
century into what is truly unbelievable, which would be a global
religious war.
-- Sen Joe Lieberman, Fox News Sun, 28 Nov 2003.
   Self-fulfilling prophecy. Sen Lieberman warns hot-heads could start
   a global religious war.

We're constantly in touch with the Americans regarding the 2
Australians there.  And the 2 Australians are in a situation that
hasn't changed.
-- rep for Aussie For Min Alex Downer, 01 Dec 2003.
   Reports dismissed. The AUS govt has dismissed reports that
   Pakistan, Canada, Britain and Europe had arranged to get internees
   back from the US military.

This racist game is psychologically extremely dangerous, and is an
incitement to genocide.
-- Haitian govt rep Mario Dupuy, 30 Nov 2003.
   All in the game. The Haitian govt is upset because a popular
   computer game incites players to "kill the Haitians". As we know,
   computer games never spark copy-cat crimes or attitudes.

One of the reasons that we've introduced the new system is to improve
safety and we believe that's what's being achieved.
-- Safety rep Mike Smith, 01 Dec 2003.
   Teething problems.  Controllers in NW NSW say they narrowly averted
   a midair collision between 2 aircraft over the weekend.

---------------------------------------
Mon, 01 Dec 2003.

Russia's Yukos hints Kremlin behind fall of Sibneft merger
Moscow (AFP).  Sparks flew in Moscow as the troubled oil giant Yukos
took the extraordinary step of accusing the Kremlin of wrecking a
merger with smaller sibling Sibneft that would have created a Russian
political and economic powerhouse.
In a haze of he-said she-said accusations that has enveloped this
country on the eve of Dec 7 parliamentary elections, a core Yukos
shareholder went on the attack against the Kremlin at a point when
this would seem self-destructive.
Yukos ex-chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- the country's richest
man who openly funded anti-Pres Vladimir Putin parties -- is stuck in
jail and facing a litany of charges that could leave him behind bars
for up to 10 y.
Khodorkovsky quit his Yukos post while in jail in a sign many
interpreted as a peace offering to the prosecution.
But his company was still due to merge with Sibneft on Fri to forge a
massive economic force -- the world's 4th largest energy company --
that would run much of the country's oil and gas industry while
thumbing its nose at the govt.
That deal fell through in a bizarre sequence of events that stunned
some Yukos chief executives and had the market and foreign investors
grasping for answers.
Sibneft, the merger's minor partner, issued a press statement minutes
before Fri's decisive board meeting -- in both companies' names --
saying the deal was being put on hold.
Some market players immediately speculated that Sibneft was getting
cold feet about forging an alliance with a company that is clearly
under the Kremlin's gun.
They suggested that Sibneft was looking to take its own shares in the
nearly-completed Yukos-Sibneft venture and sell it off to a trusted W
partner such as ExxonMobil.
Other business-related speculation was flashing around Moscow late
into Fri night -- rumours that were not put at ease by an obscure
statement issued by Yukos itself that avoided any mention of the debacle.
Few were willing to point the finger at the Kremlin or its involvement
in breaking up a merger worth an estimated $11 bn -- a post-Soviet record.
But the gloves were off Sat when the Kommersant business daily published
an interview with core Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, who is now
residing in Israel.
Nevzlin gave his account of a conversation with the president of
Sibneft, Yevgeny Shvidler, hrs after the failed merger in which he
sought an explanation as to why Sibneft had put a hold on the merger.
"Shvidler's answer was somewhat vague... He referred to the
presidential Admin, that they said this had to be done immediately,"
the paper quoted Nevzlin as saying.
Yukos appeared furious and confused about the Sibneft press release,
as top managers gave conflicting answers to reporters.
Nevzlin said he asked Shvidler why the press statement had been issued
in both companies' names.
"He [Shvidler] told me that this is what the current presidential
Admin is telling us to do," Kommersant quoted Nevzlin as saying.
The Kremlin has kept silent throughout the conflict, but Prime Min
Mikhail Kasyanov said Sat that he did not think the Kremlin could have
been involved.
"Otherwise, the stockholders would have surely complained, but no one
has come to me yet," Interfax quoted Kasyanov as saying.
Trying to calm the markets, Kasyanov -- who has backed Yukos
throughout its dispute with the Kremlin -- observed coolly that "a
private decision of stockholders should not effect how investors act."
Meanwhile Nevzlin said he could not name a date by which a final
merger of the 2 companies might be completed.
"In fact, there is no fixed date," he said.

US to repeal steel tariffs this wk -- Post
Washington (Reuters).  The Bush Admin has decided to repeal its 20-mo
tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war that would have
included foreign retaliation against products from politically crucial
US states, The Washington Post reported.
Quoting Admin and industry sources, the newspaper said in Mon editions
Pres Bush would likely announce the decision this wk.
The officials said they had to allow for the possibility that Bush
would make some change in the plan, but a source close to the White
House said it was "all but set in stone," the Post reported.
A rep for the White House denied a decision had been made to repeal
the tariffs.
"The matter is still under review and we'll make announcements when
there are announcements to make," the rep told Reuters.
Ending the tariffs 16 m ahead of schedule could spark a political
backlash against Bush in next y's presidential election in the pivotal
steel-producing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and W Virginia.
The Washington Post sources said Bush's aides concluded they could not
run the risk that the European Union would carry out its threat to
impose sanctions on citrus fruit from Florida, farm machinery,
textiles and other products.
A source involved in the negotiations said White House aides looked
for some step short of a full repeal that would satisfy the EU but
concluded that it was "technically possible but practically impossible,"
according to the Post.
Speculation had mounted that Washington would scrap or roll back the
controversial tariffs after it last wk sought and obtained an
effective delay in retaliatory sanctions by countries opposed to them.
The European Union, one of a number of trade partners to take action
at the WTO over the levies, had warned it was ready to hit Washington
with sanctions on up to $2.2 bn of goods within 5 days of the WTO
approving the court ruling.
The Bush Admin imposed the duties, initially for up to 30 percent, in
2002 to help defend the country's struggling steel industry against
cheap imports.

AUS's deficit improves
Canberra (AAP).  AUS's current account deficit improved marginally in
the Sep Q after a recovery in some rural exports.
The AUS Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said the deficit narrowed to $11.94
bn from a record $12.31 bn in the previous Q, a 3% improvement.
Economists had been expecting a deficit of about $11.7 bn.
The current account deficit, a snapshot of all AUS's dealings with the
outside world, has suffered as the drought, the weak world economy and
then the impact of SARS depressed exports.
Mon's figures showed exports fell 2% in the quarter as the higher
Aussie dollar took a toll on recovering rural exports.
The volume of rural exports rose 2% while prices fell 3%, as some
trade contracts are written in USDs.
Wool and sheepskin exports rose while cereal and meat exports dropped.
Imports also fell 2% over the quarter, largely because of a fall in
prices from the higher AUD.
The ABS said the increase of $862 mn in the deficit on goods and
services in volume terms would make a negative 0.5 pt contribution to
growth in the Sep Q measure of GDP.
Net foreign debt rose by $1.9 bn to $360.69 bn.
Separate figures showed company profits steamed ahead in the Sep
quarter, with gross operating profits up 7.6%, making up for the
previous Q's 6.7% fall.
Stocks in warehouses rose 2.3%, allowing for seasonal influences, to
be 5% higher than the same time last y.

Exports still under pressure
Canberra.  There has been just a small improvement in AUS's current
account deficit although new quarterly figures show the latest
shortfall is still the 2nd biggest on record.  The drought, the weak
world economy and the rising dollar have all put pressure on AUS
exports which has shown up in the latest set of the balance of
payments.  The current account deficit for the Sep quarter has come in
at a seasonally adjusted $11.9 bn, which is only down a little from
the June quarter record of $12.3 bn.  It keeps the deficit at around
6% of GDP.  At the same time AUS's net foreign debt has risen $2 bn to
$361 bn.  Meanwhile business indicators also released today show the
gross operating profits of AUS companies rose in the Sep quarter by 7.6%.

Export performance undermines growth figures
Canberra.  The balance of payments figures released today show AUS's
export performance continues to detract from economic growth.  AUS's
current account deficit for the Sep quarter narrowed slightly to $11.9
bn, down from $12.3 bn.  It is still the 2nd highest deficit on record
and is a touch worse than expected.  On the positive side, company
profits jumped by 7.6% in the quarter and company inventories rose by
more than 2%.  But ANZ Bank's chief economist Saul Eslake says net
exports were lower than forecast.  "Instead of contributing a small
positive to Sep quarter GDP growth, these figures show that net
exports will have subtracted about half a percentage point from the
GDP number," he said.  The 3rd quarter GDP figure is due out on Wed,
with forecasts centred on growth of between 1.1 and 1.5%.
[They came in at 1.2%].

Banks, resources push market lower
Sydney (close).  Falls by banking and resource stocks pushed the AUS
share market lower.
The All Ords fell 15 points to 3,180.
An expected interest rate hike this wk led the banks lower.
The ANZ lost 11 c to $16.71, the NAB fell 15 c to $28.77, the
Commonwealth shed 33 c to $27.27 and Westpac retreated 3 c to $15.27.
The higher dollar weighed on resource stocks, BHP Billiton tumbled 20
c, or almost 2%, to $11.07, Rio Tinto lost 18 c to $34.79 and Woodside
Petroleum closed 24 c lower to $13.50.
Media giant News Corporation retreated 6 c to $11.73, Fairfax slipped
one c to $3.47 and PBL dipped 2 c to $11.65.
AMP shed 4 c to $5.91.
Retailer Coles Myer retreated 4 c to $7.40, Woolworths picked up 3 c
to $11.37 and Flight Centre shed 20 c to $21.50.
Telstra lost 4 c to $4.89.
Qantas lifted one c to $3.34 after the airline today unveiled the new
name for its low cost carrier Jetstar.
The AUD was trading at 72.5 US c at 4.30 pm AEDT.
Spot gold was worth $US398.25/oz and W Texas intermediate crude oil
was at $US30.33/bbl.
In Japan, the Nikkei added 303 pts to end at 10,403.
The Hang Seng gained 140 pts to close at 12,457.

Bleak outlook for wool sector
Drought takes toll on wool producers.
Canberra (ABC).  Wool production in AUS is continuing to decline,
forecast to fall nearly 15% next y to 430 mn kgs.  The forecast is
based on the latest estimate of the nation's sheep flock, which stood
at just 98.3 mn head in July.  That is the lowest level since the
drought of 1947.  Wool Forecasting Committee chair Dr David James says
along with drought in Qld and NSW, producers are attracted by greater
returns in other enterprises.  "Meat production from sheep, and even
alternative commodities such as crops, are very, very financially
attractive to farmers at the moment," he said.  "Coming through a very
long drought where people have had high expenses, one of the things they
are after is a high cash flow.  "So in a lot of areas where rain has fallen
and where prospects are looking better, farmers have turned to crops."

Committee questions RBA's annual report
Canberra.  The head of a fed parliamentary committee says he plans to
question the head of the Reserve Bank of AUS (RBA) Ian Macfarlane next
wk about recent developments in the property market.  The committee
has released its review of the Reserve Bank's annual report, pointing
to concerns about household credit levels and the rapid appreciation
of the dollar.  The committee's chairman, David Hawker, says at a
hearing in Dec last y Mr Macfarlane warned the rapid growth of
household credit posed the main domestic risk to the AUS economy.  "He
did however suggest that there signs that a degree of common sense is
now returning to the market," he said.  "This judgement will be a major
focus at the committee's next hearing next week in Bris."

Quake rocks NW China -- 10 killed
Beijing (AFP).  At least 10 people have been killed and 34 injured in
a powerful earthquake that wiped out some 700 houses in NW China,
local officials and state media said.
The quake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, hit Zhaosu county, with
a population of 165,000, in the Xinjiang region nr the border with Kazakhstan.
"An earthquake hit this morning. The shock was pretty strong," Zhang
Gangqiang from the Zhaosu county seismological bureau told AFP.
A local official in the county, a mainly pastoral area populated by
herdsmen, added: "In the county seat there was panic. Everyone ran out
of their houses. There is damage to buildings.
"The lights were swinging, the whole place shook."
The Xinhua news agency said provisional investigations showed at least
10 people were dead and 34 injured while 700 houses had collapsed.
Another 140 homes were said to be in danger of collapse.
Most of the deaths appeared to be in a special military-controlled
zone on the border with Kazakhstan around 80 km from the county seat.
"10 people are confirmed dead and at least 710 homes have collapsed,"
an official, Wang Xiangti, at the border area worst hit, told AFP.
"The leaders of the garrison have been sent to the mountain areas to
see how badly the earthquake has affected that area."
A local civil affairs bureau official, a Kazak named Daoliti, said
while temps in the region were freezing there was no snow on the
ground and none forecast, aiding rescue efforts.

Plague on the poor: How Aids divides the world
Op/Ed (Independent).  If HIV were just a bug that people were fighting
against, it would be hard enough. But it is difficult not to think of
the human immunodeficiency virus as an intelligent and calculating
enemy: "This is one of the smartest viruses that people have ever
seen," says Lisa Price, the policy manager for the Terence Higgins
Trust, the best-known Brit Aids charity. "It changes all the time."
In the time it took to read that paragraph, 3 more people became
infected with HIV. The virus's spread is not slowing; both deaths and
new infections reached record levels last y, at 3 mn and 5 mn
respectively, more than 20 y after it was 1st identified among US
homosexuals in 1981, and neither a cure nor a vaccine is in sight.
Instead -- because HIV exploits the tiniest weakness in the body's
defences and mutates to confound attempts to kill it -- every time the
world's scientists and politicians think they understand how to tackle
the virus, they discover that it is more complicated still.
Some people thought that HIV only affected homosexuals; they were wrong.
Some scientists suggested that HIV did not cause Aids. They were wrong
too, though some people have stuck with that line -- most notably S
Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, who insists he has never known anyone
who has died of Aids. (In a sense he is right -- it is the
opportunistic infections that HIV enables which kill you. Most people
with full-blown Aids die of pneumonia.)
The disease has has set First and Third World govts at odds over the
anti-retroviral drugs needed to treat it and has even split the
Catholic Church over the Vatican's insistence that condoms spread,
rather than restrict the spread of, HIV.
While the World Health Organisation unveils a scheme today for the
annual World Aids Day that it calls "3 in 5" -- aiming to provide the
latest anti-retroviral drugs to 3 mn people by the end of 2005 -- the
UN Sec-Gen, Kofi Annan, has spoken of his frustration at trying to get
the healthy to help the sick.
The statistics are numbing. More than 42 mn people are infected with
HIV worldwide, of whom 26.6 mn live in sub-Saharan Africa. The largest
number of infections is in S Africa, where about 5 mn, or one in 10
citizens, is HIV-positive. And a combination of unprotected sex and
drug abuse is fuelling an explosion of the epidemic around the world.
And since you started reading this article, 20 people have become
infected with HIV.
Yet in the West, being HIV-positive is no longer the death sentence
that it was in 1983, when doctors had little chance of preventing the
infection turning into full-blown Aids, at which point a patient would
typically live for less than a y.
Now, modern drugs mean HIV has become a disease that one can live with.
The drugs bring unpleasant side-effects, such as nausea, occasional
hallucinations and, in some cases, a strange redistribution of fat
around the body. But you can live with them, for y -- perhaps indefinitely.
In Africa, those treatments have been too rarely available. The WHO
estimates that 4.2 mn people need anti-retrovirals in sub-Saharan
Africa; but only 50,000 get supplies.
Mr Annan thinks many political leaders do not care enough to fight the
disease, which has killed 28 mn people since it was 1st reported.
"I am not winning the war because I don't think the leaders of the
world are engaged enough," he said. "I feel angry, I feel distressed,
I feel helpless. What is lacking is political will."
Only one thing -- the use of condoms -- dramatically reduces the
spread of HIV. (Needle swapping programs for intravenous drug users
also work, but on a smaller scale.) And only one thing --
anti-retroviral drugs (often called "triple-therapy cocktails") --
makes it possible to live with HIV.
Given those facts, you might expect the world's leaders to focus on them.
You'd be wrong. And since you started reading this article, 30 people
have become infected with HIV.
Catholics for a Free Choice, a pressure group, said yesterday it would
begin an advertising campaign against the policies of the church --
which has mn of followers in Aid-hit countries -- saying "Good
Catholics Use Condoms" as "a direct challenge to the cardinals and
bishops who recently claimed that condoms were helping to spread HIV/Aids".
The Vatican supported that bizarre claim in Oct, saying that condoms
had tiny holes which allowed the virus to pass through -- so that to
use them would encourage its spread. The WHO angrily called the advice
"incorrect" and "dangerous"; Catholics for a Free Choice called the
Vatican's policy "a disaster".
The lack of availability of treatments for those who are infected
could be called a disaster too -- though it has not resulted from any dogma.
Instead, it grows from a fundamental dispute between the giant
pharmaceuticals companies, the only organisations able to rapidly and
effectively research new therapies, and the govts of the countries
which need them. W govts have tried to please both sides, and
generally failed.
The drug companies want to price the drugs to fund the expensive
research needed to develop the next generation -- and perhaps find a
chink in HIV's armour that might lead to a vaccine, or a cure.
But African countries cannot afford those prices, and have sought ways
around the companies' patents to make generic versions of the drugs --
exactly the same chemicals, but without the brand name. That led to
threats of trade wars.
Former US president Bill Clinton set up a deal in Oct for 4 drug-makers
in S Africa and India to sell generic versions of anti-retroviral
treatments for a quarter of the price of the patented version.
Dr Bernard Pecoul of the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said:
"One pill, twice a day at this reduced price is exactly what is needed
to rapidly expand the numbers of people receiving anti-retroviral
treatment in developing countries. With that announcement, the WHO's
'3 by 5' objective becomes much more feasible."
Feasible, yes. But will it happen -- and by the time it does, will
even more people need the treatment?
Meanwhile, the search for better treatments goes on. "We've been
saying that a vaccine is 5 to 10 y away for 15 years," said Ms
Price. "But it is looking more realistic that we will [have one] in
the next 5 years." And since you began reading this article, more than
40 people have been infected with HIV -- and more than 20 have died
from Aids.

Medical staff poached by the West
Botswana (Independent).  By African standards Botswana is a success
story. Rich in diamonds and with potential for tourism, it is
relatively prosperous. Transparency Internat'l ranks it among the
least corrupt countries in the world.
Yet nowhere is the devastation wreaked by Aids more evident than in
Botswana. When Kofi Annan, the UN Sec-Gen, warned last wk of the
"genocide of a generation" he must surely have had this small S
African nation in mind. More than 35% of a population of 1.6 mn are
HIV-positive. That makes Botswana the country with the highest
infection rate in the world. In the sexually active age group, (15 to
49), the infection rate is close to 40%.
By 2010, half of all children in the country will be Aids orphans, and
the average life expectancy will have fallen from 47 to 27. Aids is
killing the people Botswana needs to mine its diamonds and teach in
its schools.
The 6,000-strong Botswana police force loses 10 people a m to the
virus and the army also has high rates of infection Unlike many
African leaders, Botswana's Pres Festus Mogae has taken the lead in
mobilising his people to fight Aids and has spear-headed Africa's 1st
antiretroviral drugs programme. But Botswana's nurses, doctors,
pharmacists and other health workers qualified to run such a programme
are leaving. Brit, America and other European countries have poached
them. Botswana recently lost 130 nurses to Brit and the country's
6,000-strong nursing workforce is not large enough to deal with the
country's health needs. Only 9,000 out of a possible 110,000 patients
have been enrolled on the antiretroviral programme.
Mompati Merafhe, the For Min, has raised the issue of poaching with
the Brit Govt. To the private agencies that recruit the staff, he
said: "How heartless can you be? Why do you recruit medical personnel
from countries which are so afflicted by Aids?" At Princess Marina
Hospital in the capital, Gaborone, 3,000 patients are enrolled on a
programme but there are only 30 nurses trained to run it.
Mr Mogae has pursued other avenues. He has told his ministers to
include Aids awareness in every speech. "Even when opening a building,
the Pres has instructed us to talk about Aids" Mr Merafhe said. The
Pres had an Aids test to try to remove the stigma. He admits that the
taboo about Aids hampers efforts to combat it. "People are not willing
to talk about the HIV/Aids pandemic" he said.

AIDS Council warns against complacency
Sydney.  The AIDS Council of NSW says World Aids Day is a timely
reminder AUS must not be complacent about the disease.  Council
president Adrian Lovney says AUS's infection rate, especially in NSW,
Qld, Vic, has been rising over the last 3 years.  Mr Lovney says its
not so much young people, but those who have been aware of AIDS for
the last 20 years.  "Well there's no indication that younger people
are any more... at risk of infection than anyone else," he said.  "The
majority of new HIV infections in AUS at least are between the ages of
30 and 39, so it's certainly not a case of complacency among young
people.  "I think it is hard to sustain behaviour change over a long
period of time."

3 mn AIDS patients to get drugs by 2005: UN
Geneva.  2 UN agencies fighting against HIV/AIDS have unveiled an
ambitious program to provide anti-retroviral drugs to 3 mn people in
developing countries and those in transition within 2 y.
World Health Organisation (WHO) director General Jong-wook Lee called
the prevention and treatment of the deadly disease perhaps "the
toughest health assignment the world has ever faced".
"The lives of mn of people are at stake. This strategy demands massive
and unconventional efforts to make sure they stay alive," he said on
World AIDS Day, introducing the so-called "3 by 5" plan.
The plan would give half of the people worldwide in dire need of
treatment a better chance at survival.
The WHO and UNAIDS say their program complements initiatives by 1000s
of internat'l foundations and non-govtal organisations, to help lower
the price of anti-retroviral drugs.
The global AIDS epidemic continues its deadly march forward, with
UNAIDS figures released last wk showing that at least 40 mn people
worldwide are infected with HIV or have AIDS.
3 mn people have died in 2003 from AIDS, akin to a fully-loaded Boeing
747 jumbo jet crashing about every 90 minutes.
5 mn new cases of HIV/AIDS were recorded just this y, the vast
majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa, though AIDS is fast becoming a
major problem in China, India and Russia.
"WHO estimates that 6 mn people worldwide are in immediate need of
AIDS treatment. This strategy outlines the steps needed to deliver
treatment to half of them within 2 years," the agencies said in a
joint press release.
A comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS has to include prevention,
treatment and care, they said.
The "3 by 5" program, given this name because it would give 3 mn people
worldwide drug treatment by 2005, is estimated to cost about $US5.5 bn.
"We firmly believe that we stand no chance of halting this epidemic
unless we dramatically scale up access to HIV care. Treatment and
prevention are the 2 pillars of a truly effective comprehensive AIDS
strategy," UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot said.

