NPR Hourly News (4-6 minutes)

PBS Widening the War (17:07)
After a background report from Spencer Michels, Jim Lehrer discusses opening another front in the war on terrorism with Albert del Rosario, the Philippine Ambassador to the United States.

NPR Man Held for Death Threats Had Arms Cache, Police Say (3:07)
After a fired nuclear plant worker is arrested for alleged death threats, police find a stockpile of 300 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition at his home. NPR's Ina Jaffe reports.

Cyrus Vance
has died, aged 84
(Reuters)

Mr. Vance was secretary of state from 1977 until 1980, when he resigned in protest over President Carter's decision to try a military rescue of American hostages in Iran, an action that he considered ill advised and futile. He was soon proved right. His doubts that the elaborate rescue would succeed, and his fears that it would sabotage diplomatic efforts to free the 52 American hostages, brought him to what he called "one of the most painful days of my life.''

Of the eight American helicopters sent on the mission, three broke down in the first stage of the operation. It was decided to abandon the mission, but there was more humiliation ahead for the United States. One of the remaining helicopters collided on the ground with a transport plane and both craft burned. Eight servicemen died in the fire and the rest fled.

In 1968 the former hawk became an opponent of America's war in Vietnam.

Cyrus Vance began his career in 1957 and over the next 10 years served a trouble-shooter in conflicts ranging from Panama to the Cyprus issue. He helped negotiate the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Enron imploded; The little guys got crushed 
source: Time.com, BBC, CBS and CNN

A new is that politicians are returning campaign contributions.

The collapse of Enron, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, led to thousands of employees losing their life savings in 401(k) plans tied to the energy company's stock. The reputation of Arthur Andersen, Enron's auditing firm, is damaged after company officials admitted that Enron documents were destroyed. In Washington, Congress and the Justice Department are investigating what happened at the once high-flying company, whose officials have donated millions of dollars to Republicans and Democrats alike.

Enron began in 1985 as a traditional gas pipeline company, but transformed itself into an innovative trader of gas, electricity and other commodities. Its stock became a Wall Street favorite as it tried to enter markets for fiber-optics, movie rentals, paper, even advertising.

Enron and its executives poured millions of dollars into the political process -- $1.7 million in the 2000 election alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. a series of actions by Congress and the FERC, which broke down the old monopoly of utility companies over power plants and transmission lines, benefited Enron. The company successfully lobbied for a regulatory exemption for futures trading.

In November the company admitted overstating its profits by $600 million. But most papers played these stories on their business pages. Even Enron's December 2 declaration of bankruptcy failed to make the front pages of many large papers. The company has collapsed amid charges of devastating its employees' retirement funds and Enron is the hottest story in the country. Political reporters learned that Enron had sought help from the Bush White House. Teams of business journalists are digging into the largest corporate meltdown in American history.

In related news, US stocks tumbled to their lowest levels of the year Wednesday after Intel, the No. 1 chipmaker, raised fears that tech companies aren't ready to spend the economy out of recession and J.P. Morgan showed how recent bankruptcies can harm lenders.

In the latest development, An auditor said to have led a hurry-up effort to destroy documents in the Enron case was cooperating with congressional investigators a day after his accounting firm fired him, his attorneys said. David Duncan, who oversaw Enron's audits from the Houston office of Arthur Andersen LLP, is to be extensively interviewed by staff from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Enron reported a $618 million loss for the third quarter — its first public disclosure of its financial woes. Auditors for Arthur Andersen received an instruction from the company's lawyers to destroy all audit material, except for the most basic "work papers." That's what they did.

FBI investigators, congressional probes and workers suing the company for lost retirement savings will be denied thousands of e-mails and other electronic and paper files that could have helped illuminate the actions and motivations of Enron executives involved in what now is the biggest bankruptcy in US history.

Arthur Andersen workers had destroyed "a significant but undetermined number" of documents related to Enron, the accounting firm acknowledged in a terse public statement, not revealing that the destruction orders came in an October 12 memo. Spokesman David Tabolt said it would be "inappropriate" to discuss certain details until the company completes its own review of the issues.

Smoking e-mail?
The job of recovering the missing Enron Corp. accounting documents is falling to computer sleuths.

