Sean Garland, the general secretary of the Workers Party
Posted on 09/30/2001 9:35:12 PM PDT by CommiesOut
Peoples Workers' friend
Sunday Business Post - Ireland; May 6, 2001
Gerry Gregg
Age: 44
Appearance: Bearded '60s leftie
Newsworthiness: Producer/director of controversial four-part series on Des O'Malley for RTE
In 1992, the Irish Times' Moscow correspondent, Seamus Martin, was rooting around the official archives of the Soviet Communist Party when he made an interesting find.
Martin discovered two letters on Workers Party (WP) headed notepaper, addressed to the international department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
The letters were dated July and September 1986, and were apparently signed by the general secretary of the Workers Party, Sean Garland.
The September letter sought a grant of GBP1 million from the CPSU and referred to WP fundraising through "special activities". The party later claimed that this letter was a fabrication, but never denied the authenticity of the earlier letter.
That letter, sent on July 1 1986, was a request by Garland to the CPSU to meet Gerry Gregg - then on leave from his job as an RTE television producer - who had recently formed his own TV production company, Iskra Productions. (Iskra was the name of the Bolshevik newsletter in 1917.) Iskra, wrote Garland, was interested in producing films on Soviet life.
Garland explained that the Workers Party in Ireland had devoted a lot of time and money to combating the "capitalist media" and to educating "the working class".
"As part of this struggle," he continued, "some members of the Workers Party recently formed Iskra Productions. Iskra productions functions in an environment hostile to a Marxist analysis of many of the problems confronting western society.
"However, Iskra Productions also recognises that, within the western media there is a commercial appetite for 'stories' which, paradoxically, may embody a critique of the dominant ideology or power structure of western society."
Garland described the company as "a Marxist film-making enterprise which commands this party's full support. Iskra is potentially a useful propaganda device for the socialist cause, for a small party like ours it promises much by way of building up the intellectual, ideological and financial resources of our party."
Garland said Iskra's "very talented team" included Gregg, his fellow TV producer Eoghan Harris, and radio producer John Caden. All three were longtime and vocal Workers Party supporters in RTE.
Gregg was a paid-up member of the party who would later later go on to make its political broadcasts at election time.
Gregg confirmed to the Irish Times that he had sought Garland's assistance while looking for contacts in the Soviet Union. He said that Iskra had set out to make films which were distinctive, challenging and radical, "which wouldn't have been a million miles away from the Workers Party in terms of world affairs or, indeed, in terms of Northern Ireland".
It is not known whether Des O'Malley recalled the Iskra letter last year when he agreed to grant Gregg exclusive access for a four-part documentary on his life. What is known - now that the first part has been broadcast - is that Gregg has managed to pull off the sort of ideological media coup that Garland had promised the CPSU back in 1986.
In what was marketed by RTE as a straightforward biography of O'Malley, Gregg has produced, in my opinion, a piece of old-style Workers Party propaganda, unmoderated by any dissenting view. The production is now causing great embarrassment to RTE, following its week-long drubbing by commentators and politicians.
Gregg himself can hardly be accused of deviousness. He has never hidden his politics, nor the fact that his work and his politics are entirely interlinked. Virtually every documentary he has made since the 1980s has challenged the mainstream nationalist and religious consensus.
With that as a backdrop, just how likely was it that Gregg was going to produce a balanced view of O'Malley - and particularly his line on the North? Two days before the first part was broadcast, RTE executives were satisfied that the programme was "balanced", although this itself may be a reflection of the effort that went into talking Gregg down from what was seen as complete sycophancy.
What is so remarkable about the O'Malley documentary is that Gregg succeeded in peddling his views through one of the most important and costly political profiles that RTE has broadcast in decades. What is even more remarkable is that RTE let him. No one at senior level in RTE was unaware of Gregg's politics. Apparently, some also knew that Harris was a co-director of Gregg's latest production company, Praxis Pictures.
Harris and Gregg are not just ideological soulmates. Harris has also provided a chorus of approval through his Sunday Times column for virtually all Gregg's productions over the last few years. One was described as "spellbinding", another as "brilliant", another as worthy of an award.
The documentaries - in a nutshell - have dumped on Sinn Fein or the Catholic Church, or both.
Gregg and Harris share broadly similar backgrounds. Both were working-class, both had relatives who fought in 1916, both came from families with strong republican leanings and both had formative experiences that turned them against nationalism. They developed a view of Northern politics which was closely aligned with that of Conor Cruise O'Brien and later the Workers Party, which emerged in the early 1980s from Official Sinn Fein and the Official IRA.
Dublin-born Gregg, like his father and uncles before him, joined the Labour Party at the age of 18. He left the party while at UCD. By the time he joined RTE in the late 1970s as a trainee producer, it was Official Sinn Fein to which he gave his allegiance.
In an interview last year Gregg laid out his ideological stall. Ireland, he said, was a corrupt, hypocritical, inegalitarian society, and the legislative framework of the Catholic state was still very much in place.
There was a debate within RTE to democratise it and open it up and there was a split between those who embraced the critique - roughly the Workers Party camp - and those who didn't - roughly the Provo camp. The debate was at its most virulent on the national question, and there was no hiding place between the two factions.
In the 1980s the WP ideologues chose RTE's flagship current affairs programme as their battleground.
Presided over by Joe Mulholland - not a member of the Workers Party, but a supporter of its line on the North - Today Tonight was an unpleasant place for those with even the mildest nationalist leanings.
President Mary McAleese was a reporter on the programme when Mulholland took over. McAleese - described at one meeting by an unnamed producer as a "West Belfast Provo" - was frequently in tears after abusive jousts with her co-workers over their coverage of the North.
In an interview with the Irish Times three years after she quit RTE, McAleese said: "I was a Northern voice and I spent a lot of time there. Every weekend I was with friends and relations trying to find out what was happening in the North, but I was not listened to. Whenever I tried to explain that more and more people were being drawn into the H-Block cause because of the failure of the British government to act, they wouldn't listen to me because they felt that anyone who was bringing that message into the programme had to be a Provo supporter."
To many RTE current affairs personnel it was Gregg - because of his key producer status on Today Tonight - rather than Harris, who epitomised Workers Party thinking and influence.
One former producer said: "When people talk about the Workers Party in RTE, they're really talking about Gregg, because he was 90 per cent of it. He was - and is - unambiguously political in everything he does. He is a completely political person.
Gregg took leave of absence from RTE in 1986 and formally resigned three years later.
Iskra was founded in 1986 and from then on Gregg - as he tells it - battled to have his productions accepted by the station. In 1993 the Independent Production Unit was set up with Claire Duignan, a former TV producer, at its head.
Last year Gregg claimed that many of his proposals were rejected by the IPU because of his political agenda. However, the same proposals still managed to get airtime thanks to the support of Mulholland, who was, until March last year RTE's managing director of television.
A revisionist documentary about the republican Sean South, rejected by the IPU, was later funded by RTE's Leargas programme. Gregg's film A Love Divided, which told the true story of a 1950s Catholic/Protestant family clash over schooling, was also rejected by the IPU and then supported by Mulholland.
The history of the O'Malley documentary is somewhat complex. It appears that it was accepted by the IPU, but later withdrawn by Gregg.
It later went back on the IPU's books, after it had been endorsed by Mulholland. Commissioning editor Kevin Dawson oversaw the project, which was effectively inherited by Mulholland's successor, Cathal Goan.
A former radio producer, Goan had clashed with Gregg in the past when he dared to invite a panel on to the Day By Day programme to discuss a fawning documentary on Conor Cruise O'Brien produced by Gregg.
The IPU decision to accept the O'Malley proposal after rejecting a number of other Gregg productions was almost certainly influenced by the popular success of A Love Divided, plus the award to Gregg of an Emmy for his Channel 4 documentary on a massacre at Kosovo. RTE's publicity material on the O'Malley documentary mentioned only those two Gregg productions.
Last week one commentator after another lined up to tear the documentary apart, not just for its failure adequately to address the recent arms trial revelations, but also for its overall hagiographic tone, its crude and cruel demonising of O'Malley's enemies and its sheer dullness.
Gregg will no doubt laugh off the predictable criticism.
What he may not be able to laugh off is the likely fallout for him from RTE's embarrassment over its decision to broadcast propagnda masquerading as objective current affairs. The station's rationale for going with the documentary was to fill the gap in the station's political archives.
One suspects that, wherever Des O'Malley - A Public Life is placed once it ends, it won't be in that gap.
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Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, 10 September: Prosecutors on Monday [10 September] sought a 15-year prison sentence for former Red Army Faction member Yoshimi Tanaka, who is on trial for the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines (JAL) jet and other charges.
The defence is scheduled to deliver closing arguments on 29 October at the Tokyo District Court.
Tanaka, 53, and eight other members of the Red Army Faction hijacked the Boeing 727, with the ship name Yodogo, on 31 March 1970, after it left Tokyo en route to Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, according to the indictment.