Link suggested between HIV infection and speed use
Sydney.  The head of the AUS Federation of AIDS Organisations says
there may be a link between an increase in the HIV infection rate and
the popularity of a type of speed.  Speaking on World AIDS Day, Don
Baxter says last y saw the nat'l infection rate increase for the 1st
time in a decade.  He says more gay men are taking risks by
occasionally having unprotected sex, and crystal methamphetamine may
be a factor.  "What we are now concerned about is there seems to be,
although in very small figures, a bit of an association between
crystal meth use and where it's injected and really rampant sex," "We
are concerned that a number of these new infections actually come from
episodes of crystal meth bingeing."

Rumsfeld "concerned" at EU defence plans
Brussels. US Def Sec Donald Rumsfeld has expressed "concern" about a
plan to enhance the EU's defence capabilities.  Rumsfeld says he sees
no reason for a defence plan that competes with NATO. An idea by Brit,
France and Germany [prev known collectively as "the chocolate eaters"
at the Pentagon] to enhance the EU's defence capabilities was
discussed by EU For Mins who met in Italy over the weekend.  Rumsfeld,
who's in Brussels for a meeting with NATO defence ministers, has also
suggested that NATO could assume an even larger role in Afghanistan.

CIA "lacked proof of Iraq WMD"
Washington (Gulf Daily News). The CIA has acknowledged it "lacked
specific info" about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction when it
compiled an intel estimate last y that served to justify the invasion.
But it said that and other uncertainties surrounding the case had been
fully presented to Pres George W Bush and other US policy-makers in
the Oct 2002 Nat'l Intel Estimate, a document often referred to by
members of the Bush Admin as a basis of their claim that Iraq had an
arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
* Danger
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Security Council last Feb
that Saddam Hussein and his regime were "concealing their efforts to
produce more weapons of mass destruction" and that their weapons
programmes "are a real and present danger to the region and to the world."
However, an explanation issued by veteran CIA analyst Stuart Cohen,
who was in charge of putting together the 2002 intel estimate and
currently serves as vice-chairman of the Nat'l Intel Council, made
clear the case against Iraq, as presented by the CIA behind closed
doors, was much less clear-cut and more nuanced.
"Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph
of the Key Judgements to know that as we said: 'We lacked specific info
on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD programme,'" Cohen wrote in an
article posted on the agency's website.

China Internet dissident released: report
Beijing (AFP).  Chinese Internet dissident Liu Di has been released
from a Beijing prison after being held for a y without charge, a HK
rights group said Sun.
Ms Liu, 23, who used the online name of Stainless Steel Mouse, was
released from Qincheng Prison on parole Fri afternoon, according to
her father Liu Qinghua, the Info Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.
Her case has drawn widespread attention both in and outside of China
as a reflection of the govt's policy to severely curb any political
opp'n to the ruling Communist Party on the Internet.
Ms Liu was arrested in Nov 2002 ahead of a key leadership transition
headed by Pres Hu Jintao.
Her crime appeared to be several articles that she posted on Chinese
Internet sites satirising the govt and the Communist Party's alleged
refusal to protect the freedoms of speech and the press as stated in
China's constitution.
"I talked to her father on the telephone and she was right there with
him," Frank Lu, director of the info centre told AFP.
"It is a bit sensitive to talk with them right now and I think they
have stopped answering their phones."
When she was arrested, police told her father she was being charged
with crimes relating to illegal organisations, but no formal arrest
notice or indictment appeared.
Ms Liu was not allowed any visits from her family during her y in custody.
The release comes ahead of a visit to Beijing by German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder on Mon and of Prem Wen Jiabao's visit to Washington
later next wk.
Human rights issues are expected to be discussed during both visits.

PNG police assault journalist
Pt Moresby. Police in Pt Moresby have punched a local photographer in
the face and smashed his camera after he photographed police
tear-gassing a market.  The National newspaper says photographer Ekar
Keapu took photos of a confrontation between police and vendors at one
of the capital's biggest food markets on Fri morning.  At the height
of the confrontation vendors threw projectiles at police, who
responded by firing tear gas into the crowd.  Keapu says several
police set upon him, ordering him not to take photos.

Lieberman warns of global religious war
Washington (AP).  Iraq is the testing ground that will determine
whether fanatical Muslims go to war against other religions, including
moderate Islam, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman said Sun.
"There is no substitute for victory here. We must pull together across
party lines, here in the US, and we have to pull together with the
rest of the world in a way that Pres Bush has not been able to
accomplish yet," Lieberman said.
Lieberman, considered the most centrist of the 9 Democratic candidates,
was an early and strong supporter of the invasion of Iraq, sponsoring
the resolution that authorised it. He has accused Bush, however, of
arrogance and unilateralism in failing to recruit stronger internat'l backing.
The world must be convinced, the Connecticut senator said, "that
victory in the conflict we're in in Iraq now matters as much to them
in the civilised world as it does to the US."
Appearing on "Fox News Sun," he said: "This is a battle to stop
al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and every other enemy of freedom and
modernity from turning the beginning of the 21st century into what is
truly unbelievable, which would be a global religious war."
"We can't let that happen, and this is where we're going to stop it."
Asked whether such a global religious war would be "Islam versus
Christianity and Judaism combined," Lieberman, an orthodox Jew, said,
"Islam against -- fanatical Islam against Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism, every other `ism,' every other religion, including every
part of Islam that doesn't agree with these fanatics."
"Iraq is the testing ground, and that's why we've got to make sure
that victory is assured."
Over the years, he said, Saudi Arabia and some other Muslim countries
have been afraid to contest the extremists, Lieberman said.
"This is a classic case: if you try to ride the back of this tiger,
you're going to get swallowed," he said. Now, "I believe they're
getting it, because they've been attacked now, 2 or 3 times this y, in
a devastating way."

US to free 140 Guantanamo war detainees, says Time
Washington (Reuters).  The US plans to release 140 of the 660
prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for suspects in the
US-declared war on terrorism, Time magazine reported on Sun.
Slated for release were "the easiest 20%" of detainees, a military
official told the magazine. It did not identify its source, who said
the military was waiting for "a politically propitious time to release them."
A Pentagon rep was not immediately available for comment.
No charges have been filed against any of the 660 prisoners at the US
Navy base in Cuba. Defence officials say many are suspected of being
members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network or Taliban fighters from
the war in Afghanistan.
Human rights groups have criticised the US for holding the detainees
without charges. The US Supreme Court, in a case involving 2 Britons,
2 Aussies and 12 Kuwaitis, has agreed to decide if foreign nat'ls can
use US courts to challenge their incarceration at the base.
According to Time, activities leading toward release of the 140
prisoners have accelerated since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the
case. It said US officials had concluded some detainees were kidnapped
for reward money offered for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Separately on Sun, a Brit human rights lobbyist said 5 European
nations were close to a deal to repatriate citizens held by the US in
Guantanamo Bay, possibly as soon as Christmas.
Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said his group had
been tracking negotiations over the prisoners between Washington and
Brit, France, Denmark, Sweden and Spain.
Since the prison opened in Jan 2002, prisoners from 42 countries have
been taken to Guantanamo Bay for detention and questioning. As of
Nov. 24, a total of 84 prisoners had been transferred to their home
countries for release and 4 were returned to Saudi Arabia for imprisonment.

UK's Guantanamo detainees to head home: report
London.  A lawyer representing Brit detainees being held at Guantanamo
Bay says a deal has been struck that will mean they will be sent back
to the UK.
Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith says it is likely most of the
detainees will have to serve sentences in Brit prisons, while 2 will
be set free.
Just as in AUS, the detention of 9 Brit nat'ls has been a point of
concern for both govts.
There had been some hope of an announcement during US Pres George W
Bush's recent trip to London.
However the lawyer says an agreement has been reached in which 7 of
the 9 detainees will have to serve sentences imposed after they admit
to unspecified crimes.
The remaining 2 prisoners will be allowed to go home without charge.
Mr Stafford Smith says one man is being forced to admit to a
"laughable" plot to spread anthrax over the Brit houses of Parliament
using a remote drone aircraft.
There is no confirmation of the deal by either the Brit or US govts,
but the report, carried in an English newspaper, says it is expected
to be confirmed before Christmas.

Ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee returns to Canada -- CBC
Ottawa (Reuters).  A Canadian man who was released from Guantanamo Bay
military prison by US officials after spending 2 y in captivity
returned to Canada on Sun protesting his innocence.
CBC television showed pictures of Abdurahman Khadr, 21, arriving at
Toronto airport. Khadr said when US authorities released him last m
they refused to send him back to Canada and put him on a plane to
Afghanistan instead.
Khadr's younger brother Omar, 17, is still in the US prison in Cuba,
accused of involvement in a fatal attack on a US soldier in
Afghanistan. The father of the family, Ahmed Said Khadr, is a
suspected member of al Qaeda.
Khadr was detained by Afghans in Oct 2001 -- he said that like most
people there, he carried a gun -- and held until Jan 2003, when he was
moved to Guantanamo Bay.
"Why was I captured? Because I was armed. That was the only reason I
was captured in Kabul. There was nothing against me," he told CBC.
"That's why I've been released after 2 y of my life being wasted," he
added, declining to say how he had been treated in Guantanamo
Bay. Human rights groups have criticised the United States for holding
the detainees without charges.
Relations between Ottawa and Washington are already strained over the
case of a Canadian man who was deported from NY to Syria last y and
says he was regularly tortured in jail.
Khadr said he made his way from Afghanistan through Iran to Turkey and
then to the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, where the Canadian embassy
issued him with emergency travel documents.
Canadian foreign ministry officials, denying allegations by Khadr's
lawyer that a number of embassies had refused to issue him travel
documents, said the 1st time he had approached one of the country's
missions was in Bosnia.

Hicks, Habib release reports dismissed
Canberra (AP).  The US had not indicated that either of the 2 Aussies
held by the military in Cuba would be released, the fed govt said.
A US military official has told journalists that more than 100 men and
boys will be released in the next 2 m from the US jail for terrorism
suspects at Guantanamo Bay, including a teenager who allegedly killed
an American special operations soldier.
The 1st of 2 new releases is scheduled for the end of Dec, and the
other in Jan, the official said on condition of anonymity.
But For Min Alexander Downer's rep said there had been no formal or
informal communication from the US to suggest either of the AUS
captives, David Hicks or Mamdouh Habib, would be released.
"It's just media speculation at this stage. We've got nothing
confirming that," the rep said.
"It wouldn't be particularly unheard of given that over 80 have been
released already.
"We're constantly in touch with the Americans regarding the 2 Aussies there.
"And the 2 Aussies are in a situation that hasn't changed."
Hicks was captured by the US as a suspected Taliban fighter in
Afghanistan and Habib was arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of
terrorist activities.
Both have been detained without charge since 2001 but are applying to
the US Supreme Court to be released.
Hicks has been earmarked for trial by a US military commission.
The US official did not say where the prisoners would be sent and a
military rep declined to provide details about future releases from
the US base at Guantanamo Bay.
"We do expect there will be other transfers but because of operational
procedures, I can't talk about any details," Lt Col Pamela Hart said.
"We only talk about detainee movements after an operation is complete."
The US holds about 660 prisoners from 44 countries at the base in E Cuba.

Violent video game horrifies Haiti
NY (AP).  An American video game that encourages players to kill
Haitians has outraged the Haitian govt, which says it will pursue
legal action.
NY-based Rockstar Games Inc makes Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a game
where an ex-convict is hired to recover stolen drug money in the
streets of Miami, Florida. In his pursuit, he faces police officers
and gangsters from Cuba and Haiti.
As the drama increases and the ex-convict wields a machete, knife, gun
and baseball bat, the game urges players to "kill the Haitians" and
"kill the Cubans."
"This racist game is psychologically extremely dangerous, and is an
incitement to genocide," said govt rep Mario Dupuy.
The game, retailing for about $US9, has been called a "game that
dehumanises all groups of people" by the Minneapolis-based Nat'l
Institute on Media and the Family. The game has reportedly brought
$US260 mn in sales.
This wk, Haitian-Americans and elected officials gathered in New York
to protest the game.
Henry Frank, executive director of the Haitian Centers Council in
Brooklyn, called the game violent and racist, and accused Rockstar of
manufacturing a controversial product to boost sales. The group is
also considering filing a lawsuit against the company.
Sen Carl Andrews, a Democrat from the NY borough of Brooklyn, said he
would propose a bill to ban the game.
A rep for Rockstar's parent company, Take 2 Interactive Software Inc,
said in a statement that no harm was intended.
"We empathise with the concerns of the Haitian community and we are
giving serious consideration to them," said the rep, Jim
Ankner. "There was no intention to offend any ethnic group."
A $US246 mn lawsuit against Rockstar and its parent company has
already been filed by the families of 2 people shot by teenagers in
Tennessee. Retailer Wal-Mart and marketer Sony Computer Entertainment
America Inc, are also named in the lawsuit.
Aaron Hamel, 45, was killed and Kimberly Bede, 19, was seriously
wounded when their cars were hit June 25 by .22-caliber bullets while
driving outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Step brothers William Buckner, 16, and Joshua Buckner, 14, were
sentenced in Aug to an indefinite term after pleading guilty to
reckless homicide, endangerment and assault.
The boys told investigators they got the rifles from a locked room in
their home and decided to randomly shoot at tractor-trailer rigs, just
like in the video game Grand Theft Auto III.

US takes its fight to the airwaves with al-Iraqiya
Baghdad (AP).  One of the chief US weapons in the battle to win Iraqi
hearts and minds is al-Iraqiya -- a Pentagon-funded TV station with an
optimistic, pro-American slant.
Announcers on al-Iraqiya, which reaches 85% of Iraqis, decry the guerrillas
attacking US military and Iraqi civilian targets as "terrorists."
Problem is, those Iraqis fortunate enough to have satellite dishes
consider al-Iraqiya stodgy and slow on breaking news.
They prefer al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, the flashy Gulf-based stations
where anti-American fighters are branded "resisters."
Recently, condemnation has focused on the Qatar- and Dubai-based
networks. The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council shut down
Saudi-owned al-Arabiya for "inciting murder" by broadcasting a voice
said to belong to Saddam Hussein. The US Dept of State approved of the
temporary closure but groups advocating press freedom were enraged by it.
Americans and their allies also show little love for al-Jazeera.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has branded both networks
"violently anti-coalition." He said a separate, US-owned satellite
station would begin broadcasting next m, aiming to capture Arab
viewers from the Gulf stations.
But al-Iraqiya has critics, too. Many see it as a pawn of the US-led
occupation authorities.
"The whole country is under the control of the Americans, not just
al-Iraqiya," complained one man, a Baghdad candy vendor who declined
to give his name.
An editor at the station, Kareem Hammadi, said he accentuates positive
news "for the good of the Iraqi people."
"The most important events are the good news stories: the liberation,
freedom, electricity improvements and the capture of terrorists," said
Hammadi, the 34-yo host of a political talk show.
Such fare is seen as boring by Iraqis -- and others.
On Wed, the former chief of Iraq's interim Admin, retired Lieutenant
General Jay Garner, said the US did a "bad job" of communicating with
Iraqis, adding that "the consequence of that is who they got to listen
to is al-Jazeera."
An Oct study by the US Dept of State showed the Arab channels gaining
on al-Iraqiya. It said 59% of Iraqis with only local TV depended on
al-Iraqiya for news.
By comparison, 63% of Iraqis with access to a satellite dish got their
news from al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, and only 12% watched al-Iraqiya,
the study found.
The station's ties to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority have
hamstrung its credibility, said Don North, an adviser and trainer at
al-Iraqiya who later left the network.
Al-Iraqiya, run by the Iraqi Media Network (IMN) that also includes 2
Baghdad radio stations, gets exclusive interviews with coalition
leaders and streams live broadcasts of speeches by Paul Bremer, the
top US official in Iraq.
On Thu, a pair of al-Iraqiya reporters were the sole Arab journalists
to capture US Pres George W Bush's surprise visit.
"IMN has become an irrelevant mouthpiece for CPA propaganda, managed
news and mediocre foreign programs," N wrote in a letter to reporters.
Al-Iraqiya does cover attacks -- albeit slowly. The station has
bureaus in 5 cities, but none can stream live video on-air, so crews
must drive to Baghdad with videotapes.
Al-Arabiya editor-in-chief Salah Negm and Al-Jazeera rep Jihad Ballout
said they had not seen al-Iraqiya so they could not comment on its
content. Nor would they estimate the number of their Iraqi viewers.
The Pentagon is seeking bids for a US$100 mn upgrade to the IMN
network, adding an all-news channel that would eventually be broadcast
via satellite -- in direct challenge to the Arab satellite channels.
The winner of that contract will play a large role in shaping Iraq's
media. The BBC is one of those in the running.
IMN and al-Iraqiya were conceived during the State Dept's war
preparations and are funded by the Defense Dept.
After Baghdad fell, the Pentagon sent equipment and media experts from
Science Applications Internat'l, a US defence contractor whose staff
is packed with ex-US military and intel officials. SAIC hired 350
Iraqis for the network, which went live May 13.
IMN's current chief executive, Shameem Rassam, is an SAIC subcontractor
and an Iraqi exile who anchored Iraq's state TV news in the 1960s
until fleeing in 1990.
During Saddam's reign, TV news was stilted and anti-American, and
satellite dishes were banned.
Getting Iraq's journalists and TV watchers used to press freedom is a
big job, Rassam said.
"I hate to be compared with al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya," Rassam said.
"We're working with people who had no chance to think for
themselves for 30 years. And our audience, for 30 years, saw only one
thing on TV. In 6 months, you expect them to believe this institution?"
Most Iraqis interviewed said they preferred al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya
because of their mastery at covering breaking news.
But 3 men on a central Baghdad street said they were turned off by the
2 Arab satellite channels.
"They encourage the terrorists and they broadcast the Saddam Hussein
recordings," said Ahmed Sabri, 22, a labourer from the Shiite slum of
Sadr City.

Arab station rejects US collaboration claims
Dubai (AFP).  Arab satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya rejected as
"baseless" recent suggestions by US Def Sec Donald Rumsfeld that it
might be cooperating with Iraqi insurgents in attacks against US troops.
"Mr Rumsfeld's allegation is baseless and we invite him to produce the
evidence or retract his statement," said the Saudi-owned, Dubai-based
channel in a statement sent to AFP.
"Al-Arabiya suggests that a proper examination of the evidence should
have been conducted before floating such serious charges against a
media organisation," added the statement.
Mr Rumsfeld suggested on Tue that both Al-Arabiya and its Doha-based
rival Al-Jazeera were cooperating with Iraqi insurgents attacking US troops.
He said both have been in "close proximity" to attacks against
coalition forces, sometimes during or even before assaults had occurred.
Asked if US troops in Baghdad had evidence of such cooperation, Mr
Rumsfeld replied: "The answer is yes, I've seen scraps of info over a
sustained period of time that need to be looked at in a responsible,
orderly way".
"I'm not in a position to make a final judgement on it," he stressed.
Al-Arabiya denied the allegations, saying it has "never aired any
footage of an attack against coalition forces," and that its reporters
have "never been in close proximity to such attacks," nor "cooperated
with any persons with a view to filming such an attack."
The station was also indignant at being lumped with its rival
Al-Jazeera by Mr Rumsfeld, saying that such "generalisations tend
unfairly to stereotype the Arab media, which can only widen the gap
between the W and the Arab world".
Al-Arabiya was banned on Mon by Iraq's Governing Council from working
in Iraq on charges of "murder incitement" after it broadcast a tape of
ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein calling for attacks on council members.
It has denied those charges too and the ban was condemned by the
NY-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Both Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera have been previously criticised by the
US and Brit govts for allegedly inciting violence against coalition
troops in Iraq by showing graphic footage of dead soldiers.

Authorities identify Turkish suicide bomber
Istanbul.  Turkish authorities have identified another of the suicide
bombers involved in last m's attacks in Istanbul which killed 61
people and injured 100s.  Remains of the bomber responsible for
detonating a truck packed with explosives outside the HSBC Bank were
identified by DNA testing at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in
Istanbul.  It brings to 4 the number of suicide bombers identified
following the attacks at 2 synagogues, the bank and the Brit
Consulate.  Meanwhile Yusuf Polat, who is suspected of giving the
order for the suicide attack on one of the synagogues has been charged
with attempting to violently overthrow the constitutional order of
Turkey.  Turkish media says 21 suspects are in custody following the
bombings which were claimed by the Al Qaeda network and a Turkish
extremist group.

Syria hands over 22 Istanbul blasts suspects
Istanbul.  Syria yesterday handed over to Turkish authorities 22
people suspected of involvement in Turkey's quadruple suicide
bombings, including an important suspect in the blasts, the
semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
The suspects reportedly fled Turkey following the attacks in Nov on 2
synagogues, the Brit consulate and a Brit bank.
Citing a statement from paramilitary police, Anatolia said the 22
people included Hilmi Tuglaoglu, whom the agency said was close to
Azat Ekinci, a central suspect in the blasts.
News reports have named Ekinci as a key accomplice in the synagogue
bombings, saying he used fake identities and cash to buy the pickup
trucks containing the bombs.
The reports said Ekinci had travelled to Iran, received military and
explosives training in Pakistan between 1997-99 and fought in Chechnya.
On Sat, a Turkish court charged another key suspect, whom police said
was captured last wk while trying to slip into Iran, with trying to
overthrow Turkey's "constitutional order" -- a crime equivalent to
treason. He is accused of having given the order to carry out the Nov
15 truck bombing of the Beth Israel synagogue.
Police have only identified the man by his initials, YP; nearly all
major Turkish newspapers said he was Yusuf Polat. The daily Radikal
said Polat was born in 1974 in Turkey's SE province of Malatya.