Shredded evidence is only one of the issues that will get close scrutiny in the Enron case. The US Justice Department announced last week that it was creating a task force, staffed with experts on complex financial crimes, to pursue a full criminal investigation. We are reminded of the pervasive reach of Enron and its executives — the biggest contributors to the Presidential campaign of George W. Bush — that US Attorney General John Ashcroft had to recuse himself from the probe because he had received $57,499 in campaign cash from Enron for a failed 2000 Senate re-election bid in Missouri  — the entire office of the U.S. Attorney in Houston recused itself because too many of its prosecutors had personal ties to Enron executives — Texas attorney general John Cornyn, who launched an investigation in December into 401(k) losses at Enron and possible tax liabilities owed to Texas, recused himself because since 1997 he has accepted $158,000 in campaign contributions from the company — and angry workers have been fired or have seen their life savings disappear.

On the evidence to date, the Bush Administration would seem to have admirably rebuffed pleas for favors from its most generous business supporter. But it didn't tell that story very effectively — encouraging speculation that it has something to hide.

Democrats in Congress, frustrated by Bush's soaring popularity and their own inability to move pet legislation through Congress, smelled a chance to link Bush and his party to the richest tale of greed, self-dealing and political access since junk-bond king Michael Milken was jailed in 1991. That's just what the President, hoping to convert momentum from his war on terrorism to the war on recession, desperately wants to avoid.

The former chairman of a federal regulatory agency painted a dark portrait Tuesday of Enron, saying the huge energy company had sought to manipulate energy policies to its own advantage. The fallout will swing on the following key questions:

• Were crimes committed?
• What about other probes?
• Were favors received?
• Who will audit the auditors?
• Can 401(k)s be protected?

MORE:

PBS  
Accounting for Enron (10:30) A look into questions surrounding Enron's accounting practices. (1/11/02)

Senate Perspective (16:38) JIM LEHRER with Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) talk about the fallout from Enron and a recent visit to Afghanistan. (1/14/02)

CNN web special: Enron with update links

BBC report: Rise and fall of an energy giant

Regional Features

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush fainted and fell off a couch on Sunday evening after choking on a pretzel while watching a televised football game, but a subsequent medical examination showed he was fine, his doctor said. His physician, Air Force Col. Richard Tubb, said the president had complained that he might be coming down with a cold. This condition combined with his having just eaten a pretzel that he did not swallow properly caused his heart rate to slow, and as a result he fainted. The incident occurred at 5:35 p.m. EST as Bush watched the NFL playoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Miami Dolphins, which Baltimore won 20-3.

When Bush woke up on the floor, he immediately alerted the nurse on duty downstairs at the White House, Air Force Maj. Cindy Wright. She found Bush's vital signs to be normal and called in Tubb, who gave Bush a series of tests including an electrocardiogram to check his heart. There was no evidence of a heart arrhythmia, heart blockage or heart muscle problems. As of 7:07 p.m. EST, Bush's heart, blood pressure and blood sugar were all normal, Tubb said. His blood pressure was 111 over 70. Normal is 120 over 80.

In 2002, it's Bush vs. Daschle

US President George W Bush says running a deficit is justified while the country is at war.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has provided more than $60 billion since September to combat terrorism at home and abroad and to rebuild from the attacks on New York and Washington. That's roughly five times what the nation spent to fight terrorism in the previous year.

When he sends Congress his $2 trillion budget for fiscal 2003 next month, President Bush is expected to propose billions more for the military's $345 billion wartime budget for the rest of this year, plus a hefty increase for next year for government-wide anti-terrorism efforts.

Aides on the House Budget Committee estimate that so-called homeland security programs alone — such as hiring FBI agents and stopping bio-terrorists — will grow by $150 billion over the next decade.

President George W Bush hit at critics of his tax cut policy, saying that "not over my dead body" would he see levies raised. Replying to comments by Democrat senator Tom Daschle, President Bush said "the worst thing you can do is raise taxes".

Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota said the income tax cuts which President Bush prioritized immediately after taking office a year ago for the "most dramatic fiscal deterioration in our nation's history".

Firing his first political salvo of 2002, President George W. Bush used his weekly radio address on January 5, 2002 to accuse Senate Democrats of blocking his plan to provide Americans with economic security. Bush is seen during the unveiling of his official portrait as Governor of Texas at the Texas State Capitol in Austin January 4.

BBC Report: Bush: budget deficit

President Installs 2 Disputed Nominees
Action on State, Labor Dept. Picks Sidesteps Senate
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 12, 2002; Page A01

With Congress in recess, President Bush yesterday installed two of his most controversial nominees, sidestepping the Democratic-controlled Senate that had declined to vote on their confirmation.

The "recess appointments" will allow Otto J. Reich, the new assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Labor Department solicitor Eugene Scalia to stay in office until the end of the upcoming congressional session, probably in mid-October. After waiting months for Senate action, both officials were at work yesterday even before the midday White House announcement.

