Nov 8, 2002 News

Jordan Times, 11/8/02

CAIRO (Agencies) — An Egyptian government newspaper told Israel Thursday to stop the “series of massacres” of the Palestinians in a growing war words over demands to stop Egypt from airing a television series it considered “anti-Semitic.”

“Stop the series of massacres that you commit against an unarmed people ... before talking of `Knight Without a Horse,” Salah Montasser, an editorial writer at Al Ahram wrote.

Jewish groups, the US government and Israel have objected to the television series “Knight Without a Horse” on the grounds that it incorporates ideas from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a 19th-century book.

The book, which the State Department has called “racist” and “untrue”, describes a Jewish plot for world domination and was used notably in Nazi Germany and other parts of Europe as a pretext to persecute Jews.

“It is strange how the Israeli foreign ministry accuses the series of increasing hatred between Arabs and Israelis, while ignoring the main reason for such hatred, which is the `real series' that has been running for 14 months in Palestine,” Montasser added.

“Arab scholars doubt the authenticity of the Protocols of Zion, but it is certain that Zionism, since its first conference at the end of the 19th century, (hatched) a plot to seize the Palestinian territories through terrorism, murder and terror,” Montasser said.

The United States said Wednesday it would not drop concerns about the series, which started airing that same day at the beginning of the Holy Month of Ramadan.

The State Department said diplomats from the US embassy in Cairo would be watching the programme to see if it contained “anti-Semitic” material and would raise objections with Egyptian authorities if it does.

“At a time when the Egyptian government is working to promote peace in the region, a programme that promotes hatred would be extremely unfortunate and counterproductive,” State Department spokeswoman Lynn Cassell said.

She said the matter had been raised by US officials in Cairo and Washington, and that US Ambassador to Egypt David Welch had met with Egyptian Information Minister Safwat Al Sherif to express the concerns.

In addition to the State Department's complaints, 46 Congress members wrote to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak this week urging him to take the series off the air.

Sherif, Egypt's Information Minister, denied that the series — which was broadcast late Wednesday — contained “anti-Semitic” material and government spokesman Nabil Osman said in a statement that the programme should not be judged before it's aired.

“Prejudging a work of art, a dramatic series, before seeing the actual production is simply an immature unintelligent attitude,” Osman said. Any criticism before that, he added, “amounts to a kind of intellectual and emotional terrorism.”

In the runup to the broadcast in Egypt and other Arab countries, the Israeli foreign ministry said it was “deeply concerned” about the programme, especially since Egypt and Israel have signed a peace treaty that prohibits “incitement.”

“Israel believes that a series such as this has no place on the television waves of a country which is committed to peace and that it is incumbent upon the relevant authorities to prevent its broadcast,” it said.

First episode aired

Egyptian and other Arab channels went ahead with the broadcast of the series.

Egypt's state-run television channel two aired the first episode after midnight on Wednesday.

The series was timed to air over 20 Arab channels at the start of the Holy Month of Ramadan on Wednesday.

The first episode was also broadcast on Iraqi state television Wednesday night, viewers there said. Egypt's Dream TV, a private satellite channel which produced the series, also began broadcasting to Arab countries late Wednesday.

Sources at television stations in Yemen and Bahrain said the series would also be broadcast there during Ramadan, while Lebanon's Al Manar already started running it earlier this week.

Egypt aired the first episode of the series on state television on Wednesday.

The show centres on journalist Hafez Neguib, played by Mohammed Sobhi, who tries to find out if the protocols are true.

The first episode began with a narration by Sobhi as he and scores of others, looking dishevelled and exhausted, walked on a desert in the aftermath of Israel's 1948 creation on Palestine.

“The armies of the free have been defeated by treachery,” he said in a deep and sombre voice. “Beloved Palestine is lost, grabbed by Zion's sons through organised plundering.” He then went on to show events he said took place in Egypt in 1855 when his father was abducted at age 5 by a Turkish nobleman whose wife bore him three daughters but no sons.

Sobhi, the show's star and producer, on Monday said he agreed with historians who have long dismissed the protocols as a forgery concocted by Russian Czar Nicholas II's secret police to blame the country's problems on Jews.

Sobhi argues that only a small portion of the series is based on the work.

The series is running on Dream TV, which is owned by a private Egyptian television company, and on government-owned Egypt-TV during the Holy Month of Ramadan.

Friday-Saturday, November 8-9, 2002

Ramadan in Iraq overshadowed by talk of US aggression

By Faruk Shukri
Agence France-Presse

Jordan Times, 11/8/02

BAGHDAD — Iraqis are doing their best to observe the fasting month of Ramadan to the sound of war drums as well as the deprivations of 12 years under international embargo.