Iraqi scientists lied about nuclear program -- to Saddam
Baghdad (AP).  Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear
bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much
progress they were making before US-led attacks shut the operation
down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say.
Before that 1st Gulf War, the chief of the weapons program resorted to
"blatant exaggeration" in telling Iraq's president how much bomb
material was being produced, key scientist Imad Khadduri writes in a
new book.
Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an
Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. "It was all like building sand
castles," said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences.
7 m after a US-Brit invasion toppled Saddam's Baath Party govt, Iraqi
scientists have grown more vocal in countering Bush Admin claims, used
to justify the war, that Baghdad had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons
development, and that it once was a mere 6 m from making a bomb.
At best, Khadduri writes, it would have taken Iraq several y to build
a nuclear weapon if the 1991 war and subsequent UN inspections had not
intervened.
His self-published "Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," a chronicle of y of secret
weapons work and of a final escape into exile, is part of this snr
scientist's emergence from a low profile in Canada -- intended to
refute what he calls a "massive deception" in Washington that led the
United States into war.
Months of searching by 100s of US experts have found no trace of
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, just as UN inspectors
found none before the war. No Iraqi scientists have confirmed the
programs were revived in recent ys.
Bush Admin officials still speak, nonetheless, of a threat from such
weapons -- of Baghdad's "robust plans" for them, as Vice Pres Dick
Cheney puts it -- in defending last Mar's US invasion of Iraq.
They offer no hard evidence, however.
Khadduri, a US- and Brit-educated physicist, writes that he did
theoretical work on nuclear weapons as long ago as the mid-1970s,
after joining Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission. By the late 1980s, as
the secret bomb program accelerated, he was in a pivotal position as
coordinator of all its scientific and engineering info.
The UN inspectors of the Internat'l Atomic Energy Agency, who
dismantled the bomb program after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 war, saw
Khadduri as a key source and conducted an all-day interview with him
earlier this y in Toronto, where he has resided since 1998.
"Iraq's Nuclear Mirage," available via online booksellers, dismisses
the US contention that the atom-bomb establishment was somehow
resurrected after the IAEA demolished it, UN inspectors were stationed
in Iraq and Iraqi specialists were scattered.
"Where is the scientific and engineering staff required for such an
enormous effort?" he asks. "Where are the buildings and infrastructure?"
The continuing US weapons hunt amounts to no more than "investigating
mirages," he says.
An ex-bombmaker still in Iraq is just as dismissive of the
unsubstantiated US allegations.
"There was no point in trying to revive this program. There was no
material, no equipment, no scientists," former bomb designer Sabah
Abdul Noor said in a recent interview at Baghdad's Technology Uni.
"Scientists were scattered and under the eyes of inspectors, totally
scattered. To do a project, you have to be together."
Talib, the newly elected university dean, was an anti-Baathist who
didn't participate in the bomb program, but was close to many who
did. They vastly oversold their accomplishments before 1991, the
physicist said.
"They put a lot of lies on Saddam Hussein," he said in a Baghdad
interview. "They took a lot of money out of him through what you call,
in English, bluffing." When their installations were finally
demolished, it "saved their necks" by burying their mistakes, he
said. "They could tell Saddam, 'There's nothing left.'"
Khadduri, in his core position in the program, could attest to the
overselling.
He writes that when he transferred top-secret documents of bomb
program chief Jafar Dhia Jafar to an optical disc in 1991, he found
the "blatant exaggeration" in a 1990 report to Saddam.
With its clever wording, Khadduri said in a telephone interview from
Toronto, "one could easily have been convinced we had produced a
couple of kgs of enriched uranium instead of a couple of grams" --
that is, about 4 pounds of bomb material instead of a fraction of/oz.
A bomb would have required some 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
In a 1997 summary, the IAEA said there were no indications the Iraqis
ever produced more than a few grams of such material. It also said
there were "no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical
capability for the production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear
material of any practical significance."
Khadduri and others said the design and actual production of a bomb
would have been an extremely difficult task.
It was an impossible quest, "all futility," said one of Baghdad's snr
nuclear physicists, Hamed M al-Bahili.
Al-Bahili, who joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1968 but
remained outside the weapons program, said his colleagues inside "all
knew they wouldn't achieve results." As for whether the program was
later revived, he said, "these American inspectors are wasting their time."

14 coalition allies killed in Iraq bloodshed
Baghdad (AFP).  Violence has hit the US-led coalition in Iraq leaving
dead seven Spanish agents, 2 Japanese diplomats, a Colombian, 2
Koreans and 2 American soldiers, in what US cmdrs said was a
deliberate attempt to intimidate their allies.
But top coalition officials hailed defiant statements from the govts
concerned and vowed that the switch to softer targets by their foes
would not succeed.
The US military said 7 Spanish agents were killed on their way from
the capital to the town of Hilla, the coalition's HQ for south-central
Iraq, where Spain's 1,300 troops are deployed, hitherto a relative
haven of tranquillity for coalition personnel.
Their bodies were flown home from Baghdad on Sun.
A correspondent of London-based television Sky News, who was on the
scene of the attack before coalition troops, said he saw a small crowd
of Iraqis gathered around the bodies, chanting praise for Iraq's
fugitive former strongman Saddam Hussein.
David Bowden said that as he drove back to Baghdad, he came across a
body in the middle of the night-time road.
"We looked around and there were 3 other [bodies] on the other side of
the road," he said, adding that there were also 2 burnt out cars.
The correspondent said he saw one Iraqi youth with his foot on the
chest of one of the corpses, while a boy, aged 8 or nine, was
pretending to kick the body.
* Japanese deaths
In a further blow to US efforts to bolster foreign support for its
operations in Iraq, 2 Japanese diplomats and their Iraqi driver were
killed on their way to an aid meeting in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit,
still a bastion of support for the ousted president.
The attack, the 1st against Japanese personnel in Iraq, came as the 2
diplomats stopped at a food stall just 15 km short of the restive
town, which is now a major US base.
Their bodies were flown from Tikrit to the embassy in Baghdad on Sun
as Japan's 1st Iraq war losses sparked a wave of mourning at home.
It was not clear why the diplomats had taken the risk of stopping in
an area known to be deeply hostile to the coalition.
* S Korea
In a fresh attack nr Tikrit on Sun, 2 S Koreans were killed and 2
seriously wounded in an attack on a highway nr the northern Iraqi
town, the S Korean Foreign Ministry said.
Both injured men were employees of a S Korean electric company,
although the identities of the dead had yet to be confirmed, a ministry
statement carried by S Korea's official Yonhap news agency stated.
And US officials revealed that on Sat a Colombian contractor was
killed nr the town of Balad to the SE.
In a further attack, in the far W of Iraq nr the Syrian border, 2 US
soldiers were killed and "several wounded" when their convoy came
under rocket-propelled and small arms fire on the main highway through
the Euphrates valley, the coalition's deputy director of operations,
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a Baghdad news conference.
The soldiers from the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment were ambushed east
of the troubled border town of Husaybah.
Brig Gen Kimmitt said one of the attackers was killed and 9 captured.
"But the statements from the govts concerned show they intend to stay
the course, [that] their will is stiffened and the reconstruction goes on."
He also defended the losses being sustained by his troops as they
launch massive offensive operations in insurgency strongholds.
US combat losses since US Pres George W Bush declared hostilities over
on May 1 now total 186.
"We can't sit back and let the former regime loyalists, the foreign
fighters, the subversives and the extremists take control of this
country," he said.
"In these engagements we will lose American soldiers, we will lose
coalition soldiers. But the alternative is to sit back and do nothing
and see the overall security situation deteriorate."
The US general acknowledged that scenes of the sort which followed the
killing of the Spanish agents with Iraqis trampling on their corpses
"certainly has an effect" on his troops.

Deaths mark the end of a bloody m in Iraq
Baghdad (AP).  Guerrillas killed 2 US soldiers and wounded a 3rd in an
ambush in W Iraq, a military statement said yesterday. A day earlier,
7 Spanish intel agents and 2 Japanese diplomats died in separate
attacks nr Baghdad.
With the latest deaths, guerrillas have killed 106 coalition troops in
Iraq in Nov, with 81 American soldiers slain along with 25 other
allied soldiers. In terms of coalition losses, it has been the
bloodiest m of the war that began Mar 20.
A military statement said the US troops were killed when a task force
from the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment was hit Sat by RPGs and
automatic fire E of the border town of Husaybah, 300 km NW of Baghdad.
In Mahmudiyah, 29 km S of Baghdad, assailants ambushed a team of
Spanish military intel officers Sat, killing 7 agents. One Spaniard
escaped the assault.
Television footage of the aftermath of the ambush showed several
bodies along a highway as cars, their headlights on, drove by at
dusk. People milled around, and a young man -- apparently aware he was
being filmed -- kicked his foot in the air over a body. Another rested
his foot on a corpse, an arm raised in triumph.
"We sacrifice our souls and blood for you, oh Saddam," some in the
group chanted in Arabic, witnesses said.
On Sun, witnesses at the scene, about 50 km S of Baghdad, said the
Spaniards had been travelling in a pair of sport utility vehicles when
men in a car behind them opened fire. One of the SUVs careened off the
road into a ditch.
The occupants fled the car and were shot at the roadside, perhaps by a
2nd group of attackers involved in the ambush.
On Sun, the charred remains of the car could be seen in a watery ditch
at the side of the road, with a group of villagers scavenging its parts.
Witnesses said the 4 men in the 2nd car were also killed at the side
of the road, apparently by a grenade. Blood could be seen on bushes
nearby, and a broken pair of glasses lay on the road.
"All of them are Jews," said 15-yo Tareq Jassim, a villager at the
scene yesterday. "All of them are occupiers."
Spanish defence minister Federico Trillo arrived in Kuwait yesterday
to repatriate the bodies, which were flown to Kuwait's Internat'l
Airport aboard a C-130 Hercules transport, officials in Madrid said.
The 2 Japanese diplomats were killed by unidentified gunmen Sat as
they stopped to buy food and drinks at a stand outside the village of
Mukayshifa on the road between Baghdad and Tikrit, Lieutenant Col
William MacDonald said yesterday.
The diplomats, on their way to attend a reconstruction conference,
were not travelling with a military escort, MacDonald said. Their Iraqi
driver was also reported killed in the incident.

Bloodiest m in Iraq leaves 105 troops dead
Baghdad/Washington (Independent).  The bloodiest m since the US led
the invasion and occupation of Iraq has come to a deadly close after
insurgents killed 14 people from 5 nations in a weekend of apparently
carefully calculated attacks.
Days after Pres George Bush slipped briefly into the country on
Thanksgiving, his opponents responded by killing civilian contract
workers, military intel agents, diplomats and soldiers.
Last night, the Americans claimed they had killed 46 Iraqis who were
involved in a series of ambushes on US convoys in the central city of
Samarra. 18 Iraqi fighters and 5 US soldiers were also injured.
During the past m, however, America's allies bore the brunt of the
assaults which were intended to fuel opp'n within their countries to
the occupation and to hinder efforts to rebuild Iraq. The latest
military deaths bring the number of troops to die in Nov in Iraq to
105 -- 79 American soldiers and 26 allied troops -- the highest
yet. That figure includes 19 Italians blown up in Nasiriyah by a
suicide truck bomber, and 17 American soldiers who died when 2 Black
Hawk helicopters crashed in an incident that the US military now say
might have started with a missile strike. That is the largest monthly
casualty total since the war began on 20 March -- a grim statistic
that gives the lie to claims by the US military that the guerrilla war
is under control.
If the deaths of 6 US soldiers in Afghanistan last m are added, Nov
was the most costly m for the American military since Feb 1991, when
162 US troops were killed in the 1990-91 Gulf war. In the space of 48
hr, insurgents killed 2 S Korean electricians, a Colombian
contractor, 7 Spanish military intel officers, 2 Japanese diplomats
and 2 American soldiers.
The S Korean electricians became the latest victims when they were
shot yesterday in a car while travelling to Tikrit. The attacks -- 5
in all -- began several hrs after the US's top cmdr in Iraq, Lt-Gen
Ricardo Sanchez, declared that the situation was getting better.
The Bush Admin sees the spate of attacks against non-US and non-military
personnel in Iraq as a deliberate shift in tactics by the resistance.
The aim is to hit the allies where they are perceived to be weakest,
to make it harder to recruit civilians to work in Iraq and to
undermine the resolve of America's allies to stay the course.
Until last night's attack, direct attacks against US troops were
thought to have declined in the 2nd half of Nov, partly in response to
Iron Hammer, an operation to stamp out insurgents,and partly thanks to
tighter precautions taken by American troops. As a result, foreign
elements in Iraq are being targeted along with Iraqis who co-operate
with the allies.
The UN and many aid groups have shut down or scaled back operations;
now it may be the turn of civilian contractors. Lt-Gen Sanchez said of
the 14 deaths: "The insurgents' goal was to intimidate the population,
to create fear and uncertainty and drive people away from the
coalition." The attacks came as American forces claimed to have
captured 3 members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda in N Iraq. The
Pentagon has claimed that "foreign fighters" are working with what
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Def Sec, calls "dead-ender" Saddam loyalists.
The Bush Admin has sought to speed up the transfer of political
responsibility to Iraqis. But these plans are complicated by opp'n
from the snr Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who wants
direct elections.
That presents Washington with a dilemma. The Shias constitute 60% of
the population, and yielding to their demands might pave the way to a
Shia-ruled Iraq, conceivably an Islamic theocracy along similar lines
to Iran, which the US does not want. But to refuse could provoke a
breach with the Shias, raising the spectre of a civil war in the future.

November: a m of casualties
30 Nov: 2 S Korean workers killed nr Tikrit.
29 Nov: 7 Spanish intel officers killed and one wounded near Hillah; 2
Japanese diplomats and their Iraqi driver killed nr Tikrit; 2 American
soldiers killed nr the Syrian border; one Colombian contractor killed
and 2 wounded nr Balad.
28 Nov: US soldier killed when rebels shelled a military base in
Mosul; a 2nd US soldier died from gunshot wounds.
27 Nov: A US soldier found dead in his barracks in Ramadi from a
gunshot wound.
26 Nov: A US soldier found dead in Mosul.
23 Nov: 5 US soldiers killed in 3 separate incidents. One died when
his patrol vehicle rolled into a canal. Another from the 4th Infantry
Division killed by an explosive device in Baqubah. 3 killed in W Mosul.
22 Nov: 2 US soldiers from the 1AD killed in a traffic accident nr
Baghdad airport.
21 Nov: 2 US soldiers killed. One from the 4ID drowned when his
vehicle rolled into a canal in Tikrit; another from the division is
killed by an explosive device nr Ghalibiyah.
20 Nov: Soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division killed in a bomb
attack nr Ramadi.
17 Nov: 3 soldiers killed. One from the 1AD died in non-hostile
gunfire in Baghdad, another from the 4th Infantry Division killed by a
bomb in Balad and another from the division killed in a grenade attack
on a patrol in Abu Shukayr.
15 Nov: 17 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division killed when 2
Black Hawk helicopters are brought down in Mosul. A soldier from the
1AD killed by an explosive device in the Azamiyah area of Baghdad.
14 Nov: A soldier from the 1AD killed by an explosive device in
central Baghdad. Special Operations Force soldier dies when his
vehicle struck a landmine. 2 Task Force Ironhorse soldiers killed when
their convoy was attacked with explosives N of Samarra.
12 Nov: Nineteen Italians killed when a suicide bomber drives a petrol
tanker into the Italian base in Nasiriyah. A soldier from the 1st
Armoured Division was killed by a bomb in Baghdad.
11 Nov: One member of Task Force Ironhorse killed when his vehicle
struck an explosive device N of Baghdad. Another from the 1st Armoured
Division killed by an explosive device in Baghdad.
10 Nov: One US Military Police Brigade soldier killed in RPG attack W
of Iskandariyah.
9 Nov: A US soldier from the 18th Military Police Brigade killed in a
grenade attack W of Iskandariyah.
8 Nov: A member of the 1AD killed by an explosive device in the Wehda
district of Baghdad. A soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division killed
nr Fallujah.
7 Nov: 6 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division killed when their
helicopter caught fire on landing nr Tikrit. A member of the 101st
Airborne Division killed during a grenade attack in Mosul.
6 Nov: One soldier from the 3AD, the Cavalry Regiment, killed when a
military truck hit a landmine on a border road near Husaybah. Another
from the 101st Airborne Division killed by an explosive device E of Mosul.
5 Nov: A US soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division killed and 2
wounded during a grenade attack on a patrol nr Mahmudiyah.
4 Nov: One soldier from the 1AD died from non-hostile gunshot wounds
sustained in Iraq. A 2nd killed by an explosive device in Baghdad.
3 Nov: US soldier from the 4ID killed by an explosive device in Tikrit.
2 Nov: 15 soldiers killed when their helicopter was shot down near
Amiryah. A US soldier from the 1AD dies from wounds sustained in an
explosives attack in Baghdad.
1 Nov: 2 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division killed by an
explosive device nr Mosul.

Al-Qaeda militants captured in Iraq
US cmdr claims 3 captured 2 wk ago
Mosul (AP).  American forces have captured 3 members of Osama bin
Laden's al-Qaeda militant network in N Iraq, a US military cmdr said.
Col Joe Anderson, cmdr of the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne
Division, said in the past 7 m about 10 members of Ansar al-Islam have
been arrested by US troops. US officials believe the extremist Islamic
group based in N Iraq has links to al-Qaeda.
Asked if troops had also captured members of al-Qaeda, Anderson --
whose brigade controls Mosul -- replied: "Al-Qaeda. Three. 2 wk ago."
It was not immediately possible to confirm the news, which if true,
would represent the 1st time the US military has confirmed the
presence of al-Qaeda militants in Iraq. In recent ms, US forces in
central Iraq detained a handful of people suspected of ties to
al-Qaeda, but American intel officials described them as mostly
low-level operatives with unclear purposes in the country.
The Bush Admin has asserted that bin Laden's terrorist network
maintained links with the govt of former Iraqi Pres Saddam
Hussein. But US authorities searching Iraq since the invasion, have so
far said they have found little that would suggest links between the 2.
The top US cmdr in Iraq said that although the US suspects members of
the network have taken part in attacks on coalition and civilian
targets in Iraq, there is no conclusive evidence of its involvement.
"We still haven't conclusively established an al-Qaeda operative in
this country," Lt-Gen Ricardo Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad.
In Mosul, Anderson said in an interview with The Associated Press that
he believed the captured al-Qaeda men were Iraqi nat'ls and that they
had been transferred to Baghdad for further interrogation.
"We take them, we process them through a detention facility .... and
if all the facts add up, they go to Baghdad, and once they go south,
that's the last I ever hear from them," he said.
Commenting on anti-US groups operating in the N of the country,
Anderson said: "There are cells of different types here that we keep
reading through and capturing; you know, we've got the former regime
loyalists, the Baath Party type groups, the Fedayeen groups, we have
the AI [Ansar al-Islam], we have the AQ [al-Qaeda], we have the
Wahabis. Now the questions is how big and how many there are."
Mosul, Iraq's 3rd largest city that is home to 1.7 mn people, has
different ethnic groups such as Arabs, Kurds, Turkman and Assyrians.
The city was known to be quiet after the fall of Iraq in the hands of
the US-led coalition in Apr but in recent wk attacks have been on the
rise. At least 20 American soldiers were killed in Mosul this m.
Anderson also said for the 1st time the Nov 15 collision of 2 Black
Hawk helicopters in Mosul -- the single deadliest incident of the war
for American forces -- may have been caused by enemy fire.
"It appears to be that one helicopter was hit by a [rocket-propelled
grenade]," Anderson said.
Until now, the military has declined to publicly disclose a possible
cause of the collision, which killed 17 soldiers. But numerous officers
have privately said the crash was almost certainly caused by enemy fire.
Ground fire apparently caused one Black Hawk to slam into the other,
although the incident was still under investigation, Anderson said.
At the time of the collision, Iraqi police officers in Mosul also said
at least one of the Black Hawks was hit by ground fire.

