It's History That's Tearing the E.U. Apart

By Claire Berlinski

ISTANBUL--Move from austere Paris to this anarchic city as I have done this summer, and it's hard to escape the conclusion that the idea of integrating Turkey into the European Union is and always has been ludicrous. Turkey is not Europe, and it is certainly not France.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

China's Unyielding Banking Crisis

By Peter S. Goodman

CHENGDU, China -- As he rose through the ranks at China's largest lender, Zhang Guilin helped build the bad debt crisis plaguing his country's banks, the gravest threat to this fast-growing economy. Zhang directed funds to cronies and political allies, authorities here say, adding to a national toll...

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Landmine Explodes Under Packed Bus in Nepal
http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D52:2F72C9D

Powerful blast rips apart a packed bus, killing at least 35

Officials identify bodies of people who died in land mine explosion at
BadarmudeIn Nepal at least 35 people were killed and more than 60
wounded when a landmine exploded under a crowded bus. Officials say
rebels are responsible for the blast. This is one of the deadliest
incidents involving civilians since the communist insurgency began
almost a decade ago.

Nepalese army officials say a powerful landmine exploded early Monday,
ripping apart a packed bus as it traveled on a mountain highway about
180 kilometers southwest of the capital Kathmandu.

Most of the victims were villagers going to work or local markets.

Police accuse Maoist rebels of planting the mine in Chitwan district,
which is a rebel stronghold.

Yuvraj Ghimre, editor of the Samay weekly newspaper says Nepal is
caught in a cycle of violence. "Even the security forces admit and
everyone knows that this is some kind of war where the enemies are not
visible. But this war cannot be ended purely with use of security
forces or military power, that everyone knows," he said.

The rebels have waged a nearly decade-long insurgency to turn Nepal
into a communist republic. They control vast stretches of the
countryside.

The violence continues unabated, four months after King Gyanendra took
control of the government. He said the move was necessary to quell the
insurgency.

However, neither the king nor the rebels have made any progress toward
opening peace talks.

The rebels refuse to open a dialogue with the king until he installs
an elected government. The king in turn says he will only hold talks
with the rebels if they lay down arms.

The insurgency has claimed more than 12,000 lives and plunged one of
the world's poorest countries into turmoil, creating political
instability and wrecking the economy.




Pakistan Hands Over al-Qaida Suspect to US
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D53:2F72C9D

Islamabad alleges Abu Farraj al-Libbi was mastermind of two attempts
on life of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf

Pakistan's Interior Ministry, shows senior al-Qaida suspect Abu Faraj
al-Libbi on May 4, 2005 in Islamabad, PakistanPakistan says it has
handed over to the United States senior al-Qaida operative Abu Farraj
al-Libbi, who was arrested in Pakistan last month.

In remarks published in the Arab newspaper al-Ittihad Monday,
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the man was recently handed
over to U.S. authorities.

Later, a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman, Jalil Abbas Jilani,
confirmed General Musharraf's remarks, but gave no further details.

General Musharraf told CNN television last week that Pakistan has
extracted all it could from al-Qaida's alleged number three man, and
that he had not given interrogators any clues on the whereabouts of
al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

Pakistan alleges Abu Farraj al-Libbi was the mastermind of two
attempts on General Musharraf's life.

.



Rights Group Rebuffs US Criticism of its Report Citing US Treatment of
Detainees

(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D54:2F72C9D

Director of Amnesty International USA alleges that Guantanamo Bay
detention camp is part of worldwide network of US jails, some of them
secret, where prisoners are mistreated, abused and even killed

Amnesty International Executive Director William Schulz Amnesty
International is not backing down from heavy criticism of the Bush
administration's treatment of detainees in the war on terrorism. The
human rights group's top official in the United States responded to
recent denunciations by both President Bush and Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld.

In a recent assessment of human rights worldwide, Amnesty
International blasted the United States' indefinite detention of
"enemy combatants" at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The human rights group also decried
persistent allegations of torture and abuse of detainees in U.S.
custody. Amnesty's secretary general went so far as to describe
Guantanamo as "the gulag of our times," a reference to Soviet-era
prison camps known for their brutality. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
said such a comparison was "reprehensible."

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, the director of Amnesty International
USA, William Schulz, acknowledged that U.S.-run detainee facilities
are not concentration camps, but insisted they are not up to
international human rights standards.

"People are not being starved in those facilities. They are not being
subjected to forced labor. But there are some similarities," he
said. "The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons
around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are,
literally, being 'disappeared,' held in indefinite, incommunicado
detention, without access to lawyers or a judicial system, and, in
some cases at least, we know that they are being mistreated, abused,
tortured and killed."

Last Tuesday, an angry President Bush responded to the initial report.

"I am aware of the Amnesty International report, and it is absurd," he
said. "The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the
world. When there are accusations about certain actions by our people,
they are fully investigated in a transparent way. It seems to me that
they [Amnesty International] based some of their decisions [findings]
on the word of people who were held in detention, people who hate
America, people who have been trained to … not tell the truth."

A day later, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed the rights group's
allegations. He said the detainees are suspected terrorists, and that
some of those released from U.S. custody have since been recaptured
because they were engaged in plots to harm the United States.

Speaking on CNN's Late Edition program, Republican Senator Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky said instances of detainee abuse by U.S. guards
and interrogators are the rare exception, not the rule.

"It is very difficult to run a perfect prison anywhere, but the United
States does that better than any other country in the world," he said.

But another senator, Democrat Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, said
Congress should consider holding hearings to probe detainee treatment.

Amnesty International USA Director William Schulz stressed that the
London-based group has no anti-American agenda.

"The important point is that Amnesty is not America-bashing, anymore
than we are China-bashing or Cuba-bashing, or any other
country-bashing, when we try to hold one universal standard up for
countries to be judged on," he explained. "That is all we are
interested in."

Mr. Schulz said President Bush and others in the administration have,
in the past, quoted from Amnesty International reports critical of
other nations, including Iraq under the former regime of Saddam
Hussein.




Rumsfeld Discusses Regional Security with Thai Officials
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D55:2F72C9D

US secretary of defense visited Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
for what government spokesman Chalermdej Jombunud called a
wide-ranging meeting The U.S. defense chief and Thai officials have
wrapped talks on a variety of regional issues, including piracy and
sectarian violence in Thailand's troubled south.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Monday visited Thai Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra for what government spokesman Chalermdej
Jombunud called a wide-ranging meeting. "[Mr. Rumsfeld] discussed
about the situation in this region. Just like he is asking about the
situation in Burma, the situation in Vietnam, the situation in China,"
he said.

Mr. Rumsfeld subsequently met with Thai Defense Minister Thammarak
Isarangura Na Ayutthaya to discuss the violence in Thailand's
predominantly Muslim south.

Mr. Thammarak says he told the defense secretary that the violence, in
which more than eight hundred people have died in the past 18 months,
is not related to global terrorism, but is rather an internal Thai
dispute.

Mr. Rumsfeld reportedly urged greater regional cooperation against sea
piracy, particularly in the Malacca Strait, an important shipping
route lying between Malaysia and Indonesia.

The defense chief also said that the U.S. government has made no
decision on if or when to ask the United Nations to impose sanctions
on North Korea because it refuses to re-join the talks on ending its
nuclear program.

His comments contradict a recent off-the-record statement by a senior
official traveling with Mr. Rumsfeld that a decision would be made
very soon.

The United States, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan are trying to
persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons programs. However,
China and South Korea in particular have been reluctant to seek U.N.
sanctions.

Speaking at a defense ministers meeting Saturday in Singapore, Mr.
Rumsfeld also expressed concern over Beijing's rising military budget
while lamenting that political liberties have not accompanied China's
economic boom.

After Thailand, Mr. Rumsfeld travels to Europe for talks with leaders
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.