Scalia, already working as a Labor Department consultant, simply changed titles. Reich, who had been barred from policy meetings on the State Department's upper floors, was quickly sworn in by the department's chief of protocol and immediately met with his deputies.

The appointments are likely to worsen the already sour relations with Senate Democrats, particularly Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.). Democratic and Republican presidents have made recess appointments before, but Daschle called yesterday's announcement "regrettable."

Republicans who had supported the two nominees were jubilant. "This is the Bush slam-dunk to Daschle's repudiation of qualified people," said an aide to a GOP Senate leader.

A White House official charged that the two men had been "held as political hostages. . . . The Senate has not fulfilled its end of the bargain to advise and consent, and left the president with no other option."

Top presidential appointees are subject to Senate confirmation. The Senate adjourned last month, until Jan. 23, without acting on the two nominations, among the first Bush made last year. The Constitution allows the president to bypass the confirmation process when the Senate is formally recessed.

But such action has always strained relations between the executive and legislative branches. The battles over Scalia and Reich are reminiscent of similar controversies during the Clinton administration.

Senate Republicans accused President Bill Clinton of subverting the legislative process with his recess appointments. Clinton's actions allowed Bill Lann Lee to head the Justice Department's civil rights division and made Roger L. Gregory the first black judge on the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans said neither man was qualified, but Clinton accused the GOP of playing politics. The party roles are now reversed.

Bush nominated Scalia, a prominent conservative and son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to the Labor Department post in April. Organized labor groups charged, among other things, that Eugene Scalia's dismissal of existing rules on workplace injuries as "quackery" based on "junk science" made him unsuited to be the nation's chief enforcer of rules designed to protect workers.

He was strongly opposed by Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, headed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). Although the committee narrowly endorsed Scalia in October, his nomination stalled before it reached the Senate floor. Daschle maintained that the Senate eventually would vote on Scalia, but he said it was unlikely he would be approved.

Kennedy said yesterday that he continues to believe Scalia "is not the right person for this important Labor Department position. His record and experience do not reflect a commitment to the rights of America's workers."

The fight over Reich, a Cuban American long identified with ideologically hard-line strains in that community, has been among the most bitter of Bush's first year. Democrats charged that Reich's nomination was little more than a payback to Florida's Cuban American voters, who helped Bush eke out a victory in 2000 in Florida and, thereby, win the presidency. They are also crucial to this year's reelection bid of Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

Senior Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), called Reich a divisive nominee, ill-suited to maintaining bipartisan consensus on sensitive Latin American policies. Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) refused to hold a hearing on his nomination and said some committee Republicans privately agreed. One Republican, Sen. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), released a letter he wrote to Bush last month urging against a recess appointment and saying that Reich did not have the Senate's support.

Reich's role as a key figure in the Reagan administration's contra war in Nicaragua during the 1980s was criticized during subsequent congressional investigations. Dodd and others also raised ethical questions about Reich's later career as a lobbyist for businesses with strong interests in Latin American policy. Reich withdrew financial disclosure documents, filed soon after his nomination, when they appeared to ensure an income stream from former clients and associates in the Cuban American community after he takes office.

Dodd said yesterday that Reich will "become a lame duck as soon as he takes the position" because recess appointments expire at the end of the congressional session. He said it is "unfortunate that U.S. foreign policy in this area of the world is being sacrificed for a narrow domestic political agenda."

White House spokeswoman Anne Womack called Reich, who served as U.S. ambassador to Venezuela during the late 1980s, "an experienced and skilled diplomat who has a long record of working in the Western Hemisphere." She said Reich "will help the president continue to assemble a worldwide coalition to fight terrorism" and will play an important role in the fight against drug trafficking and the push toward free trade and economic integration in the region.

Reich said in a statement that he was "honored by the confidence in me that this appointment represents on the part of the President and the Secretary of State. . . . I look forward to working . . . to advance the cause of freedom, human rights and prosperity."

With the installation of Scalia and Reich, all but a handful of Bush's early executive branch nominees are now in place. When the Senate returns, Republican criticism is likely to escalate against the delays in judicial confirmations, in which only 28 of Bush's 65 nominations have been acted on.

--  WASHINGTON (PBS)  - The man accused of trying to ignite explosives hidden in his sneakers while on board a trans-Atlantic flight last month pleaded not guilty to federal terrorism-related charges Friday.

Attorney General John Ashcroft Wednesday announced the U.S. has indicted Richard Reid, a British citizen who allegedly tried to blow up an airplane with explosives in his shoes, on nine counts -- including attempted murder. Ashcroft said the charges "alert us to a clear, unmistakable threat that al-Qaida could attack the United States again."