The hijackers eventually forced the plane to land at Pyongyang on 3 April, where they were granted political asylum. En route, the hijackers inflicted minor injuries on five of the 129 passengers and crew onboard, the indictment says.
On Monday, prosecutors said, "It was the first hijacking case in Japan and caused tremendous psychological and physical pain to many passengers and crew.
"Given that it was an extreme crime ignoring and jeopardizing the rule of law and the principle of democracy, a severe penalty should be sought to forestall a recurrence of similar act," the prosecutors said.
They said that Tanaka played an important role in the incident - widely known in Japan as the Yodogo incident - as he was issuing orders to other faction members.
At the first hearing held in December last year, Tanaka admitted to the charges of hijacking the plane and inflicting injuries on the five people, and offered his apologies, saying the group took innocent people hostage and that their actions were "inexcusable."
Tanaka is also accused of throwing firebombs into a Tokyo police station and into the grounds of a neighbouring junior high school in September and October 1969.
Tanaka was arrested in Cambodia in 1996 and eventually handed over to authorities in Thailand, who accused him of using counterfeit US banknotes at a Thai beach resort.
After being acquitted of the counterfeiting charges in 1999, he was extradited to Japan in June 2000.
Known as "Sekigunha" in Japanese, the Red Army Faction was formed in 1969 and advocated global revolution through armed struggle.
A splinter group, the Japanese Red Army, broke away two years later and gained international notoriety in the 1970s through a series of terrorist acts abroad.
Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0811 gmt 10 Sep 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright
Any info on this dude? The Red Army Faction's HQ was in Lebanon. Dude got married in N.K. and worked for NKIS. "...accused him of using counterfeit US banknotes..."--"Supernotes" affair.
Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, 10 September: A group working for the release of Japanese allegedly kidnapped and held in North Korea on Monday [10 September] urged the police to question the wife of one of the hijackers of a Japanese plane in 1970 about the abductions when she returns to Japan shortly from North Korea.
Emiko Akagi, 46, is scheduled to return home on 18 September, according to a group supporting the hijackers. She is the wife of Shiro Akagi, 53, one of the hijackers of a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane that was forced to fly to North Korea.
The national council for the release of Japanese held in North Korea said it suspects that Akagi and other wives of the hijackers may have been involved in the 1983 disappearance in Europe of Keiko Arimoto, a 23-year-old Japanese university student.
The National Police Agency is planning to arrest Akagi on her return on suspected violation of the Passport Law.
The police placed her and four other hijackers' wives on the international wanted list in 1993 after they did not comply with a 1988 order to return their passports following allegations that they had contacted a North Korean agent when visiting Europe in the 1980s.
Akagi returned her passport in May this year for the purpose of obtaining travel documents to enable her return to Japan.
On Monday, members of the council, including Arimoto's parents, visited the police agency to request that a thorough investigation be conducted on Akagi.
On 31 March, 1970, nine members of the now-defunct Red Army Faction, known as Sekigunha in Japan, hijacked the JAL plane with 138 passengers and crew on board while it was en route from Tokyo to Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, forcing it to fly to Pyongyang.
At the Tokyo District Court on Monday, prosecutors are to make their closing argument in the hijacking case against Yoshimi Tanaka, one of the Sekigunha members.
Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0410 gmt 10 Sep 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright
| Political pawns? Hijackers' daughters arriving in controversy |
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It is only days before three North Korean-born daughters of Red Army Faction hijackers "return" to Japan. But are they coming back through desire -- or as pawns?
Critics fear it is the latter. The three, Azumi Tanaka, 22, Ritsuko Konishi, 23, and Asaka Tamiya, 22, say they are looking forward to entering Japan, where they will live. Tanaka is the daughter of Yoshimi Tanaka, 52, who is on trial for his part in the 1970 hijacking of a Japan Airlines jet. Konishi was born to Takahiro Konishi, 56, who is on an international wanted list, while Tamiya is the daughter of the late Takamaro Tamiya, a former senior faction member. The daughters were born and raised in North Korea after their mothers moved there to marry the hijackers. In a supporters conference held in Tokyo on April 30, the day the Japanese Embassy in Beijing issued them with travel documents, the three were introduced via video as normal young women who liked Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki's songs and wanted to go to Tokyo Disneyland. They said they felt alienated in North Korea, where they have been living in political asylum. Others, however, have expressed doubt. Pyon Sin-il, the 54-year-old managing editor of Korea Report, says their return is politically motivated. "North Korea is behind this," he argued. North Korea is said to have freed itself from the worst of its financial situation, but it is also still thought to need urgent economic reconstruction. Analysts argue that support from other countries is needed. The United States, however, refuses to assist countries that support terrorism, and Pyon says the existence of Red Army members in the country has hindered aid from Washington. "It is possible that a basic agreement has been reached between North Korea and (the Red Army Faction) members to have them (the daughters) peacefully leave North Korea," Pyon said. "I imagine preparations have been made for this day." Writer Karin Amamiya, who has supported the daughters' entry into Japan, said they don't want to become political symbols. "They don't want to be used by activists in the country," he said. "I want them to be left alone after they return." The trio's entry comes after the 28-year-old daughter of Japanese Red Army founder Fusako Shigenobu acquired Japanese citizenship. The daughter arrived in Japan on April 3 from her home in Lebanon after obtaining citizenship in March. Public safety authorities fear it is possible the Red Army Faction could link with Japanese Red Army supporters in an effort to band the two groups together. The Japanese Red Army split from the Red Army Faction after an internal disagreement many years ago. "We cannot rule out the possibility that the two groups will link up again," a spokesman said. (Mainichi Shimbun) |
The Taoiseach has led tributes to Dr Yousef Allan, the delegate-general of Palestine in Ireland, who was found dead at his south Dublin home yesterday.
Dr Allan (47) was found at the bottom of the stairs in his house on Haddington Road, Ballsbridge, at 2 p.m. Postmortem tests were being carried out last night. Initial results indicated he died of a heart attack, though the final results will not be known for several days.
Expressing his shock and sadness at the death, Mr Ahern said Dr Allan was 'a great representative and a tireless worker for his country. He was extremely well known and liked in political circles in Ireland'.
He is to send a message of sympathy to Dr Allan's wife, Jane, and to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said Dr Allan had been 'a friend of Ireland for many years and represented the Palestinian people here with honour and dedication'.
'Whenever we met I greatly appreciated his good humour and warm personality and with his untimely death we have lost an invaluable source of advice and encouragement on the Middle East peace process.'
Dr Allan's body was found by officers from Irishtown station who broke into his home through a back window.
They had been contacted by friends of Dr Allan who had become concerned for his welfare after he missed a lunch appointment.
Preliminary examination of the scene did not suggest any foul play, Garda sources said yesterday. There was no indication of a break-in or struggle within the home, they said.
The decision to hold a post-mortem arose because of the sensitivity of Dr Allan's position as a representative of the Palestine Authority. His body was removed to the city morgue at about 6 p.m.
Dr Allan was said to have been suffering from a cold in recent days and on Monday night, when he was last seen, he had complained to friends of chest pains.
Tributes were also paid last night by members of the Palestinian community in Ireland. One man, who did not wish to be named, said: 'Yousef was very distressed by the latest news from home. The peace process, in his view, was in a total shambles and that could have contributed to him feeling very low and very unwell.'
Israeli embassy sources expressed shock at the death, describing Dr Allan as 'a fine diplomat'. He had debated with the Israeli ambassador, Mr Mark Sofer, on many occasions and despite their political disagreements the ambassador considered him a personal friend.
The president of the Workers' Party, Mr Sean Garland, said he would be 'sadly missed by all those in Ireland who have long cherished the hope of seeing the establishment of a Palestinian state and a firm peace in the Middle East'.
In November 1999 Dr Allan was the main organiser of a charity event at a Dublin hotel that raised (pounds) 70,000 for the maternity hospital in Bethlehem. He had a wide range of contacts in the Irish trade union movement.
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The President, Mrs McAleese, and her husband, Dr Martin McAleese, were among the attendance at a funeral service for the delegate-general of Palestine in Ireland, Dr Yousef Allan, at the mosque of the Islamic Centre in Clonskeagh, Dublin, at the weekend.
Dr Allan was found dead from a suspected heart attack at his Dublin residence on January 17th. Several hundred members of the Muslim community attended the service, conducted by Imam Sheikh Hussein Halawa.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, and the Secretary-General of the Department, Mr Padraic McKernan, were also present. The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, was represented by the delegate-general of Palestine to Britain, Mr Afif Safieh.
The mourners were led by Dr Allan's widow Jane, along with relatives who travelled from his home village of Halhoul on the West Bank.