China Lays Out Nuclear Plans; Denies Helping Iran and N. Korea
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D56:2F72C9D

Ambitious plan would almost double percentage of nuclear energy it
produces by 2020

A Chinese man overlooks power towers outside his house in a Beijing
neighborhoodChina has laid out an ambitious plan to almost double the
percentage of nuclear energy it produces by the year 2020. Officials
at the same time deny any suggestion that they are supplying nuclear
technology to Iran and North Korea.

Kang Rixin, general manager of the state-owned nuclear power agency,
China National Nuclear Corporation, told reporters in Beijing Monday
the agency wants to share its technology with other nations. He denied
any suggestion China might be supplying other nations with the
materials or knowledge to develop nuclear weapons.

"Our international cooperation is for peaceful purposes and we
strictly follow relevant rules and principles," he said. "We have no
such cooperation with Iran, North Korea, and Libya."

Beijing in the 1980s and 1990s made repeated assurances that it was
not helping other nations develop nuclear capabilities. These
assurances were followed by later revelations that China had secretly
supplied countries including Iran and Pakistan with nuclear
technology.

China is helping Pakistan with plans to build a 300-megawatt nuclear
power plant. Construction is expected to start as early as this year.

Chinese officials say they need to expand nuclear power production
capacity to meet the country's rapidly growing energy needs. The
country's coal- and oil-fueled power plants are unable to keep up with
electricity demand and many areas of the country have experienced
power outages over the past few years.

The nuclear plans were discussed as U.N. and Chinese government
officials gathered Monday to begin work on a 12-year effort to address
China's energy challenges as the nation becomes the world's second
largest consumer of energy - after the United States.

U.N. Development Program representative Khalid Malik says China's
energy problems stem from its reliance on highly polluting coal,
insufficient production, and its inefficient use of electricity.

"China is using two and a-half times more energy than it needs to, per
unit of output, if you were to compare global averages. So there is a
lot of room for improvement," he said.

China currently gets little more than two percent of its electricity
from its nine nuclear power plants. Officials on Monday said they plan
to bring 10 more plants online in the coming years. The aim is to have
four percent of the country's energy come from nuclear sources by the
year 2020.



Laos Detains US Activists Over Alleged Surrender of Hmong Rebels
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D57:2F72C9D

Four accused of distorting facts to provoke international comdemnation
of landlocked nation Authorities in Laos have detained four U.S.
activists claiming to have witnessed the surrender of ethnic Hmong
rebels who have been battling the government for decades. The Lao
government accuses the activists of distorting facts to provoke
international condemnation of the small, landlocked nation.

Lao government spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy said the four U.S.
nationals were detained for questioning Saturday after they reported
that 170 ethnic Hmong rebels had surrendered [in Xieng Khouang
province] in central Laos near the border with Vietnam. "[The
activists] jump in and try to make propaganda, saying [the Hmong] are
surrendering to the government, which is not true at all," he said.

Mr. Yong called the detainees troublemakers trying to harm relations
between Laos and the United States. He said they would be deported.

Activists in the United States say some 15,000 former Hmong and their
families continue a four-decade-old fight against the Lao government.
They accuse security forces of committing atrocities against them. The
Lao government does not acknowledge any rebellion and denies the human
rights charges. Human rights groups have not been able to verify the
situation because they are denied access to the region.

The four activists, who include two naturalized U.S. citizens of Hmong
descent, reported before their arrest that the encounter between the
villagers and government officials had gone well.

The government spokesman said the villagers were from small, remote
villages and were being brought together as part of its rural
development program. "What we are trying to do is to regroup those
people so that the development agencies can get in, help them to build
access roads, help them to bring social services, electricity, water
supply," he said.

The Laos communist government says the program is aimed at combating
poverty in one of the poorest countries in Asia. Critics say the
government is using the program to quash political dissent.

During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and '70s, members of the Hmong
ethnic group were recruited as part of the U.S.-led war against
communism. After the war, hundreds of thousands of them fled as
refugees. Many eventually settled in the United States.





Right-wing Israelis Step Up Protests against Gaza Pullout
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D58:2F72C9D

Protesters use glue, chains to seal locks of post offices, courts,
other buildings

Israeli ultra-orthodox Jew Sharon Tel-Tsour, who opposes Sharon's Gaza
disengagement plan - June 5, 2005Jewish settlers and their supporters
are escalating protests against the Israeli government's plan to pull
out of the Gaza Strip this summer. Lawlessness in the Palestinian
territories is raising questions about who will control Gaza once the
Israelis withdraw.

Right-wing Israeli protesters sealed shut 150 public offices, as they
stepped up a civil disobedience campaign against Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's Gaza "disengagement" plan. The protesters used super glue and
chains to seal the locks of post offices, courts and other buildings
at the beginning of the work week. Police say five 16-year-old
suspects were arrested.

Settlement activist Israel Meidad.

"Well, at the present moment I think that we could say that first of
all we are fighting for democracy, which means that people have a
voice," he said. "We don't want to have the government's policies
completely override the people's right to protest."

The protests came as hawks in Mr. Sharon's ruling Likud party launched
a last-ditch

Right-wing acticists wear shirts with "Gush Katif" forever on the
back, referring to the bloc of Jewish settlements in Gaza to be
evacuated under Sharon's diengagment plan, as they march in the
Jerusalem Day parade in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 5, 2005campaign to try
to stop the pullout, in which 21 Gaza settlements will be dismantled
and eight-thousand Jews removed from their homes. Former Defense
Minister Moshe Arens of the Likud says the withdrawal will harm
Israeli security.

"I see nothing to compensate for the traumatic experience that we will
go through, nothing to compensate for pulling people out of their
homes, there's nothing to be gained," Mr. Arens says.

The Likud hawks are warning that Gaza will become a terrorist enclave
once Israel pulls out.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas wants Israel to coordinate the
withdrawal with him, saying he will maintain law and order. But so
far, Mr. Abbas has failed to seize control of the streets from
militant groups. In the West Bank town of Nablus, gunmen raided two
Palestinian Authority buildings, demanding guarantees that they won't
be disarmed. And in Gaza, militants briefly abducted a Palestinian
diplomat.

These acts of lawlessness play on Israeli fears that once the army
pulls out, Gaza will plunge into chaos.




Rice Calls for OAS Role in Western Hemisphere Democracy
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D59:2F72C9D

US secretary of state calls on members to do more to protect democracy
in region, and strengthen civil society

OAS Secretay General Jose Miguel Insulza, left, thanks U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, for her remarks during the inaugural
session of the OAS general assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sunday
June 5, 2005U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opened the 35th
General Assembly meeting of the Organization of American States Sunday
in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Secretary Rice called on member states to
do more to protect democracy in the region, and strengthen civil
society.

Condoleezza Rice opened the first OAS General Assembly to be held in
the United States in more than 30 years by telling delegates that
democracy needs to be strengthened in the Western Hemisphere, and
governments need to be held accountable to their people.

Secretary Rice called for the General Assembly to approve the
Inter-American Democratic Charter, a document endorsed in 2001 that
calls for all people in the hemisphere to live in free societies with
elected governments.

"The Democratic Charter must become the core of a principled effective
multilateralism for the Americas," Ms. Rice says. "Together we must
insist that leaders who are elected democratically have a
responsibility to govern democratically."

The Democratic Charter has been endorsed by some nations in the
Western Hemisphere such as Chile, Panama and Peru, but others
including Argentina Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela have expressed
reservations, calling the idea an infringement on their sovereignty.

Speaking Sunday in Caracas Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez called
the proposal an attempt to meddle in his country's internal affairs.

In his remarks to the General Assembly newly installed OAS Secretary
General Jose Miguel Insulza expressed support for the U.S. proposal
warning of a "persistent danger of democratic backsliding in the
region."

In her remarks Secretary Rice also said the OAS should do more to
strengthen civil society groups in the region, which, she says, can
play a pivotal role in countries in political crisis.

"In places like Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti the institutions of
democracy have perhaps brittle roots," Ms. Rice says. "To help
democracies in our hemisphere in places like these and in others to
find a path to lasting success, this organization must also embrace
the legitimate contributions of civil society."