“The Americans do not want to leave the Iraqi people in peace. After the embargo, they now threaten us with a strike,” said government employee Aziz Abdul Majid.

“How can we celebrate this sacred month while we hear threats of a strike day and night, now under the pretext of fighting terrorism and weapons of mass destruction,” the 45-year-old father of three said.

US threats have “reinforced the determination of the Iraqis to resist the aggressors and foil their plots,” he said.

US President George W. Bush has repeatedly threatened to launch a military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, which it accuses of harbouring terrorists and developing weapons of mass destruction, charges Baghdad denies.

Despite international sanctions, the markets in Baghdad are crammed with food products, but many Iraqis, impoverished by the embargo, are reliant on the government for discounted basic rations.

Iraq has been distributing rations of subsidised basic goods since the UN sanctions were first imposed following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The rations consist of small quantities of flour, rice, tea, sugar, vegetable oil and infant milk, along with soap, salt, detergents, razors and matches.

The average monthly income of a government worker is only around $10, with the public sector also granted family allowances in an effort to make ends meet. Many struggle with two jobs and have to put their children to work.

“People are buying dried pulses, especially lentils for iftar soup (to break the daily dawn-to-dusk fast), but also dates, powdered milk and spices,” said Ihsan Said, who owns a shop in the popular Bab Al Shurji market in central Baghdad.

In line with an interior ministry order, restaurants and cafes remain closed during the day while bars are forbidden to open, even after sunset.

“The markets are full of foodstuffs and other goods but it's money that is often missing because the prices are high,” said Badia Fadel, a retired teacher and mother of five, imploring God to “get rid of Bush and his band.”

She said the government ration pack “largely covers the needs of families.”

The sumptuous meals associated with Ramadan are now only a distant memory for many families in Iraq, who must often make do only with vegetable dishes, meat at two dollars a kilogramme falling beyond their budget.

During Ramadan, Muslims must fast, not drink or smoke or have sexual relations from dawn-to-dusk. In most Muslim countries, the evenings become a time of feasting.

President Saddam Hussein has in past years opened up some of his palaces to the Iraqi people to take the iftar meal.

Baghdad says more than 1.7 million Iraqis, many of them children under five, have died from the impact of UN sanctions in force since August 1990.

Most of the deaths were caused by diarrhoea, pneumonia and respiratory problems, as well as malnutrition.

Friday-Saturday, November 8-9, 2002

China pulls out stops to ensure nothing holds up ruling party bash
Khaleej Times, 11/8/02

BEIJING - China left nothing to chance on Friday for the opening of its key 16th Communist Party Congress, smothering Beijing in security while around the country workers and officials were marched in front of television sets to watch proceedings. Hundreds of troops, police and guards stood ready at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing hours before President Jiang Zemin delivered his opening speech, expected to be his last major address before he retires as party chief.

Security even went as far as a group of 15 soldiers with fire extinguishers strapped to their backs and large spraying tubes across their chests guarding the building. Uniformed and plainclothes police stood guard every few meters all around the hall, on the west of Tiananmen Square. Soldiers on the square itself, which was turned into a parking lot, busied themselves checking the bottom of cars for bombs. Inside, a sea of party members wearing red lapel badges applauded Jiang and other members of China's elite as they stepped out on stage.

Many of China's 45 million-strong army of bureaucrats and civil servants watched the live broadcast of Jiang's speech, with work grinding to a halt in government offices and state-owned companies nationwide. "We received a notice from above to watch it," said a government employee in the remote western province of Xinjiang. Some were less than impressed.

"Boring," pronounced an employee of a state-owned firm just an hour into the speech. He used the enforced break to telephone friends. A worker at a state-owned Beijing telecommunications company with 10,000 employees said almost everyone was watching the broadcast. Some ordinary citizens also voluntarily tuned in.

"It's about our country's affairs. We should listen to it," said a Beijing taxi driver who heard it on the radio. He noted the difference in this year's speech as being the increased recognition of private enterprise. "He (Jiang) is trying to say as long as it's legal, as long as it promotes economic growth, the party encourages it. This could be good for people who want to do business," he said.

The 2,114 elite party delegates to the Congress, not surprisingly, had only praise for the speech. However they refused to comment on widespread expectations that 59-year-old Vice president Hu Jintao would take over from Jiang. "I'm not sure about this. But regardless who our next leaders are, I believe they will continue to bring economic progress to our country," said Yuan Rongxiang, from southeastern Fujian province.