There was strong representation from the diplomatic corps, including the US ambassador, Mr Michael Sullivan, the Chinese ambassador, Mrs Zhang Xiaokang, and the US deputy chief of mission, Mr Earle Scarlett, and his wife, Barbara, public affairs officer. The Indian, French, Dutch, Egyptian, Iranian, Portuguese, Belgian, Cypriot and Austrian embassies were also among those represented.
From the political sphere came the Green TD, Mr John Gormley, and Senators Michael Lanigan and David Norris. Many leading trade union figures also attended, including the SIPTU president, Mr Des Geraghty, the former president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Phil Flynn, the former SIPTU president, Mr Jimmy Somers, the SIPTU equality officer, Ms Rosheen Callender, and Mr John Tierney of the National Centre for Partnership.
The Workers' Party was represented by its president, Mr Sean Garland. The Glasgow Labour MP, Mr George Galloway, and the former Labour Senator, Mr Jack Harte, also attended.
Dr Allan's remains were interred in the Muslim cemetery at Newcastle, outside Dublin.
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Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Beijing, 15 May: Three daughters of former Red Army Faction cadres who defected to North Korea after hijacking a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane in 1970 left Pyongyang on Tuesday [15 May] for Japan via China.
An Air Koryo plane with the three women aboard left Pyongyang in the morning for Beijing. But due to bad weather it changed course for Tianjin, southeast of the Chinese capital, according to officials at the Beijing bureau of All Nippon Airways (ANA).
The women - Ritsuko Konishi, 23, daughter of Takahiro Konishi, 56, Azumi Tanaka, 22, daughter of Yoshimi Tanaka, 52, and Asaka Tamiya, 22, daughter of Takamaro Tamiya, the deceased leader of the hijackers' group, plan to fly to Beijing and take an ANA flight from there to Narita airport, east of Tokyo, to enter Japan for the first time on Tuesday night.
The three women were born and raised in North Korea after their mothers moved there in the late 1970s to marry the hijackers.
Last October, they announced their wish to go to Japan. Applications for travel documents were filed in December at the Japanese embassy in Beijing, which issued travel documents for the women late April.
Nine people from the Red Army Faction, known as "Sekigunha" in Japan, hijacked the JAL plane with 138 passengers and crew members aboard from Tokyo en route to Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, and forced it to fly to Pyongyang.
Four of the nine hijackers still live in North Korea, three have died, and two have returned to Japan.
The Red Army Faction was a radical student group formed in 1969 and advocated global revolution through violence.
Some Red Army Faction members went on to form the Japanese Red Army guerrilla group, which gained international notoriety through a series of violent acts outside Japan in the 1970s.
Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0301 gmt 15 May 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright
Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, 14 February: The Japanese embassy in Beijing has told five relatives of Red Army Faction members living in North Korea it will issue documents authorizing their trip to Japan if they submit a written oath that they will comply with identification checks at Beijing airport, sources close to the case said Tuesday [13 February].
The embassy also told them they would not be allowed to enter China during the transit, the sources said.
The five are two wives and three daughters of Red Army Faction members who hijacked a Japan Airlines (JAL) jet in 1970 and forced it to land in Pyongyang, where the hijackers were granted political asylum.
Yukio Yamanaka, secretary-general of the Kyuen Renraku Centre and proxy for the kin, told Kyodo News he plans to accept the embassy's proposal.
Even if the five agree to the proposal, it will take some time for the embassy to issue the travel documents, forcing them to wait until March or later to take the trip.
The five, meanwhile, lodged a protest Tuesday demanding the embassy issue the travel documents immediately, the sources said.
The five are Emiko Akagi, the 45-year-old wife of Shiro Akagi, 53; Kyoko Tanaka, the 44-year-old wife of Yoshimi Tanaka, 52; their 21-year-old daughter; the 23-year-old daughter of Takahiro Konishi, 56; and the 21-year-old daughter of deceased member Takamaro Tamiya. Emiko Akagi and Kyoko Tanaka face arrest on their arrival in Japan on suspicion of violating the Passport Law.
Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic ties and their travel to Japan will have to be via a third country, such as China.
Known as Sekigunha in Japan, the Red Army Faction was formed in 1969 and advocated global revolution through armed violence. A splinter group, the Japanese Red Army, broke away two years later and gained international notoriety in the 1970s through a series of terrorist acts abroad.
Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 1517 gmt 13 Feb 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
Text of report by Nancy Zamora carried Cuban news agency Prensa Latina
Beijing, 28 September: Rosa Elena Simeon, the Cuban minister of science, technology and the environment, today ended a four-day official visit to China, during which she completed a broad working agenda.
Simeon's visit was in response to an invitation from Xu Guanhua, the Chinese minister of science and technology, with the objective of increasing, in the areas under their jurisdiction, the traditional levels of the fraternal relations between both countries.
In a statement for Prensa Latina, Simeon described her trip as successful and stressed the climate of collaboration and mutual understanding that characterized her meetings with various personalities representing Chinese scientific institutions.
In a meeting between Simeon and Xu, both ministers agreed that favourable conditions exist to move forward to higher levels of cooperation with joint research projects, in order to obtain specific results which will contribute to developing both countries as well as others.
In addition, they agreed to work hard in that direction in preparation for the 19th Inter-governmental Meeting for Economic and Commercial Relations between Cuba and China, to be held in Beijing in November.
At present, there are 38 cooperation projects between Cuba and China through the exchange of experts, advice and workshops in various scientific-technical spheres.
In the new phase, emphasis will be put on bio-computer technology, seismology and biotechnology, among other sectors, without forgetting other fields in which both countries are already working.
Minister Simeon's agenda included a meeting with Song Jian, vice-chairman of the [Chinese] People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. During that meeting, they studied the possibility of making further progress in joint projects, particularly in the area of biotechnology.
Simeon also visited the Municipality of Tianjin southeast of Beijing, where she toured special development areas of advanced technology.
Simeon also met directors and experts of the state bureaus of Seismology, Meteorology and Environment, the Development Centre for Joint Projects in Biotechnology and the Academy of Social Sciences. (...)
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
Tianjin's electronics industry reported gross profits of RMB2.53bn for the first half of 2001, with a gross profit margin of 10.33 per cent. The sector expects sales to increase from US$10bn in the year 2000 to US$30bn in 2005. Tianjin and Beijing accounted for a combined 56 per cent of China's total mobile phone production in the year 2000. Motorola Tianjin Co reported output of RMB16.2bn for the first half of 2001. The company produced 13m mobile phones in the year 2000, holding a 31 per cent share of China's mobile phone market. South Korea-based Samsung Group has set up a code division multiple access mobile phone plant as well as a research and development centre in Tianjin. The number of mobile phone subscribers in China reached 120.6m at the end of July 2001, ranking first in the world.
Copyright © Financial Times Information
Govt OK's return of 5 Red Army faction kin Yomiuri The government will issue temporary travel permits to allow five family members of former Red Army faction members who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang in 1970 to return to Japan, government sources said Sunday. The permits will be issued by the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, and the five are expected to return to Japan as early as the end of this month, according to the sources. Under the Passport Law, such a permit is issued when a party has lost a passport or visa. Applications for the permits have already been submitted by sponsors of the family members. Though applications for such permits are not normally accepted from third parties, the Foreign Ministry concluded that a clause in the Passport Law made it possible to do so. According to sources, the five returning to Japan are: Kyoko Tanaka, 44, wife of Yoshimi Tanaka, who is currently on trial in Japan, and their eldest daughter, who is 22; Emiko Kaneko, 45, the wife of Shiro Akagi, who remains in North Korea; the 21-year-old daughter of the late Takamaro Tamiya, the leader of the group; and the 23-year-old daughter of Takahiro Konishi. The applications for the permits were submitted in November by the director general of a group supporting the former Red Army faction members and their families in North Korea, according to the sources. The director general submitted the application forms along with the necessary photos and copies of family registers, the sources said. The Foreign Ministry was initially reluctant to accept the applications through a third party, claiming the five would be able to submit the materials themselves at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. However, after looking into their claims that they would be unable to leave North Korea without the permits, the ministry decided to apply Article 19 of the Passport Law, which provides for the issuance of a temporary travel permit through application by a third party, and to issue them on humanitarian grounds. Tanaka and Kaneko were placed on an international wanted list in 1993 for alleged violations of the Passport Law. Police said the two will be arrested immediately upon arrival in Japan. Four of the nine hijackers are still living in Pyongyang; in all, 32 of the hijackers and their family members are in North Korea, according to sources. If the five are able to return to Japan, the remaining family members of the hijackers are expected to follow the suit, according to the sources. During the Japan-North Korea normalization talks, Tokyo asked Pyongyang to repatriate the hijackers. Washington is also demanding that Pyongyang deport the hijackers in exchange for removing North Korea from its list of countries supporting terrorism. However, a Foreign Ministry senior official said such extraditions would not immediately follow the return of the five family members.