Massive firefight in N Iraq
Baghdad (AP).  In the deadliest reported firefight since the end of
the war, US forces used tanks, cannons and small arms to kill 46
attackers in running battles throughout the N city of Samarra,
officials said.
5 Americans were wounded in the coordinated attacks by Saddam Hussein
loyalists, the officials said.
Minutes later, 2 S Korean contractors were killed nearby in a roadside
ambush in what US officials said was a new campaign aimed at
undermining internat'l support for the US-led occupation of Iraq.
Attacks on Sun killed 7 Spaniards, 2 Japanese diplomats and a
Colombian oil worker.
Lt-Col William MacDonald of the 4ID, who reported the firefight from
his base in Tikrit, said attackers, many wearing uniforms of Saddam's
Fedayeen militia, opened fire simultaneously on 2 US logistical
convoys on opposite sides of the city.
After barricading a road, the attackers opened fire from rooftops and
alleyways with bombs, small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades,
he said.
US troops responded with small arms, 120 mm tank rounds and 25 mm
canon fire from Bradley fighting vehicles.
US fire destroyed 3 buildings the attackers were using, MacDonald said.
"It sounds like the attack had some coordination to it, but the
soldiers responded, used their firepower, used tank and Bradley fire
and other weapons available to them, to stop this attack and take the
fight to the enemy," he said.
When the smoke cleared, 46 Iraqis were dead, 18 were wounded and 8
were captured, MacDonald said.
5 American soldiers and a civilian were wounded, he said, adding that
none of the injuries were life-threatening.
"We have been very aggressive in our convoy operations to ensure the
maximum force protection is with each convoy," MacDonald said. "But it
does send a clear message that if you attempt to attack one of our
convoys, we're going to use our firepower to stop that attack."
Shortly after the firefight, 4 men in a BMW attacked another US convoy
in Samarra with automatic rifles, MacDonald said. The soldiers wounded
all 4 men, and found Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers in their car.
MacDonald said the attack was the largest faced by his Task Force
Ironhorse -- whose mission includes the hunt for Saddam -- and
military officials in Baghdad said they haven't reported a deadlier
attack since May 1, when US Pres George W Bush declared major combat over.
US officials have only sporadically released figures on Iraqi
casualties, and wouldn't say whether there has been a deadlier
firefight that went unreported.
Samarra is 100 km N of Baghdad in the so-called Sunni Triangle, where
opp'n to the US occupation of Iraq has been fiercest.
Also on Mon, US forces reported an attack the previous day nr the
Syrian border in Husaybah, 320 km NW of Baghdad, in which 2 US
soldiers were killed and a 3rd was wounded.
Their deaths brought to 104 the number of coalition troops who have
died in Iraq in Nov, including 79 American troops. In terms of coalition
losses, it has been the bloodiest m of the war that began Mar 20.
MacDonald said the attack on the S Koreans -- on the highway between
Samarra and Tikrit -- had no apparent link to the attacks on the US convoys.
The S Koreans were electricians who were laying power lines for the
Seoul-based Ohmoo Electric Co, said Lee Kwang-jae, director general of
S Korea's Foreign Ministry. 2 were killed and 2 were injured in the attack.
US officials said insurgents were targeting citizens of countries that
support the US-led occupation of Iraq in an effort to undermine
support for the coalition.
But US and allied officials vowed that multinat'l forces would not be
cowed in their mission to rebuild Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
"They clearly are targeting coalition members in an effort to
intimidate all allies in Iraq and discourage their participation in
the reconstruction of Iraq," said coalition rep Dan Senor.
"The enemies of freedom ... are trying to break the coalition's will."
Spanish and Japanese officials said the deaths wouldn't change their
commitments to Iraq, and Senor said the alliance wouldn't be weakened.
"Our freedom is threatened by all terrorists," Spain's Prime Min Jose
Marie Aznar said in a speech broadcast in Spain. "We know that a
withdrawal would be the worst route we could take."
A Colombian civilian working as a military contractor was killed Sun
morning in a roadside ambush in Balad, 70 km N of Baghdad, on the
highway to Tikrit, said US Army Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt.
And gunmen in a car -- apparently in coordination with others waiting
by the side of the highway -- ambushed a convoy of Spanish military
intel agents on Sun, killing seven. One Spaniard escaped from the
attack as young men kicked the bodies and chanted pro-Saddam slogans.
2 Japanese diplomats also were killed on Sun N of Baghdad when they
stopped to buy food and drinks at a roadside stand, Lt-Col William
MacDonald said.
The diplomats, on their way to attend a reconstruction conference,
were not travelling with a military escort. Their Iraqi driver was
also reported killed.
Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that an Arab politician was
kidnapped by gunmen in Iraq's N oil capital of Kirkuk.
A party official said gunmen grabbed Ismail Abdel Hussein al Aboudi,
38, who heads a local Arab party and sits on the city's council, as he
walked to the city's municipal offices.
Aboudi's deputy, Mohammad Hassan Mohsen, said he alerted US forces to
the kidnapping and that they told him they "had no info on the
identity of the kidnappers or their motives".

US Kills 46 Iraqi Fighters in the N
Baghdad (AP).  In the deadliest reported firefight since the fall of
Saddam Hussein's regime, US soldiers fought back coordinated attacks
Sun using tanks, cannons and small arms in running battles throughout
the N city of Samarra. The troops killed 46 Iraqi fighters, and 5
Americans were wounded.
Minutes later, 2 S Korean contractors were killed nearby in a roadside
ambush in what US officials called a new campaign aimed at undermining
internat'l support for the US-led occupation of Iraq. Attacks on Sat
killed 7 Spaniards, 2 Japanese diplomats and a Colombian oil worker.
Lt Col William MacDonald of the 4ID said attackers, many wearing
uniforms of Saddam's Fedayeen militia, opened fire simultaneously on 2
US supply convoys on opposite sides of Samarra.
After barricading a road, the attackers began firing from rooftops and
alleyways with small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, he
said. US troops responded with rifles, 120 mm tank rounds and 25 mm
cannon fire from Bradley fighting vehicles.
US fire destroyed 3 buildings the attackers were using, MacDonald said.
"It sounds like the attack had some coordination to it, but the
soldiers responded, used their firepower, used tank and Bradley fire
and other weapons available to them, to stop this attack and take the
fight to the enemy," he said.
When the smoke cleared, 46 Iraqis were dead, 18 were wounded and eight
were captured, MacDonald said. 5 American soldiers and a civilian were
wounded, he said, adding that none of the injuries were life-threatening.
"We have been very aggressive in our convoy operations to ensure the
maximum force protection is with each convoy," MacDonald said. "But it
does send a clear message that if you attempt to attack one of our
convoys, we're going to use our firepower to stop that attack."
Shortly after the firefight, 4 men in a BMW attacked another US convoy
in Samarra with automatic rifles, MacDonald said. The soldiers wounded
all 4 men and found Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers in their car.
MacDonald said the attack was the largest faced by his Task Force
Ironhorse -- whose mission includes the hunt for Saddam. Military
officials in Baghdad said they haven't reported a deadlier attack
since May 1, when Pres Bush declared major combat over.
US officials have only sporadically released figures on Iraqi
casualties, and wouldn't say whether there has been a deadlier
firefight that went unreported.
Samarra is 95 km N of Baghdad in the so-called Sunni Triangle,
where opp'n to the US occupation of Iraq has been fiercest.
The fighting came as the US-picked Iraqi Governing Council said Sun it
is rethinking an agreement with Americans for a power hand-over by
July, with officials saying the council has set up a committee to
assess the best way to choose a provisional legislature. A delay or
unravelling of the agreement would be a major setback for Iraq's US-led Admin.
Also Sun, US forces reported an attack the previous day nr the Syrian
border in Husaybah, 320 km NW of Baghdad, in which 2 US soldiers
were killed and a 3rd was wounded.
Their deaths brought to 104 the number of coalition troops who have
died in Iraq in Nov, including 79 American troops. In terms of coalition
losses, it has been the bloodiest m of the war that began Mar 20.
MacDonald said the attack on the S Koreans -- on the highway between
Samarra and Tikrit -- had no apparent link to the attacks on the US convoys.
In Seoul, Pres Roh Moo-hyun on Mon condemned the attack as "intolerable"
terror, and his govt said the attack would not affect plans to send
troops to Iraq.
The S Koreans were electricians who were building power lines for the
Seoul-based Omu Electric Co, said Lee Kwang-jae, director general of S
Korea's Foreign Ministry. 2 were killed and 2 were injured in the attack.
US officials said insurgents were targeting citizens of countries that
support the US-led occupation of Iraq in an effort to undermine
support for the coalition. But US and allied officials vowed that
multinat'l forces would not be cowed in their mission to rebuild Iraq
after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
"They clearly are targeting coalition members in an effort to
intimidate all allies in Iraq and discourage their participation in
the reconstruction of Iraq," said coalition rep Dan Senor.
"The enemies of freedom ... are trying to break the coalition's will."
Spanish and Japanese officials said the deaths wouldn't change their
commitments to Iraq, and Senor said the alliance wouldn't be weakened.
On Sat, gunmen in a car -- apparently in coordination with others
waiting by the side of the highway -- ambushed a convoy of Spanish
military intel agents, killing seven. One Spaniard escaped from the
attack as young men kicked the bodies and chanted pro-Saddam slogans.
2 Japanese diplomats also were killed Sat N of Baghdad when they
stopped to buy food and drinks at a roadside stand, Lt Col William
MacDonald said. The diplomats, on their way to attend a reconstruction
conference, were not travelling with a military escort. Their Iraqi
driver was also reported killed.

Dozens killed after Iraq ambush attempts
Samarra (Reuters).  US soldiers have killed 46 Iraqis and captured 8
in a series of attempted ambushes on US convoys in the central Iraqi
city of Samarra.
The US military says at least 18 attackers, 5 US soldiers and a
civilian travelling with the troops were wounded during the ambushes.
"The 4ID repelled multiple ambush attacks," Lt Col William MacDonald said.
"The attacks were coordinated in locations very close to each other,"
he said, adding that the ambushes were made on separate US convoys
using mortars, grenades and small arms fire.
3 buildings, from whose roofs the attackers fired, were destroyed.
Some of the attackers wore the attire of fedayeen, a militia formed by
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein before US-led forces toppled him earlier this y.
The fedayeen are among the former regime loyalists whom Washington has
said are coordinating a rising insurgency against the US occupation of Iraq.
"This is the largest [ambush] for our task force since we've been in
the area," Lt-Col MacDonald said.
"We're sending a clear message that anyone who attempts to attack our
convoys will pay the price."
He declined to say whether the coordinated ambushes were linked to
attacks on civilian foreign nat'ls in the Tikrit-Samarra area in the
last 2 days.
Samarra and Tikrit, where the 4ID is based, are located in the centre
of Iraq where most attacks on foreign forces and Iraqis cooperating
with them have been concentrated.

Hitting back
46 Saddam rebels killed  by US forces
Baghdad (The Sun, UK).  American troops killed 46 Saddam Hussein
loyalists yesterday in bloody shootouts after 3 ambushes on US convoys.
18 attackers and 5 US soldiers were also wounded in a clash in the
city of Samarra, a US military rep said.
The convoy attacks came after 14 foreigners were killed by rebels in 5
ambushes in the N city of Tikrit and outside Baghdad.
The attackers in Samarra wore the black uniforms of the Fedayeen, a
militia loyal to Saddam Hussein and founded by his son Uday, according
to Lt Col William MacDonald of the US 4ID.
He said: "The attacks were co-ordinated in locations very close to
each other."
* Cuba 9 move
9 Brit terror suspects held at Camp X-Ray in Cuba could be home by
Christmas to face trial here, it emerged last night.
US authorities are to transfer more than 100 European prisoners from
the controversial jail in Cuba after talks between Tony Blair and
George Bush during the Pres's visit to Brit.
The Brit suspects are among 660 inmates including people captured in
Afghanistan or suspected of al-Qaeda links.
One Briton, Moazzam Begg, 36, has allegedly admitted plotting an
anthrax strike on Parliament with an unmanned plane.
2 US logistical convoys were moving into Samarra when they were
attacked with bombs, small arms, mortars and RPGs, Lt Col MacDonald said.
The 1st 2 attacks -- one on the E side of the city and one on the W --
were simultaneous.
After setting up a barricade along the route of one of the convoys,
the attackers opened fire from rooftops and alleyways, Lt Col
MacDonald said.
US troops returned fire from several locations using small arms, 120
mm tank rounds and 25 mm canon fire from Bradley fighting vehicles.
The US counter-attack destroyed 3 buildings the attackers were using.
Lt Col MacDonald said: "We have been very aggressive in our convoy
operations to ensure the maximum force protection is with each convoy.
"But it does send a clear message that if you attempt to attack one of
our convoys, we're going to use our firepower to stop that attack."
About an hr later, another convoy of US military engineers was attacked
by 4 men with automatic rifles. All were captured after being wounded.
Lt Col MacDonald said soldiers found Kalashnikov rifles and grenade
launchers in the attackers' car, a black BMW.
A rep for the 4th US Infantry said last night: "We simply shot our way
through the ambushes.
"The Iraqis took a terrible beating. This was the biggest and most
intense encounter since the war itself.
"The guerillas have been reforming and planning ambushes. They thought
they had soft targets. They were shooting RPGs from alleyways but they
didn't realise our overwhelming firepower."
A Pentagon rep added: "This is a major setback for the
insurgents. They have taken a significant loss. They tried to take on
a target of opportunity and couldn't handle it."
Samarra is 95 km N of Baghdad and is in an area where resistance to
the US occupation has been fiercest.
The violence followed the 14 foreigners' deaths.
7 Spanish intel officers died when their vehicle was attacked by rebels
firing assault rifles and RPGs S of Baghdad. An eighth officer escaped.
Gloating Iraqis were seen smiling as they milled around the bodies.
Hours later 2 Japanese diplomats were shot dead at a roadside food
stall nr Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.
2 S Korean electricity workers were killed and 2 wounded in another
ambush. A Colombian contractor died in a separate attack.
And 2 US soldiers died when their convoy was attacked by guerillas nr
the Syrian border.
The killings took the number of foreign deaths in Iraq in Nov to 115
-- the worst m since the war ended.
Locals gloat over killings Sick ... Iraqis stand on car in which 7
Spaniards were killed at the weekend A group of gloating Iraqis --
including smiling children -- stand on a car in which 7 Spanish intel
officers were killed in an ambush.
Another was seen resting his foot on one of the corpses with one arm
raised in triumph, while others were shouting slogans after the
killings south of Baghdad on Sat.

Iraq council members conflict over election timetable
Baghdad.  There are conflicting reports from members of Iraq's
US-appointed interim Governing Council about whether there will be
direct elections for the first post-Saddam legislature.  The council
has been meeting for the past 2 days over the demand for direct
elections made by the country's top Shiite religious leader, the Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani.  Last wk the council announced that the
legislature would be appointed, and that the 1st democratic elections
would not take place for 2 years.  Today, the leader of the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution, Abdel Aziz al Hakim, who takes
over the rotating presidency of the council this wk, announced that
there had been a unanimous decision to consult the people.  But 2
other members of the council disagreed, telling reporters discussions
were continuing.

South Korea's Roh says Iraq shootings intolerable
Seoul (Reuters).  S Korean Pres Roh Moo-hyun, who faces a tough
decision on what kind of additional troops to send to Iraq, called for
a security review on Mon after what he said was the intolerable
shooting of 4 civilians there.
Gunmen killed 2 S Korean electrical workers on Sun nr ousted president
Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and wounded 2, one critically.
"This incident is not terror against the military or a public
organisation but terror against civilians," Roh told his aides.
"This kind of inhumane activity is intolerable."
Sun's attack -- a day after 2 Japanese diplomats were killed nearby --
will almost certainly have major political ramifications for Roh,
although it seems unlikely he will change his Oct decision to deploy
more troops.
His nat'l security chief, Ra Jong-yil, told reporters: "It's not
desirable to link this issue with the additional troop dispatch plan."
A rep for the presidential Blue House said Roh had been briefed
overnight and the Nat'l Sec Council would meet at 9 pm EST. Ra chairs
the meetings and then briefs Roh.
"Today's meeting will focus on whether the incident was targeted
against S Korea or just an accident," Ra said. He said a number of
unregistered civilians were in the region.
The main presidential rep told reporters there would be no briefing on
the security council meeting.
A S Korean Foreign Ministry official told Reuters the 2 wounded
civilians were being treated at a US military hospital.
* SECURITY ALERT
Roh said a further alert should be issued to overseas diplomatic
missions to guard against possible attacks. He said the security team
should come up with additional safety measures.
Many S Koreans disagree with sending more troops, and opp'n has grown
since the latest spate of attacks on non-US foreigners.
But one major conservative newspaper, the Chosun Ilbo, took a
different tack in an editorial.
"Although the death of the 2 S Koreans is shocking to S Korean people,
we should remain firm in sending additional troops to Iraq," it
said. "It is now meaningless to discuss whether to send combat troops
or not. The president should make a decision as soon as possible."
The ministry said the 4 civilians were working as sub-contractors from
a S Korean company.
An official at the company, unlisted Ohmu Electric Co Ltd, said the
firm had had 68 staff working in Iraq since Oct 20.
"We won an order from Washington Group Internat'l Inc to build power
transmission towers in Iraq," the official, who declined to be named,
said by telephone.
The incident came a day after 2 Japanese diplomats were shot dead in a
similar attack in the same area. 7 Spanish intel agents were also
killed that day S of Baghdad.
Roh has committed to sending more troops to Iraq but has yet to decide
whether to include combat forces in the expected 3,000-strong
contingent. Some 675 medical and engineering troops have been based in
Nassiriya, S Iraq, since May.
A fact-finding team that included members of parliament returned last
wk from Iraq and is to report to Roh soon.
History might question the decision to send troops to Iraq, Roh said
on SBS television on Fri.
"The most important factor is whether strengthening ties with the US
will help resolve the N Korea issue, not economic benefits," he said,
referring to a crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Japan Govt pressured to reject Iraq deployment
Tokyo.  The Japanese Govt is now under enormous pressure to abandon
its plan to send troops to help rebuild Iraq after 2 diplomats were
killed there over the weekend.  Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue were
travelling to an aid conference in N Iraq, when they stopped at a
roadside food stall and were shot to death.  Japanese PM Junichiro
Koizumi says his govt will not give in to terrorism, and has vowed to
press ahead with plans to dispatch non-combat troops to help rebuild
Iraq.  It is a deeply unpopular policy, the opp'n Democratic Party,
and at least one snr member of the Govt, are vowing to step up their
opp'n to the deployment.  Only 10% of the Japanese public supports the
idea of sending soldiers to Iraq.

South Korea, Japan sending troops to Iraq
Tokyo/Seoul (Reuters).  Japan and S Korea voiced determination on Mon
to proceed with sending troops to Iraq despite weekend killings of
several of their nat'ls there and popular doubts about taking part in
the operation.
Neither of the 2 N Asian nations plans to send large numbers of
soldiers or to take part in combat operations, but their participation
marks an important step for the US-led coalition forces in persuading
more countries to join.
2 Japanese diplomats were killed in an ambush on Sat en route to a
reconstruction conference in the N town of Tikrit while 2 S Korean
electrical workers died in a shooting also nr the city that is the
hometown of deposed president Saddam Hussein.
They were among a dozen people from 4 US-allied nations killed in
weekend attacks, sparking new concern among Washington's allies about
the risks of getting involved in Iraq.
"There is no change in our stance," said Japanese PM Junichiro
Koizumi, re-elected last m but who must balance the demands of
security ties with the US with the concerns of voters before Upper
House elections in July.
"We must not be daunted by the intention of terrorists to halt the
reconstruction effort and cause confusion," he said.
He gave no clue as to when troops might be sent.
* UNDETERRED
S Korea would go ahead with plans to deploy more troops in Iraq
despite the shooting of 4 S Korean civilians on Sun, For Min Yoon
Young-kwan told a briefing.
"The issue of the troop deployment plan to Iraq will not be affected
and there is no change to our original plan," said Yoon, who is a
member of S Korea's Nat'l Sec Council and attended an emergency
session earlier.
He said it was still not clear whether the S Korean victims -- 2
killed and 2 wounded -- had been specifically targeted because of
Seoul's support for the US-led force in Iraq.
"Despite the tragic incident, we will not yield to violence or
killings," the Foreign Ministry said. "We will continue to participate
in humanitarian aid to Iraq and reconstruction efforts."
South Korean Pres Roh Moo-hyun condemned the shootings.
"This incident is not terror against the military or a public
organisation but terror against civilians," Roh told his aides.
"This kind of inhumane activity is intolerable."
Many S Koreans disagree with sending more troops, and opp'n has grown
since the latest spate of attacks.
In Japan, a poll published on Mon showed most Japanese were opposed to
sending troops, at least until security improves.
Most of the 1,036 who replied to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper poll
did so before news of the diplomats' deaths. Just 9% of those who
responded favoured sending troops soon.
* DOMESTIC CONCERNS
Japan has passed a law to allow troops to be sent to Iraq but because
of the pacifist constitution they can be sent only to "non-combat
zones" for reconstruction and humanitarian work.
The cabinet was expected to approve a basic plan for the dispatch of
some 500 Japanese non-combat ground troops -- minus key details such
as the scope and timing -- as early as Fri.
The Japanese media were sharply divided over whether Koizumi should
proceed with his plans to send troops that were already on hold after
a bomb attack killed 19 Italians in S Iraq last m.
"Why were these people, who loved Iraq and worked without regard for
the danger, killed? The incident is all too painful. Whatever the
reason, we cannot forgive the perpetrators," the liberal Asahi Shimbun
newspaper said in an editorial.
South Korea's Roh has committed to send more troops to Iraq to join
675 medical and engineering troops but faces a tough decision on
whether to include combat forces in the larger group.
PM Goh Kun said last wk the contingent could be 3,000 strong and was
unlikely to be just non-combat troops.

Defence Min offers condolences to Japan, Spain
Canberra.  The Defence Min says AUS regrets the deaths of 2 Japanese
diplomats and 7 Spanish intel officers in Iraq on the weekend.  Robert
Hill has told the Senate it appears the Japanese diplomats were killed
after leaving their protected vehicle, while the Spanish group was
travelling in unprotected cars.  He says it is unlikely any AUS
officials in Iraq would be caught in a similar situation.  "Officials
can't totally eliminate risk whilst at the same time doing their job,
but they do take a number of precautions to limit the chances of
becoming a target in this way," he said.

Spain vows to stay in Iraq
Madrid.  Coffins carrying 7 Spanish intel agents killed in one of a
series of attacks on US allies in Iraq have arrived home, as a defiant
PM Jose Maria Aznar vowed not to be bowed.
In the latest such attack on so-called "soft targets", 2 S Koreans were
killed and 2 others seriously wounded in an attack on a highway nr Tikrit.
The US military says a Colombian contractor was killed in northern
Iraq, following the killings of 2 American soldiers nr the Syrian
border, capping the deadliest m for US-led forces in Iraq.
Mr Aznar, who defied public opinion to support the US invasion, has
sounded a defiant note and called a day of nat'l mourning for the dead men.
"We are where we have to be and we will not leave the victims...to
their fate," Mr Aznar said in a televised address.
"We will fulfil our commitments with loyalty and serenity."
The 7 were killed on Sat when attackers S of Baghdad ambushed their 2
unmarked vehicles with RPGs and assault rifles.
Witnesses say a crowd descended on the agents' crippled vehicles,
kicking their corpses and shouting slogans in support of fugitive
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, acts which Mr Aznar says underline the
justification for the Spanish presence in Iraq.
"The fanatical hate which accompanied this latest atrocity has given
us inconceivable images which we must never forget. We have no option
but to face this fanaticism head on," he said.
Draped in Spain's yellow and red flag, the coffins were carried from a
military plane and received by an air force guard of honour.
The sole Spanish survivor of the attack, Jose Manuel Sanchez, who
escaped almost unharmed, returned on the same plane.
Families of the men huddled on the tarmac of the Torrejon military
air base under umbrellas in the biting cold and strong winds.
A woman clutching a small child was comforted by 2 men.
The ceremony was attended by top secret service officials, as well as
For Min Ana Palacio and joint deputy prime ministers Rodrigo Rato and
Javier Arenas.
* New focus
The US military says insurgents are now deliberately targeting the
troops and civilian workers of America's foreign allies.
US military rep in Iraq Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt says the
insurgents are shifting their attacks to softer targets.
"We think this is a change on the part of the enemy," he said.
"He realises that attacking a military target will probably lead to
his death or capture and going against soft targets is probably an
easier way to achieve what the enemy is trying to achieve."
Meanwhile the Japanese govt is now under enormous pressure to abandon
its plan to send troops to help rebuild Iraq after 2 diplomats were
killed there over the weekend.
Katsuhiko Oku and Masamori Inoue were travelling to an aid conference in
N Iraq, when they stopped at a roadside food stall and were shot to death.
Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi says his govt will not give in to
terrorism, and has vowed to press ahead with plans to dispatch
non-combat troops to help rebuild Iraq.
It is a deeply unpopular policy, the opp'n Democratic Party, and at
least one snr member of the govt, are vowing to step up their opp'n to
the deployment.
Only 10% of the Japanese public supports the idea of sending soldiers
to Iraq.