The indictment alleges Reid had received training in Afghanistan from the al-Qaida terrorist network. Reid was charged with interfering with a crew member on Flight 63. The indictment includes a second count of crew interference. The other charges are: Attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction; Attempted homicide; -- Placing explosive devices on an aircraft; Attempted murder; Attempted destruction of an aircraft; Using a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence;  Attempted wrecking of a mass transportation vehicle.

Officials explained that the attempted homicide charge related to the attempted killing of one or more U.S. nationals outside the United States. The attempted murder charge related to the 197 passengers and crew members on the plane.

Reid was apprehended by a flight attendant and subdued by passengers when he allegedly tried to ignite explosives in his shoes on a Paris to Miami flight December 22. The incident on Flight 63 was thwarted when a flight attendant caught a man trying to ignite one of his sneakers and other crew members and passengers wrestled him to the plane's floor. The jetliner was escorted to Boston by F-16 fighters.
 

PBS Attorney General Ashcroft's statement (1/16/02)

--  WASHINGTON (PBS)  - Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday defended the charges brought against American Taliban fighter John Walker and said prosecutors are considering other evidence that could carry the death penalty. Ashcroft said that Walker's rights have been protected while he has been in custody and that he chose to make statements without an attorney present and with no coercion.

Ashcroft announced Tuesday that John Walker, an American who joined the Taliban, will be tried in federal district court for conspiracy to kill US citizens and US military forces in Afghanistan.

Most of the charges rest on evidence that was presented by Walker in interviews. The charges so far do not carry the death penalty, but if convicted, Walker faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. Walker will be transferred from U.S. military custody and handed over to the FBI, Ashcroft said. He was being held on the USS Bataan, a warship in the Arabian Sea, as of Tuesday.

PBS 16:57 John Walker charged (1/15/02)

--  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American aircraft are continuing raids in eastern Afghanistan, as President Bush issued a stark warning to followers and allies of Osama Bin Laden's al Qaida terror group. "They think they can run, they think they can hide, because they think this country's soft and impatient," he said. "But they're going to continue to learn the terrible lesson that says don't mess with America."

--  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on reasserted US commitment to a nuclear testing moratorium for now as the Pentagon sent Congress a new top-secret proposal to overhaul the nation's nuclear policy. Speaking before defense officials briefed congressional staffers on the Nuclear Policy Review, left open the possibility that future underground tests might be needed to keep the shrinking U.S. nuclear arsenal "safe and reliable."

A Congressional aide who attended a briefing on the review by Defense Department officials said the review urged a quicker process of resuming testing should that become necessary. Under current guidelines this would take two to three years.

The aide said the report did not specifically state how long the period was, but The Washington Post interpreted the move to speed up the process as a sign the Bush administration might resume testing after a decade-long moratorium.

Bush has already said he intends to cut the arsenal of U.S. strategic nuclear warheads from about 6,000 warheads to a level of 1,700-2,100.

Rumsfeld said Bush would continue for now to observe a self-imposed 1992 U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing. Any decision to resume testing would be sure to provoke protests from other countries, including U.S. allies.

Bush's father, former President George Bush, imposed a moratorium on underground nuclear testing in 1992, which was upheld by former President Bill Clinton. The U.S. Senate decided in 1999 not to ratify the proposed international Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, which is aimed at a global ban on all nuclear tests.

The treaty would go into formal effect only after ratification by 44 countries that either possess nuclear weapons or are capable of building them. A number of those countries, including the United States, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel, have not ratified the treaty.

Rumsfeld refused to discuss details of the classified nuclear review, including whether or not it recommended designing new and small nuclear arms intended to penetrate and destroy underground bunkers such as those used by al Qaida guerrillas in Afghanistan.

--  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has renewed its call for US law enforcement agencies to remain vigilant for unspecified threats, extending the current high alert status for three months and covering the Winter Olympic Games in Utah. "The FBI issued a general alert to local law enforcement agencies extending their previous alerts," informs Homeland Security Office spokesman Gordon Johndroe, saying: "It urges local law enforcement to continue at high alert and to notify the FBI of anything suspicious or usual."

PBS Report (9:47): Tom Bearden reports on the National Guard's increased role in the homeland security effort. Since Sept. 11, forty-five thousand National Guardsmen have been called to active duty. Pilots are flying combat air patrols over major cities. Troops are guarding airports, bridges, and nuclear power plants.