Civil Society groups advocating greater environment protection,
indigenous rights and debt relief are being given extensive access to
OAS delegates at this year's General Assembly meeting which is being
held under extremely tight security.

In her remarks Secretary Rice also called for democracy to return to
Cuba, noting that the only vacant chair among the foreign ministers
assembled at the meeting belonged to Cuba.

There were scattered protests Sunday outside the convention center
where the OAS delegates are meeting. Supporters of ex-Haitian
President, Jean Bertrand Aristide held a demonstration protesting UN
troops in Haiti. They were joined by anti-globalization groups, but
police reported no incidents of violence.




UN Assembly Proposes Reforms, but Leaves Large Gaps
(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DC6D5A:2F72C9D

President of UN General Assembly circulates first draft of plan for
remaking, strengthening world body The president of the U.N. General
Assembly has circulated the first draft of a plan for remaking and
strengthening the world body. The document is intended as the basis
for a debate leading up to a September summit at which world leaders
will be asked to approve a wide-ranging package of reforms. The
assembly document sidesteps the most contentious issue facing the
assembly.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan With the world body due to celebrate
its 60th anniversary this year, Secretary-General Kofi Annan
challenged its 191-member states in March to update the organization.

"The cause of larger freedom can only be advanced if nations work
together. And the United Nations can only help if it is remolded as an
effective instrument of their common purpose," Mr. Annan says.

Mr. Annan called for some of the broadest reforms in U.N.'s history.
Among them are enlargement of the Security Council, fixed rules for
waging wars, a stronger human rights body, as well as revamping the
U.N. bureaucracy.

He summoned world leaders to a 60th anniversary summit, and told them
to come prepared to makes changes in the way the organization works.

"This hall has heard enough high-sounding declarations to last us for
some decades to come," Mr. Annan says. "We all know what the problems
are, and we all know what we have promised to achieve. What is needed
now is not more declarations or promises, but action to fulfill the
promises already made."

The document presented by General Assembly President Jean Ping of
Gabon Friday contains lofty goals. They are aimed at making the U.N.
more efficient, open and accountable after a year of scandals over the
Iraq oil-for-food program and sex abuse by U.N. peacekeepers.

But the proposal sidesteps the most contentious issues facing the
membership, including Security Council enlargement, defining terrorism
and guidelines for using force

The question of expanding the Security Council is already threatening
to wreck the entire process.

The most popular expansion plan would create six new permanent Council
seats and four additional non-permanent seats. Its main backers,
Brazil, India, Germany and Japan, known as the G-four, are pushing for
a General Assembly vote on the plan this month as part of a strategy
that would have them named permanent Council members as early as
September, along with two African countries.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya last week called the G-four
proposal "dangerous". He said forcing an early vote on the measure
could split the U.N. membership and derail the entire reform process.
Speaking to VOA, Ambassador Wang said there is too little time between
now and September to consider such an important decision.

"I think there are many good points in other formulas. I think that's
why we need more time to discuss a good formula," Mr. Wang says.

The United States is also cool to the G-4 proposal. Washington has
endorsed Japan's candidacy, but has made no commitment on the others.

G-four ambassadors express confidence they have the backing of
two-thirds majority, or 128 countries necessary to win approval of
their plan in the General Assembly. But German Ambassador Gunther
Pleuger says intense negotiations are under way in hopes of avoiding a
damaging split.

"The G-4 has put on table a clear-cut proposal for a draft resolution,
but there are several other proposals on the table, quite a few, and
we want to find out what the status of all of these proposals is, and
whether there is a possibility of agreement," Mr. Pleuger says.

Ambassador Pleuger said the G-four countries are determined to push
for a vote on expansion in the next few weeks.

But even if the assembly approves the creation of new permanent seats,
the current permanent members still have an effective veto. The
legislatures of all five permanent members must ratify any change in
the U.N. charter.

German and Brazilian diplomats have said they hope a strong vote of
support for their plan will isolate opponents and force them to give
in to the enlargement plan. But opponents, led by veto-wielding China,
show no sign of budging.

The stage is set for months of hard bargaining in advance of the
September summit, leading many U.N. diplomats to conclude that the
U.N. reform will once again prove impossible.

Still, General Assembly President Jean Ping says he remains optimistic
that a workable compromise can be found.

"I can assure you that nothing is impossible," he says.

Diplomats involved in the negotiations say dozens of meetings are
planned in the coming days on various aspects of the overall document,
both in New York and in capitals. The outcome of these talks will
determine the relative success, or failure, of the September summit.

Officials: US, N. Korea hold backdoor talks CNN International

Earthquake shakes southeastern Turkey; dozens injured USA Today

Iraqi reality-TV hit takes fear factor to another level
The broadly popular "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice" show is
considered a key tool in fighting the insurgency. By Neil MacDonald
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p01s03-woiq.html?s=hns


Egypt keeps Muslim Brotherhood boxed in
Cairo is open to political reform, but won't include the Islamic group.
By Dan Murphy
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p01s04-wome.html?s=hns



US immunity in Colombia scrutinized
Colombia's Congress will hold hearings about revising a treaty that
shields US troops from prosecution. By Rachel Van Dongen
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p05s01-woam.html?s=hns



Hurdles ahead for Syrian reform
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad opens a highly anticipated three-day
Baath Party Congress. By Nicholas Blanford
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p06s01-wome.html?s=hns



Music soothes extremism along troubled Afghan border
A new Pashtun TV station in Pakistan is revitalizing a traditional form
of expression. By Owais Tohid
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p07s01-wosc.html?s=hns

That Neighborly Admonition
Democracies in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia need to
admonish their dictatorial holdouts. The Monitor's View
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p08s01-comv.html?s=hns

Progress in Iraqi freedom stained by growing hardship
It's time for a worldwide outcry. By David Cortright
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p09s01-coop.html?s=hns


Far from media focus: steady democratic progress in Iraq
Those who wait for 'milestone' headlines from Iraq will miss all the
interim steps that really mattered. By A. Heather Coyne
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0607/p09s02-coop.html?s=hns

Mexico rejects 'tutelage' of others on democracy: `

`In principle, we are not in agreement with any tutelage from anybody,'' presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said at a news conference in Mexico City. ``
http://snipurl.com/feeo



Khartoum facing war crimes probe :

A special United Nations commission of inquiry on Darfur has given the International Criminal Court a list of 51 potential war crimes suspects.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4612005.stm



UK: Blair to urge US to join new 'Marshall Plan: '

Tony Blair is flying to Washington for talks at the White House to persuade George Bush to agree to a package of increased aid to Africa.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/...sp?story=644579

http://snipurl.com/feep

The Munich Post: its undiscovered effects on Hitler:

Protesters to Hitler fought with their hearts and jeopardized their freedom and lives hoping the world would listen. They faced imprisonment and death, trying unsuccessfully to warn the world about the man who embodied evil, Adolf Hitler.
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/holoc...saratwogood.htm

http://snipurl.com/feer

--------------------
In the Mideast, Steps Forward
--------------------


June 6 2005

The "two steps forward and one step back" peace process between Israel and the Palestinians was seldom better demonstrated than last week. Israel made progress by freeing 400 Palestinian prisoners and setting June 21 as the date for a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Then it stepped backward by forging ahead with plans to build still more houses in the largest West Bank settlement, despite U.S. demands that settlements not be expanded.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials

--------------------
U.S., N. Korean Officials Again Hold N.Y. Talks
--------------------

Bush representatives, in 'listening mode,' visit the North's U.N. mission at the nation's request.