Aznar resists mounting pressure to withdraw troops
Bodies of agents flown home
Madrid.  Grief and anger ripped through Spain yesterday as the bodies
of 7 Spanish intel officers ambushed in Iraq arrived in Madrid.
The attack on Sat marked the most serious blow to the Spanish govt
since hostilities began and revived popular clamour for Spain's troops
to be withdrawn.
But the PM, Jose Maria Aznar, went on nat'l television to insist that
troops would remain, and appealed for Spaniards to pull together. He
said in an address to the nation: "We are where we must be to confront
fanatical terrorism. There is no alternative. We will fulfil our
commitments like all serious nations." He added, in defiance of popular
opp'n to the war: "Withdrawal is the worst possible route to take."
The Socialist's leader, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, declared
solidarity with "Spanish compatriots ... our sons and brothers. This
is a day of grief and pain for everyone." But he added: "Let our
troops come home as soon as possible."
Spaniards were shocked by images of jubilant Iraqi youngsters dancing
around the bodies of the soldiers fallen on the bloodstained road. One
youth placed his foot on a body and raised his fist in triumph. The
moments of twilit footage were spooled endlessly into Spaniards'
sitting rooms throughout the weekend, heightening the intense emotion
that gripped the country. Mr Aznar said: "We must never forget these
incredible images; the product of fanatical hatred."
But criticisms quickly surfaced. A military analyst picked holes in
Spain's strategy in Iraq, namely too few troops for such perilous
conditions and the wrong equipment. An editorial in El Pais newspaper
said: "The slaughter makes Iraq the most tragic mission that Spanish
troops have carried out abroad."
A poll by the newspaper El Mundo found 2/3 of respondents wanted the
troops out. In a separate poll on Fri, before the killings, more than
80% opposed military intervention. Spectators at one Sat league
football match observed a minute's silence then cried, "No to war".
Gaspar Llamazares, leader of the communist-leaning United Left,
demanded that Mr Aznar appear urgently in parliament "to take
responsibility for these tragic and unnecessary deaths in what the
govt told us was a humanitarian mission".
The attack on the 8 agents was "meticulously prepared", a Spanish
television reporter said yesterday from Iraq, amid speculation that
the vehicles may have been followed from Baghdad. The reporter added
that some Iraqi policemen, trained by coalition forces, have joined
the resistance and have carried out assaults on occupying troops.
The latest victims were military agents for Spain's nat'l intel
centre, CNI. Their role was to protect the 1,300 Spanish troops, to
infiltrate organisations for info, and to combat terrorism. To remain
inconspicuous, they wore no uniforms and carried small arms.
Madrid promised to step up protection for CNI agents in Iraq following
the death of Jose Antonio Bernal, an agent attached to the Spanish
consulate, who was gunned down on his Baghdad doorstep in Oct. In Aug,
Manuel Martin-Oar, the naval captain, died in a truck-bomb attack on
the UN HQ in Baghdad that killed 24 people.

US envoy pushes Israel on peace
Tel Aviv.  Israel has denounced the alternative peace plan America's
envoy to the Middle E has met Israeli PM Ariel Sharon in an attempt
to revive the stalled peace process with the Palestinians.
The talks followed an earlier meeting between the envoy, William
Burns, and Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurei.
Mr Burns reiterated America's call for Palestinians to stop violence,
and for Israel to dismantle settler outposts.
His visit coincides with Mon's launch in Geneva of an alternative
Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
The so-called Geneva Accord, which has been drafted in secret by
left-wing Israelis and unofficial Palestinian negotiators, will be
signed in the Swiss city.
Israeli officials have denounced the plan as an attempt by Mr Sharon's
opponents to undermine the govt, while Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat has not given the plan his public support.
* GENEVA ACCORD: MAIN POINTS
Israeli withdrawal from almost all W Bank and Gaza
Shared sovereignty over Jerusalem
Palestinian renunciation of "right of return"
* The Geneva Accord explained
The plan calls for a 2-state solution, based on an almost complete
Israeli withdrawal from the W Bank and Gaza, shared sovereignty
over Jerusalem and a renunciation by the Palestinians of any right of
Palestinian refugees to resettle in Israel.
The BBC's Middle E correspondent, James Reynolds, says that
although it has no official status, the accord's drafters are going
ahead as if it is all for real.
The Swiss Govt has organised a formal ceremony and an audience of
Nobel peace prize winners has been invited along to watch.
* Outposts obstacle
In his latest visit to the region, William Burns is seeking to bolster
the official US-backed peace plan, known as the roadmap, which has all
but collapsed under continuing Israeli-Palestinian violence.
After meeting Israeli For Min shortly before going in for talks with
Mr Sharon, Mr Burns said Washington would continue to work with Israel
and the Palestinians to help them fulfil their obligations.
This, he said, included "the issue of unauthorised outposts" -- Jewish
homesteads built in the W Bank and Gaza without Israel Govt
approval, the dismantling of which is demanded by the roadmap.
Earlier, Mr Sharon said some outposts were vital to Israel's security.
Mr Burns has also been trying to encourage the Israeli and Palestinian
prime ministers to meet face-to-face, but Mr Qurei has said Israel
must stop building a barrier in the W Bank first.
Mr Sharon said "no condition shall be accepted" regarding the
dismantling of what Israel calls a fence, which it says is vital to
stop Palestinian suicide bombers from infiltrating into Israel.

Sharon may annex part of W Bank: report
Jerusalem (AP).  PM Ariel Sharon is considering dismantling Jewish
settlements in the Gaza Strip while simultaneously annexing blocs of
West Bank settlements if peace efforts fail, an Israeli newspaper
reported Fri.
Sharon adviser Zalman Shoval stopped short of confirming the report,
but suggested Israel would keep some areas of the W Bank and Gaza
Strip and leave others, if it were to take unilateral steps in the
absence of a peace deal. Sharon is under increasing pressure to end 3
y of fighting and renew long-stalled talks.
On Fri, Maariv newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying that
Sharon would annex W Bank territories -- such as the large
settlement blocs of Gush Etzion or Maale Adumim -- while dismantling
some Gaza Strip settlements.
About 50,000 Israelis live in Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim -- 2 of the
largest Jewish settlement areas nr Jerusalem.
Palestinian For Min Nabil Shaath told the Associated Press that "we
will not accept annexing one cm of our land. We will not
accept giving something in return for nothing."
Israeli and Palestinian officials, meanwhile, wrapped up 2 days of
informal negotiations, saying the talks had been constructive but not
yielded any breakthroughs.
William Burns, a US envoy to the Middle East, was expected to arrive in
the region today to hold talks about implementing the road map peace plan.
Also Fri, a Palestinian intel officer was shot and killed by Israeli
troops after he approached the fence of the Gaza Strip settlement of
Nissanit, witnesses and hospital officials said. Witnesses said the
officer had been trying to rescue a mentally retarded man who had
wandered into the area.
The army said the Palestinian man was shot as troops tried to disperse
a crowd of more than 40 Palestinians from an unauthorised area nr the
fence, but that it had suspended a number of soldiers while it
investigates the killing. The soldiers are suspected of not acting
according to proper procedure, the army said, noting that the victim
was unarmed.

Israel's hard men fight for peace
As campaigners from both sides sign their own draft treaty, The
Observer meets the security chiefs who insist that Sharon is wrong.
Tel Aviv (Observer).  They are Ariel Sharon's trickiest opponents -- 4
former heads of the Israeli security service who have united to accuse
the PM of pushing the Jewish state to the "edge of an abyss". Israel,
they say, must find peace or perish.
Between them, they served for 20 y at the head of Shin Bet, the nerve
centre of the war on Palestinian militants, but now they have
dramatically changed tack to spearhead a new movement for peace more
powerful than Israel has ever seen before.
Avraham Shalom, Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon and Maj Gen Ami Ayalon have
fought the Palestinians with as much vigour as Sharon, who commanded
an armoured division in the 1967 6 Day War. Shalom reportedly ordered
the murder of 2 Palestinians who hijacked a bus. Under Ayalon's command,
Shin Bet perfected the use of booby-trapped mobile phones for assassinations.
The stocky, shaven-headed Ayalon has fought Arabs all his life, but
this pugnacious character is the new face of the Israeli peace
movement which, after 3 y of the intifada, is finally beginning to
have an impact.
Almost all Israeli public figures have done military service, but
Ayalon, 58, has devoted his life to it. At 18 he joined the naval
commandos and rose to head the navy. After retiring, he led Shin Bet.
"I am not a leftist, I have been involved in 100s of military
operations and killed many people. I have blood on my hands," he told
The Observer. His military past has given a new respectability to the
peace movement, which used to be accused of being insufficiently patriotic.
Ayalon launched a peace initiative with Sari Nusseibeih, head of Al
Quds, the Arab university in Jerusalem, which calls on Israel and the
Palestinian Authority to adopt a policy of "2 states for 2 peoples",
based on the borders before 1967 when Israel captured the W Bank
and Gaza. There is nothing new in this, but Ayalon says the timing is right.
It is not the only peace initiative which Israelis are addressing.
Tomorrow in Switzerland, Israeli and Palestinian peace campaigners
will sign the Geneva accords, a prototype peace agreement. Ayalon says
both initiatives undermine Sharon's line that there is no Palestinian
partner for peace.
Last m Lt Gen Moshe Ya'alon, the army chief of staff, told reporters
the govt's policy of repressing Palestinians was reducing Israel's
security, not enhancing it.
Commentators believe that because of such unprecedented attacks from
areas linked to the Right, Sharon has been forced to change
direction. Last wk, he promised "unilateral concessions" and hinted
at evacuating some Jewish settlements on occupied land.
There has been no action yet and the living conditions of Palestinians
are unchanged, but many commentators believe the govt cannot ignore
the demands of the public and the security establishment.
Ayalon said: "Deep in our society there is a revolution, a groundswell
of opinion. Many Israeli generals are talking; the 4 heads of Shin Bet
have spoken; there are peace plans being proposed. When you combine
all this with the economic situation, it will soon add up to a tidal wave.
"If the politicians do not listen to what the people and the security
establishment are saying, there will be people in the streets
demanding change."
Avraham Burg, a snr member of the opp'n Labour Party, has warned that
the Zionist dream of a Jewish state is in danger: "Israel, having
ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be
surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in
the centres of Israeli escapism."
Avraham Shalom said Israel was heading for an abyss: "If we do not
turn away from adhering to the entire land of Israel [including the
West Bank and Gaza] and begin to understand the other side, we will
not get anywhere.
"We must, once and for all, admit there is another side, that it is
suffering and that we are behaving disgracefully... If we don't change
this there will be nothing there."
Underpinning the fierce criticism of Sharon's Admin is fear that Jews
will become a minority in land controlled by Israel unless a
Palestinian state is created. Ayalon and many Israelis fear that
unless there is such a state, the Palestinians will demand equal
rights in a single nation, leading to a Muslim majority within 10 y.
Sharon's insistence on stamping out "terror" before opening talks is
like Nero fiddling as Rome burnt, say his critics. "The status quo is
leading us to a place we do not want to be, a one-state solution. We
need a 2-state solution," said Ayalon.
A People's Voice petition backed by Ayalon has so far attracted
200,000 signatures among Palestinians and Israelis. He believes 70% of
Israelis will sign if they have the opportunity.
The declaration in some ways offers more than the Palestinians could
dream of, a state based on 1967 borders and Jerusalem as an open
city. However, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the
homes they had in Israel before 1948 is rejected.
Ayalon's initiative sees a 2-state solution, whereas the Geneva accord
includes negotiations on moot points such as which settlements become
part of Israel and how the Palestinian state is to be compensated for this.
Ayalon said: "This is a pragmatic exercise. We are not doing it
because we love Palestinians. We are doing it because we want a Jewish
democratic state.
"I have clear red lines, things people die for. One is that I do not
want to see one Palestinian returning to the state of Israel."
It is almost 8 wk since there has been a suicide attack in Israel
itself, and this unprecedented period of calm has encouraged talk of
peace. But just one serious attack in Israel will move the peace
initiatives from the top of the agenda to the bottom.
Ayalon insists no attack must be allowed to slow momentum towards a
2-state solution: "Israelis know violence itself does not bring about
security. This vision will secure our future."

Arafat's support for Geneva peace blueprint sparks refugee protests
Jerusalem.  Despite a crescendo of protests from Palestinian refugees,
Yasser Arafat yesterday threw his weight behind an unofficial
blueprint for a 2-state solution, which is to be launched in Geneva
today amid fanfare.
2 ministers representing Mr Arafat's Fatah movement had cancelled
their trip to the signing ceremony after the Palestinian leader
declined to give the accords his seal of approval. But one of them,
Kadoura Fares, told The Independent they would go with 3 other Fatah
signatories. "There is a blessing and permission to travel," he said.
At Mr Arafat's request, Jibril Rajoub, his nat'l security adviser,
will join the Palestinian delegation. Mr Arafat had encouraged the
Geneva negotiators earlier, but declined to commit himself to the
details, which include surrender of the refugees' right to return to
their old homes in Israel. He is still not bound by them.
That will not satisfy the long-suffering refugees. Palestinian police
had to restrain dozens of protesters who beat members of the
Palestinian contingent as they crossed from the Gaza Strip into Egypt
on their way to Switzerland. On the W Bank, more than 100 armed
members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated to Fatah, marched
in the Balata refugee camp in protest at the accords.
The Committee for the Defence of Palestinian Refugees' Rights called
for a "day of rage". The actor, Richard Dreyfuss, will be the master
of ceremonies and the launch will be witnessed by the Nobel peace
prize-winners Jimmy Carter, John Hume and Lech Walesa, and
representatives of Egypt, Jordan and 4 Gulf states.
Tayseer Nasrallah, the protest organiser, said: "If the Palestinian
Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation drop our right of
return, they will forfeit any right to represent the mn of refugees."
He called for the signatories to be dismissed and threatened to found
a rival nat'l movement to continue the struggle. Last Tue, gunmen
fired into the Ramallah home of Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former info
minister who led the Palestinian Geneva team. "It was just a warning,"
a Palestinian intel officer said.
But Daniel Levy, an aide to Yossi Beilin, the chief Israeli Geneva
negotiator, said: "The Fatah signatories remain committed and they're
working to build support. What we're seeing is a serious debate on
both sides, challenging what has been going on here for the past 3 y.
That was what was lacking."
In the sweaty world of real diplomacy, snr Israeli and Palestinian
officials met yesterday to prepare the ground for a summit between
their respective PMs, Ariel Sharon and Ahmad Qureia. And the US has
returned to the field.
William Burns, the assistant secretary of state, met Mr Qureia on Sat
and Mr Sharon last night.
The Palestinians are demanding that Israel stop building its W Bank
security fence. Israel is demanding solid steps against the gunmen and
the bombers. Mr Qureia said in Ramallah: "As long as Israel continues
to build the fence, there is no point or interest in meeting with Sharon."
But they are still aiming for a summit in the middle of this m. "Both
sides will flex their muscles," an Israeli official said. "Then they
will meet."
[A car blew up in the S Gaza Strip yesterday killing a member of
Islamic Jihad. Yusuf Abu Matar, 33, who was also a Palestinian
policeman, died minutes after his car exploded in the Rafah refugee
camp, nr the Egyptian border. Palestinian security sources said they
were investigating whether Mr Matar's car had been booby-trapped].

Palestinians split over alternative peace accord
Jerusalem (ABC).  A group of Palestinian officials involved in
drafting the latest peace initiative, known as the Geneva Accord, say
they will not attend Mon's launch ceremony in Switzerland unless the
leading party of Yasser Arafat officially adopts the peace deal.
Palestinian sources say the Palestinian officials have pulled out off
the signing ceremony because of strong opp'n to the plan in the Yasser
Arafat's Fatah faction.  The Palestinian leader has given support to
the agreement, but it has not been officially accepted by either side.
The Accords were formulated by members of the Israeli peace camp and
Palestinian negotiators.  It outlines the establishment of a
Palestinian state and includes concessions by both sides.  About 300
demonstrators tried to blocked the Palestinian delegation heading to
Geneva.  The agreement has been denounced by key militant groups.

Pakistan to lift Indian overflight ban
Islamabad (Reuters/AFP).  Pakistan's Pres Pervez Musharraf says he
will lift a ban on Indian flights over its territory.  Mr Musharraf
says the move is a gesture of goodwill and will be officially agreed
to in talks which begin in New Delhi next wk.  The announcement came
just a few days after the nuclear-armed rivals began a ceasefire along
the military line of control which divides disputed Kashmir.  Pres
Musharraf has expressed hope that the recent thaw in relations between
the 2 countries would culminate in the resolution of all disputes.
Pakistan and India have gone to war 3 times since they won
independence from Brit in 1947, twice over Kashmir.  They came close
to a 4th war, again over Kashmir, last y.

Power struggle pushes Sri Lanka toward polls
Colombo.  Sri Lanka could be headed for a snap election with attempts
to resolve a power struggle hitting a dead-end.  Highly placed sources
close to Pres Chandrika Kumaratunga and her rival PM Ranil
Wickremesinghe said they could not rule out a dissolution of
parliament some time after voting on the nat'l budget on Dec 18.  The
election prospect re-emerged after the premier's rejection on Sat of a
compromise offered by the president to share defence responsibilities
and expand the negotiating process with Tamil Tiger rebels to include
more parties.  The Tamil Tigers have warned that failure to resolve
the ethnic conflict would force them to secede.

Indonesia warns Papuan separatists
W Papua (AFP).  Indonesian police said they would stop people in the
restive province of Papua from marking the anniversary on Mon of an
independence proclamation.
"We remind the people not to fly flags such as the Bintang Kejora [the
Morning Star] and display any other symbol that are not the legal
symbols of the Republic of Indonesia," Deputy Police Rep Brig Gen
Sunarko said Sun.
The Bintang Kejora is the flag of the outlawed W Papua State that was
proclaimed on Dec 1, 1962 by several pro-independent activists.
Indonesia, which took control of the mountainous jungle-clad territory
from Dutch colonisers in 1963, did not recognise the proclamation.
The Papua governor, the heads of the provincial police and military
and the provincial A-G earlier this m signed a document banning the
commemoration of Dec 1, including the flying of the Bintang Kejora.
Gen Sunarko said the authorities are deploying 790 policemen and 510
military reinforcements to assure security on Mon in Papua.
The military chief overseeing the province has already said he has
ordered his troops on alert before the anniversary.
Pro-independence activists on previous anniversaries have raised
separatist flags in Indonesia's resource-rich easternmost province.
7 people were detained and face trial for plotting against the state
after they were arrested flying the separatist flag on Nov 27 in
Manokwari, on the W part of Papua.

4 out of 5 new Brit prisoners test positive for drugs
London (Independent).  Up to 80% of prisoners test positive for hard
drug use when they begin their sentences, the Director General of the
Prison Service says.
Phil Wheatley warned of the extent of addiction to opiates, including
heroin, and cocaine among new inmates and remand prisoners in an
interview today with The Independent.
He said 55% of those entering prison were classified as "problematic"
users of illegal drugs, including cannabis, with a further 25%
reporting some drug misuse.
But the trend is even more acute in some urban jails, where 80% of new
arrivals are found to have "class A" drugs in their system, indicating
they had been taken within the previous 48 hr.
"The number of prisoners who come in who have got substantial drug
habits has increased over the years," Mr Wheatley said. "Making sure
we can detox people successfully is important." The prison service put
50,700 inmates on detoxification programmes in 2002-03.
Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said the numbers
indicated "both that the current drugs policies are failing and that
prisons are being asked to take up the slack for the lack of treatment
in the community".
Detoxification programmes are improving, Mr Wheatley said, with the
numbers of positive drug tests among serving prisoners halving in the
past 6 years. However, 11.7% of prisoners were using some illegal
substance and 3.6% had taken opiates.
It was impossible to stop any drugs reaching inmates, he said, adding:
"It's not possible to hermetically seal a prison."