The event has been shrouded in constant secrecy -- its week-long duration was announced only the day before it opened -- and the first day was no different. - AFP

US Democrats look for fresh blood after election beating

Jordan Times, 11/8/02

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Democrats were hunting Thursday for new blood to reinvigorate the party after Republicans won the mid-term election, with Dick Gephardt set to announce he will step down as their leader in the House.

“Democrats should not mistake the magnitude of this loss. There has to be a major regrouping,” said former Vice president Al Gore, the party's Presidential candidate in 2000 and likely White House hopeful in 2004.

“We cannot allow another election cycle to happen without the Democratic Party showing its vision for the country,” said Simon Rosenberg, president of the centrist New Democratic Network.

“Our party has to show its capacity to lead in 2004. If we don't — shame on us that we haven't learned our lesson,” Rosenberg said after leading Democrats, including House Minority Leader Gephardt and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, felt the brunt of the failure.

While Gephardt is rumoured to be mulling a presidential bid in two years' time, he planned to announce later Thursday he would not seek another term as House minority leader.

Bucking the historical trend in which the president's party tends to lose congressional seats in mid-term elections, the Republicans took 51 of the 100 seats in the new Senate, gaining its control after 34 seats were up for grabs in Tuesday's elections.

Democrats so far have 47 seats in the Senate and are favoured in one remaining race, in Louisiana, to be decided in a runoff next month. There also is one independent senator.

In the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats were up for grabs, Republicans clinched 227 and Democrats 205, with one independent and two undecided.

Gephardt's office did not immediately comment on the news he would give up leadership of House Democrats.

Gephardt's decision sets off a succession struggle for Democrats in the House, where Republicans increased their majority. Democrats had hoped the slumping US economy and a wave of corporate scandals might propel them into the majority and Gephardt into the House speaker's chair.

Political observers said they were not surprised Gephardt would decide to step down in the wake of Republican gains.

“People suspected that he might do something like this if he didn't gain the speakership,” another congressional source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Among those mentioned as a possible replacement are liberal Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority whip, and conservative Democratic Caucus Chair Martin Frost of Texas.

Gephardt blamed the Democrats' humiliation on a wave of patriotism and support for President George W. Bush triggered by the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Delighted Republicans basked in their congressional election triumph that tore down the Democratic barriers to Bush's conservative agenda.

The public also appeared to have reaffirmed Bush's mandate, after his own disputed election in 2000 and his decision to stand firm on Iraq and the anti-terror battle.

While Bush on Wednesday forged ahead with his conservative domestic agenda revival, the White House and Republican leaders discouraged most signs of triumphalism.

As they licked their wounds, Democrats could at least enjoy the capture of key governorships in large states crucial to the 2004 presidential election, including Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Other Democrats blamed Tuesday's debacle to relentless campaigning by Bush, who raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Republican candidates and put his prestige on the line to rally supporters in a 15 state swing in the days before the vote.

“Ultimately, we could not compete with the power of the bully pulpit of a wartime president,” said Senator Patty Murray, chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Republicans retained Senate seats in North Carolina and New Hampshire, where relatives of past GOP officials — Elizabeth Dole, wife of former presidential candidate Bob Dole, and John Sununu, named after his father, a former White House chief of staff — won.

Each party scored at least one major upset. In Georgia, Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss ousted Democratic incumbent Max Cleland in an extremely tight race for the state's contested Senate seat, according to projections.

That win nullified a Democratic gain in Arkansas, where Mark Pryor upset incumbent Republican Tim Hutchinson.

However, with memories of the 2000 vote count debacle still fresh in Florida, Bush was bolstered when his brother Jeb Bush was re-elected as state governor by a wider-than-expected margin.

Around the world, Bush's victory was viewed with some caution.

Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed hope that Bush would still respect global opinion about a future attack on Iraq despite his success in domestic elections, Kyoto News reported.

In Moscow, there was no immediate official response from Russian President Vladimir Putin's office or the foreign ministry to the results.

But senior Russian lawmakers agreed that while the US electorate may not have been driven by considerations over Iraq, they had effectively given the Bush administration carte blanche in its “war on terror”.

Friday-Saturday, November 8-9, 2002

Pro-Palestinian activists face electronic shutdown
Hacking, ‘spam,’ and False e-mails are some of the weapons in hi-tech propaganda war

Professors, advocacy groups say reputations are being damaged, and US authorities claim little can be done to stop it