By Paul Richter and Barbara Demick
Times Staff Writers

June 7 2005

WASHINGTON — U.S. and North Korean officials met Monday in New York at the request of the North Koreans, State Department officials said, the second meeting in a month between the two countries at a time of high tensions over the communist state's refusal to return to nuclear disarmament talks.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...0,5599714.story

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...06-050127-8318r

Analysis: US speaks up on China
Richard Tomkins

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...06-044134-6187r

Britain shelves vote on EU constitution
Hannah Strange

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...06-113400-7624r

Walker's Word: Watch the euro
Martin Walker

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...06-112004-8393r

Defense chiefs seek to head off ceasefire collapse
Joshua Brilliant

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...05-055602-9120r

Unexpected third world opposition to UN restructuring

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...06-105434-2139r

Analysis: Blair seeks US support for Africa aid package

Bush Calls for Expansion of Democracy, Free Trade in Americas

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCA4C9:2F72C9D

US president made his remarks at 35th General Assembly meeting of
Organization of American States

President Bush delivers remarks at the 35th Organization of American
States General Assembly President Bush on Monday called for expanding
free trade and strengthening democracy in the Americas. Mr. Bush made
his remarks at the 35th General Assembly meeting of the Organization
of American States, meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Mr. Bush told the OAS foreign ministers that democracy is on the march
in Central Asia and the Middle East, and all efforts should be made to
strengthen democratic governments in the Americas.

Mr. Bush echoed remarks made on Sunday by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, who urged the OAS delegates to strengthen the
Inter-American Charter, which says countries in the region should work
together to apply pressure on countries that undermine democratic
practices, or violate human rights.

A U.S. proposal at this year's OAS meeting calls for governments that
violate the charter to be held accountable by their peers. Mr. Bush
told the OAS foreign ministers, while democracy is now the rule rather
than the exception in the region, some governments are backsliding
when it comes to democratic principles.

"In the new Americas of the 21st Century, bringing a better life to
our people requires choosing between two competing visions," he said.
"One offers a vision of hope. It is founded on representative
government, integration of global markets and a faith in the
transformative power in individual lives. The other seeks to roll back
the democratic progress of the past two decades by playing to fear,
pitting neighbor against neighbor and blaming others for their own
failures to provide for their people."

The U.S. proposal has been welcomed by some countries, such as Chile,
Panama and Peru, but others, like Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and
especially Venezuela, have rejected it, calling it an infringement on
their sovereignty. Speaking to the OAS on Monday, Venezuela's foreign
minister, Ali Rodriguez, strongly criticized the proposal.

Mr. Bush also said that the dramatic gains in the democracy over the
past generation in the Americas should be extended to Cuba. South
Florida is home to many Cuban-exiles and Mr. Bush, and his brother
Jeb, the governor of Florida, have extensive political ties here.

In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Bush also called on the U.S. Congress to
approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA. The
agreement, if passed, will break down tariff barriers between Central
American nations, the Dominican Republic and the United States.

"By reducing tariffs on U.S. goods, all citizens in these countries
will enjoy better goods at lower prices," he said. "These lower prices
will give Central American businesses and farmers less costly access
to U.S. machinery and equipment, which will make them more competitive
and help those economies grow. By bringing economic growth to Central
America, CAFTA will contribute to the rise of a vibrant middle class."

CAFTA is strongly opposed by some agricultural interests and labor
unions in both the United States and Central American nations, who say
it will result in the loss of many jobs.

There have been scattered protests by anti-globalization activists and
some labor union representatives at this year's OAS meeting, but
police report no serious incidents. An extremely heavy security
presence surrounds the OAS meeting site, raising complaints from even
some delegates, who have been delayed from attending some of the
proceedings by numerous checkpoints and security cordons.

India's Hindu Nationalist Leader Resigns After Praising Pakistan's
Founder

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCA4CC:2F72C9D

During visit to Pakistan, Lal Krishna Advani described nation's
founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, as secular man who wanted Hindu, Muslims
to live in friendship

L. K. Advani, in car, comes out of the residence of former Indian
Prime Minister and senior BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee after a
meeting in New Delhi In India, the leader of the opposition Bharatiya
Janata Party, Lal Krishna Advani, has resigned as the party's
president after Hindu hard-liners expressed outrage at his praise of
Pakistan's founder. Mr. Advani made the remarks during a recent
weeklong visit to Pakistan.

The controversy over Mr. Advani's remarks was triggered during his
six-day visit to Pakistan, where he described the nation's founder,
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, as a secular man who wanted Hindu and Muslims to
live in friendship.

The remark led to an uproar among Hindu hard-line groups that are
closely allied to Mr. Advani's Bharatiya Janata Party.

Hindu hard-liners regard Pakistan's founder as a Muslim
fundamentalist. They hold him primarily responsible for the division
of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan because he pushed
for the creation of mostly Muslim Pakistan when the British were
leaving the region in 1947.

But on his return from Islamabad, Mr. Advani said he stood by his
remarks, and resigned as head of the BJP when the controversy refused
to die down. He said his visit had helped to reinforce peace
initiatives between India and Pakistan.

Many of his party's members have come out in support of Mr. Advani,
and are asking him to continue to lead the party.

One such leader is Sahib Singh Verma. He says Mr. Advani merely quoted
Mr. Jinnah to say that Pakistan's founder had favored a secular state
to an Islamic Pakistan.

But Hindu hard-line groups such as the World Hindu Council have
welcomed his decision to step down saying his remarks praising Mr.
Jinnah are unacceptable.

Many Hindu activists even came out into the streets in western India,
beating drums and setting off firecrackers as the news of the
resignation spread.

Mr. Advani's decision to step down comes at a time when the Bharatiya
Janata Party is in turmoil following its defeat in national elections
one year ago.

Many political analysts partly blamed that defeat on the party's image
as a hard-line Hindu party opposed to Muslims.

Mr. Advani himself is regarded as one of the most hawkish members of
the party, and is accused of instigating a mob to destroy a mosque in
Northern India in 1992.

Independent political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan says the remarks by
Mr. Advani in Pakistan could be a deliberate effort to recast himself
and the party in a more moderate light.

"Anyone who is the preeminent leader of the BJP has to live down the
image which the party has earned for itself. He is trying to soften
his image," he said.

Mr. Advani had been widely expected to take over the BJP's political
leadership as the aging former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
moved to the sidelines.

Ivory Coast Ethnic Violence Divides Western City

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCA4CD:2F72C9D

United Nations says week of violence between rival ethnic groups has
left at least 65 dead

In Ivory Coast's volatile western region, communities remain divided
following a week of violence between rival ethnic groups that the
United Nations says left at least 65 people dead. Thousands have fled
the region around the town of Duekoue, others have taken refuge in the
local Catholic mission, or in neighborhoods they consider secure.

Villagers walk past burnt-out homes in Guitrozon A group of men from
the village of Guitrozon, on the outskirts of the western town of
Duekoue, walk among burned houses, pointing out the scenes of violence
last week that they say left more than 40 people dead in this small
village alone.

"There were four killed here," says village spokesman Sylvain Goulehi.
"Another two just here and another two over there. We sent eight
injured people to the hospital. There were eight killed on this path.
Hardened blood still stains the concrete floors of many homes."

The Ivorian army says victims of the attack in Guitrozon, which began
at three in the morning last Wednesday, were shot or hacked to death
with machetes. Others were said to have been burned alive in their
homes. Villagers say about 10 of their neighbors are still missing.

The victims were identified as ethnic Gueres, a group which has been
largely favorable to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo.

On Friday, the villagers buried their dead in a mass grave near the
main road, next to an Ivorian army checkpoint, less than 50 meters
from the entrance to Guitrozon. Witnesses say the killing only stopped
after several hours, with the arrival of a contingent of United
Nations peacekeepers.

Sylvain GoulehiVillagers say the government troops never intervened.
And Mr. Goulehi says he wants to know why.

It's a question he asks himself, he says. He says they immediately
sent someone to the checkpoint when the attacks started. The soldiers
fired a few shots in the air, he says. But Mr. Goulehi says they never
entered the village.

Another attack the same night in the village of Petit Duekoue, less
than a kilometer away, left more dead.