Education Arab-American style
American and Brit universities are thriving in Arab countries, where
students are thinking twice about studying in the US.
Dubai (AFP).  Arab education has long been criticised for rote
learning methods and failing to foster critical thinking, but Gulf
states are embarking on ambitious projects to change all that.
No longer is Lebanon's American University of Beirut, once dubbed the
Harvard of the Middle East, the only icon of institutions giving
students an education grounded in a W curriculum.
Today there are American universities in Cairo, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar
and Sharjah, branches of Brit universities have mushroomed and Dubai
has opened a "Knowledge Village", an education and training hub.
And enrolment at the new universities has increased as more students
are thinking twice about going to the US.
An Arab Human Development Report published by the UN estimated that
the number of Arabs attending US universities fell 30% between 1999
and 2002.
It is of no surprise that Arab students have opted to complete their
education abroad, but with greater opportunities to stay at home,
students need to know if the new US-inspired teaching in this part of
the world is up to the same standards as in the West.
"No doubt the American education is much better than the Arab
university curriculum, because Arab curriculums are really old," says
Ihab, a graduate of the American University in Dubai (AUD).
"When the American University in Dubai opened [in 1995], they were
using old curriculums but they were improving fast to a point that
after a few m the requirements to graduate changed," he added.
Ihab says his colleagues who opted to complete their last term in the
US found the curriculum easier there than in Dubai.
AUD president Lance de Masi says that his university's objective is to
offer the "American educational experience as it would be received in
the US.
"The hallmark of American education entails the development of a whole
person, of critical reasoning and communication skills, all of which
are alive and well in AUD, and I think the region is perfectly
accepting of that approach to education."
AUD, which has 1,808 students enrolled for both undergraduate and
graduate courses, saw an increase in the number of students after the
Sept 11 attacks.
Meanwhile, the Qatar Foundation, in gas-rich Qatar, is establishing a
giant private "Education City" that includes top tier US colleges such
as Weill-Cornell medical shool, Texas A and M University, Virginia
Commonwealth and well-known think-tanks like Rand.
The offer in Qatar is the same as at the mother institution, says
Ahmed al-Dosari, head of info at the Foundation.
"It is the same degree, curriculum, instructors come from the mother
campus, and they have the same admission and graduation requirements
like the campus in the US," says Dosari.
Asked whether he thought regional companies would prefer W or Arab
educated employees, Dosari said:
"We are not the ones that put in place a policy, but rather it is
determined by market demand and requirements.
"The role of Arab universities remains important and the presence of
foreign universities may encourage them to improve standards, so that
one day it reaches the same level as European and W universities."
An ex-recruitment consultant now working in a prominent think-tank in
Dubai said market expectations are high and the experience a student
receives overseas differs considerably from the home campus.
"Though there are some good institutions that have established
themselves in the Gulf, they are a long way from offering the
education 'package' that being enrolled at a university in the US
offers," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Students are therefore not receiving the added bonus of being on
campus, interacting with internat'l students, having access to all the
faculty members, research facilities or being exposed to a different
culture, she explained.
"Maybe academically it is the same curriculum as the 'mother'
university, but students miss out," she said.

What are graduates for
While we feverishly debate top-up fees, we are failing to question the
true purpose of further education.
London (Observer).  Universities are dying. Not since Kingsley Amis
placed Lucky Jim's deadbeat redbrick campus next to the town cemetery
has "the parallel between the occupations of graveyard attendant and
custodian of learning" seemed so striking. Vice-chancellors warn of
doom, lecturers earn peanuts and the Govt faces insurrection over
students' futures.
Which students would those be? Despite the attention paid to them,
their identity is as shapeless as the Oxfam jumpers they may or may
not favour.  According to one survey, the modern undergraduate has
Nike trainers, Diesel jeans, Kings of Leon on the iPod and a monthly
alcohol budget of #80.
If deprived of a mobile phone clamped permanently to one ear, he or
she becomes as disoriented as a bat without radar. This accounts for
another #100 pm. On graduating, the affluent alumnus will enter a
career producing, over a lifetime, #400,000 more than contemporaries
with no degree.
Alternatively, the English student, too poor to afford a pint of
snakebite, lives on Pot Noodles and bar wages. He or she has a frugal
Nokia habit, or none. Far from swanning into lucrative work, this
group is more pessimistic than at any time in the past decade about
finding a career. Only 37% now expect to get a job on graduating.
Vagueness over who students are leads to a 2nd imprecision: what are
they for? Are they the raw material of economic growth, the outriders
of a more equitable society or evidence of the value placed on
cultured citizens? We are not sure. As Alison Wolf argued in a
Prospect essay last year, the economic necessity of more graduates is
unclear, since many are doing jobs once filled by those without degrees.
On fairness, expanding higher education has, in reality, involved huge
subsidies for the wealthy and little progress for the poor. The
absolute chance of a child from a working-class family going to
university has risen from one in 50 to one in 6 in the last
half-century, but the middle classes retain the proportional advantage
they always had. As for culture, Socratic ideals must now defer, or so
the snobbish moan, to pig management.
Confusion about higher education reaches PhD level on the question of
reform. Every means of injecting a necessary #9 bn into universities
has been proposed, with the exception of Adam Smith's preferred
method, whereby students paid fees directly to the dons of Glasgow Uni.
Recklessly, the Govt has picked the strategy everyone hates most.
Variable top-up fees, free at the point of use and capped at #3,000,
please hardly anyone, with the exception of Russell Group
vice-chancellors. Students do not want them. Nor do well-off parents,
or the 127 Labour rebels including Robin Cook, whose views have
clearly hardened since he backed Charles Clarke's White Paper on
higher education.
A flagship Bill, expected this wk, may not now be published before
Christmas. The rebellion mounts, as Clarke vows there will be no
backtracking. If ever there was evidence of stubborn autocracy, this
is it. Except that the Govt is right.
The current system, un-affordable and regressive, starves universities
of money while obliging the poor to bankroll the education of the privileged.
A graduate tax would, among other flaws, take 20 y to break even. The
Tories' no-fee plan would restrict higher education to an elite, and
non-variable tuition fees preferred by Labour rebels are
unfair. Perhaps Clare Short would tell us why a social-work
undergraduate in a struggling new university should incur the same
debt as an Oxford law student.
In an ideal world, a hypothecated tax on top earners would solve the
whole problem, but higher education would wither away before the Govt
acquiesced. That leaves Clarke's solution as the best option. It is
far from perfect. Letting universities rake off wealthier students'
contributions for grants for the poor is, for instance, a piece of
Robin Hoodishness too far.
The Treasury, which will continue to pay the major costs of higher
education, should fund bursaries for poorer students, perhaps financed
by a new tax on the wealthy and offered with a payback proviso for
recipients who subsequently get rich themselves.
As Clarke's critics emphasise, access is a worry. Less well-off
students already incur an average debt of #9,708, compared with #6,806
among those from richer families. But poverty is also wilfully
exploited by those without much altruism. As ever, the poor are
frequently invoked and rarely consulted. They are declared patronisingly
debt-averse by a middle class eager to disguise its own aversion to
paying anything towards the best education it can procure. Those used
to monopolising the top universities at cut-price rates would be
appalled at an influx of poor children muscling in on their places.
The real debate about poverty belongs much further down the
educational food chain. The PM's own strategy unit last wk revealed
that the social-class gap between children's attainments was apparent
at 22 m and "very wide" by the age of 5.
Destinies are fixed not at A-level, when candidates who performed well
at GCSE have roughly equal chances, or at a Magdalen interview
panel. They are set in stone before children even enter school.
And yet we spend only #1,800 on 3-yos, compared with #5,300 on each
university student. Mr Clarke is struck by the contrast, and so is Mr
Blair, though not yet to the point of rectifying this gross imbalance
towards a cherished cohort. First, we were asked to have a nat'l
nervous breakdown over glitches in their A-level results. Now their
future rocks a govt.
But students also get a harsher deal than it seems. The questionable
aim of getting 50% into higher education by 2010 has coincided with a
dearth of high-cost technical courses offering skills employers
want. At the same time, learning is driven increasingly by the
market. Mr Clarke, delivering a speech last Thu to mark Goldsmith
College's centenary, stood beneath a Damien Hirst sculpture in the
Saatchi Gallery and spoke of "value-added creativity".
When all knowledge bears a price tag, the centre of gravity of
education may be shifting more than we realise. Who will study French
medieval history when business studies is a more reliable debt-shifter?
Clarke's system has a built-in safeguard: no payback under a (too low)
salary threshold of #15,000. But society and govt owe students more
than that.
It is time to end the myth of the gilded high flier, destined to float
effortlessly into a big-bucks career. Finding jobs is, for most
graduates, a gruelling challenge and it will get harder. If
universities are to avoid becoming the un-affordable producing the
unemployable, and if learning is to remain valued for its own sake,
there must be a wider range of colleges offering everything from
philosophy to the vocational courses the economy requires. Equally,
the equity question should shift from campus to playgroup.
Instead, the Labour mutineers are focused on dumping the Clarke
proposals for something worse. The rebels are not only on the wrong
side -- they are on the wrong battlefield.

Russian police arrest alleged student attackers
Moscow.  Russian police have arrested a group of right wing youths who
they say were attacking foreign university students at a campus where
38 students died in a suspicious fire last wk.  Police are not sure
whether the fire and the attacks this weekend are linked.  However they
say that they have arrested a group of youths who they believe to be
responsible for attacking a number of foreign students on the Patrice
Lumumba University campus in central Moscow.  They are not being
questioned about the fire in which 38 foreign students perished and
some 160 others are still being treated for a number of burn injuries.
The dead included students from China, Ecuador, Sri Lanka and Vietnam
as well as a number of African countries.  Police have now increased
security at the university, fearing an increase in attacks on foreign
students there.

Burmese junta building tourism tower
Bagan. Defying an internat'l outcry, Burma's military junta has begun
building a nearly 60-m viewing tower in the midst of the ancient
temple of Bagan.  Burma's military rulers have already been pilloried
for their alleged unplanned an inaccurate rebuilding of many ruins,
and their record in general of suppressing human rights and democracy.
Pierre Pitchard, a Banan expert at the French Research School of the
Far E, based in neighbouring Thailand, says the new project is a
cultural crime.  The junta says the tower will give tourists a
bird's-eye view of Bagan.

China sentences 2 to death for baby selling
Beijing. A Chinese court has sentenced 2 people to death and jailed
dozens of others for smuggling more than 100 babies in one of China's
poorest provinces.  State media says the case involved 118 babies who
were sold by medical staff from hospitals in the Guangxi prov city of
Yulin to local smugglers for around $A30 ea.  The reports say the
babies were doped and bundled into bags for cross-country journeys to
faraway provinces where they were sold for up to $A500.

Thailand bans mistresses in public
Bangkok. Thailand's ruling party says it plans to reject prospective
politicians who cheat on their wives.  Thai Rak Thai party rep
Suranand Vejjajiva says it has decided that party candidates must not
have a reputation as a playboy or a record of having mistresses.
[Note: all mistresses must be off the record. Check!]  In Thai society
it is common for married men to have mistresses.  PM Thanksin
Shinawatra is reportedly strongly supportive of the new idea.

Inquiry to probe military ties with US
Canberra.  A fed parliamentary inquiry is to examine AUS's military
relationship with the US.  The committee will consider the role of the
US in the Asia-Pacific region, the ANZUS military treaty, and the
value of intel sharing.  The chairman of the committee, Bruce Scott,
says the inquiry will also examine a proposal for AUS to join the US
missile defence program.  "Well we'll be looking at the implications
for AUS's dialogue with the US on missile defence," he said.  "We'll
also be looking at development of space-based systems and the impact
this will have on AUS's self-reliance."

Builders predict cooler housing sector
Sydney.  Builders are predicting nat'l activity in the housing market
will weaken in the coming ms.  A survey by Master Builders AUS
(MBA) has found members believe the housing sector will slow in the
Dec quarter.  The MBA's chief Wilhelm Harnisch says it indicates the
Reserve Bank does not need to raise interest rates further when the
board meets this wk.  "The Reserve Bank has expressed concern that the
housing market may be overheating, and what the survey is showing is
the buyers may be more cautious and the builders themselves have got
less work on the books," he said.  "[This] means the threat of the
housing market on the local economy is abating."

Scud hailed a hero
Melbourne.  Thousands of tennis fans have turned out to hail Mark
Philippoussis as a new nat'l hero at a civic reception for AUS's Davis
Cup-winning team in MEL today.
Fans crammed into Federation Square to see Philippoussis, Lleyton
Hewitt, Todd Woodbridge and Wayne Arthurs take the stage at the
hastily-arranged ceremony to honour AUS's weekend triumph over Spain.
Philippoussis gave his side a 3-1 victory over Spain on Sun afternoon
when he played through the pain barrier to seal an amazing 7-5, 6-3,
1-6, 2-6, 6-0 win over world number 3 Juan Carlos Ferrero.
The win marked the 28th time AUS has won the Davis Cup and sealed its
place as one of the pre-eminent tennis nations.
Today Philippoussis told the crowd that Sun's win had eclipsed AUS's
last Davis Cup final victory against France in Nice in 1999, when he
also won the decisive rubber.
"It was emotional for me too and for all of us definitely,"
Philippoussis said.
"I said before, Nice was an incredible feeling, but this can't touch it.
I was emotional, everyone was emotional and this was just a storybook ending."
Philippoussis had looked to be on the ropes on Sun after he lost the
3rd and 4th sets.
'The Scud' called an injury break for treatment to his shoulder, and
-- with Lleyton Hewitt warming up in the dressing room for what would
have been a decisive rubber against Carlos Moya -- came back out to
ace the final set 6-0.
Philippoussis was expected to face an MRI scan today to determine the
extent of the injury.
Earlier Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald has revealed that
Philippoussis was in serious pain during the match and said he would
probably have retired if AUS finals hopes had not been on the line.
Fitzgerald said that if it had been any other event, the Williamstown
boy would probably have forfeited the match.
"I think there's very little doubt he would," Fitzgerald said this morning.
"I think by the end of the 4th he felt it was so debilitating and he
was in pain -- I could see it every time he sat down. He was pretty
brave about it, but he certainly let me know he had some problems there."
Despite the euphoria surrounding Philippoussis' win, Fitzgerald warned
that it was too early to be considering back to back wins in the
prestigious tennis event.
"I haven't given back to back [wins] a thought yet," he said.
"We have to start in Feb, we're making arrangements and [for] our
first tie of the next calendar y which in in Adel in Feb, but,
realistically, it's a long way to win another one."
But Fitzgerald was confident enough to predict that the tie would go
down in history as one of the great Davis Cup clashes.
"We had a common goal and there are some great tennis players sitting
up here," he said. "They are 4 magnificent tennis players and when
they come together as a team to commit to a common goal, special
things happen."

Vic man speaks after hostage drama
Ballarat.  A 27-yo man from Ballarat in W Vic has been freed after
being held hostage for 4 days in S Nigeria.
Josh Nijam and 6 other foreign workers were captured by a group of
rebels who demanded money from their employer, an Edinburgh-based pipe
coating company.
Mr Nijam says he was not harmed by his captors, who freed him as a
sign of goodwill.
He is hopeful his fellow workers will be released within the next 24 hrs.
He says he has been told not to go into detail about the ransom
demands until after the other men have been released.
"They had to give one person for goodwill so that they could get some
of the money they had been asking for," he said.
"They asked someone to write a ransom note and I had the pen and paper
so I was writing it while I was speaking, and then they pointed at me
and told me I'd be the one that would be going.
"I carried the ransom note and brought it back and the others are
okay, hopefully we'll get more of the boys if not all of them tonight."
Mr Nijam has spoken to his parents in Ballarat and told them he will
probably be home for Christmas.
"Probably [by] mid-Dec. As of now I don't want to leave here until all
the rest of the boys are out home for about a month," he said.
"I enjoy the work and it has its good and bad points. You've got to
take the good with the bad I suppose."
Mr Nijam's father, Jeremy, says he is relieved his son is safe and
coming home for Christmas.
"We're pretty close anyway, we talk to each other all the time and
we've got another son up in Bris and daughters in MEL and a couple of
kids at home," he said.
"We're a pretty close family anyway but you realise just how important
each one of them is when things like this happen."

Man arrested after rescue bid
Darwin.  NT police say an argument between the captain of a fishing
boat and a crew member has ended with a rescue operation on a remote
island 300 km NE of Darwin.  Police say the man took a dinghy from the
main fishing trawler and headed for New Year Island in the Arafura
Sea.  It is alleged he damaged the island's lighthouse in a bid to
attract attention.  Police from Arnhem Land flew to the island where
the man was arrested.  He has been brought back to Darwin overnight and
charged with criminal damage in relation to the vandalism of the lighthouse.

One whale survived pod beaching
Scientists search for clues on whale stranding
Hobart.  Samples from 9 sperm whales washed up on a Flinders Island
beach over the weekend will be brought to Hobart this morning for
testing.  Scientists and rescuers from the Dept of Primary Industry,
Water and the Environment's Nature Conservation branch have spent the
weekend on the island after a fisherman reported the stranding on Fri
night.  Only one 17-tonne sperm whale survived the ordeal, with
rescuers using fishing boats and a net to tow him to safety.  The
whale has not been seen since it was released on Sat night.  Aleks
Terauds from the Nature Conservation Branch hopes the samples will
help determine a cause of the strandings.  "If they've got empty
stomachs obviously they might not have been in as good condition. We
take teeth for ageing, that can also give us an indication of what
sort of pod it was, and maybe the pod dynamics," he said.  "We get
blubber samples for contaminants, so there's a lot we can learn."

Manufacturing shows healthy signs
Canberra.  There has been another indication of solid activity across
AUS's manufacturing industry.  A Performance of Manufacturing Index
compiled by the AUS Industry Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers is now
consolidating at higher levels.  After a sharp rise in Oct, the Nov
reading published today has edged only a fraction lower to 57.3,
supported by a further strengthening in new orders.  11 out of 12
sectors have reported an increase in new orders.  The index points to
annual growth in the non-farm economy of close to 4%.

Public servants getting older, more skilled: report
Canberra.  A new report indicates the AUS Public Service is not immune
from the ageing of the general workforce.  The annual State of the
Service report says over the past y there has been a consolidation of
trends towards an older and more skilled public service workforce.
The typical new starter in the service is now a 31-yo with tertiary
qualifications and is more likely to be a woman than a man.  The
public service commissioner Andrew Podger says the changing nature of
the workforce will pose challenges for managing the future capability
of the service.  Mr Podger also acknowledged there was still
widespread unease among public servants about performance-based pay
and the handling of under-performance.  About half felt it did not
provide appropriate rewards for top performance.

"Miracle" dog saves family from fire
Melbourne.  A MEL family rescued from fire by a guide dog this morning
say their escape is a miracle.  Fire erupted in the ceiling of the
Taylors Lakes home around 2.00am, but the blaze failed to set off
smoke detectors.  Gina the guide dog began barking and pulling on a
curtain, alerting Jackie Saunders and her 3 children to the fire.
They escaped unharmed, but more than $150,000 damage was caused to the
house.  Darren Saunders says his wife's labrador guide dog was a hero.
"She's a guide dog, a fire dog and a police dog," he said.  "She's a
miracle dog and obviously it's the training, but also just the
instincts that dogs can pick up and it's really just a miracle."

Carr plays down Harbour Bridge security breach
Sydney.  The NSW Prem has played down the latest security breach on
the Harbour Bridge.  A man last night scaled the NE pylon of the
bridge and took an AUS flag from the summit.  He was later arrested
and fined $350.  The Prem, Bob Carr, has criticised the fine as too
small.  He has also attempted to deflect concerns raised by the Opp'n
about the threat it may have posed.  "There'll be a full security
review of the Harbour Bridge," he said.  "We'll look at access, but I
really wouldn't overreact to this.  "You can have some idiot defying
common sense with this sort of action at any time, but to regard it as
a security threat I think would be to overstate it."

Asylum seeker treatment a nat'l 'black spot': study
Canberra.  The author of a study of democratic rights has described
AUS's treatment of asylum seekers as a black spot.  Dr James Jupp from
the Centre of Immigration and Multicultural studies at AUS Nat'l
University says the situation for those seeking refuge has steadily
regressed over the past 12 years.  He says AUS differs from a number
of other countries by detaining asylum seekers without paperwork,
whereas prior to 1991 they were allowed to live in the community while
their claims were processed.  "Also the denial of welfare services
other than Medicare in the first 2 y and the severe cutbacks in family
reunions, all of those affect people who are not citizens of AUS," he said.

University funding tug-of-war continues
Canberra.  The Fed Govt has been given further time to negotiate with
the Independent Sens over its higher education legislation.  A vote
has been delayed, with the bills to proceed to a committee stage where
each proposed amendment to the legislation will be debated
individually.  3 of the 4 Independents have told the Senate further
changes are needed for the Govt to receive their vital support.
Independent Sen Meg Lees says she hopes further compromise is reached
so the industry can receive the additional funds.  "There is now at
least $1.7 bn of extra funding for our universities offered in this
legislation, and I believe $1.7 bn extra is something that is worth
fighting for," she said.

Labor rivals prepare for showdown
Canberra.  Kim Beazley and Mark Latham have just under 24 hr to
secure party support to become the next leader of the fed Labor Party.
Fed Member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, says Mr Latham is leading Mr
Beazley in the race for votes in tomorrow's fed Labor leadership ballot.
Mr Snowdon, who has flown in from NY especially for the vote, is the
1st caucus member to publicly say that the Shadow Treasurer is ahead.
"Mark Latham is in front as I speak," he said. "I think now there is a
very strong trend towards him."
Supporters of former leader Kim Beazley are confident he will get the
47 votes needed to get him across the line, but Latham supporter
Laurie Ferguson says it is too close to call.
"Most say that Beazley is well in front, well you ask me I don't care
what people say I say it's too close to call," he said.
Mr Ferguson says come the next election, Mr Latham will secure a large
number of votes in W SYD.
"Western SYD which has a larger population than SA, people should
remember that, we failed to win 4 seats in the last 2 elections out
there that we lost in 1996," he said.
"Latham comes from the region."
Mr Latham is advocating a generational shift and says once the vote is
taken the party must unite.
"After Tue, of cause will be getting together, rebuilding our culture
of solidarity and doing the very best we can to defeat the Howard Govt."
But Beazley supporter Mark Bishop says the former leader offers the
party the best chance of re-election.
"He just has in his heart and his mind and his eyes a burning desire
to win," he said.
Both sides have spent the weekend hitting the phones to shore up support.
Mr Beazley's backers think the former leader has as many as 43 votes
with around 20 undecided.
One time Labor leadership contender Kevin Rudd has appealed to his
colleagues to shift their focus to next y's election, as soon as
tomorrow's ballot is over.
Mr Rudd has withdrawn from the contest and will support Mr Beazley.
However the foreign affairs rep says it is what happens next that matters.
"The big challenge for us -- resolve the leadership tomorrow," he said.
"Get on with the business of presenting the alternative policy vision
for AUS, and have about us an attitude, a discipline and a posture
which says we're on about winning this next election."
Qld Prem Peter Beattie is tipping Mr Beazley to win the ballot.
"I think it's fairly clear now that Kim Beazley will win," he said.
"From there I'm keen for Kim to come to Qld to spend some time here.
"I want to make sure that Qld and Qld views get a very significant say
federally and therefore I would hope that Kevin would be in a snr position
in the Beazley Admin."