George S. Hishmeh
Special to The Daily Star

WASHINGTON: A little-reported nationwide cyber-attack has been under way in the United States for some time, aimed at regularly disrupting, if not eliminating, the websites of pro-Palestinian advocacy groups and the e-mail addresses of some of their prominent American supporters like Noam Chomsky and Francis Boyle.
Although no one has claimed responsibility, some activists suspect pro-Israel groups. They point out that these internet hackers target various well-known websites and addresses of key activists and bombard them with copies of forged e-mail messages sent to their subscribers or friends misrepresenting their views.
Usually the messages are embarrassingly anti-Semitic, racist, or pornographic and sometimes include computer viruses.
Nigel Parry, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, one of the the widely read online publications that has been subjected to these attacks, told The Daily Star that “the fact that pro-Israel forces have sought refuge in this electronic shouting down of pro-Palestinian activists is a sign of their desperation and a feeling that they are losing the argument.”
“The truth is that no amount of Israeli effort will prevent the world from understanding that normal Palestinians, through no fault of their own, live a desperate life under Israeli military occupation. And this bothers people of conscience as apartheid did a decade ago,” he said.
Some law-enforcement agencies in various constituencies have been reluctant to undertake any serious investigation, alleging, some of the targeted activists were told, that there are no statutes against this type of activity. Many of these messages are sent from internet cafes or the like. These are then routed through various servers around the world.
Boyle, a professor of law at the University of Illinois at Champaign and a onetime legal adviser to the Palestine peace delegation, recalled that upon his return last August from a 17-day vacation he found to his surprise some “55,000 messages in my inbox and this has been going on continuously since then.”
In addition, “large numbers of forgeries have been put out in my name on the internet, circulating all over, basically misrepresenting my viewpoints on the Middle East, on the Arab world and the Muslim world even on the United States.”
“And last week I got a threat saying that I would be eliminated because of my support for terrorism,” he added.
But Boyle, who inspired the campaign for Israeli divestment/ disinvestment which has now spread to more than 50 US campuses, refuses to seek the help of law-enforcement agencies like the FBI. He said he does not want a “fishing expedition” through his computer files.
Professor Chomsky, the eminent linguist who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a harsh critic of Israeli policies, has also complained about cyber-attacks.
He told The Nation magazine: “There is an awful lot of stuff going out in my name that’s totally insane and that I haven’t written.”
Chomsky’s inbox, as those of several other key activists, has also been regularly inundated with return-to-sender mail, or “Joe jobs” as they are called in the industry. Obviously, these may constitute only a small fraction of the e-mails that have been sent using his private address.
In Boyle’s opinion, pro-Israel sources are trying to drive pro-Palestinian activists off the internet for two reasons.
“First, the internet is very important to get information that challenges the Israeli party line that is injected into the mainstream news media here and the so-called academic world, which is mostly pro-Israel. Secondly, the internet is very important for organizing … The whole divestment campaign (was) organized on the internet.”
Many Arab-American activists and organizations in the country have been targeted, including Ahmed Bouzid of the Philadelphia-based Palestine Media Watch, Nidal Saqr of the Miami-based The March for Justice, Yale medical school professor Mazin Qumsiyeh and the Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest Arab-American organization, especially its New York office, run by Monica Tarazi.
In an e-mail message, Tarazi wrote: “While these e-mails are a nuisance, offensive and intimidating, the FBI didn’t find anything illegal. There haven’t been threats that rise to the level of a hate crime, no money has been stolen, public safety has not been endangered and, as far as we can tell, our computers have not been hacked or ‘technically intruded into’ as one agent put it. The offensive messages are all protected by the First Amendment.”
Nevertheless, for individuals, the task of deleting these forged messages that are clogging personal computers is frustrating and time-consuming. For organizations, it is disruptive and may compel them to shut down, as in the case with one popular site, Free Palestine.
According to Bouzid: “The effect is my mailbox is down. There is confusion. In addition to the bad name, you are slowed down tremendously. It is frustrating.” He added: “What you have here is clearly a case of spamming, that is, malicious intent, identity theft.”
Although some believe this bombardment could be stifled with little effort by well-established organizations, Bouzid and Saqr teamed together and last month began the National Coalition against Cyber Terrorism. Membership is open to organizations or individuals, Bouzid explained.
Parry noted that the bombardment coincided with the launching of the Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank.
“What happened during “Operation Rampart,” the big invasion, is that they started doing fake e-mails, and making it look like they were being sent from the intifada or Mazin Qumsiyeh with very racist, anti-Arab views for a war, sometimes anti-Semitic stuff.”
He continued: “It comes in waves. We have figured ways to minimize the inconvenience. But those with dial-up accounts, that’s much harder for them. We are on cable.”
Parry then added, somewhat dismissively: “Every time an article comes out there would be another wave.”
But the national office of the Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest Arab-American organization, seemed more hopeful about getting help from law enforcement agencies.
In an interview, Nawar Shora, the ADC’s legal counsel, disclosed that he has been working with law-enforcement agencies in an effort to have an investigation opened. Shora said that he has recently met with the FBI’s Civil Rights Division and its Cyber Crimes Unit, as well as the Washington field office, “on the identity theft and spoofing of ADC (and) other civil rights groups and organizations, and Arab-American advocates and professors.”
“It is in its initial stages, though,” he cautioned. “We are setting another meeting, hopefully next week, in order to hit the ground running. We are planning to broaden the scope, not for only the ADC national (but also for other) Arab-American organizations.”
Shora insisted that ADC does not know who is behind these forged e-mail messages that are paralyzing computers of pro-Palestinian advocates.
“That’s why the FBI is doing it; they have the tools and the people to figure out who has been doing it,” he said.
Contrary to earlier accounts from other activists elsewhere, Shora stressed that the FBI has been “incredibly cooperative on this and they have been very helpful, to their credit.”
The lawyer agreed “somewhat” that there is no law against cyber-attacks, acknowledging that the free-for-all, “is part of the beauty and the ugliness of the internet.”
He explained that in order to press charges, one would have “to find actual damages what’s happened, what’s lost.”
Shora argued that there are actual damages here.
“They are sending out messages that are anti-Semitic and anti-American as if they were coming from us and sending it all over the internet and then these (recipients) are telling us to remove them off our lists.
“It is really bad for our public image. Another thing, instead of doing our job, we have to reply to these people and explain that we have been spoofed, and this is not our account. Or having to have our internet computer cleaned, or check the servers. It is impacting our work productivity.”

