Posted on 07/14/2003 9:06:57 PM PDT by null and void
This one isn't with us. She teaches at Belermine HS, a Catholic parochial school...
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Bomb Attack in Corsica Injures Three
Mon Jul 14, 2:21 PM ET
BASTIA, Corsica - A bomb ripped through a post office on the troubled French island of Corsica on Monday, injuring three bystanders and badly damaging the building, police said.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack in the northern town of Folelli, but such bombings are often the work of Corsican nationalists fighting for more independence from Paris.
Monday's attack was unusual, however, because it was carried out in the middle of the day and coincided with France's Bastille Day celebrations. Most attacks target empty buildings overnight, and injuries are rare.
"It was made to kill, it's not possible, it makes no sense, it's scandalous," the mayor of Folelli, Jospeh Castelli, told French radio.
The bombing came after a Paris court on Friday handed eight Corsican separatists prison sentences ranging from 15 years to life for their roles in the 1998 killing of the highest official in Corsica.
Nationalist political parties said the tough prison terms signaled vengeance, not justice, and one human rights observer predicted the verdict would set off new violence.
Successive French governments have struggled unsuccessfully to end nearly two decades of low-level separatist violence. In the most recent attempt, the center-right government pitched a proposal that would have granted the Mediterranean island slightly more autonomy.
But the measure, judged by many to be inadequate, was rejected in a referendum a week ago.
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON - The United States will pay North Korea $2.1 million to conduct four searches this summer and fall for remains of American servicemen missing from the Korean War, the Pentagon said Monday.
The deal was struck Saturday after three days of talks in Bangkok, Thailand, between North Korean Col. Gen. Li Chan Bok and an American delegation led by Jerry Jennings, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW-MIA affairs, according to Jennings' spokesman, Larry Greer.
The $2.1 million is reimbursement for services provided by the North Korean government, including the provision of aircraft for potential medical evacuation of U.S. search personnel, Greer said.
The sides agreed that the Americans would conduct two searches, each for a month's duration, at two sites: in the vicinity of the Chongchon River, north of Pyongyang, and in the Chosin Reservoir area, scene of some of the most savage fighting of the war in late November and early December 1950.
The first effort, which would include excavation and repatriation to the United States of any remains found, is to be conducted Aug. 23 to Sept. 23; the second, from Sept. 28 to Oct. 28.
The United States had wanted to get an earlier start, but talks on arrangements broke off after North Korea revealed to a State Department envoy last October that it has a nuclear weapons program.
Several days after that revelation became public, North Korea accused the United States of pursuing a hostile policy that "seriously impedes the exhumation of remains of the war dead, including the investigation and confirmation of the burial places."
More than 8,000 U.S. servicemen are listed as unaccounted for from the Korean War, which ended 50 years ago this month.
North Korea for the first time allowed U.S. forensics experts to search for U.S. remains in 1996. Since then, there have been 25 recovery operations on North Korean territory, resulting in the recovery of 178 remains believed to be those of American servicemen. Of the 178, only 14 have been positively identified as Americans.
Last year, three recovery operations resulted in the recovery of 26 sets of remains. That compares with 45 recovered in 2001 and 65 in 2000.
Greer, the spokesman, said that in addition to working out arrangements for excavations at battlefield sites, the American delegation in Bangkok repeated its request for access to four American servicemen who the Army says deserted their U.S. units in South Korea in the 1960s and are living in North Korea. In the past the North Koreans have said the four do not want to talk to U.S. authorities, and no agreement was reached during last week's talks, Greer said.
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On the Net:
Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/
That is a good idea null. I got call back to work for a short period, so that will do me just fine. I got to get out and werk so I can pay my cable and dsl bills.
By Rami Amichai
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - A Palestinian man stabbed to death one person and wounded two others in an attack in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Tuesday that could undermine a fragile truce and threaten a U.S.-led peace plan.
The 23-year-old assailant was shot and arrested and left a large, bloody knife on the ground after the attack on a seaside promenade, the first by a Palestinian in an Israeli city since militant groups announced a three-month truce on June 29.
The stabbings underlined the truce's fragility as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met British leaders in London, and overshadowed West Bank talks at which Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas mended fences with President Yasser Arafat.
The attacker, who was from East Jerusalem, stabbed a security guard who prevented him entering the open-air Tarabin restaurant at around 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT) in Israel's main commercial city, police said.