Copyright © Asia Intelligence Wire
China is investing heavily in the upgrade and expansion of its ports, including the major ones at Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, in an effort to cope with increased cargo volume brought about by the economy's rapid growth. Although China's coastal ports last year reported a 16.3% rise in throughput to 1.29bn tons, the Ministry of Communication (MOC) indicated a lack of equipment for unloading crude oil and iron ore, aside from other important container-handling systems. Foreign expertise on port management and cargo-handling is a major part of China's programme, with the Port of Singapore Authority currently engaged in an 800m yuan (S$170m) container terminal project in conjunction with the Guangzhou Harbour Bureau, in addition to three other joint projects with other Chinese ports. By 2020, China hopes to have some 1,100 deep-water coastal ports and an influx of 2.8bn tonnes of cargo.
Abstracted from: The Straits Times, Singapore
Copyright 2001: Financial Times Information. All rights reserved.
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
Tianjin, 10 September: Construction of the first phase of Penglai 19-3 Oilfield, the largest offshore oilfield in China, has commenced in the southern Bohai Sea.
The oilfield, with reserves of 600m tons, is believed to be the second-largest complete oilfield after the famous Daqing Oilfield, which was discovered in 1959 in northeast China.
The Penglai 19-3 Oilfield covers an area of 50 square kilometres, and lies at a depth of between 900 and 1,400 metres near Longkou coastline in Shandong Province. It has an oil layer of 150 metres deep on average.
It was jointly prospected by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and the Phillips Oil Corporation of the United States in 1999.
The two sides signed a contract on construction of the project on 15 March this year. The Chinese side takes 51 per cent of the stake, with the remainder held by the United States.
By the end of 2002, 24 oil wells are expected to start production, with a combined annual output of 2.5m tons. The field's annual output is expected to reach 8.5m tons by 2005. By then, the output of the Bohai Oilfield as a while will top 20m tons, making it China's largest offshore crude producer.
China's oil reserves total 94bn tons, with most located on land. The country began to seek overseas cooperation for offshore oil development in 1979, as the output of many onshore oilfields had begun to decline.
Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 0009 gmt 10 Sep 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)
Beijing, 6 September: Beijing Mayor Liu Qi said Thursday [6 September] that this host city of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games will be turned into a garden-like metropolis in seven years.
Beijing will be a green city with a blue sky and clean water, the mayor told a forum on forest and environmental protection.
"With green vegetation and flowers everywhere, Beijing will be a place pleasing to both the eye and mind."
To reach that goal, the mayor said the municipal government is drafting, among others, an action plan to build a 10,000 sq.km. green ecological shelter belt in the mountainous areas in the suburbs.
A green shelter belt totalling 125 sq.km. will be built inside the city, while 1,230 sq.km. of areas along its five major rivers and 10 highways and expressways will be planted with trees in the coming seven years, he said.
By 2008, the forest coverage rate for hilly areas in rural Beijing will reach 70 per cent while the vegetation rate for the urban area will be 45 per cent, he said.
The Chinese government has decided to turn green 7.8m ha of land in 75 counties in Beijing and its neighbouring Tianjin, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Shanxi province in a bid to erect a shelter belt for the capital city.
To reduce industrial pollution, Beijing has earmarked 5bn US dollars for environmental projects during the 1998-2002 period, and the investment will reach a record-breaking 6.6bn US dollars in the five years before 2008.
The figure represents four to five per cent of the city's gross domestic product for the same period. The mayor said the second Shaanxi-Beijing natural gas pipeline will be laid to pump gas into Beijing, which will increase the supply of natural gas for Beijing to 5bn cubic meters by 2008.
"Clean energy will then account for 80 per cent of the total energy consumed, similar to that of developed countries."
Beijing will introduce the exhaust gas emission standards European II and III by 2004 and 2007, respectively, so that the amount of exhaust gas emissions from new cars running in Beijing will be cut by 60 per cent, he said.
Liu said 90 per cent of the buses and 70 per cent of taxis in Beijing will be fuelled by natural gas by 2008.
The city's subway and light railway systems under construction, which total 100 km in length, will be operational by the time the games starts.
The city plans to double the transportation capacity of its buses, trolley-buses, and subway systems by 2008, which stand at 9. 86m and 2.66m, respectively.
The mayor said the city will continue to improve its industrial mix, relocate polluting firms from within the city proper, as they have in the several past years, in a bid to cut industrial pollution in the coming years.
Beijing's Capital Iron and Steel Group Co has been ordered to cut its iron and steel production by 2m tons in the coming year.
Beijing plans to build 12 more waster water treatment plants before 2008, increasing its treatment capacity to 2.8m tons per day, or 90 per cent of the total, the mayor said.
By that time, half of the waste water will be recycled, he added.
Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 1533 gmt 6 Sep 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
NewsMax.com WiresWASHINGTON (UPI) - A U.S. surveillance plane flying near China´s coast four years ago picked up secret communications on a meeting between a senior Chinese Communist official and an Irish leftist linked by U.S. intelligence to counterfeit U.S. currency, the Washington Times reported Thursday.
Friday, May 11, 2001
The Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance flight in late May 1997 revealed the meeting between Sean Garland, president of the Dublin-based Workers´ Party, a communist political party, and Cao Xiaobing, the Times said, citing a classified National Security Agency report.
"Garland is suspected of being involved with counterfeiting U.S. currency, specifically, the Supernote, a high-quality counterfeit $100 bill," the report said.
Cao was described in the report as bureau director of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, Beijing´s official office for supporting foreign communist parties.
The classified report did not say what was discussed at the meeting, but a spokesman for the Workers´ Party told the newspaper the discussions were "political" in nature.
According to the London Sunday Times, Garland was a leading member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1960s and early 1970s.
A 1986 Russian document made public by dissident writer Vladimir Bukovsky stated that Garland wrote a "Dear Comrade" letter to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev asking Moscow for the equivalent of $1.42 million to fund Workers´ Party activities.
Intelligence officials said the report highlights China´s support for foreign communist parties, a role once played by the now-defunct Soviet Union, the Washington Times said.
In addition to Ireland´s communists, Beijing is also backing Japan´s Communist Party and other parties once supported by Moscow, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/5/10/151457.shtml
||||| ||||| ||||| ||||| 2001-08-29 06:37:05 Nortel Networks signs 8 mln usd network upgrade deal with China Telecom HONG KONG (AFX-ASIA) - Nortel Networks Corp said it has signed an 8 mln usd agreement with China Telecommunications Corp to upgrade the latter's multiservice backbone networks in Yunnan and Heilongjiang provinces and Tianjin and Chongqing municipalities.
In a statement, the company said the upgraded networks will enable China Telecom to offer advanced ATM, frame relay, internet protocol, virtual private networks and other end-to-end data services from a single, high capacity platform.
China Telecom plans to replace its existing backbone switching equipment in its networks with Nortel Networks solutions, it said.
ra/rc
MMMM
World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright
By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
Thursday, May 10, 2001
A U.S. surveillance plane flying near China´s coast four years ago picked up secret communications on a meeting between a senior Chinese Communist official and an Irish leftist linked by U.S. intelligence to counterfeit U.S. currency, according to a classified National Security Agency report.
The Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance flight in late May 1997 revealed the meeting between Sean Garland, president of the Dublin-based Workers´ Party, a communist political party, and Cao Xiaobing. Miss Cao was described in the report as bureau director of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, Beijing´s official office for supporting foreign communist parties.
The report, labeled "top secret," states that Mr. Garland was the managing director of GKG Comms International Ltd., a Dublin company, and noted that Miss Cao and the Irish communist discussed "unidentified business opportunities" during a meeting.
"Garland is suspected of being involved with counterfeiting U.S. currency, specifically, the Supernote, a high-quality counterfeit $100 bill," the report said.
Mr. Garland confirmed in a statement issued last week in London´s Sunday Times that he met Miss Cao in Beijing.
"This was in a public place in offices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China," Mr. Garland stated. "Afterwards we had dinner in a hotel."
The statement did not say what was discussed at the meeting, but a spokesman for the Workers´ Party told the newspaper the discussions were "political" in nature.
According to the Sunday Times, Mr. Garland was a leading member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1960s and early 1970s. A 1986 Russian document made public by dissident writer Vladimir Bukovsky stated that Mr. Garland wrote a "Dear Comrade" letter to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev asking Moscow for the equivalent of $1.42 million to fund Workers´ Party activities.
"Ten years ago it was the KGB and the Workers´ Party which were accused of plotting all kinds of subversion," Mr. Garland said in his statement last week.
He said the letter to Moscow "has been going the rounds for many years now" and "it is well past its sell-by date."
Mr. Garland also confirmed that he was director of GKG Comms, a firm "involved in sourcing power projects in China and Eastern European Companies." He said the company is "no longer trading."
Miss Cao, a leading Communist official involved in youth issues and arms control matters for decades, later visited Ireland at the invitation of the Workers´ Party.
She headed a delegation of Chinese Communist Party officials, Mr. Garland said.