--  WASHINGTON (CNN) - The U.S. has added two charities believed to be raising money for al Qaida to its global terrorist watch list, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Wednesday. The groups -- the Afghan Support Committee and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society -- operated in Afghanistan and Pakistan and were not believed to have any assets in the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP)

A federal judge denied a request to televise the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person so far to face charges in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, invoked Allah and told an Alexandria courtroom that he didn't have anything to plead before a judge accepted a not guilty plea on his behalf. Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French citizen of Moroccan descent, appeared in a court in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the Pentagon that was badly damaged in the September 11 suicide attacks.

While the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui is still many months away, a hearing to decide whether it should be televised is raising controversy. Justice Department lawyers say television could make witnesses, court officials and jurors targets of attack, while Court TV argues that a camera ban is unconstitutional. Moussaoui has partly supported its petition, saying television would help ensure the proceedings were fair.

Moussaoui's mother is in France. After issuing a public plea that her son's life be spared, she declined to visit her son after authorities said an FBI agent would be present.

A federal grand jury has charged jailed French Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui with six counts of conspiracy in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  It is the first indictment directly related to the hijackings of four airliners that killed more than 3,000 people.

Moussaoui, who underwent flight training in the United States and allegedly received money transfers from the hijackers' German cell, is suspected of possibly preparing to be the fifth hijacker on United Airlines Flight 93, the only one of the four planes on September 11 with four terrorists aboard. Five hijackers were on each of the other planes.

Rule 53 of federal criminal procedure bans taking photographs in the courtroom and radio broadcasting during trials. Court TV, which made the motion to allow a camera in the Moussaoui courtroom, maintained that rule is unconstitutional. The network, which cited the First Amendment and the historic magnitude of the case, was supported in court filings by other media organizations.

The Justice Department opposed the motion to televise the Moussaoui trial in any way. The government argued that televised proceedings would undermine security, influence jurors, and distract witnesses.

Moussaoui's trial is scheduled to begin on October 15.

PBS TV broadcast?  (11:06)
Should TV networks be allowed to broadcast the trial of alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui? (1/9/02)

--  WASHINGTON (AP) - US authorities have released a videotape of one of the 9/11 hijackers who was pulled over by Maryland state troopers only two days before the attacks. Ziad Samir Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen, is believed to have taken the pilot's controls on the United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into fields in Pennsylvania.

Pattern
Jarrah becomes the third of the four pilots involved in the hijacks to have been pulled over by authorities for speeding in the months before the attacks on New York and Washington.

--  ILLINOIS (Chicago Tribune) - A Muslim woman and the American Civil Liberties Union are suing the Illinois National Guard and O'Hare International Airport security officers in hopes of ending what they say is racial profiling in airport searches. It is the ACLU’s first lawsuit in what it claims have been about 100 cases of airport discrimination against Muslims since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Samar Kaukab of Columbus, Ohio, alleges she was strip-searched at the Chicago airport before a Nov. 7 flight simply because she was wearing a Muslim head scarf, or hijab.

Kaukab claims the black scarf -- which covers her hair, shoulders and chest, but not her face -- led a guardsman to instruct Argenbright Security guards to take her aside for a thorough search even though she tripped no metal detectors.

--  NEW YORK (AP) - New Yorkers living around the site where the World Trade Center once stood say they have found evidence the area is unfit for human habitation. They say that independently-commissioned scientific tests have found high levels of asbestos, lead and other dangerous chemicals near the twin towers, which collapsed after being hit in suicide airliner attacks on September 11.

Local residents are worried some of the substances released into the air by the collapse of the twin towers may lead to long-term health problems. According to the International Herald Tribune, about a quarter of the city's firefighters who have worked at the devastated twin towers' site - dubbed Ground Zero - have complained of severe coughing.

Last week four police officers were taken off the site after testing positive for abnormally-high levels of mercury in their blood.

Dozens of students at Stuyvesant High School nearby have developed rashes, breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and headaches.

The EPA initially reassured New Yorkers that the air was safe, although tests carried out by the agency shortly afterwards found elevated levels of dangerous chemicals such as lead and benzene. More recent tests commissioned by residents in apartments north of Ground Zero have also found asbestos, which can cause cancer, at levels 500 times higher than the authorities say is acceptable. More: BBC toxins

--  VIRGINIA (CNN) - A gunman who opened fire Wednesday at a law school in southwestern Virginia, leaving three people dead and three others wounded, was described as "a time bomb" by a local doctor who recently treated him for stress.

One of those killed was the dean of Appalachian School of Law, L. Anthony Sutin, a former acting assistant U.S. attorney general. Killed along with Sutin were another faculty member and a student, said Ellen Qualls, press secretary for Gov. Mark Warner.

