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June 16, 2001

President Bush Makes First Trip To Europe
President Bush has returned to the White House, ending his European tour which included his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. After their talks in Slovenia, Bush and Putin said they had laid the basis for a new relationship between their countries. However, they announced no breakthroughs on key differences, including U.S. plans for a controversial missile defense system. The week-long, five-nation trip included meetings with NATO and European Union leaders during stops in Spain, Belgium, Sweden and Poland.
See "America In Focus" feature for expanded coverage.

European Leaders Meet Amid Clashes
European Union leaders have agreed to complete negotiations with countries that are ready to join the 15-nation bloc by the end of next year, paving the way for the most advanced candidates to join the Union by 2004. The announcement came at the end of a two-day EU summit in Gothenburg, Sweden, which was marred by anti-globalization riots. The president of the EU commission, Romano Prodi, says Europe can now fulfill its age-old dream of peaceful, democratic unity. "The enlargement process is irreversible, and there is no going back now," he says. "There is no going back. We expect to complete negotiations by the end of 2002 with the countries that will be ready. Our objective, as you know, is that new member states will participate as full members in the European Parliament elections of 2004."

The leaders of all of the candidate countries joined their colleagues from the EU Saturday in Gothenburg and hailed Sweden's effort to put the EU's expansion back on track, after Irish voters last week rejected the treaty that clears the way for the bloc's enlargement. The so-called Nice Treaty must be ratified by all current EU members, but Ireland is the only country to hold a referendum on the pact. The other members will submit the agreement to their parliaments for approval. Ireland is considering holding another referendum next year, in hopes of reversing last week's vote.
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Ceasefire in Macedonia
Muslim terrorists and the Macedonian army have declared ceasefires, easing tensions fanned by a terrorist threat to carry the fighting to the capital, Skopje. The announcement came shortly after the Macedonian government suspended attacks against villages held by the terrorists in the Lipkovo region, north of Skopje. A government spokesman said the ceasefire would allow international organizations to deliver aid to thousands of civilians in the area. He denied that it was linked to threats by the terrorists to bombard the capital if the army did not halt its offensive. Earlier, the army had renewed its assault on the occupied villages, ignoring threats by a commander of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army terrorist group to hit major targets in Skopje if the army did not call off its attacks by early Monday. Last Sunday, the terrorist commander warned that his fighters would attack the Macedonian parliament building, the airport and government ministries.

The terrorist commander made the threat two days after the terrorists seized the town of Aracinovo, just east of the capital. At least 7,000 residents have fled the town, which is surrounded by Macedonian soldiers. At least 20,000 Macedonian civilians have fled their homes since the Muslim insurgency began in February. Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the members of Macedonia's multi-ethnic ruling coalition have agreed on a peace plan to end the insurgency. The terrorists say they are fighting for the rights of Macedonia's Muslim minority. The government accuses them of trying to annex Muslim populated regions to Kosovo, a quasi-autonomous province of the Yugoslavian republic of Serbia. Both the Macedonian Muslims and the Kosovo Muslims are ethnic Albanians. Many believe that the eventual goal of the terrorists is to unite both Kosovo and the Muslim parts of Macedonia to Albania.

NATO has rejected the idea of intervening in Macedonia to stop the escalating conflict between government troops and Muslim terrorists. President Bush and NATO Secretary General George Robertson say a peace plan proposed by Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski should be given a chance to work. They made the comment after a NATO summit in Brussels. Earlier, French President Jacques Chirac said no option should be ruled out to prevent Macedonia from sliding into civil war. But Chirac said he is not advocating military intervention. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the United States must increase its involvement in Macedonia. He says only Washington has the military and political credibility in the region to resolve the crisis.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson and European Union security chief Javier Solana visited Macedonia Thursday to urge a political solution to the conflict between Muslim terrorists and the government. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the United States must increase its involvement in Macedonia. He says only Washington has the military and political credibility in the region to resolve the crisis.