According to the Sunday Times, the Workers´ Party in the past was linked to forged currency, specifically fake 5-pound notes. A party spokesman said Mr. Garland´s meeting with Miss Cao did not include any discussions of counterfeiting. The spokesman dismissed the claims of illegal activity, saying counterfeiting accusations against the Workers´ Party have appeared "every so often."
Intelligence officials said the report highlights China´s support for foreign communist parties, a role once played by the now-defunct Soviet Union.
In addition to Ireland´s communists, Beijing is also backing Japan´s Communist Party and other parties once supported by Moscow, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Agence France-Presse
Thursday, May 10, 2001
HONG KONG, May 10 (AFP) - There was no need for Beijing and Washington to be enemies, former US president Bill Clinton told a global forum here Thursday a day after talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Clinton said the world would be a better place if they were partners.
"Of course there are difficulties and bumps on the road," he said, citing recent strained ties following the collision between a Chinese fighter jet and a US spy plane, and US arms sales to Taiwan.
"The important thing it seems to me is not to assume that the relationship is necessarily adversarial. The world would be a better place in the next 50 years if we were partners."
Clinton met Jiang for about an hour Wednesday but did not refer to the talks in his closing address at the Fortune Global Forum, which covered topics ranging from global warming to AIDS.
His spokesman was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying the pair enjoyed "a wide-ranging discussion on US-China relations".
China's official Xinhua news agency described the meeting as friendly and quoted Jiang as saying the two countries should promote a "healthy and stable" relationship.
Under Clinton's administration, Washington pushed ahead with a policy of constructive engagement with Beijing and described China as a "strategic partner."
But the new team of George W. Bush has taken a tougher line, describing China as a "strategic competitor."
Clinton also acknowledged the "different perceptions of political and religious freedoms" with China.
The forum of corporate heavyweights here has been marred by anti-China protests amid claims of police brutality and a Beijing-initiated blacklist to deny entry to known activists from the Falungong spriritual group.
Australia joined the United States and Britain in questioning why several of its nationals were refused entry to the territory ahead of the forum.
A spokeswoman at the department of foreign affairs in Canberra said Australia was seeking clarification from the Hong Kong government.
"It is important for Hong Kong to avoid actions that could be seen as inconsistent with the freedoms of association and expression that are guaranteed in Hong Kong," she said.
More than 100 Falungong practitioners have been refused entry in the past few days, according to the group. Hong Kong officials have defended the territory's right to keep out "undesirable elements."
Protestors complained of being kept out of sight of forum delegates but Financial Secretary Antony Leung said a balance had to be struck to allow the conference to go ahead without disruption.
But he added: "I believe the freedom of information and freedom of expression is very important for a financial centre."
About 30 Falungong followers staged their final meditation exercise as part of a series of protests urging Jiang to relax a mainland crackdown on the spiritual group, which is legal in Hong Kong.
The Chinese president's visit was marred by a variety of protests, including by activists demanding China revise its verdict that the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre was a legitimate crackdown on an insurrection.
A noisy demonstration by supporters greeted the appearance in court of three of the activists, members of the radical April 5 group, who clashed with police on Tuesday.
They had attempted to present Jiang with a mock coffin symbolising the death of democracy in China.
The trio were released on bail after being charged with affray and injuring police officers. One of them had tried to kill himself in custody using a ballpoint pen.
The Iran Brief is an independent monthly newsletter devoted to strategy and trade, established in December 1994 as a tool for policy-makers and business leaders in their dealings with Iran. Prior to launching The Iran Brief, Kenneth Timmerman served on the professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and was the editor of Middle East Defense News (Mednews) in Paris from 1987-1993.
My name is Kenneth Timmerman, and I publish a monthly investigative newsletter called The Iran Brief. I have written extensively on Iranian foreign terrorist networks in Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, and have done in-depth research on Iranian programs of weapons of mass destruction, including a study that was published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 1992. I have also traveled widely in the Middle East and Europe, where in fact I was posted until 1993 when I returned to Washington to work on proliferation and arms control issues for the House Foreign Affairs Committee during the previous Congress.
The U.S. dollar has long been the most widely accepted currency in the Middle East. Israel came close to adopting it as official tender during its hyper-inflation crisis in the mid-1980s; Lebanon and Syria use it as unofficial tender for government to government transactions. I can't tell you with any certainty whether I have ever handled a supernote. But I can say this: the moneychangers in the Old City of Jerusalem, on Hamra Street in Beirut, and in the Damascus souk scrutinized the $100 bills I presented them on trips last year with an attention I had never experienced before. Either I have become more suspicious-looking in middle-age, or else we are talking about a problem which has become so widespread that even these non-institutional currency traders are aware of it, and are attempting to take their own precautions against losing money to fraud. More
The wiseguy regime
North Korea has embarked on a global crime spree
BY DAVID E. KAPLAN ......... http://www2.dynamite.com.au/garran/nkor19990215usnwr.htm
Something about the two North Korean diplomats passing through Egypt didn't seem quite right. The pair, based in Syria, had arrived only a day earlier from Ethiopia and already were high-tailing it out of Cairo. Suspicious, an Egyptian customs official insisted on checking their six suitcases. He found quite a stash: 506,000 tablets of Rohypnol, a sedative known as the "date-rape drug."
That episode last July–the largest seizure of Rohypnol on record–is just one in a long string of drug incidents, counterfeiting cases, and other alleged crimes involving North Korean officials. Isolated, beset by famine, and desperate for hard currency, North Korea has in effect turned into a vast criminal enterprise, U.S. experts say. "It's the mafia masquerading as a government," contends James Przystup of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. Says another international crime analyst: "If North Korea were not a nation, you could indict it as a continuing criminal enterprise."
Cases of North Korean officials engaged in smuggling and drug trafficking began to surface in the 1970s, but law enforcement analysts have noted a disturbing jump in the past five years. Using data from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Japanese and South Korean police, and foreign press reports, U.S. News has compiled a record of criminal complaints against North Korean diplomats in 16 countries since 1994. Interviews with law enforcement officials, intelligence analysts, and North Korean defectors suggest that the regime is now dramatically expanding its narcotics production and that much of the criminal activity is controlled at the highest levels of government.
How much of the profiteering goes to prop up the world's last Stalinist state–and how much lines the pockets of corrupt officials–is impossible to know. But it is clear that the worldwide network of North Korean embassies, coupled with the use of diplomatic pouches and immunity, offers the ideal cover for a criminal enterprise. "We've rarely seen a state use organized crime in this way," says Phil Williams, a University of Pittsburgh professor and editor of the journal Transnational Organized Crime. "This is a criminal state not because it's been captured by criminals but because the state has taken over crime." Among the evidence:
Authorities in at least nine countries have nabbed North Korean diplomats with a virtual pharmacy of illegal drugs: opium, heroin, cocaine, hashish. Investigators have traced orders for 50 tons of ephedrine–the base for methamphetamine–to North Korean front companies; that quantity is 20 times as much as the nation's legitimate needs.
North Korean officials have been caught distributing counterfeit $100 bills in Cambodia, Russia, Macao, and Mongolia. The regime is believed to produce some of the world's best bogus currency with the same model press used by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
North Korean officials in countries from Romania to Zambia are accused of using embassies and front companies to smuggle a mind-boggling array of goods, including untaxed cigarettes, bootleg CDs, fake antiques, and endangered species parts. North Koreans also have been tied to kidnappings and terrorism.
Behind much of this criminal activity lies North Korea's desperate need for cash. With the end of Soviet patronage, and with Koreans in Japan sending less money home, North Korea has lost two key sources of hard currency. Drug dealing and smuggling offer a lucrative alternative and are believed to bring into the nation's crippled economy more than $100 million each year. Just one North Korean methamphetamine shipment, seized in August by Japanese officials, had a street value of $170 million. By comparison, North Korea's legitimate exports plunged last year to a mere $520 million, while the nation spends an estimated $200 million annually on its nuclear program.
Some analysts suspect that drug profits may, in fact, be going into that program. Since 1994, Washington has pursued a policy of engagement, offering billions of dollars in Western aid if North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons development and missile exports. But the policy has produced a frustrating stalemate, and U.S. intelligence officials say new satellite photos indicate the North Koreans are rapidly expanding a suspected underground nuclear site. Meanwhile, the North Korean Army–the world's fifth largest–remains a potent threat to South Korea and Japan. "I can hardly overstate my concern about North Korea," CIA Director George Tenet told Congress last week.
Congressional report. Concern over North Korea's illicit activity is bound to be fueled by a Congressional Research Service report due this week. The study, U.S. News has learned, cites at least 30 incidents that tie North Korea to drug trafficking. The CRS report suggests not only that drug profits could be funding the nuclear program but that U.S. food aid to the regime–over $77 million worth this year–may be needed in part because farm acreage is used to grow poppies for opium.
