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May 19, 2001

Iraq Won't Cooperate On Proposed Sanctions Changes
May 19, 2001 -- Iraq has again ruled out any cooperation with British and U.S. proposals for changing the sanctions regime to ease restrictions on civilian goods while tightening enforcement of bans on military-use items. A senior ruling Ba'ath party official told reporters in Baghdad today that Iraq's position is clear that the UN embargo must be totally lifted. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov discussed UN sanctions against Iraq yesterday in Washington. Moscow has previously called for lifting all the sanctions. Further talks on the new sanctions change proposal are scheduled to take place at the United Nations next week.
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American Warplanes Target Missile Site in Iraq
May 18, 2001-- The U.S. military says American warplanes raided an Iraqi surface-to-air missile site in southern Iraq. The U.S. Central Command said the attack Friday was in response to recent threats against coalition planes monitoring the southern no-fly zone, where Iraq is forbidden to fly military aircraft. It was the first coalition air strike in southern Iraq since April 19.

Russia, Belarus Discuss Introduction of Common Currency
May 18, 2001 -- Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka met today with Pavel Borodin, the state secretary for the Union of Russia and Belarus, to discuss steps toward introducing a common currency for the two countries. Later at a press conference Lukashenka praised Moscow as a military partner for Belarus. "We have such an ally. It is our brother Russia. Today, Russia's military power is a reliable guarantee that nobody will be tempted to bring Belarus to its knees using their armed forces." Borodin came to Minsk from Geneva where he was questioned yesterday on charges of having laundered some $25 million in Switzerland. He told reporters he does not expect the case to create any problems for him.

Berlusconi Wins Italy's Parliamentary Election
May 15, 2001 -- Media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition has won Italy's hard-fought parliamentary election. Berlusconi's opponent, former Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli, conceded Monday after the official vote tally indicated that the conservative entrepreneur's coalition had won a clear majority in both houses of Parliament. Italian Interior Ministry figures show Berlusconi's bloc took 177 seats in the 315-member Senate and 368 seats in the 630-member lower house. Berlusconi's decisive victory paves the way for Berlusconi to become Italy's prime minister after seven years in the political wilderness. Berlusconi, who served as prime minister in 1994, will be Italy's 59th prime minister since World War II.

China Prepares to Test New Long Range Missile
May 11, 2001 -- China is preparing another flight test of its new long-range missile, according to a report in the Washington Times. Preparations for the latest test of the new road-mobile DF-31 were detected in central China by a U.S. reconnaissance satellite. The test preparations are another sign the Chinese are rapidly moving ahead with development of the DF-31. It's only the world's second road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile the being deployed by Russia. China conducted two flight tests of the DF-31 last year. Both were successful. The last flight test was carried out Nov. 4 -- during the first visit to China by Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in what defense analysts said was a calculated political signal. The DF-31 is believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to be the first Chinese strategic weapon to incorporate stolen U.S. nuclear and missile technology, which was obtained through espionage and illegal technology export.

Britain To Keep Patrols In Iraq At Current Level
May 11, 2001 -- Britain said Thursday that it had no plans to alter warplane patrols over Iraqi "no-fly" zones despite recommendations by U.S. military commanders to reduce them because of a growing danger to pilots. Two U.S. generals overseeing the patrols, which enforce the decade-long ban on military flights over north and south Iraq, have recommended major changes in U.S. and British methods because of increasing Iraqi attempts to shoot down a plane, Pentagon officials said. A Defense Ministry spokesman in London said: "At the moment we will continue to patrol on a regular basis and respond robustly if attacked -- as has happened on a number of occasions. "We will continue to patrol the no-fly zones. We have no plans to reduce or increase our presence in the north or south."

Bush Unlikely to Oppose Iran-Libya Sanctions
May 10, 2001 -- The Bush administration is unlikely to oppose renewal of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, a law that punishes foreign oil companies for investing in Iran and Libya. "If I were a betting person, I would say those sanctions would continue," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. The law, which has never been enforced, imposes economic sanctions against foreign companies that invest in the Iranian or Libyan oil industries. The measure was intended to hamper the countries' efforts to promote terrorism, said Rep. Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee's panel on the Middle East.