Annan Asks for One Year Extension for Bosnia-Herzegovina Mission
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended a 12-month extension of the U.N. Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina to help bring lasting peace to the troubled country. In a new report issued Tuesday to the Security Council, the UN chief has called on member states to contribute generously to the U.N. mission's priority projects in Bosnia, particularly the Police Assistance Program. The report warns that local police officers, unless paid sufficiently, will not be able to substitute for the international security force currently working in the country. Annan says the establishment of the rule of law is a fundamental precondition for maintaining peace in Bosnia. The current mandate for the UN Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina expires June 21.

Swiss Approve Arming Peacekeepers
Voters in traditionally neutral Switzerland narrowly approved measures Sunday to permit the arming of Swiss soldiers taking part in international peacekeeping missions and to allow their citizen army to train with NATO forces. The outcome of the referendum was one of the closest in the country's recent history, and came at the end of an unusually bitter campaign that saw threats against a government official and warnings that a "yes" vote would overturn two centuries of peace in the country. Swiss law currently prohibits the peacekeepers from being armed. The government wants to change the law, saying Swiss peacekeepers should not have to rely on other countries' troops for protection. Opponents say arming the peacekeepers will erode Switzerland's traditional neutrality and eventually lead to an involvement in foreign wars.

Schroeder Signs Pact to Phase Out Nuclear Power
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder signed an agreement Monday with top energy companies to phase out nuclear power in the country, making it the largest industrial nation to resolve to abandon nuclear energy. The pact puts a 32-year life span on existing power plants. This means all 19 nuclear plants operating in Germany today will likely be closed by 2021. Some German environmentalists say the timeframe set out in the agreement is far too long, while many German conservatives want to keep nuclear power plants open. The pact is expected to win easy ratification in the German parliament - dominated by Schroeder's Social Democrats and the pro-environment Green Party. Eliminating nuclear power has long been a passionate cause of the Greens. Schroeder promised to shut down Germany's nuclear power industry when he took office three years ago.

France Launches Ariane Rocket
A European Ariane rocket was been launched last Saturday from French Guiana. The European Space Agency says the rocket successfully placed a U.S. satellite into orbit. The satellite will provide TV broadcasts to North and South America, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Saturday's launch was the fourth Ariane mission this year.

Middle East and Africa

Palestinian Attacks Continue Despite Ceasefire Agreement
Israel says its forces began observing the U.S. brokered ceasefire at 2 p.m. Wednesday. An Israeli general said soldiers have been told to open fire only when they feel their lives are in immediate danger. The Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad say they plan to ignore the ceasefire. The Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire went into effect Wednesday, after several rounds of meetings between CIA Director, George Tenet, and representatives from Israel and the Palestinians. Despite the agreement, sporadic violence has continued since the truce went into effect Wednesday. An Israeli army officer was killed Thursday near Jerusalem by a Palestinian assailant who was subsequently killed by another Israeli soldier. And three Israelis were wounded in a drive-by shooting on Thursday near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. UN Chief Kofi Annan met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to discuss the ceasefire. Annan had previously met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa in Egypt, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara, and Jordanian King Abdallah.
See "Eye on Israel" feature for expanded news coverage of Israel.

House Passes Sudan Sanctions Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to tighten economic sanctions against Sudan and is urging President Bush to release funds to Sudan rebels. The House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would penalize foreign companies investing in Sudan's oil and gas industries. Legislation sponsors say the oil and gas investments fuel the Sudan government's war machine. House lawmakers also denounced alleged atrocities against civilians by Sudan's government and its persecution of Christians. The bill urges President Bush to release $10 million to the opposition National Democratic Alliance. Based in the mainly Christian south, it backs rebels who have been fighting the Muslim-dominated Khartoum government since 1983. An estimated two million Sudanese have died in the civil war.