North Korea made its entry into the narcotics trade in the 1970s by purchasing drugs for resale, according to a U.S. intelligence report. At the time, the country had defaulted on international loans and, as now, was in dire need of cash. In 1976, four Scandinavian countries kicked out 17 North Korean diplomats after claiming to have found evidence that they were illegally selling narcotics, cigarettes, and alcohol. Among the officials were two ambassadors and the entire staff of the North Korean Embassy in Norway. (Diplomats, when caught, are rarely prosecuted.)
By the mid-1980s, North Korean farmers began cultivating opium poppies, allegedly under orders from leader Kim Il Sung. The processed opium and heroin were then sold overseas. With the cutoff of Soviet aid in the 1990s, Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong Il, ordered a major expansion of the drugs-for-export program, U.S. officials say. Based on data from defectors and other intelligence sources, U.S. and South Korean narcotics analysts believe that up to 17,000 acres now produce at least 44 tons of opium annually. If true, that would approach the output of Colombia, the largest supplier of heroin to the United States.
Despite repeated requests, North Korean officials declined an interview with U.S. News. In the past, however, North Korean spokesmen have branded accusations of drug dealing and other crimes as "smear campaigns" orchestrated by South Korea. The nation's opium production, they say, is strictly for medicinal purposes and is being stockpiled for use in war. Moreover, some drug control officials remain skeptical that North Korea is a major drug producer, among them Herbert Schaepe, secretary of the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board in Vienna. "If those production figures are correct, we would see seizures everywhere," he says. "But we just haven't seen the evidence." U.S. law enforcement officials counter that they are seeing large seizures and that the growing number of smuggling incidents–as well as mounting testimony by defectors–cannot be explained away as propaganda from Seoul. More conclusive evidence could come from U.S. spy satellites; one satellite was recently tasked to photograph North Korea's opium fields, intelligence sources say, but the day was cloudy and officials have been unable to get the satellite retasked.
Defectors say that drug trafficking is, indeed, a state-run industry. One defector interviewed by U.S. News, Bae In Su, says he worked for three years as a driver for the Communist Party's Foreign Currency Earnings Department, ferrying opium and heroin to port for export. At least twice a month, Bae says, he would deliver a van full of opium–packed by the kilogram in plastic bags–to Japanese ships or to a local pharmaceutical plant that refined it into heroin. The entire process, he adds, was controlled by high-ranking party officials. "They talked about opium being gold," Bae says. Another defector, pharmacist Ho Chang Gol, has claimed that the government ran more than 10 poppy farms to export opium.
Given the tight control wielded by North Korea's security apparatus, U.S. analysts say that such large-scale production of illegal drugs could not exist without sponsorship by authorities in Pyongyang, the capital. Intelligence reports say that the trade is handled by Office 39, a party organ under the direct control of Kim Jong Il, which oversees production and then doles out the drugs to trading companies and diplomatic posts. U.S. officials believe the profits are funneled into a private slush fund controlled by Kim and used to hand out favors, bankroll intelligence operations, and buy military hardware.
The North Koreans have not targeted their drugs at the U.S. market, although at times their shipments have ended up here. One of Hong Kong's most notorious drug lords, Lai King-man, started out peddling heroin from North Korea, says Catherine Palmer, a former assistant U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted Lai in 1990. Palmer believes that 100 to 200 pounds were smuggled into the United States and that most of it ended up on the streets of New York.
Mexico to Moscow. Recent arrests suggest that the North Koreans are now exploring European markets. One year ago, Russian officials arrested two North Korean diplomats for smuggling 77 pounds of cocaine–enough to fetch $4 million on the street–from Mexico City to Moscow. In their pockets were round-trip tickets to Frankfurt. And last October, German police investigated the deputy ambassador at the embassy in Berlin for ties to a heroin-and-weapons-smuggling ring. But hardest hit are North Korea's neighbors. In the early 1990s, Russian officials noticed opium being sold by North Korean loggers in Siberia. The sellers, they found, dissolved opium and morphine into "medicines" with names like Roots of the White Bell and peddled them in local markets. But it took a 1994 sting operation to uncover the full scope of North Korean official involvement. Russian undercover cops agreed to buy nearly 18 pounds of heroin from two dealers who turned out to be North Korean state security agents. The deal was meant as a first installment for over 2 tons of the drug–and the Koreans boasted that nearly 8 tons were available.
Still, the drug of the future for North Korea is likely to be methamphetamine. The Koreans are moving quickly into industrial-scale production of "meth," the drug of choice in much of East Asia, say law enforcement officials. U.N. drug control officials are tracking 50 tons of ephedrine base allegedly ordered by North Korea in the past year. The drug is used as a cold remedy, but the nation's legitimate annual needs are 2.5 tons. "They must have a lot of stuffy noses," quips one drug control agent.
The target for this appears to be Japan, where the nation's 500,000 users pay handsomely for high-quality crystal meth. Most of Japan's speed in recent years has come from China, but Tokyo cops got a surprise in April 1997, in a small port in southern Japan. There a lone customs inspector wondered about the 12 large cans of honey that crew members hand-carried from a North Korean freighter. It seemed strange, the inspector thought, that North Korea was exporting food in the midst of a famine. A check found the cans crammed with 130 pounds of meth. Then, last August, Japanese police traced a 660-pound meth shipment, worth $335 million on the street, to a North Korean boat disguised as a Japanese vessel. Investigators have tied both cases to the yakuza–Japanese crime syndicates–many of whose members are ethnic Korean. Japanese police are alarmed: In two years the North Koreans have come to supply nearly 20 percent of Japan's multibillion-dollar meth market.
North Korean-printed U.S. dollars are also showing up with troubling frequency: Authorities have seized Pyongyang's bad bills in at least nine countries, from Mongolia to Germany. Last April, for instance, a North Korean trade attaché in Vladivostok, Russia, was caught passing $30,000 in fake hundreds. In 1994, police in Macao traced $600,000 of the bogus bills to a North Korean trading company. Any doubts of official complicity were erased in 1996, when Yoshimi Tanaka, a former Japanese Red Army member wanted for hijacking, was arrested in Cambodia and tied to $200,000 in counterfeit money. Tanaka held a North Korean diplomatic passport, traveled in a North Korean Embassy car, and was accompanied by North Korean officials.
"Supernotes." The Korean $100 bills have been dubbed "supernotes"; they are so good they helped push the United States to issue redesigned currency in 1996. The old-style bills are cranked out on a $10 million intaglio press similar to those employed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, officials say. North Korean defectors claim the notes come from a high-security plant in Pyongyang. Kim Jeong Min, a former top North Korean intelligence official, told U.S. News that he had been ordered to find the paper used to print U.S. currency but couldn't. "Instead, I obtained many $1 notes and bleached the ink out of them," he says. "The size of the bill was what mattered, not the denomination."
South Korea's intelligence agency estimates that the North turns out some $15 million in counterfeit U.S. money each year; American officials believe that figure is high. But even that amount would not constitute a threat to the stability of the greenback ($480 billion in U.S. currency is circulated worldwide).
Defector Kim says his career was not limited to counterfeiting. He boasts that before he left in 1988 he smuggled gems and Western currency out of Africa. Cramming French francs, U.S. dollars, and South African diamonds into his suitcases, he ventured overseas as often as five times a month during the 1980s. Protected by diplomatic immunity, Kim claims he cleared a profit of $80 million during that time, both for the regime and for himself. "I was immune from any laws," he says.
Authorities in numerous countries have stopped North Korean diplomats from smuggling vehicles, alcohol, fake antiques, electronic goods, weapons, and more. Other reports deeply implicate officials in the endangered-species trade. Since 1996, at least six North Korean diplomats have been forced to leave Africa after attempts to smuggle elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns. Such efforts seem partly driven by the dismal funding of North Korea's embassies. Lacking cash, North Korea closed at least 14 embassies last year and reportedly told those remaining to become "self-sufficient." Still other diplomatic smuggling incidents involve cigarettes, allegedly sold tax free on the black market, and pirated CDs. Two diplomats crossing into Romania from Bulgaria last year were found to have crammed 12,000 bootleg CDs in the trunk of their car. Truly inventive at times, North Koreans even counterfeit name-brand cigarettes, which contain their own cheap tobacco. In 1995, Taiwanese authorities seized 20 ship containers of counterfeit cigarette packaging bound for North Korea. It was enough to make 2 million fake cartons of bestselling Japanese and British brands.
North Korea's criminal reach extends beyond smuggling and counterfeiting, U.S. officials say. Japan has accused North Korea of kidnapping at least 19 of its citizens so that the regime's spies could learn Japanese and assume their victims' identities. The nation also appears on the State Department's short list of countries sponsoring terrorism. Its agents are suspected of the bombing of a 1987 South Korean flight and a 1983 bombing that killed South Korean officials in Burma.