The attack against the villages and their local ethnic Guere
population sparked a wave of reprisal killings targeting Dioulas, a
term given to northerners, in the nearby town of Duekoue the following
day. On one street on the edge of town, eight people were killed,
according to the U.N. mission.

One local man, who returned to the now empty street to see what was
left after the violence, says he does not understand what happened.
The street has always been ethnically mixed, he says.

"Those are the homes of Dioulas," he says pointing at the houses,
where last week's killings took place. Gueres live next door, he says.
And there are other homes owned by Baoules, another of Ivory Coast's
southern ethnic groups, and the ethnicity of the independence
President Felix Houphouet-Boigny.

"Until last week, the different groups always lived together in peace
in this area," he says. But now, Gueres stay in predominantly Guere
areas. And Dioulas, he says, stay in Dioula neighborhoods, where they
stand watch at night against more reprisals. According to officials at
a local hospital, at least three people were killed in a predominantly
Dioula neighborhood during the night from Sunday to Monday.

UN troops look at a mass graveThousands fled the violence last week,
heading south to less volatile areas, or north to the U.N.-patrolled
buffer zone that separates the warring sides in Ivory Coast's nearly
three-year civil war. Most of the surrounding villages have been
abandoned. But some people still remain in Duekoue.

The head of the local Catholic mission, Padre Cesco, says as many as
20,000 traditionally Christian Gueres have taken refuge inside the
complex. He says he is having trouble taking care of them.

Padre Cesco says his mission is trying to calm them. But he says, he
cannot tell them their security is guaranteed 100 percent if they
return home.

UN troops with residentsU.N. officials have not been able to identify
the attackers in either the Guitrozon massacre or the reprisal
killings. President Gbagbo's supporters have accused traditional
fighters from the north and rebels, while the rebels themselves have
accused pro-Gbagbo western militias. Both sides say the violence has
nothing to do with the civil war, but that it could derail even
further the much delayed planned disarmament.

In Guitrozon, some of the village men have returned to defend the
bodies of the dead and what is left of their homes. At night, they
say, they sleep outside around a fire and keep watch.

One man says they are no longer afraid. Their brothers, he says, are
already gone. He says, they consider themselves dead already.

The Rollback of Democracy In Vladimir Putin's Russia

By Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser

This article is adapted from "Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution," published today by Scribner.

On a cold afternoon in the winter of 2004, Vladimir Putin summoned his long-serving prime minister to his Kremlin office.

"Unfortunately," Putin told him, "I have to fire you."

Mikhail Kasyanov was stunned. The Russian president gave no reason for the abrupt dismissal. Facing a national vote on his reelection just two weeks away, Putin had chosen a surprising time to shift governments. As he absorbed the news, Kasyanov assumed he would have to leave after the election. No, Putin corrected the prime minister. "I mean now."

The power of paranoia had gripped the Kremlin. For four years, the men around Putin had done everything possible to guarantee that no one could challenge his authority. The government had taken over national television, emasculated the power of the country's governors, converted parliament into a rubber stamp, jailed the main financier of the political opposition and intimidated the most potent would-be challengers from entering the race.

The Kremlin had proved so successful in eliminating competition that Putin's token competitors were now plotting to drop out en masse to protest the manipulation. And Putin's aides feared such a move could result in turnout on election day falling below the legal minimum. If that happened, the prime minister would become president for a month before a new election, putting him potentially in a position to do to Putin what Putin had done to his rivals -- a remote prospect but still untenable for a leader who believed no detail of democracy was too small to be managed. "In his mentality," one senior Putin aide said later, "every risk should be minimized to zero."

The risk posed by Kasyanov no longer seemed acceptable four years into Putin's rule. By now, the fledgling democracy of the post-Soviet era had been transformed into a system meant to serve one master. The revolution that Boris Yeltsin had started when he helped bring down the Soviet Union in 1991, however flawed, however unfinished, had been ended by his handpicked successor, a man drawn from the ranks of the old KGB. "The Russian people," Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, regularly told colleagues behind closed doors, "are not ready for democracy."

This account of Putin's rise to power and his campaign to consolidate authority in his Kremlin was drawn from interviews with dozens of Russian political figures, including Putin advisers who had rarely spoken to Western journalists before. Out of fear of retribution, many of them shared their insights on the condition that they not be named.

Putin, now 52, had come to office promising stability after a decade of dislocation. But in 2004, four years later, his Russia was a country of contrasts, with a booming economy floating on oil and with political space for dissent rapidly disappearing. Creeping crises threatened the future, whether a demographic collapse fueled by alcoholism and AIDS that could slice the Russian population by a third in coming decades or the blood-feud war in Chechnya that had left hundreds of thousands dead, injured or homeless and spawned a wave of horrific terrorism.

But Putin was running for reelection with soothing words for his tired nation. His prime minister was as unpopular with the public as Putin was popular, and there would be no ballot-box consequences if he were jettisoned. "The time of uncertainty and anxious expectations is past," Putin had told voters in his one and only campaign appearance.

Physically, Vladimir Putin was hardly a dominating figure in any room, a relatively slight man at 5 foot 9, rail-thin with a retreating hairline, hard eyes and a strained, joyless smile. In keeping with his KGB training, he had a skill for listening and taking on the persona desired by his interlocutors.

But Putin was not a born president. He commanded no mass following, articulated no grand vision for his country, had never been elected to public office. At the moment when Yeltsin publicly anointed him his chosen successor in 1999, polls showed his popularity rating at just 2 percent. He was the creation of one of the most extraordinary political projects in history -- "Project Putin," as some of those in the Kremlin came to call the effort they were enlisted to run.

Putin's main virtue to the Yeltsin clan known as the Family was his loyalty. He once helped spirit his former boss, St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, out of the country at a time when prosecutors were bearing down. That move made an impression in the Kremlin, where Yeltsin's advisers worried about retribution after he left office.

Igor Malashenko, a television executive who helped Yeltsin win reelection in 1996, was among the first to hear rumors that Putin would assume the presidency. Curious, he wangled a dinner invitation with the little-known spy. Not long after, Malashenko was summoned to the home of Valentin Yumashev, a Yeltsin aide.

"He asked me directly to support Putin as successor to Boris Yeltsin," Malashenko recalled.

"How can you trust him?" Malashenko asked Yumashev.

"He didn't give up Sobchak," Yumashev answered. "He won't give us up."

Backed by the tycoon Boris Berezovsky, the Kremlin advisers made it their mission to turn Putin into a credible successor. They taught him how to walk and talk like a president, how to dress, how to behave in public. "He was a fast learner," recalled Igor Shabdurasulov, a Putin aide.

But more important, they mustered the power of the state behind him, particularly state television, managed by Berezovsky, which lavished praise on Putin while tearing down his challengers with a vicious smear campaign. "I'm not defending the ethics of that process," Shabdurasulov said. "There were many things that today might not look all that pretty. But politics is a dirty business."

Project Putin worked. The former spy became acting president on New Year's Eve 1999 and was formally elected three months later. His first act in office was to sign a decree granting Yeltsin and his family immunity from prosecution.

But if the Yeltsin clan viewed him as a loyalist they could control, they were wrong. The project had a life of its own. A few months after his election, Putin gave a speech at a closed-door ceremony at the Lubyanka headquarters of the old KGB. The occasion was a Stalin-inaugurated holiday known as the Day of the Chekist, marking the founding of the Soviet secret police originally known as the cheka . Gathered there to listen to Putin were about 300 generals from the KGB and its successor agency, celebrating the rise of one of their own.

"Instruction number one for obtaining full power has been completed," Putin announced to the generals.

The few civilians in the hall thought it was a joke.

Only later, one recalled, would they realize how serious he was.

Putin was obsessed with television. Each night he would bring home videos of that day's newscasts to watch how he was covered, then return to the Kremlin the next morning with his judgments. "He watches himself on television, he goes through everything," a top aide confided.

The new Russian president grew particularly irate early in his tenure when the submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000 and Russian television aired tough reports about the government's slow response and dishonest public statements. Even state-controlled Channel One, under Berezovsky's control, broadcast critical segments, including interviews with the wives of Kursk sailors distraught at the way the situation was being handled.