George S. Hishmeh is an Arab-American journalist living in Washington and a former editor in chief of The Daily Star (hishmehg@aol.com)

Mediterranean diet could halve South Asia's heart attack rate

By Richard Ingham
Agence France-Presse

Jordan Times, 11/8/02

PARIS — Fancy a spot of curried moussaka?

Or, for a snack, how about nan bread with a tossed tomato and goat's cheese salad?

“Indo-Mediterranean” cuisine may be heading for the dinner plates of South Asia if a group of top doctors get their health message across.

A new study suggests the region could halve its rate of heart attacks if it copied some ideas from the famously fit-making food of the Mediterranean rim.

The experts recruited a thousand volunteers to a programme based in Moradabad, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, all of whom had a history of cardiovascular problems.

Half were given a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, walnuts and almonds, supplemented by soybean oil or mustard seed oil — a near-equivalent to the olive oil that is a mainstay of Mediterranean food.

The other half ate conventional Asian food, but followed guidelines under the National Cholesterol Education Programme, which suggests people set a limit on their consumption of fat, especially unsaturated fats.

After two years, the group that followed the “Indo-Mediterranean diet” had had 39 heart attacks compared with 76 who had eaten only the Asian food, and the number of sudden cardiac deaths was likewise halved.

“We noted a significant reduction in serum [blood] cholesterol concentration and other risk factors in both groups but especially in the intervention diet group,” the authors add.

The research was led by R.B. Singh, a professor in nutrition and cardiac health at Moradabad Hospital and Research Centre, and Elliot Berry, a professor of public health at Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. They report their work in Saturday's issue of The Lancet, the British medical weekly.

The traditional Mediterranean diet has, in addition to olive oil, lots of fish, fruit, nuts and fresh vegetables, in addition to whole grains such as rice and ground wheat. Meals are often supplemented by a glass or two of red wine.

Numerous studies have testified to the protective effect of this diet on the circulatory system. Research carried out in the southeastern French city of Lyon in 1999 said the regime cut the number of fatal heart attacks and coronary events by almost 70 per cent.

The Singh-Berry team say it is possible to emulate some of the best aspects of the Mediterranean diet, notably the inclusion of alphalinolenic acid in nuts and oils, which exist in inexpensive local produce.

Parliament session delay hints at backdoor maneuvering
By Ghazi Salahuddin,Special to Arab News

KARACHI, 8 November — When the inaugural session of Pakistan’s National Assembly, scheduled for today (Friday, Nov 8), was postponed on Wednesday for “about a week”, it became obvious that the government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was still struggling to fashion a coalition that would protect its constitutional plan. Since this delay was demanded by the leader of the “King’s Party”, the Quaid-e-Azam faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), it also suggested that some desperate late minute deals were in the offing.

And reports in leading newspapers yesterday have revealed a dramatic twist in the continuing political deadlock that would essentially bring the two embittered adversaries, the Pakistan People’s Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the present ruling establishment, in an expedient embrace. But there were still many unanswered questions on how the coalition building game in a hopelessly divided National Assembly would finally be resolved.