He then stabbed two passersby as he fled along a promenade by the Mediterranean Sea. Another security guard eventually shot the Palestinian about 500 metres from the restaurant.
"We've got one civilian who was killed," local police commander Yossi Sedbon told reporters on the scene. "The Palestinian was shot in his legs and is now under medical care."
Sedbon did not say whether the dead person was male or female. He also did not give the victim's nationality.
The truce declared by the main Palestinian militant groups has fuelled cautious optimism that a U.S.-backed "road map" to peace will end 33 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
But some militant groups have pledged to ignore the ceasefire and sporadic violence has continued.
The road map, drawn up by the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, sets out reciprocal steps to end the violence and establish an independent Palestinian state in 2005.
SHARON REBUFFED IN LONDON
Sharon failed at his talks in London to convince Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) or Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to cut Britain's ties with Arafat.
"We still have our differences with Britain on a series of issues, including Arafat," a senior Israeli official said after Blair hosted a private dinner for Sharon. But the official described the event as "an intimate meeting between friends".
Israel accuses Arafat of fomenting violence in the 33-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence. It and the United States have isolated the Palestinian president.
Arafat denies the charge and Palestinians say it is Sharon who is blocking peacemaking progress by refusing requests to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
Abbas has come under fire from some Palestinians for failing to persuade Sharon to release more prisoners. He threatened to quit last week following the criticism and after what Palestinian officials said were efforts by Arafat to weaken him.
The reformist premier, appointed by Arafat in April under U.S. pressure, declared an end to the rift after talks with the president in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.
"The disputes are over and things are all right," Abbas said. Saeb Erekat, a long-time Arafat ally, said all problems between Abbas and Arafat had been resolved.
"We hope we can concentrate now on the real issues of reviving the peace process, implementing the road map and going ahead with the government's programme," Erekat said.
Interview With Photojournalist Molly Bingham
Aired July 14, 2003 - 20:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is calling on world governments to put aside their prewar differences and help stabilize Iraq. A newly formed governing council is trying to get organized, but its work is being overshadowed today by more attacks and the killing of yet another U.S. soldier.
Nic Robertson has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twisted and charred the remains of a U.S. military truck, already removed, one dead and 10 injured U.S. soldiers, targeted, according to the U.S. military, by two rocket-propelled grenades.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we're doing is, we're going to through the neighborhood to make sure everybody is safe and we're trying to see if anyone saw anything about the attack.
ROBERTSON: One witness in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighborhood using less than friendly language. "At 5:30, we heard two explosions, then a firefight between the insurgents and the piglets," he says, referring to the U.S. troops.
To the north, Operation Ivy Serpent continues to target Saddam loyalists under the watchful gaze of Iraqis. According to U.S. officials, 27 raids have so far netted 226 detainees, of whom six, they say, are loyalist leaders. Mortars, automatic machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have also been seized, they say.
Back in Baghdad, as Iraq's new 25-member governing council held a session in the city's convention center, a bomb went off under a car outside. No one was hurt.
(on camera): Inside the convention center, the new council made up of 13 Shiites, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Christian and a Turkman, agreed to send delegates to the U.N., a step in normalizing international relations and a step many hope will help bring them legitimacy at home.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: So what is life like for ordinary Iraqis? And what is their attitude towards the occupation? Photojournalist Molly Bingham brings a unique perspective. She was in Iraq before the war, imprisoned, then freed during the last days of Saddam Hussein's regime. And she's now back from a return visit.
Welcome home.
MOLLY BINGHAM, PHOTOJOURNALIST: Thank you.
ZAHN: I don't think we were quite as worried this time as we were -- well, that's not fair, given what's going on over there. But, when we all think about how concerned we were when we knew you were taken prisoner, there was a lot of fear that you might not come home alive. Why were you compelled to relive that nightmare so quickly after it happened?
BINGHAM: I think any journalist is very uncomfortable being the story. And I certainly was. And I was much happier to get back and begin telling the stories that I felt like I missed during the war and start working on the stories of the Iraqi people and what they had endured during the -- Saddam Hussein's regime and what they were struggling with now with this transition period.
ZAHN: Did you find, though, when you went back, there was a part of your personal experience that you had just kind of put in a dark back corner that maybe you tapped into this time?
BINGHAM: It didn't really go in the back corner. I was pretty aware of it.