Outraged, Putin called personally to rail about the report and accuse the journalists of faking it. "You hired two whores . . . in order to push me down," Putin exclaimed, as anchor Sergei Dorenko remembered it. Dorenko was taken aback. "They were officers' widows," he said, "but Putin was convinced that the truth, the reality, did not actually exist. He only believes in [political] technologies."

Putin's anger boiled over at a closed-door meeting with relatives of the crew six days after the submarine sank. When fuming relatives shouted him down, saying they knew from television that the Russian government had initially turned down foreign assistance, Putin bristled.

"Television?" he exclaimed. "They're lying. Lying. Lying."

After that, the die was cast. Determined to dominate television, the Kremlin drove Berezovsky, who controlled Channel One, and Vladimir Gusinsky, the owner of independent NTV, out of the country and seized control of both networks. No one understood better than Putin just how powerful television could be in the new Russia. "He came to power through television, and that's why, to have an independent channel that covers 65 percent of Russia, that creates a danger," the top aide said.

With troublesome owners out of the way, the Kremlin convened meetings each Friday with the top television directors at which Putin aide Vladislav Surkov, Kremlin consultant Gleb Pavlovsky and others handed out weekly talking points. Over time, the agenda became nakedly political, aimed at supporting Putin and his political party, United Russia. "It turned into an instrument of control," one participant said later. ". . . It was so direct and unsophisticated, like propaganda."

At each session, a written agenda was handed out with the week's expected news topics and recommended approaches. "At some point," the participant said, "the list started including the phrase 'recommendation -- don't cover.' It was things not to mention, like Chechnya."

As parliamentary elections approached in 2003, the Kremlin dispensed with even that subtlety and dispatched Marat Gelman, a top political strategist, to oversee Channel One. His programs, Gelman later said, were all guided by a single mission: "to create the image of United Russia and to destroy the Communists."

By that summer of 2003, the Kremlin had taken a turn. Since the beginning of his presidency, Putin had balanced the remnants of the old Yeltsin crowd with his compatriots from the KGB known as siloviki , or men of power. But now the veterans of the Family noticed the balance of power shifting away from them.

"We got the feeling that something changed for the wrong direction," one Yeltsin alumnus said. When he went to the Kremlin each day, he found the place filled with unfamiliar faces, "a whole floor of former or current KGB" in newly prominent positions on the president's staff.

Chief among the siloviki faction were two shadowy presidential deputy chiefs of staff, Viktor Ivanov and Igor Sechin, both with KGB backgrounds and both longtime Putin associates who had followed him from St. Petersburg to the Kremlin. Ivanov was put in charge of personnel, and he used his power to eliminate the commission that recommended pardons for prisoners. Sechin controlled the paper flow that reached Putin and served as the president's guardian. "His main asset is his loyalty," said Valery Pavlov, who had worked with both men in St. Petersburg.

Other key veterans of the KGB or its successor, the FSB, were in place as defense minister, interior minister and head of a powerful new anti-drug agency that was making politically charged arrests around the country. The siloviki viewed their rise as the natural ascension of the country's elite, back to save the country from itself more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"We are like some kind of demigods, doing something that will either save Russia or badly damage it," Viktor Cherkesov, a onetime KGB dissident-hunter said wryly last year after becoming head of a new anti-drug police force.

The turning point came when Russia's richest man, the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, began building up political influence in defiance of Putin's monopoly on power. By funding opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations, cutting a deal with China for a new pipeline, negotiating a partnership with a U.S. oil giant and trying to extend his sway in parliament, Khodorkovsky had enraged the siloviki.

The tension came to a head during a meeting between Putin and the country's main moguls, known as oligarchs, when Khodorkovsky challenged the president about the corrupt sale of a state oil field. Putin responded sharply, reminding Khodorkovsky that he had obtained his own company, Yukos, through manipulated government auctions in the 1990s.

The other oligarchs winced. "The whole thing came loose after that," Igor Yurgens, vice president of the oligarchs' association, recalled afterward. Some of Khodorkovsky's partners instantly understood the peril, as well. "It was clear to me that we had signed our own death warrants," said Alexei Kondaurov, a top Yukos executive.

Even some Putin aides were surprised at the president's outburst. "Putin just exploded," one said later. "I didn't expect such a reaction. He was just out of control." When he asked Putin about the rigged deal that Khodorkovsky had complained about, the aide recalled, "I discovered he knew about this deeply. I wouldn't say he was himself involved, but he had allowed this to happen."

As his pique grew, Putin later summoned Khodorkovsky back to the Kremlin to ask about a report he had received. Was it true, Putin asked, that Khodorkovsky had met with the Communist Party leader, Gennady Zyuganov, and offered his support? Khodorkovsky denied it.

"Putin was furious," a well-connected government official said, "because he already had the minutes from the conversation between Khodorkovsky and Zyuganov, and the minutes came not from the FSB [the successor to the KGB] but from the Communist Party staff. And when someone lies to the president, it makes it personal."

Kasyanov, Voloshin and other aides tried to intervene on Khodorkovsky's behalf, explaining that Voloshin had authorized the political financing. No, Putin shot back. "That's Khodorkovsky. It's his game. He wants to buy parliament. I can't allow this."

Khodorkovsky was later arrested on fraud and tax evasion charges and his company dissected and partially renationalized. A state oil company headed by Sechin ended up with Yukos's major subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz. Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison just last week.

By the time Putin decided to fire his prime minister in mid-campaign, Mikhail Kasyanov was perhaps the only well-known political figure left in Russia who could openly challenge the president if he chose to.

The ascendant siloviki had long agitated for Kasyanov's ouster. The prime minister was the last senior link to the Yeltsin days and virtually the only member of Putin's government who had offered even token public disagreement when Khodorkovsky was arrested. He had fought with Putin in private sometimes as well. When heavily armed Chechen rebels seized a theater in the heart of Moscow, Putin ordered commandos to prepare to storm the building. Kasyanov argued with him, fearing a blood bath. Putin responded by sending him to an international conference in Mexico.

"Putin doesn't like to have discussions," a senior Russian official said. "You shouldn't demonstrate weakness to people. He was always saying, 'As soon as people see you're weak, they will beat you immediately and you will lose.' That's why he does all he does to demonstrate he is strong."

And now Kasyanov's rivals had effectively poisoned the president against him, warning that the prime minister was entertaining offers from the defeated remnants of Russia's democratic opposition to lead their comeback. "His people took that fact and accelerated it into this great story," recalled the senior official.

Putin had signaled his discontent just two days earlier, clashing with Kasyanov at a closed-door cabinet meeting over the cutoff of gas deliveries to neighboring Belarus. The discussion became so heated that the normally reserved president abruptly ended the session.

But according to an account Kasyanov later gave associates, the prime minister had no sense of his impending ouster until Putin canceled their daily meeting the morning of Kasyanov's final day in office. When Putin summoned him that afternoon, the president was so intent on getting rid of Kasyanov he hadn't even been fully briefed on the procedures for firing the prime minister -- which required Putin to fire the rest of the cabinet as well. Photographers recorded the shocked faces of cabinet ministers who had been fired but had never been served notice of their dismissal by the president.

In the end, it had come down to television once again.