The News has learned, from the proverbial “reliable sources”‚ that a government of “national unity” with Amin Fahim of the PPP as prime minister is to be formed as the government-PPP deal “has materialized because of the US intervention.” There was a reference to Benazir Bhutto’s meetings with US officials in Washington last week. The report said that she “has succeeded in forcing the government to accept the terms she set forth.”

These terms, apart from an effective share in power at the center and the provinces, would naturally involve the release of her husband Asif Zardari, who is under arrest for six years, and the possibility of her return to the country in the near future.

But this sudden turn in events has launched a new phase of turmoil and uncertainly in the political arena. Until Wednesday, the stage seemed set for a coalition between the PPP and the alliance of the religious parties, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), its main thrust being opposition to the Legal Framework Order (LFO) of President Musharraf. This had apparently alarmed the establishment because the “King’s Party” did not seem to be able to muster a comfortable majority. Consequently, the political wheeler-dealers went into new parleys in their secret chambers.

Irrespective of what this fresh shuffling of the pack would produce, the overall sense of political disarray has generated widespread concern about the success of the ongoing democratic process.

It almost seems certain that the October elections would not yield the kind of stability and hope that President Musharraf had so diligently sought. That would also have serious implications for Pakistan’s role in the US-led alliance against international terrorism.

Already, the impressive surge of anti-American and substantially pro-Jehad elements in MMA has cast a deep shadow on the strategy of President Musharraf, who seemed determined to curtail the influence of the parties of two former prime ministers and resorted to unsavory political stratagems to, particularly, block the return to power of Benazir’s PPP. That he now appears compelled to strike a deal with the PPP to subvert the formation of a strong anti-Musharraf majority in the Parliament is only one aspect of the ambiguities of the present situation.

Even with a PPP-government partnership, the clamor that the MMA and other “pro-democracy” groups are sure to mount would put great stress on the new arrangement that is being hammered out. Also, there still remain may doubts about the success of the secret talks that are in progress between the PML-Q and the PPP leaders. There is ample speculation on who would get how many high offices. Some reports say that the PML-Q was unwilling to accept a PPP nominee as the prime minister.

Evidently, the postponement of the National Assembly’s session means a further delay in the transfer of President Musharraf’s power of the chief executive to the new prime minister. A firm new date for the inaugural session is still not available.

Observers have noted that the government move to delay the session came just a day after the 15-party Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and the MMA had agreed to put up joint candidates for prime minister and the speaker of the assembly. Incidentally, PPP has been the leading light of ARD that is headed by veteran leader Nasrullah Khan, who is now calling an all parties conference to discuss the issue.

Against this backdrop, Dawn reflected the opinion of concerned citizens in asking the question, in its editorial on Thursday: “What is going on?” It notes that though clear-eyed political observers seem worried about the situation, the major political players seem unconcerned. It added: “Behind all this seems to loom the hovering shadow of the establishment. How to find a way for the military to stay on and yet not give the impression of doing so?” To conclude, it said: “There is much too much humbug and hypocrisy around, and a dash of deceit for good measure. All this, as we being in a month of fasting that is meant to cleanse the soul.”

Netanyahu, Sharon exchange barbs
By Nazir Majally, Arab News Staff

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 8 November — A day after Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as Israel’s foreign minister, tensions emerged between him and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday, as Netanyahu called for a hard-right shake-up and Sharon vowed to plot a steady course. With Sharon pledging to keep a promise to key ally Washington not to harm Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Netanyahu was quick to say an anticipated US war on Iraq would provide the ideal opportunity to boot the Palestinian leader into exile.

The Israeli press reported an immediate opening of hostilities between aides of the two long-term rivals who now find themselves together in a caretaker government three months ahead of early elections, in which Likud is tipped to outpoll other parties. The daily Haaretz said Likud insiders were worried that the sniping between the two camps could damage the party’s standing among voters.

One of the first battles is setting the date for the Likud primary. Sharon is pushing for early elections to capitalize on his current popularity, while Netanyahu needs time to organize his campaign.

Netanyahu was already using his return to the limelight to prime his own leadership chances, telling The Jerusalem Post he would pull the country out of its financial crisis. “Of the last four prime ministers, I am the only one to have left the country in a better shape than I received it,” he said, slamming his boss’ “absence of a coherent economic policy.”

Netanyahu also said in an interview published yesterday that Ariel Sharon’s leadership had left Israel in “dire straits”. “I am running (for the Likud leadership) because the country is in dire straits and we have to get it out,” Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu dismissed the notion that his criticism might be harmful to the new caretaker government and Likud’s electoral chances as “absurd,” commenting that “the country is in dire straits and we have to get it out.”

“I want to concentrate on solutions. Mine will be a government of solutions,” he said, talking as if he were already in power. And Netanyahu, who is to square off soon against Sharon in a bid to lead their extreme right-wing Likud party, followed up with a warning that implementing a US “road map” for peace with the Palestinians would be put on hold pending a US strike on Baghdad.