I was very glad to be able to go back, because it allowed me to overlay that fairly unpleasant experience with a new one, which is how I usually work, where I got to meet a lot of Iraqis and talk to people. I was able to work very freely and begin really understanding what was going on there, which, for me in the previous trip, wasn't possible.
ZAHN: Tell us a little bit about the Iraqis you spoke with, before we get to some specific pictures here, about the way they view the U.S. occupation.
BINGHAM: I think it is really difficult now, particularly in Baghdad. And that's where I spent most of my time.
You have a city of five million people, which is about double the size of Houston, Texas. They don't have electricity most of the day, most of them, which means no running water. Most of them also don't have telephone service. It is now over 120 degrees during the day. And that means no fans, no refrigeration. If they have children, they have to haul water, find water, from somewhere to bathe or wash dishes, just sort of normal life. And if you can imagine a large city like that trying to function and not become exasperated with it, I think we can all sympathize with that.
ZAHN: I think it is so hard for all of us Americans to understand the extent of their fear, particularly when they're not sure what the status of Saddam Hussein is.
BINGHAM: Yes.
ZAHN: What did Iraqis tell you about that?
BINGHAM: Well, I think most Iraqis think he's still alive. A lot of people told me they thought he was in Baghdad. There are always -- Baghdad is a great rumor mill. So people would say, oh, he's been spotted here or been spotted there.
I think that that, definitely, the fact that he's unaccounted for, adds a level of insecurity and a level for hope for some people that might be supporting him still.
ZAHN: On this trip, you focused on Iraqi women who had been in prison. And we are going to share with the audience now a picture of a very strong woman named Sua'd. Describe to us a little of her story and why you were touched by it.
BINGHAM: I had spoken particularly to three women who had -- I considered political prisoners.
And Sua'd was one of them. She was in prison for 16 years in Al- Rashid, which was the women's equivalent to Abu Ghraib, where I was. And she was accused of being a spy for the Kuwaiti government on incredibly flimsy charges. And she spent the better part of her adult life in prison. And she was released last fall in the amnesty that Saddam Hussein released most of the prisoners. And this was really the first time that she had been able and willing to talk about that time for her.
ZAHN: How much respect do you for these women?
BINGHAM: A tremendous amount. It really -- spending time with them really put my eight days in Abu Ghraib prison in perspective. It is nothing compared to what these women went through.
ZAHN: You to think you'll ever write about that experience? I know -- we have all forced you to talk a bit about it.
BINGHAM: I'm more comfortable working in pictures, I think, but maybe. Maybe. I won't rule it out.
ZAHN: And these pictures will be in "Glamour" magazine, right?
BINGHAM: They were in the July issue of "Glamour," yes, and I'm looking for some other outlets as well.
ZAHN: Well, welcome home.
BINGHAM: Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
ZAHN: Thanks, again, for sharing your stories with us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence. And the speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence. And I am absolutely convinced today, like I was convinced when I gave the speeches, that Saddam Hussein developed a program of weapons of mass destruction and that our country made the right decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNS: Then why, critics say, did the president not include that item in a Cincinnati speech back last fall? He included it in his State of the Union message. But Secretary of State Colin Powell did not include it as part of the evidence that he presented to the United Nations.
Well, President Bush trying to smooth over what the Democrats are seizing on as a credibility gap -- that gap could stand to widen, unless weapons of mass destruction or their programs are actually found in Iraq -- Jan.
HOPKINS: Chris, still support from the administration for George Tenet, the head of the CIA?
BURNS: Yes. Absolutely, rock solid up to this point, no indication that President Bush intends to let Mr. Tenet go. However, of course, the White House has been qualifying the information that they included in the State of the Union message as being one that was signed off on and approved by the CIA and by Mr. Tenet himself, so perhaps a little bit of room, an elbow room perhaps, to eventually let Tenet go.
But, at this point, there is no direct indication, President Bush saying he has full confidence in Mr. Tenet -- Jan.
HOPKINS: Chris Burns at the White House, thanks.
BURNS: Thank you.
HOPKINS: The Democrats continue to call for an investigation into the intelligence controversy today. Many Democrats accuse the president of misleading the American people in his State of the Union speech.