Project Putin had succeeded back in 1999 through the power of manipulated airwaves, and Putin could not now trust Kasyanov with control of such a potent instrument, even for a short interregnum between elections. "He understood that television could be switched," the senior official said, "and everything could be turned in one month."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle

Blair Lobbies Bush on Aid for Africa ABC News

Surge of Violence Threatens Mideast Cease-Fire Voice of America

British Govt puts off EU referendum Deccan Herald

US Urged to Respect Suspect's Rights ABC News

South American gas giant in turmoil
As President Mesa offers, again, to resign, Bolivia's neighbors are
reexamining their dependance on its vast energy reserves. By Bill Faries
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0608/p01s01-woam.html?s=hns


In Mideast elections, militants gain
Both Hamas and Hizbullah, deemed terror groups by the US, are making
political headway in their newly democratic regions. By Dan Murphy and
Joshua Mitnick
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0608/p01s02-wome.html?s=hns

Iraqis eye credit to boost economy
Officials say modernizing banks and shifting from cash could hamper
insurgency and boost rebuilding. By Neil MacDonald
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0608/p06s01-woiq.html?s=hns


How trade may corral Australia's 'sheriff'
Canberra must sign a regional 'amity and cooperation' treaty to attend
the East Asian Summit in December. By Janaki Kremmer
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0608/p06s02-woap.html?s=hns


Trash is cash in Bangladesh
An innovative project turns waste into fertilizer, helping clean the
streets and the air. By David Montero
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0608/p07s01-wosc.html?s=hns

Insurgents Reportedly Ready to Talk

By Jonathan Finer

BAGHDAD, June 7 -- A former minister in Iraq's interim government said Tuesday that the leaders of two insurgent groups were prepared to discuss conditions for ending their campaign of attacks.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Global warming reports edited Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription), MN

US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights

No dice, the Francophobe U.S. military told them
http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff06072005.html


World military spending topped $1 trillion in 2004:

With expenditure of $455 billion, the United States accounted for almost half the global figure, more than the combined total of the 32 next most powerful nations, said SIPRI, which is widely recognized for the reliability of its data.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9073.htm

http://snipurl.com/ff8r

Mass Indigenous-led Rebellion Forces Bolivian President to Resign:

Last night, President Carlos Mesa went on national television and announced he was stepping down. We go to Cochabamba, Bolivia to speak with Jim Shultz of The Democracy Center.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/07/1334228

http://snipurl.com/ff96


Israel evacuates citizens from La Paz:

The Foreign Ministry launched an emergency rescue mission late Monday night to extricate some 120 Israelis trapped by internal strife inside Bolivia, Foreign Ministry officials said.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag...d=1118024491995

http://snipurl.com/ff97

Residents say four killed in police raids in Haiti slum,:

A slum-based human rights group demanded an investigation Sunday into reports that Haitian police shot and killed at least four people and burned 12 homes during raids to root out gang members in a slum filled with supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/special4/articl...605153509990005

http://snipurl.com/ff9p

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...07-045914-7281r

China: 6-party N. Korea talks to resume

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...07-043504-3440r

Analysis: Blair-Bush agree on African aid
Roland Flamini

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...07-112113-2481r

UPI Interview: EU Ambassador John Bruton

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...07-110350-1189r

Politics & Policies: Little change in Syria
Claude Salhani

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...07-102053-4662r

US questioning China's aggressive military buildup
Bill Gertz

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...ion8jun08.story

Iraq Officials Hammer Out Constitution -- Delicately

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...ast8jun08.story

Violence Mars Arab-Israeli Truce

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...stv8jun08.story

Russia Will Air Its View of the World

Second Chinese Official Seeks Asylum In Australia

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCDBF2:2F72C9D

Hao Feng Jun claims he was a member of China's internal police force
working to persecute dissidents A second Chinese official is seeking
political asylum in Australia. The former security agent has claimed
he was a member of China's internal police force working to persecute
dissidents. His bid for asylum follows a similar application by a
senior Chinese diplomat in Sydney. Both men have claimed that Beijing
has hundreds of spies in Australia. China has strongly denied the
allegations.

Hao Feng Jun has said he worked as a police officer in a specialist
security unit known as 610 in the port city of Tianjin in northern
China. His primary responsibility was monitoring the activities of the
Falun Gong meditation movement and Mr. Hao claims to have seen members
of the group tortured. He insisted he has a catalogue of sensitive
information about the way Beijing spies on its political opponents at
home and overseas. He also has alleged that Beijing was sending
businessmen and students to foreign countries to work as secret
agents.

In February, while he was in Australia as a tourist, the 32-year-old
former security official applied for political asylum. He is waiting
to see if Canberra will grant him refugee status.

Mr. Hao is the second Chinese official to seek sanctuary in Australia
in the past two weeks.

A senior diplomat, Chen Yonglin, is fighting to stay in the country
after walking out from his job as the first secretary at the Chinese
consulate-general in Sydney at the end of last month.

Mr. Chen claimed that 1,000 Chinese spies were operating in Australia
and he is seeking to defect because of what he described as Beijing's
"abusive treatment" of its political opponents. These allegations have
been supported by Hao Feng Jun. He has told the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation that it is now far too dangerous for him to
return to his homeland…

"If I go back to China, there is no doubt the Communist Government
will certainly persecute me," he said. "They know I have confidential
information, some of it top secret, and I will be severely punished."

Neither China nor Australia has yet commented on Mr. Hao's allegations
or the status of his asylum application.

The former police officer said he was encouraged to speak out after
fugitive diplomat Chen Yonglin had voiced his concerns about China's
treatment of dissidents.

The Chinese ambassador in Canberra, Fu Ying, has denied Mr. Chen's
claims, saying he has made up the stories so he can stay in Australia.

Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, said the former
diplomat is still in hiding somewhere in Sydney and is being
considered for a protection visa, which would allow him to stay in the
country.

Australian Court Finds Smuggler Guilty in Asylum Seeker Deaths

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCDBF3:2F72C9D

Iraqi goldsmith Khaleed Daoed accused of playing integral part in
people-smuggling operation that resulted in deaths of 353 asylum
seekers

A court in Australia has found an Iraqi man guilty of planning a
people-smuggling operation that resulted in the deaths of 353 asylum
seekers. The Siev-X vessel sank on its way to Australia from Indonesia
in 2001.

The Siev X, a fishing vessel, was crammed with asylum seekers when it
capsized off Indonesia in October 2001. Of the almost 400 people on
board - most of them Iraqis - only 44 survived.

Khaleed Daoed, an Iraqi goldsmith, was accused of playing an integral
part in the planning of the disastrous journey.

It took a jury in the northern Australian city of Brisbane two days to
find him guilty.

Daoed has always denied involvement in the ill-fated voyage.
Prosecutors, however, insisted he was the "trusted assistant" of
smuggling boss Abu Quassey who charged people hundreds of dollars for
a place on the boat.

Quassey was convicted of death through negligence over the Siev X
disaster. He is serving seven years in an Egyptian jail.

Daoed is expected to be sentenced at a hearing in Brisbane later this
month.

Under Australian law, people smuggling carries a maximum penalty of 20
years in jail.

Refugee campaigners are demanding an official inquiry into the Siev X
tragedy. They claim that Indonesian and Australian authorities may
have covered up information about why and how the boat sank.

Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney says an
accurate picture of the Siev X sinking has yet to emerge.

"That is what needs to be investigated and it really has been a missed
opportunity that so many of the Siev X survivors and relatives and
people who had intimate details about the planning of that journey
were not quizzed to find out what they actually knew about the Siev X
itself - the details of the Siev X," he said.

Daoed was extradited to Australia from Sweden in May 2003.

He was acquitted of a charge of organizing the trafficking of 147
asylum seekers who arrived by boat on Australia's remote Indian Ocean
territory of Christmas Island in 2001, the same year as the Siev X
tragedy.

The Australian government says the flow of boat people traveling from
Indonesia on often poorly maintained boats has been reduced to barely
a trickle as a result of tough border control measures, including the
mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

Explosion Takes Place at House of Indonesian Militant

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCDBF4:2F72C9D

No one killed in blast, which comes amid heightened warnings that
militants are planning more attacks In Indonesia, there has been an
explosion at the house of a known Islamic militant south of Jakarta.
No one was killed in the blast, but it comes amid heightened warnings
from police and foreign embassies that militants are planning more
attacks.

The explosion occurred early Wednesday, when the tenant of the house,
Fihiruddin Moqthe bin Abdul Rahman, better known as Abu Jibril, was
praying at the local mosque.