“The American road map is not on the agenda at the moment” as a result of a possible attack on Iraq, army radio quoted Netanyahu as saying. Sharon has expressed strong reservations about the plan, based on a US outline and developed by the so-called Middle East quartet of Washington, the United Nations, the European Union and Moscow.

Netanyahu has openly called for a Palestinian state to be ruled out, while Sharon has signed up to Bush’s “vision” of such a state, albeit with strict constraints. But unlike former Premier Netanyahu, Sharon has been cautious not to openly contradict Bush, with whom he has forged extremely close ties.

Israel is also preparing for possible Iraqi missile attack should the United States launch an offensive against Iraq. Israel Radio said the military successfully tested two upgraded Patriot anti-missile missiles in the southern Negev desert on Wednesday. An army spokesman had no immediate comment.

An earlier version of the US-made missile, originally designed to shoot down aircraft, had limited success against Iraqi Scuds that slammed into Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

In an interview that appeared in the Ma’ariv daily yesterday, Ephraim Halevy, who retired last month as head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, said he expected Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Arafat to “disappear from the scene” within a year.

UN Middle East coordinator Terje Roed-Larsen said yesterday top officials working on the “road map” would meet in Europe next month to move the plan forward. He said participants would include UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and EU foreign policy coordinator Javier Solana.

Meanwhile, Sharon’s new right-wing defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, sworn in after a Labour Party walkout last week brought down Sharon’s 20-month cross-part coalition, has also advocated exiling Arafat. Mofaz was working the phones in his new job yesterday, speaking with Jordan’s Abdallah, his office said.

On the ground, Israeli undercover forces in the West Bank arrested the local political leader of the Islamic Jihad movement in Tulkarm. Palestinian witnesses and security sources named him as 38-year old Abdel-Nasser Sweif. Two activists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were also arrested near Bethlehem.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces dynamited the family home of Firas Fidi, an activist from the Hamas group. The army said he helped plan a bombing that killed 19 people on a Jerusalem bus on June 19 and an attack on Oct. 27, when a bomber subdued by bystanders blew up in the Jewish settlement of Ariel, killing three Israeli officers.

Bahraini royal being held in Cuba camp
By Abdul Rahman Almotawa, Arab News Staff

DUBAI, 8 November — A member of Bahrain’s royal family is among suspected members or sympathizers of the Al-Qaeda network detained at a US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, his father said yesterday in an Arabic newspaper. Sheikh Salman ibn Ibrahim Al-Khalifa is “accused of sympathizing with Al-Qaeda,” Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al-Khalifa told the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

He said Sheikh Salman had been detained in Pakistan “and handed over to the Americans for the sum of $20,000,” without explaining to whom the money was handed over.

His son moved to Saudi Arabia in 2000 for religious studies and then contacted the family three months later from Pakistan to say he was doing charity work, Sheikh Ibrahim said. “We have contacted the foreign and interior ministries in Bahrain and they have taken action in this case” to secure Sheikh Salman’s release, he said, adding that a total of six Bahrainis were currently being held in Guantanamo.

In May, a Bahraini security team met four Bahrainis detained at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, along with many other Arabs suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, the network blamed for last year’s Sept. 11 terror attacks.

A Foreign Ministry official said “the delegation found the detainees to be held in satisfactory conditions, and to be in good health and spirits”, and that contacts were underway to secure their return home “in the near future”.

Dubai plans $1.8b health city

DUBAI, 8 November — Dubai unveiled plans for a $1.8 billion “health city” yesterday to tap into the lucrative medical and health care needs of almost two billion people who live between Europe and Eastern Asia.

“Dubai Health Care City (DHC) aims at transforming Dubai into a hub of world-class health care in the region,” said Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum.

The project, which will be completed by 2010, will include a campus comprising a 300-bed university hospital, medical college, nursing school center for life sciences research, up to 40 clinics and hospitals and specialized laboratories. (SPA)

Decision-making dates after UN resolution on Iraq

Khaleej Times, 11/8/02

UNITED NATIONS - Once the UN Security Council on Friday adopts, as expected, a resolution giving Iraq one last chance to disarm or face war, the following timetable comes into effect:

Nov. 15 - Iraq must have accepted the terms of the new resolution and promised to comply.

Nov. 15-18 - Chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei intend to travel to Baghdad with about two dozen technicians to set up communications, transport, offices and laboratories.

Nov. 25 - Advance team of about a dozen weapons inspectors expected to arrive to prepare for work and make some spot inspections.