Castro Calls On Iran To ‘Topple’ America
May 10, 2001 -- Cuban President Fidel Castro urged Iran yesterday to help defeat the United States "as you toppled the shah" in 1979. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a staunch opponent of the United States, immediately welcomed the offer, saying the United States is "vulnerable and easy to break down." Referring to the late U.S.-backed Iranian monarch, Castro said in an earlier speech at Tehran University: "You overthrew the shah 22 years ago, but there is another shah one thousand times stronger and better armed. This shah is imperialism, and its main stronghold is only miles away from our border."

EU Socialists Skeptical about Germany's Proposed Reforms
May 8, 2001 -- German proposals for reforming the European Union have met with a generally skeptical response at a meeting in Berlin of 20 European socialist parties. British and Danish representatives took the lead in voicing doubts about ideas for a centralized European government made public last week by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. In his opening address, Schroeder urged the other socialist parties -- 10 of which, like his, control EU governments -- to weigh carefully his proposals for a federal Europe, including the transformation of the European Commission into a body akin to a European government.
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Holbrooke Says Europe Must 'Stand Up' To U.S.
May 8, 2001 -- European nations must make their feelings felt on U.S. plans for a missile defense, otherwise "the Americans will decide for them," Washington's former UN ambassador said in an interview published Monday. The Europeans "can't just sit around grumbling in the background, they must stand up and get involved," Richard Holbrooke was quoted as saying in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung daily. Despite European misgivings about the feasibility of the missile defense plan and the possibility of a new arms race, no major allied power publicly assailed the plan after President George W. Bush's speech last Tuesday in which he declared his commitment to push ahead. "The Europeans must speak their mind to the American government before it's too late," Holbrooke said.

June Election Called in Britain
May 8, 2001 -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has formally called a general election for June 7. Tuesday's widely-expected announcement came hours after Blair completed the formality of asking Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve parliament. Opinion polls show Blair's Labor Party, which won a landslide victory in 1997, with a commanding lead of nearly 20 percentage points against the main opposition conservative party. The prime minister was forced to postpone the elections from early May in the face of the epidemic of hoof-and-mouth disease that is ravaging livestock herds across Britain.

China Builds New Missile Platforms To Deter U.S. Forces
May 7, 2001 -- China has built two fixed missile launch sites in its southeastern provinces and is planning to build more as part of a project to build a "wall" of longer-range missiles against the U.S., according to a report in the Taipei (Taiwan) Times. The two already completed sites are capable of launching longer-range ballistic missiles such as the DF-31, which claims a range of 8,000km. "The Long Wall Project is aimed at the U.S., not Taiwan," the Taipei Times reported. "The Chinese military leadership plans to put longer-range ballistic missiles in the southeastern provinces so that they can cover U.S. military targets in the Pacific. They can fire, for instance, a Dong Feng-31 at a U.S. navy battle group shortly after the group leaves its base in Hawaii... Because of the application of global positioning system (GPS) technology to the missile, the [margin of error] for the M-11 can be reduced to around 5m." Then-president Bill Clinton announced on April 28, 2000 that he would put an end to the Pentagon's practice of intentionally degrading the signal available to non-U.S. military users of the satellite-based GPS. The change enables non-U.S. military GPS users "to pinpoint locations up to 10 times more accurately than they do now," the president said.

Putin Welcomes Bush's Defense Policy as 'Good Basis'
May 5, 2001-- Russian President Vladimir Putin, striking an unusually upbeat note, said yesterday that President Bush’s most recent comments on defense policy were a good basis for dialogue on international security. In a major speech on Tuesday, Bush outlined plans to go ahead with a national missile defense to defeat missiles fired by rogue states and terrorists. Putin, speaking to reporters after talks with Uzbek President Islam Karimov in the Kremlin, said Bush wanted consultations and had made clear the United States did not consider Russia an adversary or enemy. "In my opinion this creates a good basis for a positive dialogue," the Russian president said. "We will see in the future what the result of the dialogue would be."

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