Some policy makers argue that the best strategy is to isolate North Korea and wait for it to fall. But the regime has proved surprisingly resilient, and the key levers of power–the security forces and the Communist Party–remain under the firm control of the reclusive Kim Jong Il. South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and other allies argue that lifting U.S. sanctions and further engaging the regime is the best way. Whatever the course ahead, at least the time has passed when North Korea's criminality could be ignored by policy makers. "It wasn't even on the radarscope," says one surprised U.S. analyst. "It's a classic case of hear no evil, see no evil, respond to no evil."
With Steven Butler in Seoul and Mark Madden
http://members.tripodasia.com.sg/Newsthai/week2600.html
Tokyo — Yoshimi Tanaka, the aging Red Army terrorist, finally arrived back in Japan to face charges of hijacking. Tanaka was held for more than two years in Thailand, primarily for trial on counterfeiting charges. Now 51, Tanaka was allegedly involved with a North Korean money-making gang in Cambodia. In 1970, he and others hijacked a Japan Air Lines hijacking which wound up in Pyongyang.
BY CHRISTIAN CARYL
ISTANBUL--Every morning thousands of traders from the countries of the former Soviet bloc descend on the Aksaray district of this ancient Turkish seaport. Soon its narrow streets, where signs in Russian outnumber those in Turkish, are filled with visitors buying wholesale goods for resale to consumers back home: jewelry, eyeglasses, plumbing fixtures, and, most of all, clothing. "You want it in black?" asks the Russian-speaking owner of a store specializing in leather coats. "Come back tomorrow by 5 p.m. and we'll have it in black." Then he names the price: $150 per coat--in American cash, please.
While Istanbul's money-changers can handle everything from Romanian lei to Kazakh tenge, the greenback reigns supreme. And that is true around the globe. Few Americans may realize it, but more U.S. currency is in circulation outside the United States than inside. Of the $450 billion in bills and coins now lining people's wallets, cash registers, bank vaults, and mattresses, about two thirds--or $300 billion--is abroad.
That percentage is rising. The end of the cold war opened the former Soviet bloc to American currency, and restrictions on currency trading have been eliminated in much of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Joseph Botta, who tracks U.S. cash for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, says that the amount of U.S. currency abroad has grown $15 billion to $20 billion a year for the past five years.
Big bills only, please. Roughly 80 percent of the American cash abroad is in the form of $100 bills. That contrasts sharply with cash at home, which circulates mainly in $20 bills (the denomination favored for use in automated teller machines). Says Botta: "The higher denominations are very popular outside the U.S., and that reflects what people there are using the currency for"--not small, daily purchases but savings and commercial transactions. In many countries, the local currency is ravaged by inflation or residents do not trust the banks.
The popularity of the dollar overseas benefits the United States in ways that go far beyond mere pride or ease of shopping for American tourists. From the point of view of the Federal Reserve Board, the $300 billion circulating abroad is like an interest-free loan to the U.S. government. Foreign producers have accepted the paper money in return for real goods and services. As long as the paper stays overseas, the United States does not have to redeem it for other goods or services, and it does not swell America's domestic money supply or contribute to inflation. The Fed estimates the annual savings at $15 billion to $20 billion--the bill that taxpayers would otherwise have to foot for the government's interest payments on $300 billion (a benefit that economists call seigniorage, a medieval French term for the right of a lord to coin money).
Competition may be coming, though. On May 2, the European Union formally will announce which countries have qualified to join the European Monetary Union, a single currency system that will begin in 1999 and that is expected to transform business in Europe. The new currency, called the euro, will make its physical appearance on Jan. 1, 2002. By July 1 of that year, all the participating countries must withdraw their old national bank notes and coins from circulation.
If the euro truly replaces the German mark, French franc, and British pound, the dollar may meet its match. But for the moment, the buck seems unstoppable. To get an idea of its global reach, one need only visit the sorting facilities of one of the big commercial banks that trade in U.S. currency. The hundreds of thousands of bills sorted every day at UBS in Zurich come from all over the world. The U.S. dollar is legal tender in Panama and Liberia, and countries from Zimbabwe to Turkey demand payment for entry visas in American cash. In Cuba, Fidel Castro's government has staved off deeper reforms by allowing the emergence of a dollar-based economy parallel to the stagnating socialist system. Albanians trade for dollars in an open-air market next to their own Central Bank. When a condominium changes hands in Buenos Aires, it is not unusual to pay with shopping bags of $100 bills. Buyer and seller then spend the day counting the bills with the help of a specially hired bank teller. The two sides enter the serial numbers of the bills on preprinted sheets that can be checked later in the case of a counterfeit.
The popularity of the U.S. bank note, says Peter Bakstansky of the Federal Reserve, is "a vote of confidence in the monetary, fiscal, and economic system" of the United States. And the Fed is willing to go a very long way to maintain that confidence: In the spring of 1996, when the United States redesigned the $100 bill to thwart counterfeiters, Treasury officials undertook a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to reassure Russians that the estimated $20 billion of old bills they possessed would still be legal tender. Many Russian consumers, unnerved by their own government's tradition of confiscatory monetary reform, nevertheless rushed to change old dollar bills into new ones--sometimes paying a 2 percent commission to rapacious banks. (Saddam Hussein ran the same scam on his citizens by telling them that old $100 bills would be replaced by new ones, and Iraq's state banks took hefty fees as Iraqis rushed to exchange their notes.) In all, the U.S. government's publicity campaign for the new $100 bills took Treasury officials to 18 countries. One of the last on the list: Vietnam, where greenbacks are especially popular.
Russia's love affair with the dollar dates back decades. Writer Yevgeni Popov points out that many Soviets survived the turbulent years of the 1920s thanks to dollars sent by relatives in America. In the later years of the Soviet Union, he says, "the regime treated people who held dollars as if they were in the possession of drugs. Nowadays, when a Russian holds the same dollars that could have got him thrown in jail a few years ago, he feels freer." Russians still tell jokes that reflect their fondness for dollars (known as bucksy, or "cabbage"). In one, a Russian who has just returned from a trip to the States shows off the dollar bills he's brought back. "How about that," marvels a friend. "They look just like ours."
Supernote. But this windfall for the U.S. Treasury poses some risks. "No other country in the world has these large amounts of currency circulating outside of its borders," Botta notes, and one of the main concerns is that foreign counterfeiters may slip their wares into the stream. Some of the counterfeiting is state sponsored--a form of economic terrorism. When mobs stormed the headquarters of the East German secret police, the Stasi, in 1990, they found a laboratory for printing dollars. Nearly perfect counterfeits, dubbed the "supernote," also were manufactured on an industrial scale in the early 1990s somewhere in the Middle East, perhaps the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. By February 1996 the Secret Service had confiscated $10 million of the notes. Fake bills also have turned up in Tehran, and suspected Iranian involvement in counterfeiting has led to heated diplomatic exchanges. More recently North Korea has been suspected of flooding East Asia with high-quality $100 bills dubbed "Super K's." When Thai authorities arrested the leader of a counterfeiting gang two years ago, he turned out to be a former Japanese Red Army terrorist named Yoshimi Tanaka, who had dropped out of sight after hijacking a plane to North Korea in 1970. Colombian drug cartels also have been prolific sources of funny money.
It is almost impossible for U.S. authorities to keep track of where U.S. currency is circulating. Shipments of less than $10,000 do not have to be reported to the Federal Reserve. As recently as 1996, the Secret Service--the first line of defense against a counterfeit threat that now stems primarily from overseas--had a mere 20 officials stationed abroad. Congress, in April 1996, ordered the Secret Service and U.S. monetary officials to set up a joint program to keep closer tabs on greenbacks abroad, but so far it has delivered few concrete results. The challenge facing U.S. currency sleuths is perhaps best exemplified by a story told by Vincent Morabito, a development worker who has spent many years in the former Soviet Union. In 1993 he handed over a $5 bill to pay for two bottles of beer in a hard-currency store in Latvia. "The two dollar bills they gave me in change looked and felt sort of odd," he says. "But it was only when I took them out of my wallet the next morning that I realized they were two silver certificates dating from 1933."
With Kevin Whitelaw
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:bOTWuMWe-Ck:www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980427/27cash.htm+%22yoshimi+tanaka%22+news+and+world+report&hl=en
24 July, Bangkok
Defendant Shougo Kodama (54), has been sentenced by the Chonbuli regional court, located in Central Thai, on the 23rd to two years and six months imprisonment. He was arrested and prosecuted under suspicion of being an accomplice to Yoshimi Tanaka (48) in the counterfeit US dollar bill scandal. The trial for the case has been underway for Tanaka , an ex-Red Army Faction member who took part in the hijacking of a Japan Airlines plane, the Yodogo.
Kodama was previously prosecuted in January of last year as an accomplice to Yoshimi Tanaka. The two are believed to have illegally exchanged 90 bills of counterfeit US 100 dollar bills (total 9,000 US dollars), with the aid of a Thai national in Batya.