Powder burns on the dean and the professor indicated they were shot at point blank range by the suspected gunman, said Dr. Jack Briggs, a coroner for Buchanan County. The man also shot four students in the4 hallway. Students then tackled the suspected gunman after he opened fire with a .38-caliber automatic handgun.

Three wounded students were taken to Buchanan General Hospital and later transferred to other hospitals for treatment. Two of them were in surgery and the third was in fair condition.

AFGHANISTAN
--  KABUL - America's new envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the bombing would continue as long as a threat to the US remained. Thousands of loosely organized but heavily armed Northern Alliance troops have occupied Kabul since the Taliban fled the city on November 13 are ordered to put down weapons or leave the city.

Web of Tunnels and Weapons 
U.S. troops found and destroyed a web of tunnels just outside of the Kandahar airport used as a base for U.S. Marines for more than a month. (1/15/02)

Abandoned al Qaida sites contain an array of bomb-making manuals, training pamphlets and other documents on destruction and plans for destruction.

Intelligence: PBS

Prisoners (34:59)
Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem and Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke discuss the transfer of prisoners to Cuba. (1/14/02)

General Myers (30:25)
Press conference with General Myers; discusses the al Qaida captures and other action in Afghanistan. (1/8/02)

Detainees Transfers and Action (30:50)
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke and Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem show slides of a January 3 strike and discuss the transfer of detainees to Guantanamo Bay. (1/7/02)

ARGENTINA
--  (BBC) - Argentina's new government has announced the long-expected devaluation of the peso, ending 10 years of parity with the US dollar in a dramatic bid to save the collapsing economy.

BOSNIA (CNN)
Bosnia has turned over to U.S. military authorities six Algerians accused of plotting an attack on the American embassy in Bosnia. They could soon be transferred to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The handover of the suspected terrorists came despite a ruling by Bosnia's highest court that they be freed and amid demonstrations by Bosnian Muslims. The men, who were rounded up after the September 11 terrorist attacks, are now in the custody of US forces.

The handover came after an all-night standoff outside the jail in Sarajevo where the men had been held since October. Hours after the court's late night order, crowds formed outside the holding facility. Some 300 family members, friends and other supporters of the six men expressed alarm about rumours that they were to be extradited out of the country. Police using batons dispersed the crowd at about 5 a.m. and the men were driven away.

The suspects, including at least one man with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, had spent the last three months in jail after Washington said it had intelligence, such as intercepted telephone conversations, linking the men to a threatened attack. The suspects claimed to have Bosnian citizenship, but Bosnian officials stripped them of their Bosnia passports, saying the documents were illegally obtained. Algeria said it did not want the six returned.

Bosnian officials said they lacked evidence for a trial because the United States would not reveal the intelligence it gathered since doing so would reveal how it got the information. Bosnian officials had that said if the six were wanted on U.S. warrants, they could be turned over to U.S. officials.

The men are identified as Bensayah Belkacem, Mustapha Adir, Sabir Lahmar, Mohammed Nehle, Lakdar Bumedien, and Bubdeolah Hadz.

BURMA (BBC)
Burma has announced it plans to join the nuclear club. The Burmese Foreign Minister, Win Aung, told the BBC his country was committed to developing a nuclear research facility for medical purposes and possibly to generate nuclear power. It would be some time before a nuclear reactor was actually built in Burma he said.

COLUMBIA (AP) - The Colombian Government is faltering in peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in a three year peace process-struggle with the leftist rebel group. The country's civil war pits the Marxist-inspired rebel group against the US-backed Colombian military and an outlawed right-wing military group. After three years of talks, the two sides have never reached a single agreement on a peace treaty.

(CBS) Colombia remains the world's leading cocaine exporting nation and an increasingly important source of the heroin sold in the United States. The US operates in Columbia to reduce the drug production there.

This week, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) tells CBS "60 Minutes" Correspondent Steve Kroft that US involvement in spraying herbicide on Colombian coca plants not only fails to curb cocaine production, but it may also pose a health hazard to thousands of innocent people living near the fields. The spraying program has destroyed hundreds of square miles of coca fields, yet production continues to rise.

On his visit to Colombia, Kroft found people suffering from rashes that a Colombian health department worker believes were caused by the spraying. The worker, Nancy Sanchez, also says illnesses like fever, diarrhea and allergies were up 100 percent in the spraying areas and that 2,300 families have complained of sicknesses.

US involvement in Columbia is invested in diminishing drug production by killing the crops. Alleged drug kingpin Fabio Ochoa arrived in Miami early Saturday to face prosecution on charges he belonged to a gang that sent 30 tons of cocaine a month, with a street value of $1 billion, to the United States, a federal official said.