Pilots concerned over airspace breaches
Transport Min John Anderson says safety standards remain in line with
internat'l standards.
Canberra.  There have been 20 breaches of AUS's new airspace
regulations in just 4 days.
A passenger jet was forced to pull out of a landing at CBR airport
yesterday because a light plane strayed too close.
Under the new system introduced last Thu, light aircraft are able to
fly in the same tightly controlled airspace as domestic and internat'l
passenger jets.
Robin Beville Anderson from the AUS Federation of Air Pilots says the
CBR incident is a perfect example of the confusion surrounding the new rules.
He says the alarm system on the CBR to SYD flight warned the pilot a
collision would occur within 20 seconds if he continued on the same path.
"A TCAS [Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System] event as it's
referred to, is something that most pilots would experience once in
about 10 years," he said.
A rep for the Fed Transport Min John Anderson says people must expect
some problems as the new system is rolled out.
He has described the 20 breaches as minor.

Midair incident a false alarm: safety bureau
Canberra.  The AUS Transport Safety Bureau has revealed a midair
incident at CBR yesterday was the result of a false alarm.
A SYD to CBR passenger jet was forced to pull out of a landing at the
last minute because one of its alarms indicated a light plane had
strayed into its path.
However it has been confirmed there were no other planes observed on
radar in the vicinity of the jet.
Air traffic controllers say the incident highlights the confusion
surrounding new regulations allowing light planes to share the same
airspace as domestic and internat'l passenger jets.
But Mike Smith from the govt body set up to implement the new system
says there have been only 5 or 6 minor breaches of the new rules since
they were introduced on Thu.
"One of the reasons that we've introduced the new system is to improve
safety and we believe that's what's being achieved," he said.
Meanwhile air traffic controllers in NW NSW say they narrowly averted
a midair collision between 2 aircraft over the weekend.
A commercial plane carrying 30 passengers was on final descent into
Tamworth airport when controllers say they were unaware of a small
private aircraft which was also descending.
Under new regulations pilots are no longer compelled to call in their
position, which has sparked strong criticism from air traffic controllers.
Controllers in Tamworth say they were made aware of the impending
collision when the private pilot contacted them to advise of his
impending approach.
They issued an emergency traffic alert to the commercial plane which
took action and was given a priority landing.
They say the private aircraft was outside of Tamworth's radar coverage
area, and invisible to the system.

Call for aviation ombudsman to be set up
Canberra.  A fed parliamentary inquiry into regional aviation has
called for the creation of an industry ombudsman and a review of the
Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).  The inquiry also recommends
the Commonwealth subsidises regional airports in communities of less
than 30,000 people to help finance capital works, essential
maintenance and security upgrades.  Committee chairman Paul Neville
says if the subsidy scheme is not set up, the Govt should resume
ownership and funding of airports in those communities.  Mr Neville
says the Govt should also assist with management training for the
regional airline industry and ensure fed public servants make greater
use of regional airlines.  "The issues identified in this report
cannot be ignored any longer," he said.  "To put these issues on the
back-burner will guarantee in 4 or 5 years time regional AUS, its
airports and its air services will be facing an even greater crisis,
if not a terminal one."

Police to be interviewed over Schoolies claim
Brisbane.  3 police officers accused of inappropriate behaviour at the
Schoolies festival on Qld's Gold Coast are expected to be interviewed
in Bris today.  The Ethical Standards Command is investigating 2
separate complaints involving 6 teenage girls.  One of the officers, a
38-yo sergeant, has already been confined to desk duties for allegedly
taking 4 of the girls to his unit and offering them alcohol.  Qld
Police Min Tony McGrady says he is satisfied with the way the inquiry
is being carried out.  "If these allegations are correct, it just
spoils the image which the police had built up over a long time and
it's very regrettable I think," he said.  "I would certainly hope when
the inquiry is completed and if they find these people guilty, well
then they will be dealt with as soon as possible."

Police arrest Harbour Bridge climber
Sydney.  Police have arrested a man who scaled the SYD Harbour Bridge
and took the AUS flag from the top.  Police say he climbed the NE
pylon of the bridge about midnight.  The 26-yo was arrested and has
been issued with an infringement notice.  It is the 2nd time in the
past 10 days that there has been an arrest over climbing the bridge.

Perth mint swindle appeal begins
Perth.  Another chapter opens today in the long-running Perth mint
swindle case, with the 2 brothers jailed for the crime embarking on
yet another legal bid to overturn their convictions.  The brothers now
have a confession from a former detective who has claimed that he
helped frame them.  Peter and Ray Mickelberg have been fighting for
more than 20 y to clear their names of the theft of 68 kgs of gold
bullion from the Perth mint in 1982.  They have repeatedly lost
appeals against their convictions and their fight appeared over, until
last y when former detective, Tony Lewandowski, came forward and
admitted fabricating the confessions of the brothers.  He has already
given his evidence in this latest appeal.  But among the witness
expected to be called over the next 10 days is WA Govt minister, Bob
Kucera, who in 1982 was the officer-in-charge of the police station
where one of the brothers is alleged to have been bashed during questioning.

Howard, Carr trade blows over injecting room
Sydney.  The NSW Prem has accused John Howard of engaging in wedge
politics, over the issue of the Kings Cross injecting room trial.  The
PM has written to Mr Carr, warning that the trial may be in breach of
treaty obligations with the UN concerning drug control, and because of
that sanctions could be imposed on the legal opiate industry.  Bob
Carr says he is disappointed with John Howard's letter and argues that
the injecting room trial does not infringe AUS's treaty obligations or
breach any Commonwealth law.  "His own party leader voted for it in
the NSW Parliament, we briefed his minister," he said.  "It's some
small part of our drugs policy, I think he might be looking for a
little wedge issue in the lead up to the fed election.  "Well we can
take that in our stride and sit down and work with him in all the
things relating to drugs where we agree"

Cloud hangs over UN climate forum
Milan (AP).  Strong doubts that Russia will join the Kyoto pact on
reducing greenhouse gases are casting a cloud over a UN climate change
conference that starts Mon, with participants left to devise
pollution-battling strategies knowing that what was envisioned as a
global treaty might never get off the ground.
When organisers, scientists and environmentalists began planning for
the conference, which runs through Dec 12 in Milan and is expected to
draw 80 ministers, many had been hoping that Russia would have joined
the protocol.
The treaty, negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, sets a target of
cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 8% below 1990 levels by 2012.
To date, 119 parties have signed on to it, but together they account
for less than 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the threshold
needed for the treaty to go into force.
After US Pres George W Bush rejected the treaty and its mandatory
pollution reductions in 2001 as too harmful to the US economy,
Russia's support was needed to meet the 55% requirement.
But in Oct, Russian Pres Vladimir Putin predicted that the pact would
fail to reverse climate change, "even with 100% compliance." His
economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, contended the Kyoto Protocol
would "doom Russia to poverty, weakness and backwardness."
Under the pact, if a country exceeds its emissions levels, it can be
forced to cut back on industrial production.
Since the US is the world's largest polluter, its refusal to join
Kyoto is already "a big drag" on the battle to fight global warming,
said Jonathan Pershing, a geologist who is heading the delegation of
the World Resources Institute, a Washington environmental think tank
at the conference.
A rejection by Russia will further present a dilemma to those
countries which have embraced the treaty, participants said.
"There's a number of forks in the road," said Pershing. "Those
countries who have said 'yes' go forward without a formal internat'l
treaty. But how do you do that?"
Pershing said back-room discussions at the conference will cover the
possibilities, including one option that nations could sign a series
of bilateral deals with other Kyoto members.
Up for discussion in Milan are rules under which industrialised
nations can earn credits toward satisfying their own emission-reducing
requirements by helping developing nations, which aren't required
under the protocol to reduce emissions.
Eligible projects range from making factories more energy efficient to
helping promote forests, which absorb carbon dioxide, a chief greenhouse
gas culprit.
"It doesn't matter where a carbon molecule comes from," in terms of
overall greenhouse gas buildup, said Alden Meyer, a conference
participant from the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
Meyer noted that the US is a successful pioneer in what's known as
emissions trading. Under a fed system, US power companies can sell
other companies credits they've earned for producing emissions linked
to acid rain that are under capped levels.
The US undersecretary for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky, who will
attend the conference's final, high-level sessions, said the
discussions will help illustrate "how promoting cleaner energy and
energy technology is certainly in the interest of developing and
developed countries alike."
The UN said the Milan conference will also evaluate efforts by govts
to tackle the climate change challenge.
"That 2003 is on track to be one of the warmest y on record should be
a warning that we must all take seriously," said Joke Waller-Hunter,
executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention.
This spring, the European Union warned that 10 EU countries, including
conference host Italy, are "way off track" for agreed targets on
cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
A rise in average temperatures has been blamed, at least in part, for
melting glaciers and rising water levels, prompting fears that coming
decades will witness floods, water shortages and hardships for many species.
Retired Vice Adm Conrad C Lautenbacher Jr, administrator of the US
Nat'l Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin, said some questions about climate
change are yet to be fully understood: the length of a carbon cycle,
the way the molecule circulates around the planet and what humans
contribute to global warming.
The US aims to cut emissions by 18% over the next 10 y.

Russia looms over climate change meeting
Rome (AP).  Indications that Russia will reject the Kyoto pact on
greenhouse gas reduction has participants at a UN conference worried
that the global treaty might never get off the ground.
When organisers, scientists and environmentalists began planning for
the conference, which begins Mon and runs through Dec 12 in Milan,
many had hoped that Russia would have joined the protocol.
The treaty, negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, sets a target of
cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 8% below 1990 levels by 2012.
To date, 119 parties have signed on, but together they account for
less than 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the threshold needed
for the treaty to go into force.
After Pres Bush rejected the treaty and its mandatory pollution
reductions in 2001 as too harmful to the US economy, Russia's support
was needed to meet the 55% requirement.
But in Oct, Russian Pres Vladimir Putin predicted that the pact would
fail to reverse climate change, "even with 100% compliance." His
economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, contended the Kyoto Protocol
would "doom Russia to poverty, weakness and backwardness."
Under the pact, if a country exceeds its emissions levels, it can be
forced to cut back on industrial production.
Since the US is the world's largest polluter, its refusal to join
Kyoto is already "a big drag" on the battle to fight global warming,
said Jonathan Pershing, a geologist heading the delegation of the
World Resources Institute, a Washington environmental think tank.
A rejection by Russia will further present a dilemma to those
countries which have embraced the treaty, participants said.
"There's a number of forks in the road," said Pershing. "Those
countries who have said 'yes' go forward without a formal internat'l
treaty. But how do you do that?"
Pershing said back-room discussions at the conference will cover the
possibilities, including one option that nations could sign a series
of bilateral deals with other Kyoto members.
Up for discussion in Milan are rules under which industrialised
nations can earn credits toward satisfying their own emission-reducing
requirements by helping developing nations, which aren't required
under the protocol to reduce emissions.
Eligible projects range from making factories more energy efficient to
helping promote forests, which absorb carbon dioxide, a chief greenhouse
gas culprit.
"It doesn't matter where a carbon molecule comes from," in terms of
overall greenhouse gas buildup, said Alden Meyer, a conference
participant from the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
Meyer noted that the US is a successful pioneer in what's known as
emissions trading. Under a fed system, US power companies can sell
other companies credits they've earned for producing emissions linked
to acid rain that are under capped levels.
The US undersecretary for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky, who will
attend the conference's final, high-level sessions, said the
discussions will help illustrate "how promoting cleaner energy and
energy technology is certainly in the interest of developing and
developed countries alike."
The UN said the Milan conference will also evaluate efforts by govts
to tackle the climate change challenge.
"That 2003 is on track to be one of the warmest y on record should be
a warning that we must all take seriously," said Joke Waller-Hunter,
executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention.
This spring, the European Union warned that 10 EU countries, including
conference host Italy, are "way off track" for agreed targets on
cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
A rise in average temperatures has been blamed, at least in part, for
melting glaciers and rising water levels, prompting fears that coming
decades will witness floods, water shortages and hardships for animals.
Retired Vice Adm Conrad C Lautenbacher Jr, administrator of the US
Nat'l Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin, said some questions about climate
change are yet to be fully understood: the length of a carbon cycle,
the way the molecule circulates around the planet and what humans
contribute to global warming.
The US aims to cut emissions by 18% over the next 10 y.
"The current Admin has a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emission,"
said Lautenbacher. "Whether the world accepts that or not is another
issue. We are not being irresponsible" by rejecting Kyoto, he contended.

Englishman discovers he's a Canadian native chief
London (Reuters).  A 59-yo retired builder from Yorkshire, northern
England, was shocked to discover he is in fact a tribal chief with a
claim to 1000s of acres of land in Canada, Brit newspapers reported on Fri.
Mick Henry, the son of an English mother and a Canadian soldier over
in Brit during World War II, was recently tracked down via the
Internet by his long-lost Native Canadian relatives from the Ojibway
tribe in the province of Manitoba.
"I never thought something like this could happen to anyone, certainly
not someone like me," Henry told the Daily Mail newspaper.
"They are still looking for a proper ceremonial name for me. I thought
they still lived in tents and went hunting for their food.
In fact they all have lovely houses and enjoy a wonderful lifestyle,"
he said.
Henry's father was an Ojibway who returned to Canada soon after his
son was born. He never maintained contact and died in 1998.
The Daily Mail published recent pictures of Henry reunited in Canada
with some of the 70 members of his tribe, all dressed in ceremonial
clothing and head-dresses.
Henry is also apparently hoping to cash-in on his new-found heritage
and sudden celebrity status.
When contacted by telephone by Reuters, a Henry family rep said: "He
is not speaking to the media about his story any more without a fee."

{{
11 pm
Labor For Aff rep Kevin Rudd told ABC's "Lateline" he designed to pull
out of the leadership race and support Kim Beazley so the voting
tomorrow morning would be "decisive".  It appears the decision will be close!
}}

----------------------------------------
Tue, 02 Dec 2003.

Gough Whitlam was elected to power 31 y ago.

Markets
NY. The Dow has closed sharply higher on factory data that's reached
20-y highs.  The DJIA closed at an 18-m high of 9,899.  The Nasdaq
also closed up.  Gold broke the 400 barrier, and was trading in NY up
4.45 to $US402.80/oz.  In London, the FTSE added 67 pts to close at
4,410.  The German Dax also closed sharply higher, adding 75 pts to
end at 3,821.

Rain hampers rescue efforts
Beijing. Bad weather is hampering rescue efforts in China'a NW
Xinjiang region where a powerful earthquake has killed 11 and injured
73.  Heavy snow has fallen on the worst-hit Zhaosu county nr China's
rugged border with Kazakhstan, making road travel treacherous and
delaying the arrival of rescue staff.  Temps have plunged to -17 C,
although those made homeless by the 6.1 mag quake have been relocated
to houses with heating.

UN calls for help for AIDS program
Washington. The UN has asked for help in its ambitious program to
bring AIDS medication to 3 mn poor patients in 2005.  The WHO and
UNAIDS have pleaded for assistance with the so-called "3 of 5"
initiative, which is expected to cost $A7.6 bn.  Antiretroviral drugs
prevent the onset of full-blown AIDS in people infected with HIV and
make such infections manageable.

US to continue aggressive tactics
Baghdad. The US military in Iraq says it will continue using
aggressive tactics after killing 54 people, 8 of them said to be
civilians.  US cmdrs, who prev said they killed 46 Iraqi insurgents,
have upper the Samarra death toll to 54, without ID'ing the additional
dead.  The deaths follow what the US says was a coordinated ambush of
its troops in the N Iraqi town of Samarra.  Mysteriously, reports say
no bodies have been discovered.

Moscow calls for speedy Iraqi hand-over
Moscow. Russian Pres Vladimir Putin has urged his US counterpart Pres
Bush Jr to speed up the hand-over of power in Iraq to an elected govt.
Putin has also called for the US to allow the UN to play a more active
role in post-war reconstruction.  Russia has long argued for the UN to
be given a greater role in Iraq.  Last m it urged the world body to
hold a conf to draft a peace plan that would boost its role in Iraq
and authorise the deployment of internat'l peacekeepers.

Armed gang kill 5 in S Mexico
Gutierrez. A gang armed with automatic weapons have attacked a ranch
in S Mexico, killing 8 people and wounding 5 others.  Police say the
attack happened at the JR ranch nr the village of Rosario Izepa, close
to Mexico's border with Guatemala and about 10 km NE of Tapachula.
The motive remains unclear, although the region has suffered a wave of
violence this y due to gangs fighting over the smuggling of people and
drugs across the border.

Explosion rocks Karachi garment district
Karachi. A large explosion has rocked a building housing a garment
market in Karachi in S Pakistan.  It's not clear if anyone has been
injured in the blast that went off as shops were being closed for the
night.  City police chief Tariq Jamil later said the explosion
shattered windows but caused no injuries.  Karachi is Pakistan's
largest city and has been the scene of bomb blasts, incl terrorist
attacks and other bombings linked to business disputes.

33 killed in Congo crash
Kinshasa. Congo has revised upward the death toll from a plane crash
over the weekend. The govt now says 33 were killed in the
crash. Initially it said 22 had died.  Congo's Info Min says the
military An-26 ploughed into market sellers at the end of a runway nr
the town of Boende after a tyre burst.  13 people in the market were
killed by the crash.

Colombian rebels kill 6 police
Bogota. At least 6 police officers have died and 5 others are missing
after being attacked by suspected left-wing guerrillas in N Colombia.
Police sources say the officers were ambushed in Galeras on the way to
a farm to follow up a report that a local administrator had been
murdered.  They say the FARC operates in the area.  They're now trying
to locate the 5 missing officers, amid concerns they might have been
kidnapped by their assailants.

Human Rights Watch accuses Commonwealth of hypocrisy
Abuja. A human rights group has accused the Nigerian govt of using
violence and intimidation on its own population, to silence critics.
The US-based group Human Rights Watch has accused the Commonwealth of
hypocrisy in honouring Nigeria's regime while condemning Zimbabwe's
Pres Robert Mugabe.  Nigeria is hosting a Commonwealth summit this wk.
Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth 20 m ago after Mugabe was
re-elected in a poll which observers say was tainted by fraud and violence.

Zimbabwe to revise land laws
Harare. Zimbabwe's govt plans to amend controversial land laws to
allow it to take more land and more easily away from white farmers.
The state-run Herald says a major change would be the scrapping of a
requirement that a preliminary notice of acquisition by the govt is
served personally on the farm owner.  The paper also says that the
total land the govt initially said it wants to compulsorily acquire
from whites for blacks was only its minimum requirement.

Milosevic to stand in Serbian elections
Belgrade. It's been reported indicted former Yugoslav Pres Slobodan
Milosevic will run for parliament in up-coming elections in Serbia
this m.  Milosevic is presently on trial for war crimes before the UN
court in Den Hague.  A snr party official in Serbia says Milosevic
agreed to be first on the ticket of the Serbian Socialist Party of
Serbia.  SPS official Ivica Dacic says if they win enough votes to
enter parliament, Milosevic can be deputy.

N Ireland power-sharing prospects look dim
Belfast. Hopes of reviving N Ireland's power-sharing govt look bleak,
with the big winner of last wk's legislative elections saying he'll
never share the table with armed terrorists.  Brit's N Ireland Min
Paul Murphy has met with reps of the hard-line Democratic Unionist
Party after it clinched 30 seats in the Assembly.  However firebrand
DUP leader Ian Paisley has made it clear he won't form a coal'n govt
with the IRA's political wing and leading RC party, Sinn Fein.

Mark Latham elected Labor leader
Canberra. In a shock move, deputy Mark Latham has been elected to the
leadership of the fed Labor Party.  Labor's returning officer Bob
Sercobe says Mr Latham won today's caucus ballot against Kim Beazley
47 votes to 45.  Mark Latham says he's deeply honoured to be
opposition leader and he wants to do good things for Australia.  The
42 yo MP from W SYD now takes over as Opp'n Leader from Simon Crean,
who stood down after losing the support of snr colleagues and faction
leaders last wk.
[A Ch 9 phone poll after the decision found 49% of respondents
preferred Latham as PM, compared with 51% for staying with PM Howard].

RBA to decide in rates
Canberra. The RBA decides today whether to raise int rates.  The
board, at its last meeting of the y, is expected to consider whether
to increase rates by 25 basis pts.  There is plenty of data to
support the move, but home owners and many businesses are urging
restraint.  But a surge in the AUD o'night -- which briefly touched
73 US c -- may be the final decider. The Board will announce its
decision tomorrow morning.  The RBA raised rates last m by 1/4 pt --
the first increase in 16 m.  Another 25 basis pts would take the
monthly repayment of the average $190,000 mortgage up by another $30
pm.  Analysis are predicting there will be another 1/4 pt hike toward
the middle of next y.  Some pessimists are predicting a 50 basis pt
rise this time.

[More grist for the RBA mill:]
Aussie economy powering along
Canberra. Official data confirms the economy continued to steam ahead
in Oct, with rises in retail trade and building approvals increasing
the chances of another int rate hike before Xmas.  The ABS says
building approvals rose 1.6% in the wks before the RBA raised rates
for the first time in nearly 17 m.  The rise was driven by an increase
in apartment and townhouse approvals, although approvals remained
5.7% below the same time last y.

Vic fires under control
Melbourne. Firefighters have managed to contain a number of blazes
burning across Vic.  However a fire chief has warned that lighting
storms forecast in the state's NE could ignite dry areas.  The Dept of
Sust and Env's state fire coordinator, John Lloyd, says fire crews
overnight contained a fire in Buldah in Vic's far E that's burned out
about 20 ha.  Mr Lloyd says another 2 spot fires sparked by lightning
yesterday nr Shepparton in the state's N have been contained.