Kodama, who returned to Japan from Cambodia, before the counterfeit scandal occurred, operated a trading firm together with Tanaka in Phnom Penh. Although he was arrested last year in February in Bangkok, he was released, due to lack of incriminating evidence. After that, an arrest warrant was issued once again, whereupon he was arrested while in Bangkok city.
A special investigative unit was dispatched from the US to directly take charge of the case. The team has been carrying out investigations with cooperation from authorities of countries connected with this case.
Tanaka was arrested last year in March and sent to Thai, while on his way back to North Korea from Phnom Penh via Vietnam. In April of the same year, he was prosecuted together with five Thai nationals, who are, along with Tanaka, being tried at Chonbuli. The prosecution submitted testimony from Kodama that he had received forged bills from Tanaka. The prosecution are confident that the statement will serve well in proving Tanaka guilty.
Pyongyang does not limit its operations to South Korea. North Korea has also been known to send agents to attempt to infiltrate Japan.(84) These infiltrators probably establish liaison with the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan and spy on Japan's coastal defenses and U.S. and Japanese defense installations. There are many reports of drug trafficking by North Korean agents involved with organized criminal gangs in Japan.(85) In March 1999, two North Korean "fishing trawlers" entered Japanese territorial waters. The "fishing trawlers" probably carried North Korean infiltration agents destined for Japan. The ships eventually led a small armada of Japanese coastal guard and naval ships on a chase through the Japanese waters before fleeing into a North Korean port. This incident led to the decision by the Japanese government to authorize the use of force to chase the North Korean vessels from its waters.(86)
D. Is Pyongyang involved in state-sponsored international crime?
North Korea produces and traffics in narcotics, and counterfeits and distributes U.S. currency.
North Korea Advisory Group Report to The Speaker U.S. House of Representatives November 1999
|
The highest treason is inside our borders. Osama-baby's boys or maybe somebody else's boys look like a usefull tool to destroy this country.
Who is a Master Mind behind this monstrous treason?
Several European judicial and intelligence sources have complained privately to me of their efforts to elicit help from the U.S. Secret Service in tracking down the laundering networks for the supernotes in Europe.
One network several intelligence services were tracking was apparently set up by the Syrian businessman Monzer al Qassar, who has been called "the godfather of terrorism" because of his links to Abu Nidal and other Palestinian terrorist groups.
The Spanish authorities arrested Monzer al Qassar on June 2, 1992 on charges relating to the Achille Lauro terrorist attack, jailing him for two years. As they were preparing to release him for lack of evidence, the Spanish judge was called to Washington. The Secret Service was seeking his cooperation in a new investigation tying Monzer al Qassar to the supernotes. Monzer's brother Ghassan al Qassar, who was expelled from Argentina on a variety of charges including drug smuggling and money-laundering, was believed to be one of the main contacts for obtaining the counterfeit notes. Ghassan, in turn, was in contact with an Iraqi Consul in Vienna, Austria, who was also believed to be passing the supernotes to procure technology on the black market for Iraq's weapons programs. The bills have turned up all over Europe, but especially in Spain and Austria; and I am told that Interpol is increasingly frustrated at the lack of cooperation they have received from the Secret Service.
After an initial meeting in Washington with the Spanish judge in July 1994, the Secret Service went to Spain to pursue its own leads. According to my sources, the Spanish judge has complained that he is "still waiting" for the Secret Service to inform him of the result of its investigation tying Monzer al Qassar to the supernotes. His investigation into supernote laundering networks - which Spanish intelligence sources say are widespread in Spain - has been shelved because of the lack of cooperation from the Secret Service.
Are our Intelligence Services traitorous (and why) or someone tries to paint them traitors? Or maybe they are not OUR Services anymore?
NEWS FROM KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY OF DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)
Isn't It Time To Investigate Our "Secret Agencies"?
Pyongyang, May 11 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, President of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, separately met and had friendly conversations with Thomas E. Leavey, director general of the Universal Postal Union, and Sean Garland, chairman of the Workers' Party of Ireland, at the Mansudae Assembly Hall today. Saying that the establishment of diplomatic relations between many European countries and the DPRK proves the validity and vitality of the foreign policy of the DPRK government, Sean Garland noted that the early May DPRK visit of the top-level delegation of the European union commanded welcome from many countries.
Russia, Iraq in $40bn deal
Baghdad - Iraq said on Sunday that Russian companies had won deals worth US$40 billion to execute scores of future oil and infrastructure projects.
It was not immediately clear if any of the projects could go ahead before the United Nations lifts tough trade sanctions imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Saleh, quoted by the official Iraqi news agency INA, said Russian companies would carry out 72 projects, mostly in the oil sector, under a long-term protocol.
"Iraq and Russia have agreed on a long-term economic co-operation programme under which Russian companies will implement projects worth $40 billion in Iraq," Saleh was quoted as telling a visiting Russian delegation.
He said 17 of the projects were in oil and gas, 15 in industry, 14 in transport and communications, 11 in agriculture and irrigation, six in petrochemicals, six in electricity and three in health. He did not say when work would start.
UN sanctions bar foreign companies from investing in Iraq's oil sector and from selling it equipment outside the framework of an oil-for-food deal with the United Nations.
The deal allows Iraq to sell oil to buy food, medicine and humanitarian goods under strict United Nations monitoring.
Iraq has given Russian firms priority in winning business under the oil-for-food deal as a reward for Moscow's rejection of a US-British proposal to revamp the 11-year-old sanctions.
Moscow had threatened to use a veto against a US-British so-called "smart sanctions" resolution in June, prompting London and Washington to shelve it and allowing the oil-for-food programme to be extended for five months unchanged.
Saleh said Russia had won $4.4 billion of contracts with Iraq since the oil-for-food deal began in December 1996.
Russian companies are already the largest lifters of Iraqi crude. While Western oil majors are eyeing Iraq's reserves - the second largest in the world - Russian firms, armed with cash from high oil prices and Moscow's friendship with Baghdad, are jostling for a toehold before foreign rivals move in.
Source:REUTERS
Committee urges overhaul, inquiry into Sept. 11 attacks
10/03/2001 .... http://www.dallasnews.com/attack_on_america/investigation/stories/486622_intel_03nat.AR.html ...... NYTimes via DallasNews.com
New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON – The House committee that oversees the nation's intelligence agencies has called for far-reaching changes in intelligence operations. It also wants an independent investigation into why the government did not foresee or prevent the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in a report accompanying a classified intelligence bill expected to be taken up by the House this week, says it is urgent to address the "many critical problems" facing the intelligence agencies.
The bill, approved by the committee late last week, would create an independent 10-member commission to study the preparedness and performance of many federal agencies during and after the Sept. 11 strikes. It would also increase the roughly $30 billion intelligence budget, although the exact amounts are classified.
The committee calls for a "cultural revolution" inside such agencies as the CIA and FBI and a thorough review of the nation's national security structures.
The committee's bill would rescind CIA Director George Tenet's 1995 restrictions on the CIA's use of unsavory covert agents and instructs him to write new guidelines. It speaks of a "culture of risk aversion" and says the 1995 guidelines "have had a negative impact on the recruitment of sources against terrorist organizations."
Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who is chairman of the intelligence committee and is a former CIA case officer, said he is a strong supporter of Mr. Tenet and that he leaned against establishing an independent commission at this time.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the committee, said: "The point is not to point blame or point fingers. The point is to see where the weaknesses are in our system."
The criticism of the CIA has been muted since Sept. 11, with only Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling for Mr. Tenet's resignation. The Bush administration has rallied behind Mr. Tenet, and many lawmakers say it isn't the time to remove him or to run an investigation that could distract agencies that should be focused on preventing further attacks.
The commission would be appointed by the president and congressional leaders and would examine the performance of many federal agencies responsible for public safety, law enforcement, national security and intelligence gathering. It would have subpoena powers and would report back six months after its formation.
President Bush has already ordered internal reviews of intelligence gathering. But the committee said that "if history serves, however, no substantive changes will occur after these reviews are complete."
The Senate passed its own intelligence measure before Sept. 11, and it was not clear where it would stand on creating a commission. Senior lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee have also called for a new look at the nation's intelligence apparatus.
Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.. said he was considering whether to offer an amendment to lift the 25-year ban on using covert agents to assassinate foreign leaders. The ban was enacted by executive order.
The committee recommended that intelligence agencies offer bonuses for language proficiency and that they consider creating their own language school. The committee also said that the nation needed to increase its front-line field officers, clandestine case officers and defense attaches.
It said a "fresh look" should be taken at restructuring the CIA and other intelligence agencies to create a separate clandestine service, splitting the directorate of covert operations out of the CIA.
I see it more as a small group of conductors orchestrating a feeding frenzy on an opportunistic baisis but they could be merely the cabalist ministers behind the financial thrones. Whose rings are they kissing?
"He simply said that the third totalitarianism is coming. The absolute power of money, 'the inhuman love of the accumulation of capital for capital's sake'."
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