Ochoa, 44, a former top leader of the notorious, now-defunct Medellin cartel headed by Pablo Escobar, was being held at the federal detention center in Miami and will face a judge at the U.S. Magistrate Court next week, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Joe Kilmer said Saturday.

The handover is seen as a victory for U.S. officials who have long sought the extradition of Colombian drug lords who are flooding the United States with cocaine and heroin. Ochoa becomes the highest-profile Colombian sent to justice in the United States since Colombia revived extraditions in 1997.

In Washington, the State Department is warning Americans in Colombia to take extra security precautions following the extradition of Fabio Ochoa, the former head of the Medellin drug cartel. In a statement Friday night, the department noted "the past history of narcotics traffickers conducting bombings in public areas as a reprisal for or deterrent to extradition."

For background: COLOMBIA - A Country Study is published at the Library of Congress.

ISRAEL &
INDIA (BBC)

BBC Report: Israel and India 'share same views'
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells Indian leaders during a visit to Delhi that the two countries share similar views on the world.

India & China (Washington Post)
Asia officially entered the nuclear club in 1964, when China tested its first atomic weapon. India, in particular, was wary of its militarist neighbor. Ties between the two countries had worsened since 1959, when Tibet's Dalai Lama fled to India after the Chinese invasion of the Himalayan territory. India also had lost a brief border war with the Chinese in 1962 – a defeat that led India to shift more resources toward nuclear weapons research.

In 1971, hostilities erupted again as Pakistan troops began assaults on India-backed Bengali separatists in East Pakistan. A brutal campaign ensued with Bengalis subsequently declaring their nation (Bangladesh) independent and India joining the fight against its western neighbor. By December 1971, some one million people had died in fighting that ended with Pakistan's surrender.

Pakistan's defeat spurred its leaders to pursue a secret nuclear weapons program by 1972. China reportedly supplied Pakistan with plans for a nuclear bomb in 1983, as well as enough highly enriched uranium for two thermonuclear weapons.

Pakistan and India worked on acquiring and perfecting nuclear-capable missiles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. India tested in 1988 its Prithvi missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into Pakistan. Meanwhile the Pakistanis launched a program to develop two short-range ballistic missile systems in the 1980s.

In the 1990s, repeated clashes between Indian army troops and Muslim separatists in the long-disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir further strained relations between the two countries, as India blamed Pakistan for aiding the Muslims.

A long-simmering tension escalated with India testing nuclear weapons in May 1998. Pakistan, which has received significant nuclear help from China, immediately followed suit. But Pakistan was already  largely a problem of the past for India with a nuclear strategy centered on China.

In the aftermath of a series of nuclear test explosions set off by the bitter rivals, there is perhaps no place on Earth with greater potential for triggering a nuclear war than Kashmir. Kashmir, long considered a potential flash point for nuclear war in South Asia, became in 1998 the key to any international effort to maintain stability between two newly nuclear-armed nations with deeply entrenched religious and political animosities.

As New Delhi informed President Clinton immediately after the tests, India could not ignore China's growing nuclear missile force and assistance Beijing was providing to Pakistan as part of an anti-India policy. Soon, the Clinton administration announced easing of sanctions against both India and Pakistan, paving the way for US loans and investments in the two nations.

In efforts by the White House, President Bush will end sanctions on India in a matter of months, according to aides. He wants a strategic relationship with India. Additionally, the US ties with Pakistan are strengthening. The president has nominated as his ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, an experienced diplomat and broad strategic thinker.

Bush's welcome of Indian support for anti-terror plans is but a small part in the grand scheme.

More: Washington Post Interactive: The Conflict in Kashmir

INDIA (PBS) PERSPECTIVES

ANURADHA MITTAL, Indian Food Activist: Here are two countries, which have often diverted attention from domestic issues, such as increasing hunger and poverty, to focus on military tensions in the regions. So you have two governments who have a stake to continue this religious fundamentalism because that's how they stay in power.

Do we want our governments to go to war and fight a war that I do not want, and I know my friends and my community doesn't want?

Do I want to be part of a war, which can go nuclear? No!


RAMAN RAO, Temple Chairman: India and Pakistan are actually brothers. And coincidentally, it so happens that I actually roomed with a person, a student from Pakistan at Michigan State. And he was from Karachi, and we got along famously. That so, and we speak the same language.

I think most educated, rational citizens of the U.S., whether they're Pakistanis or Indians, probably have a different perspective than the same people if they were citizens of Pakistan or India, you know?