Dec. 8 - Iraq must have issued to the Security Council "a full, accurate and complete" declaration of all its programs to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction as well as civilian materials that could have military applications.

Dec. 23 - Weapons inspectors must have restarted their work by then. Some 80 to 100 inspectors and support staff expected to have arrived in Iraq.

Feb. 21, 2003 - The latest date for the inspectors to give a report to the Security Council. - Reuters

France agrees to Iraq draft

Khaleej Times, 11/8/02

PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac and his US counterpart George W. Bush agreed yesterday on a draft UN resolution aimed at disarming Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Mr Chirac's spokeswoman said. France hopes the agreement will allow a vote in the UN Security Council today, said the spokeswoman, Catherine Colonna. Mr Chirac "spoke this evening by telephone with President Bush on the subject of Iraq and finalised an agreement on the points that remained outstanding between France and the United States," Miss Colonna said.

Paris sought assurances that the resolution would not allow the automatic use of force if Iraq fails to disarm. "A positive dynamic has been launched, and we hope that a consensus will be reached in the Security Council at today's vote," Miss Colonna said. Mr Chirac spoke with Mr Bush while the French president was flying back to Paris from a French-Italian summit in Rome. Mr Bush said yesterday he was optimistic the UN Security Council would vote today in favour of a tough US resolution. "This is an important week for our country and for the world," said Mr Bush in a solo news conference in Washington. "The UN will vote tomorrow on a resolution bringing the civilised world together to disarm Saddam Hussein."

Mr Bush said he had just spoken to Russia's President Vladimir Putin and France's President Jacques Chirac on the telephone and while he hesitated to put words into other leaders' mouths, said: "I am optimistic that we will get the resolution vote tomorrow. "The resolution is a disarmament resolution, it is a statement of intent to once and for all disarm Saddam Hussein. "When this resolution passes, I will be able to say that the United Nations has recognised the threat and we are going to work together to disarm him." Mr Bush was asked whether he believed Saddam would heed his calls to submit to genuine UN weapons inspections. "It has so far taken him 11 years and 16 resolutions to do nothing, we know he likes to deceive and deny and that is why this inspection regime is going to be different," he responded. "I don't put timetables on anything but, for the sake of peace, the sooner the better. "He must know that I am serious, so are a lot of other countries serious about holding the man to account. I was serious about holding the UN to account.

"It is very important that the UN be a successful international body because the threats that we face now require more cooperation than ever." Mr Bush also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday in a bid to overcome doubts expressed about the latest US resolution on Iraq, officials said. A senior US administration official said Mr Bush and Mr Putin had a "good conversation" on Iraq. "Both agreed on the need to reach an agreement on a strong resolution," the official said, without giving further details. But he did emphasise that the United States was listening to all members of the Security Council. Earlier, the United States said yesterday it was open to minor changes in its Iraq resolution for tough new weapons inspections, to be backed by threats of force if Saddam Hussein continues to skirt his disarmament obligations. Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said that a Friday vote may still be possible if the US and Britain can come up with a few more concessions.

The latest American text, a product of eight weeks of intense lobbying by the Bush administration, signalled significant progress and included major concessions to Security Council members concerned about setting off another war in Iraq. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington yesterday a showdown with President Saddam Hussein on hidden chemical and biological weapons and a nuclear programme could be months away as inspections determine whether Iraq is disarming.

Mr Powell expressed confidence that the United Nations would support US action. He said the pace of searching for weapons would be set by the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, and Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency. - AFP

Regime change not EU aim, says Solana

Khaleej Times, 11/8/02

BRUSSELS - Regime change in Iraq is not a European Union objective, the EU's foreign policy envoy Javier Solana stressed in the European parliament here. "For us the objective has to be to disarrm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. It is not an EU objective to change the regime," Mr Solana said on Wednesday.

He said that the European Union recognised the risk posed by the weapons of mass destruction which the United States and London accuses Iraq of harbouring. "It's not just an American problem. We should also battle against the weapons of mass destruction," he said. The United States put a new draft resolution to the UN Security Council on Wednesday to give Iraq a last chance to scrap its weapons of mass destruction. "It is our intention to have the resolution put to a vote sometime during the course of the day on Friday," the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, told reporters in New York after two hours of council consultations.

The draft was revised by top US government officials after France and Russia objected that earlier wording would have given a green light for the automatic use of military force against Iraq. In what was probably the most important change, the disputed words "Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations" were put into a new context. - AFP

http://www.aljazeerah.info

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.

Egypt tells Israel to stop massacre before blasting TV series

Ramadan in Iraq overshadowed by talk of US aggression

US Democrats look for fresh blood after election beating

Mediterranean diet could halve South Asia's heart attack rate