It is still unclear what caused the explosion. It happened in the
front yard of the house and caused no casualties and little damage.

General Firman Gani, the head of the Jakarta police, said they were
keeping an open mind. He said there is a possibility that the
explosion was the result of a local dispute - they had information
that the neighbors and Abu Jibril were not getting along.

Abu Jibril has a long history of involvement in Islamic militancy. He
trained in Afghanistan and is a close friend of Abu Bakar Bashir, the
cleric who police and international intelligence services say once led
Jemaah Islamiyah, the organization behind the October 2002 Bali
tourist nightclub bombing and other attacks.

Abu Jibril was released from prison last October after serving a
five-and-a-half month sentence for immigration violations and forgery.

Last week the United States embassy warned that it had credible
information that extremists were planning an attack on an
international hotel in Jakarta. Embassy officials believe the attack
is planned to take place around noon, but they do not know which hotel
or which day.

The embassy advised all U.S. citizens to stay away from hotels and
other places where foreigners are known to congregate.

Although hundreds of militants have been arrested and are behind bars
in Indonesia, some key members remain at large. Analysts warn that
they still have the will and the capacity to launch new attacks.

OAS Ministers Resolve to Strengthen Democracy

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCDBF5:2F72C9D

OAS also offered to help Bolivia overcome its political crisis, but
said it would not intervene in internal affairs of the Andean nation
Foreign Ministers from the 34 nations of the Organization of American
States ended three days of meetings early Wednesday with a resolution
to establish a mechanism to strengthen democracy in the Western
Hemisphere. The OAS also offered to help Bolivia overcome its
political crisis, but said it would not intervene in the internal
affairs of the Andean nation.

The OAS foreign ministers agreed to a proposal to monitor the
democratic standards and practices of member states, but stopped short
of adopting a U.S. proposal that would have called for governments who
violate democratic principles to be held accountable by other
governments in the hemisphere.

Speaking at the conclusion of the three-day meeting, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega said
the meeting fulfilled its mandate of making democracy stronger in the
region. "The Declaration of Florida and the resolution on
representative democracy makes it very clear that now more than ever
the OAS needs to take a more proactive role in promoting and defending
human rights and democracy in the Americas," he said.

The original U.S. proposal for possible sanctions on governments who
backslide on democratic principles was opposed by a number of OAS
member states, most notably by Venezuela. Venezuelan officials said
the original proposal would amount to meddling in their internal
affairs.

U.S. officials have criticized Venezuela's government, saying
President Hugo Chavez is supporting undemocratic trends in his
country.

Ambassador John Maisto, the permanent U.S. representative to the OAS,
said the adopted proposals

would allow the OAS Secretary General to raise early concerns of
undemocratic trends in various member states.

"That same resolution establishes an early warning system for
democracies in danger in which the Secretary General can bring to the
council's attention those situations, which may lead to action under
the Inter-American Democratic Charter," said Mr. Maisto.

In their final declaration, the OAS ministers said that all countries
in the region have the right to decide their own political status and
economic, social, and cultural development.

The ministers also offered their full cooperation to help Bolivian
authorities establish a dialogue to overcome their country's political
crisis. But the ministers said any cooperation should not amount to
violating the OAS principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs
of the Andean nation.

New World Bank President Stresses Africa Development

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCDBF6:2F72C9D

Paul Wolfowitz is scheduled to visit four sub-Saharan African nations
later this month

Paul Wolfowitz World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, in his first press
conference since taking office June 1st, Tuesday stressed the
importance of boosting development assistance to Africa. Mr. Wolfowitz
is scheduled to visit four sub-Saharan African nations later this
month.

He will arrive in Africa Sunday after attending a London meeting of
the finance ministers of the world's seven leading industrial
countries. The finance ministers will be planning this year's summit
of the world's most industrial countries (July 6-8), hosted by
Britain, which will focus on African issues. Mr. Wolfowitz says this
will be the first of many trips to Africa.

"I'll be visiting four countries-Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and
South Africa. I think those countries reflect some of the diversity of
sub-Saharan Africa but by no means all. I'm actually hoping to get
back to Africa fairly frequently. There is a lot going on there. There
is an enormous range of difference between countries," he said.

Mr. Wolfowitz, who for the past four years was the U.S. deputy
secretary of defense, endorses British Prime Minister Tony Blair's
call for a significant increase in development assistance for Africa.
"I think development assistance is important. By itself it is not
going to do the job. What is encouraging to me is that most of the
other pieces (to the development process) are in place. And that makes
the case for more development assistance, not less," he said.

The World Bank is a major player in African economies and is by far
the biggest provider of development assistance to the continent.

WHO Developing Global Cancer Control Strategy

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=DCDBF7:2F72C9D

Official says key aspect of WHO plan will include steps to prevent
people from getting cancer

The World Health Organization says it has taken a first step toward
responding to what it calls "the global epidemic of cancer." The
action was taken at a two-day meeting of international Cancer Experts
aimed at developing a global cancer control strategy, which is
expected to be completed within a year.

The World Health Organization says 58 million people will die from
infectious and chronic non-communicable diseases this year. Nearly
seven million of these deaths will be from cancer. WHO predicts a 50
percent increase in cancer deaths in the next 15 years. It says
75-percent of these deaths will be in developing countries.

Yasmi Bhurgri is Director of the Karachi Cancer Registry at the Aga
Khan University in Pakistan. She says the cancer burden in her country
is immense and rising rapidly. She says Pakistan has some of the
highest rates of preventable tobacco-related lung cancer among men, of
breast cancer in women and of oral cancer in the general population.

Dr. Bhurgri says it is crucial that the World Health Organization play
a dynamic role in curtailing the cancer epidemic in Pakistan and other
countries. She says a key aspect of the WHO plan will include steps to
prevent people from getting cancer. "That is, trying to decrease the
risk factors which are already prevalent and proven. To try to
decrease the incidence of those cancers which are avoidable or due to
avoidable risk factors and then there would be a second phenomenon
which would have to be addressed which would require a lot of
resources, and that would be screening and monitoring," she said.

Another participant at the conference, Dr. Twalib Ngoma, is Executive
Director of the Ocean Road Cancer Institute, the only facility of its
kind in Tanzania. He says most health budgets in Africa go toward
treating HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases. But, he notes cancer is on
the increase and can no longer be pushed aside.

This will be difficult, he says, because it is expensive to develop
national cancer control programs. He says in Africa today, most
patients seeking cancer treatment are in the advanced stages of the
disease when chemotherapy will do no good. "So, investing our
resources in curative treatment is not going to be cost-effective,"
she said. "Our approach would be to invest in palliative care to
reduce the suffering of people who already have cancer. The next thing
is we know that one set of cancers is preventable. We need to increase
cancer awareness. We need to have programs to prevent cancer."

Dr. Ngoma says all this will become possible with the assistance of
the World Health Organization when its Global Cancer Control strategy
is out. He says WHO will issue guidelines on how African countries can
develop cancer prevention and treatment programs. He says he hopes
money to help run these programs also will be available.

Second Chinese official in a week to announce a bid for asylum backs claims that Beijing has more than 1,000 spies in the country.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0608/dailyUpdate.html

A college exam for 8 million Chinese pupils
The fourth and final day of national college entrance exams in China
comes to a close Thursday. By Robert Marquand
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0609/p04s01-woap.html?s=hns


Mexico tackles discrimination to fight AIDS
The government has launched an ad campaign against homophobia, but some
critics oppose using tax dollars. By Monica Campbell
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0609/p06s01-woam.html?s=hns


Croatia: water views - but legal?
After foreigners gobbled up illegal seaside villas in Croatia, the
government stepped in. By Beth Kampschror
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0609/p07s01-woeu.html?s=hns

Bolivia: Tiny Nation, Big Troubles
Racism needs to be addressed as one of the issues behind the political
turmoil roiling Bolivia. The Monitor's View
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0609/p08s01-comv.html?s=hns