And that's rightfully so, because I think we shouldn't have, we should not bring the baggage from there where we are from.

INDIA (Reuters)
The Indian Defence Minister, George Fernandes, says the country's heightened military presence along the border with Pakistan will not be scaled down until Pakistan ends what he called cross-border terrorism.

IRAN (BBC)
Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has angrily denounced a statement by US President George W Bush that Iran must co-operate in the US-led war against terrorism. Speaking at Friday prayers in Tehran, Mr Rafsanjani described Mr Bush's statement as "rude and impudent."

Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Ministry had denounced US suggestions that Iran might have permitted fugitives from the al-Qaeda movement to cross the border from Afghanistan and seek refuge in Iran. Additionally, Rafsanjani has advocated the annihilation of Israel with nuclear weapons.

The US issued indictments against 14 suspects - 13 Saudis and one Lebanese - in June this year. The charges claimed the alleged bombers were trained in parts of Iran and Lebanon.

In announcing the indictments, US Attorney-General John Ashcroft said factions within the Iranian regime had "inspired, supported and supervised" Saudi Islamic militants to carry out the attack.

PAKISTAN (CNN)
US Secretary of State Colin Powell is on his way to South Asia, where he hopes to calm the maelstrom that has erupted between India and Pakistan. Powell, who will arrive in Pakistan on Wednesday, has said he believes that what he described as the rush towards conflict between India and Pakistan has slowed, but he said the purpose of his trip was to bring the escalation to a complete halt and then to move it into reverse.

On the half-a-century old dispute over Kashmir, which lies at the heart of differences between India and Pakistan, the US secretary of state said that the problem could only be solved by direct dialogue between India and Pakistan. India rejects third-party mediation on Kashmir which it wants to address bilaterally. But Mr Powell said he hoped to help get them talking.

Saturday, the 12th, Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, unveiled a broad new policy for eradicating terrorism in South Asia in hopes of averting war with India. He announces harsher steps against religious radicals but fails to alter his stance on Kashmir.

Publicly, the general has been sometimes delivering different messages to different constituencies. For instance, in a meeting with military commanders in Rawalpindi on January 8, Musharraf apparently adopted a more stringent tone than he did with the US senators, emphasizing that Pakistan would not back down in a military confrontation with India.

From any perspective, Musharraf has delicately worked to reposition Pakistan as a moderate Muslim state and to shed its reputation as a haven for terrorists and religious extremists. During the war in Afghanistan, he ended years of official Pakistani support for the Taliban, giving US forces access to Pakistani air bases; despite strong internal opposition.

Musharraf faces a greater challenge in controlling militants who have long stirred up trouble with India. For more than a decade, Muslim separatists backed by Pakistan fought India's rule in southern Kashmir. That conflict exacerbated tensions with India on December 13, 2001 when five gunmen staged an attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Fourteen people died in the assault, including the gunmen.

India blamed Pakistan-based groups for the attack and New Delhi threatened to respond militarily unless Islamabad cracks down on terrorism. The two nations have deployed tens of thousands of troops along their 1,800-mile border.

Kashmir rebels have had a close relationship with Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies, the most powerful institutions in the country. The government up to now failed in attempts to regulate madrassas, the religious schools that supply the ranks of Islamic extremist groups.

ISRAEL (BBC)
The Bush administration was concerned that a definitive link between the Palestinian Authority and an arms supply ship could thwart its efforts to foster renewed peace talks, and would make it more difficult to persuade Israel to continue to negotiate with Arafat, the Jerusalem Post reported.

BBC Report:  Barbara Plett
Israel is disappointed that the capture has not created international outrage

 

Palestinian Authority

JERUSALEM (BBC) -- Officials from the Palestinian militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, say their leader, Ahmed Saadat, has been arrested by Palestinian police in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

The PFLP said they killed Israeli Tourism Minister Zeevi. The death of Mr Zeevi has sparked a six-week blockade of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, by the Israeli army, who said he could not leave Ramallah until Saadat was arrested.

The PFLP described his arrest as a "dangerous development" but Israeli sources say they are sceptical that the Palestinian police have actually arrested Mr Sadaat.

The Palestinian Authority has set up its own investigative commission to determine how 50 tons of weapons that Israel captured last week, came to Palestine.

Overall in Palestinian territory, civil life has been crippled. The economy is badly damaged and unemployment runs at over 60%. With the latest peace proposals under discussion, a debate has started within the Palestinian community on the effects of the past 15 months of fighting with Israel.

BBC Report:  Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian Activist (3:05)
This is a big mistake made by the Palestinian Authority (January 15)

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