Jonathan Karl joins me now live from Capitol Hill -- Jonathan.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And, Jan, it's not just Democrats. A little while ago, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee told CNN that responsibility for this controversy goes beyond simply the Central Intelligence Agency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: It wasn't just the CIA involved here. We had the vice president and his office involved, Secretary Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Secretary Powell's people. This wasn't just a one-man show. And this is too serious here for this country to not know what happened. And America will want to know what happened, as the world will.
Now, as far as going to war with Saddam, I think most people are glad Saddam is gone. But there's a fundamental point here. Did in fact we base our reasons for going to war on something that was faulty intelligence or abused intelligence?
(END VIDEO CLIP) KARL: And, Jan, I'm joined now by the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.
So, how about Senator Hagel's point? Did we go to war with Iraq under false pretenses?
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: I don't know if you could say that.
But, to me, the bottom line on all of this, Jonathan, is the fact that, if you point your finger, if the White House points its finger towards the CIA and said it was their fault they didn't vet the speech properly and we acted, we thought, properly, what you're really saying to the intelligence community, on a broad scale nationally, is that: You be very careful about what you do in your analysis, because it may be that the people higher up who have controls over your lives may want you to say something different. And that's a chilling message.
KARL: What about Condoleezza Rice in all of this? You have suggested that she certainly knew that that information was false.
ROCKEFELLER: Well, I think she did.
And my question is, how could she not have? I mean, the National Security Council has its own -- she has her own director of intelligence and her own Africa specialist, her own Iraq specialist. Wilson had been over there. She's in touch with George Tenet all the time. They had been very skeptical over the Niger situation all along. So I'm not accusing her of anything. I just think it's a little disingenuous not to take accountability.
I mean, I was a governor for eight years. When something went wrong, I took accountability for it.
KARL: Now, John McCain has suggested that whoever was responsible for this should be fired, should lose their jobs. Do you think that's going to come to that?
ROCKEFELLER: That's an easy thing to say, and I think it sometimes can be a damaging thing to do.
KARL: So what happens now with your investigation?
ROCKEFELLER: We've got four investigations going, all on Niger, the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and our own. And I think we're going to speed up our own and we're going to cause the other three to get speeded up, too.
KARL: And this has been going on behind closed doors. When does this get out, the public get to hear what's going on?
ROCKEFELLER: I think by fall. But it needs to be done. It's a large issue. It's not just a little trivia, factual disagreement.
KARL: OK. And I don't imagine you think it's time to move on, like the White House suggests. ROCKEFELLER: Yes, it's time to move on, but we also have to do this right.
KARL: OK, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia, thank you very much.
Jan Hopkins, this goes on. This investigation goes on. George Tenet is expected before the Intelligence Committee in a closed session on Wednesday.
HOPKINS: Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill, thanks very much.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog today questioned the authenticity of the British intelligence on Saddam Hussein's attempt to buy nuclear materials.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the evidence provided by Britain may be based on forged documents. But Britain says the evidence was not based on forged documents; it came from another country.
As the intelligence controversy continues, U.S. troops in Iraq faced more deadly attacks today. One soldier was killed, another six wounded, when a convoy was attacked in Baghdad. The Pentagon today extended the 3rd Infantry Division's tour of duty in Iraq.
Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre has more -- Jamie.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jan, the 3rd Infantry Division was the first U.S. Army troops into Baghdad. They've borne the brunt of the fighting during the war and the brunt of the initial guerrilla-style attacks.
They had thought they were going to be going home in the next two months. The 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division is on its way home. But today, we learned that the 1st and 2nd brigades have now been told that their stay has been extended indefinitely, while the Pentagon tries to work out a rotation plan, this despite the fact that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that the battle-weary division would be home by September during congressional testimony earlier this week.
That leaves some 9,000 soldiers in Baghdad wondering again when they'll come home. And the soldiers tell us and have been telling us that the uncertainty is the hardest part of that mission, not knowing when they'll be coming home.
So what happened? Well, some Army official suggest, simply, that the security situation isn't good enough for them to come home. Pentagon officials stress that the secretary is working very hard on a rotation plan and they hope to be able to announce a timetable for the return of those first-in troops some time soon -- Jan.
HOPKINS: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thanks.
Despite the latest violence in Iraq, the new governing council continued its work today. The council voted to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council and formed three committees to organize business. But it did not name a leader today, as was originally planned. A spokesperson said that decision could be made later.
The controversy over the use of faulty intelligence in the State of the Union speech could eventually have an impact on the president's popularity ratings.
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