Former Qld magistrate serves sentence
Brisbane. Qld's former Chief Magistrate, Di Fingleton, will be
released from jail tomorrow.  She'll leave prison under circumstances
vastly different from the state's other high-profile female prisoner,
Pauline Hanson.  Fingleton will have to wait until a High Court
application next y for another chance to clear her name.  She's
already served her full 6-m sentence.  The last 4 m have been spent at
the Helena Jones Correct'al Centre -- a halfway house at Albion, in
Bris's inner-N.
[Later reports say Fingleton whimsically compared herself with Pauline
Hanson. She'd received about 1,000 letter while in jail, said
Fingleton, probably because she was not as famous as Hanson].

3rd "improper conduct" Schoolies case
Brisbane. More fallout from Schoolies Week is set to emerge, which
police revealing they're investigating a 3rd incident involving police
officers and under-aged girls.  Officers interviewing Public Safety
Response Team members have turned up another case of alleged
"unprofessional conduct".  The latest scandal involves PSRT officers
allegedly inviting teen girls to a unit on the GC last wk.  And it's
understood the girls involved in this incident are not party of either
of 2 prev-reported episodes.

Women smokers face greater risks
Chicago. A new study shows women smokers face twice the risk of
developing lung cancer as their male counterparts.  The study,
presented in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological
Society of N Am, also found women smokers face a much higher risk than
men of developing lung cancer no matter how often they smoke or how
old they are.  The American Cancer Society says lung cancer is the
leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women and men [what? not
old age?]  across the US.

NSW rail workers to strike Fri
Sydney. 1000s of rail workers will walk off the job on Fri over a
klong-running pay dispute with their employer, Pacific National.
Unions say the company wants to pay freight drivers in NSW a lower
rate until they begin a new system where the driver is the only
workers aboard the train.  The Rail Tram and Bus Union's nat'l Pres
Bob Hayden says the NSW Rail Safety Regulator is not willing to
approve the system until the McInerney Inquiry into the Waterfall
disaster is handed down later this m.

Bumper winter crops expected
Canberra. Australia's chief commodities forecaster says farmers will
bring in a near record winter crop of 37.6 mn tonnes.  The ABARE says
there's been a dramatic turnaround in conditions in most states,
prompting the 2nd largest winter crop on record.  In its last crop
report for the y, ABARE says wheat production will be up 138% on last
y's drought-ravaged crop, hitting 23.9 mn tonnes.  Production is also
up for barley, canola and pulses.
[Cotton farmers say their crop has been decimated by continuing
drought conditions. ABC TV reports cotton crops are down 67% this y,
compared with last y].

Animal welfare monitors harassed seal
Melbourne. Animal welfare officers have set up a 24-hr watch on a
beached elephant seal on Vic's W coast to protect it from being
harassed by the public.  The 500 kg seal first appeared at popular
Geelong fishing and walking spot Point Henry 3 wks ago.  However the
Geelong Animal Welfare Soc says curious onlookers have since poked
it, ripped fur from its skin, and harassed it.  Soc mgr Robin Stewart
says people are risking their own safety and upsetting the animal.

Music festival a money spinner
Sydney. NSW Tourism Min Sandra Nori says the Tamworth Country Music
Festival -- in its 31st y -- has become an event ingrained in the
nation's psyche.  She made the comment as some of the stars who will
head to Tamworth in Jan gathered in SYD to begin the countdown.  Jan
16 is expected to attract more than 80,000 visitors and generate
around $40 mn for Tamworth, in N NSW.

Markets
Sydney (close).  The ASX ended firmer today as resources powered
higher and lifted the indexes despite an overall choppy market.  The
All Ords added 16 pts to end at 3,197.  In Japan, the Nikkei gained
only 7 pts to close at 10,410.  The Hang Seng lost 45 pts to end at 12,412.

{{
Midnight.
The US says the enemy death toll is at least 54 after a pitched battle
in Samara.  2 US convoys were targeted.  They were carrying supplies
and new currency.  The rebel group had good intel, say US cmdrs.  They
fired from alleys and rooftops.  Lt Col Wm McDonald said the attackers
wore black uniforms.  The same ones worn by Saddam's Fedayeen.  The
Fedayeen have apparently re-organised and are now confident enough to
re-ID themselves.
[US ABC says there's another report that the death toll is lower, but
involves many Iraqi civilians who were not trying to steal the new
banknotes. Local witnesses say US tanks fired indiscriminately during
the attacks by uniformed Saddam Fedayeen.  They say even an empty
kindergarten was hit by US tank shells].

3.30 am
DW Radio.  An Indon court has overturned Abu Bakar Bashir's treason
conviction.  An appellate court dismissed the charge and reduced the
sentence of suspected JI leader Bashir from 4 y to 3.  It found the
prosecution had not proved the charge that Bashir had been involved in
an attempt to overthrow the Indonesian govt.

A former Bombay police chief has been charged with involvement in a
$646 mn fraud.

3.30 am
The head of Boeing, Condit, has unexpectedly resigned at a time the
company last lost its foothold in the market to Airbus.

An opinion poll has found 2/3 of Spaniards want their troops to come
back home.

5.30
A US soldier has been killed when his convoy came under attack in C Iraq.

The US flu season has opened early, with Colorado already recording 4
fatalities. Officials have been warning for wks it could be the worst
season in decades, with 37 states already recording significant
levels of infection.

Israeli troops have shot dead 4 Palestinians, incl a young boy, just
hrs after officials headed out to Geneva to sign up to an informal
peace agreement.  Israeli troops say they also destroyed a bomb
factory in a raid.  [SBS TV says soldiers blew up a 5-storey building
when an alleged militant inside refused to come out].  A 2nd building
was also bulldozed during the raid.  Yassar Arafat has reportedly come
out against the Geneva Accords.  A Palestinian rep said the agreement
still doesn't specify the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

6 am
A furore has been sparked by a home video that shows Vic police
ramming a knife-wielding suspect with a police car to end a siege.  An
internal investigation will determine whether excessive force was used.

6 US police officers have been suspended after they were caught on
video beating a suspect in Ohio.
[Later reports say the black suspect was beaten to death by police,
who continue to say their actions were justified].

A new report has found NSW regional airports are "virtual launching
pads for terrorist attacks".

The AUD is trading around 72.69 US c.  It briefly touched 73 US c
overnight as the greenback dived.  Gold his reached 7-and-1/2 y high,
breaking the $400 barrier.  Oil is down 58 c to $US29.89/bbl.  The Dow
was at an 18 m high, after factory data showed US conditions better
than in the prev 20 y.

Qld police are investigating a 3rd case of misconduct involving young
girls on the GC.  Yesterday, a 2nd officer was accused of having
sexual relations with several under-aged girls.

6.30 am
250 Aussie police are going to PNG to restore order.

10.30 am
In a shock move, Mark Latham has been elected Labor leader.  The
voting was close -- 47 to 45.  There were gasps of surprise from the
press when the announcement was made.  Reportedly the Liberal Party is
delighted with the decision.

Samarra. While US cmdrs have told reports they support the actions of
their men, locals continue to dispute the US version of events
yesterday.  One cmdr insisted his men "direct their fire" when under
attack.  TV pix seem to show otherwise.  The American forces claim
they fought off attacks on a currency shipment and killed 54
guerrillas.  [Mysteriously, says Aussie SBS TV, not one of the bodies
was retrieved.  The US military estimated the enemy dead from the
reports of soldiers. US cmdrs also say at least 60 enemy were involved
in the attack].
Locals say only 8 people were killed -- most of them civilian bystanders.
TV pix have shown pock-marked cars, others crushed by tanks, and
bullet-riddle buildings.
A sacred mosque was also hit by heavy fire.
Locals say an empty school building was hit by tank fire.
Civilian estimates of the death toll have varied from 6 to 20. The
local hospital is treating a number of wounded, incl young children,
old men and women.

11 am
Kim Beazley has given a press conf, saying he will support
newly-elected Mark Latham. Although Beazley indicated he would
continue on as an MP, analysts are saying he will probably retire
before the next elections. Kim's been defeated twice as leader of the
Opp'n and now defeated twice in bids to regain the ALP leadership.

4.30 pm
DW TV.  The hospital in Samarra says it has received only 7 or 8
bodies.  Local US cmdrs say they speculate the enemy removed the
bodies of their dead comrades. There are still no explanations why
none of the dead have been ID'ed as members of the attacking Fedayeen.

Research has confirmed a long-suspected link between asthma and
mental illness.  It's unclear why those suffering from asthma are more
prone to depression and other mental disordered, but some doctors
speculate simply suffering from a sometimes debilitating condition can
lead to depression.  1/10 Aussie adults are asthma sufferers.

Ch 7. Some news services report many locals in Samarra grabbed weapons
and joined the fight with black-clothed Saddam Fedayeen against 2 US
military columns carrying a shipment of newly printed currency.
Locals were reportedly upset about on-going night raids and what they
see as insulting and unfair treatment at the hands of US soldiers.
Knowing they were a target for thieves, the US column was reinforced
with 8 tanks.  US cmdrs say the attacks against them were planned,
with rebels planning fall-back positions and laying down explosives
ahead of time.

10 pm
London.  Don Rumsfeld has been awarded a gong by UK-based Plain
English.  The US Def Sec has won the 2003 Foot In Mouth Award for his
famous "There are no knowns...  that is really the known knowns and
the known unknowns" speech earlier this y, explaining why no Iraqi WMD
had been found.  There were many contenders for the least clear
statements of the y.  Governator Arnie reportedly came 2nd, with his
"Gay marriage should be something between a man and a women".  Pres
Bush has learned to laugh at his own numerous mistooks. E.g. "More of
our exports are coming from overseas this year".  Many MJ3 statements
had a solid chance. But the judges dismissed the entries as an obvious
collaborative effort.

New Labor leader Mark Latham has already pissed off the media,
reportedly refusing to talk with ABC Lateline. He apparently has
agreed to make comments today only to Packer's PBL Ch 9.
[Later reports on Ch 7 indicate journalists there have also been
locked out. Analysts say their advice would have been to get his
message out to as many media outlets as possible].
}}

----------------------------------------
Wed, 03 Dec 2003.

Markets
NY. Following a triple-digit hike yesterday, the Dow has closed down
45 pts to 9,854.  As the greenback reached an all-time low against the
euro, gold has added 95 c to $US403.33/oz.  Oil was also higher, at
$US30.75/bbl.  In London, the FTSE followed the Dow down, losing 31
pts to close at 4,389.  The German Dax also lost 12 pts to close at 3,809.

AUS int rates rise another 25 basis pts
Canberra. The RBA has raised the cash rate another 25 basis pts.
Homeowners and the fed govt have been bracing for the disappointing
Xmas present in the last Reserve Bank move of the y.  It's the 2nd
successive m of rate hikes after around 17 m of stability.  The
latest rise will add around $30 pm to the average home loan.  Analysts
are predicting another 25 basis pt rise is likely to follow in 1H04.
[Following the official announcement, the AUD jumped again.  It's now
trading around 73.26 US c. The lil Aussie battler has soared 30% over
the y -- and 4% since the start of Nov].
[A rep for the Nationals has called for the RBA Board to be sacked,
saying it must be stale if its only strategy was to lift interest
rates (?!). I don't know where that fella went to school].

12,000 US troops hunt Saddam deputy
Kirkuk. US troops have encircled the town of Hawijah for 12 hrs in a
swoop for Saddam Hussein's deputy Ibrahim al-Douri.  But a US rep
says the massive manhunt, involving 12,000 troops across N-C Iraq,
has failed to find the wanted man.  Meanwhile, at least 1 US soldier
has been killed in 2 bomb attacks on military convoys S of the tense
Iraqi town of Samarra that saw a massive firefight yesterday.

US warns of terror attacks
Nairobi. US embassies have warned of possible terrorist attacks
against 2 hotels in Kenya and a housing compound for Westerners in
Saudi Arabia.  2 banks have been evac'd in the Kenyan capital because
of a bomb threat.  US officials say Seder Village compound in Riyadh
has been under active surveillance by terrorists and other housing
complexes may also be targeted.  In Kenya, the US Embassy says the
US govt recently received an anonymous warning detailing terrorist
threats aimed at American and other Western interests in downtown Nairobi.

UN schedules 1-day summit on Israeli barrier
NY. The UN Gen Ass'y will hold a special session next wk to discuss
Israel's construction of a controversial W Bank security barrier.
Ass'y rep Michele Montas says the 1/2-day session has been scheduled
at the request of the UN's Arab Group.  Israel has ignored an earlier
UNGA Res on Oct 21, which deemed the construction of such a barrier
illegal under international law.

[As the US warns of the worst flu season in 30 y:]
Flu season hits France hard
Paris. Parts of W Europe have been hit by a mass outbreak of influenza
with up to 2 mn cases expected in France by the end of the wk.  The
epidemic comes amid warnings of a SARS-style worldwide pandemic of
flu, thanks to the ease of global travel.  In France, questions have
again been asked about the capacity of the country's health system to
cope with a crisis.  The country's latest health crisis comes 4 m
after the heat-wave that killed more than 15,000 people.

Mugabe announces "unholy anglo-saxon alliance"
Harare. Zimbabwe's Pres Robert Mugabe has named Australia, New
Zealand, and Britain as an unholy anglo-saxon alliance against his
country.  He says Zimbabwe supports China as an alternative world
power.  Mugabe says China is increasingly becoming an alternative
global power point indicating a new direction, which could be the
foundation of a new global paradigm.  On Fri, Mugabe indicated
Zimbabwe was ready to quit the Commonwealth permanently after he was
left out of the wk's Commonwealth Heads of Govt Meeting in Nigeria.

120 mm hit MEL over 3 hrs
Melbourne. Boats have been used to rescue people stranded on top of
their cars in MEL's E after severe thunderstorms hit the city
overnight.  The storms centres on the W, N and inner E subs, with 120
mm of rain recorded at Doncaster between midnight and 2.30 am.  A
Metro Fire Service rep says 12 people had to be rescued after their
cars became submerged by the storm-water on the Eastern Freeway.
Weather Bureau snr forecaster Ken Dickenson says the storm was "freakish".
[Other analysts say it was a 1-in-50 y event].

PM doesn't rule out early DD election
Canberra. As new Labor leader Mark Latham hits the airwaves to canvass
support for his party, PM John Howard has left open the option of
calling an early double dissolution election early next y.  But Mr
Howard says it's more likely the election will be held in 2H04.  The
Howard govt holds a handful of DD triggers -- with legislation
repeatedly modified by the Senate.  These incl bills on IR and
removing 1000s of islands from Australia's migration zone.
[Ever the opportunist, Mr Howard said unless a "special event" sent
him to the polls early, the election would be in the 2nd half of 2004].

Sheep report delayed until tomorrow
Melbourne. A report on the contamination of sheep at a Portland feed
lot has been put back until tomorrow.  The export of 70,000 live sheep
has been stalled as authorities investigate the contamination of their
feed by Animal Liberation at a feedlot at Portland, in Vic's SW last
m.  Animal Lib activists said they wanted to make the sheep
unacceptable to Muslim markets in the Middle E.

{{
Midnight.
Something unusual for MEL -- continuous thunder and continuous
lightning!  A continuous roll of thunder started around midnight and
continued for around 2 hrs.  There were also long periods of
cloud-to-cloud lightning and almost no sound.

1 am
Savage hail has hit MEL. Damage is likely to be extensive, with golf
ball-sized chunks of ice falling intermittently for around 2 hrs.

6 am
Severe storms hit N and E MEL o'night, Around 100 mm fell in 3 hrs.
The Met Bureau says it was a 1 in 50 y even.  Roads are blocked for kms.
There were 1,000 emergency calls o'night.  More storms are forecast
for SE MEL this morning.

The AUD has continued to 73.12 US c as the greenback hit record lows
against the euro. After a triple-digit rise yesterday, the Dow has
taken a breather is presently up only marginally.  Gold is settling in
about 400/oz.  It's presently around $US402.25/oz.  Oil rose more
than 90 c to $US30.75/bbl.

Disgraced supplement maker Pan Pharmaceuticals has reportedly applied
for a manufacturing licence in Vietnam.

A man is in satisfactory condition after being shot by Bris police
o'night. Reportedly, 2 police on a meal break at a McD's restaurant
spotted men in the car park "acting suspiciously". They approached them
men, and police allege they attempted to run over one officer in their
car. Police fired 3 rounds. A car with blown-out passenger and river
windows was later found at a nearby house. A man inside had bullet a
bullet wound in the stomach.

Fed parliament is set to pass stronger ASIO powers today.  The laws
will allow the intel organisation to question foreigners for up to 48
hrs with the use of an interpreter, compared to a max of 24 hrs for citizens.

More Aussies than ever before a choosing to live alone. The ABS says
there are 1.6 mn Aussies living by themselves -- up more than 40% over
the past 10 y.

Henry Kaye has apologised to investors, saying he never meant to cause
people to lose their money.  The Kaye empire collapsed suddenly last
wk, leaving 100s who wanted to learn how to make money fast in the
property market demanding refunds. Regulators say Kaye's 2 main
companies have gone into administration, but there appears to be a
complex of up to 100 others involved. People paid up to $50,000 to
attend Kaye seminars, leaning about "no money down" and "even an idiot
can make money in the property market".

Under intense cross-examination the accused killer of 2 English school
girls has admitted he didn't "give them a chance" but has maintained
he didn't mean to kill them.  According to the suspect, he
accidentally killed one girl while attending to her nose-bleed. The
other girl died when he tried to stop her screaming.  He later burned
the bodies and their clothing because he thought police would not
believe his story of a series of "accidents".

7 am
Wall St and London have both closed down after the greenback crashed
o'night.

To the tune of "Bats Out of Hell" Mark Latham is stalking the halls of
parliament house, looking for errant arse-lickers and suck-holes.

The UN climate conf in Milan has been told Aussie snow-fields could be
a thing of the past by 2070. While the Russia has signalled it will
not ratify Kyoto, and the US has defended its decision to refuse to
ratify the climate treaty, the latest research predicts avg global
temps will increase up to 6 C over the next C.

The marine response unit of the Fire Brigade had to save 12 motorists
on the E Freeway where water got to chest height, around midnight.
Firefighters donned life jackets and complained their charts weren't
accurate for navigation of the waters of the freeway.  The Met Bureau
says 112 mm of rain fell over N MEL in the space of 2 hrs o'night.
There are now reports of looting in Fairfield.  There are 30 reports
of theft in the area of a shopping centre that was damaged by hail o'night.

The govt has made 119 more amendments to its education bill in an
attempt to get it through the Senate by the end of the y.  Under
pressure from the Greens, the hike in fees has been limited to 20%.

A survey has found Aussie GP's wrote 9 mn fewer prescriptions last y
than 5 y ago.

SYD. A 19 yo man is in hospital after being stabbed 5 times during a
home invasion in N SYD. NSW police say 4 people were in the home in
Weaver St Ryde when 2 men armed with a knife and gun entered the
property around 7.30 pm.  A 19 yo man who lived in the home attempted
to stop the men breaking in, and was stabbed in the arm, chest and buttocks.
The offenders then escaped and the victim sought aid from a neighbour.

10 am
MEL's community TV channel has been knocked out by the o'night storms.

There's another consequence of 9/11. Firefighters in NY are leaving
their wives and shacking up with the widows of their fallen comrades.
It's a century-old tradition for NY firefighters to look after the
families of dead colleagues, but wives say their husbands are taking
it to new heights by leaving them for the widows of other firefighters.

MEL.  A charge of riotous behaviour against ATSIC boss Geoff Clark has
been dismissed.  17 of 19 charges against Clark have now been either
dismissed or withdrawn by police.  But the magistrate has said Clark
must face trial on a charge of obstructing police.  The charges stem
from an incident in a hotel, where Clark say he was asked to leave
because he is aboriginal.

MEL. 2 people have been charged with looting a shopping strip
following the city's once-in-a-century storms o'night.

11 am
The AUD has jumped after the RBA announced the rate hike.  It's now
trading at 6 y highs around 73.26 US c.  Gold is also on the rise,
partly because the greenback is continuing to decline.  It's trading
around $US404.00/oz.

11.30 am
There are rumours Saddam's deputy al-Douri may have been captured or
killed in a massive operation in N Iraq overnight.  The US military
has declined to confirm the rumours. The Iraqi Governing Council has
jumped at the story, saying it would be major coup for the occupying
forces to eliminate a major source of resistance.

2 US Mars probes are due to attempt a landing on the Red Planet early
next y. But NASA now says it's having concerns about the success of
the mission. Mars is having a lot of bad weather that could wreck the
delicate landers.

GDP data for the Sep Q show AUS grew at 1.2% -- for an annualised rate
in the range of 4-5%.

Midday.
The Dems have just announced they will vote down the govt's Medicare
safety net measures. Andrew Bartlett said his party was disappointed
they could not assist people with bulk billing and health. The govt
will now have to turn the independent Senators, incl Meg Lees, if they
want the measures to pass.

In France, 3 people have been killed in flooding in S France.  As
villages around Marseille were flooded by heavy rain, people had to be
rescued from their homes in boats.  2 nuke reactors had to be shut
down because of the high levels of the Rhone.  More rain is forecast
over the next 2 days.

12.30 pm
The Fed govt says it's increasing the protection of the GBR from 3% to
30% of its area. Env Min David Kemp said around the world other reefs
had been damaged, some beyond recovery, by misuse and pollution. The
govt admits some users will lose out under the new regime, but says it
must move to protect the $4 bn tourism ind'y.

Sydney. The ASX dropepd 10 pts on the news of an interest rate hike
this morning, but has now recovered.  At 12.14 AEDT the All Ords was
up 21 pts to 3,218.
}}
========================================

(*) Who is responcible for W.A.R.S?  A small group of dedicated
sandgrubbers, bannana-lickers and 5th columnists on the run from
support payments and sundry legalese in their home countries. Mention
us at any Uncle Harry's Suburban Bunker and get a 10% discount on cop-killers!

All speling macroizated for correctitood by Mcrosotf Speelchek.

*** Please stand by for further orders from The Leader ***