Asia

Shanghai 6 to Cooperate on Fighting Muslim Terrorism
The leaders of China, Russia, and four Central Asian nations have launched a new regional organization to combat Muslim terrorism and boost trade and investment. The six leaders signed an agreement in Shanghai Friday creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to replace the Shanghai Five group that was formed five years ago. Besides China and Russia, the organization includes Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. On Thursday, Chinese President Jiang Zeminand Russian President Vladimir Putin met on the sidelines of the two-day summit and renewed their vow to fight the Bush administration's plan for a U.S. missile defense system. The meeting came just two days before Putin is scheduled to meet President Bush for the first time in Slovenia. Bush is seeking to ease concerns about the anti-missile system during his European tour.

Recovery of US Spy Plane Begins in China
A six-member U.S. team has arrived on China's Hainan island to dismantle a damaged spy plane stranded there since April. The EP-3 surveillance plane will be cut up and loaded in pieces on two Russian cargo aircraft. It then will be flown from Hainan island in the South China Sea to a U.S. air base on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The crew from the Lockheed Martin company will join other American technicians who have been on the island for several days laying the groundwork for the operation. Officials said work to dismantle and load the aircraft on the two Russian Antonov 124 cargo planes is expected to take nearly a month. China refused to let the Americans repair the plane on the island and fly it home under its own power. The plane landed on Hainan April first after colliding with a Chinese fighter plane whose pilot was killed. The incident led to a lengthy diplomatic standoff between Washington and Beijing. China held the 24-member crew of the U.S. plane hostage for 12 days.

Commission Says Nepal's Late Crown Prince Killed the Royal Family
The official commission probing the June first massacre in Nepal says Crown Prince Dipendra killed King Birendra and other members of the royal family after drinking whiskey and smoking hashish. The speaker of parliament told a news conference Thursday that the drunken crown prince fired indiscriminately and shot King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya and then fatally shot himself. The speaker said the crown prince was wearing an army combat uniform during the shooting, and had consumed alcohol and smoked cigarettes laced with hashish before he gunned down the nine victims. The two-member commission spent a week investigating the shootings at the royal palace. Soon after ascending the throne on June 4th, King Gynendra formed the panel to probe the massacre. Earlier, he had said the family was killed in an accident involving an exploding gun.

Philippine Communists Threaten to End Peace Talks
Communist terrorists in the Philippines are threatening to end peace talks with the government. The warning came Friday, one day after President Gloria Arroyo suspended talks with the National Democratic Front, the terrorists' political wing, to protest the killing of a lawmaker. Officials say the government declared an "indefinite recess" and ordered negotiators to return to Manila from Oslo, Norway where the peace talks were being held in a bid to end 32 years of fighting. The terrorists claimed responsibility for killing Philippine legislator Rodolfo Aguinaldo on Tuesday.

Philippine Muslim Rebels Say U.S. Hostage Executed
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has vowed to "decimate once and for all" the Abu Sayyaf Muslim terrorist group, which says it has executed an American hostage. A terrorist spokesman said Tuesday in a phone call to a local radio station that the terrorists had beheaded Guillermo Sobero and filmed the execution. The terrorist spokesman described the alleged killing as an Independence Day gift to the Philippine nation. Arroyo held emergency talks with her cabinet on the issue, and later vowed the government would crush the terrorist group. Abu Sayyaf is reported to be holding at least 27 other hostages. The terrorists had threatened to behead all three American hostages after negotiations stalled last Saturday. The Philippine government later said that soldiers pursuing the Muslim terrorists found the bodies of two beheaded Philippine nationals. But officials say there is still no evidence that the terrorist group has executed one of three American hostages it seized last month.

On Monday, the terrorists said they would delay carrying out an earlier threat to execute an American, after Arroyo gave in to a terrorist demand to allow Malaysian negotiators to take part in talks to end the hostage crisis. Three Americans, along with 17 others, were abducted from a Philippine resort on May 27. A number of the hostages escaped, and two were found dead. The terrorists have since taken 15 more captives, including two 12-year-old boys, bringing the hostage total to 28. On Sunday, the Philippine government insisted it would not use foreign mediators and stressed that no ransom would be paid. Arroyo said allowing a ransom payment by Muammar Gaddafi to end a mass kidnapping last year had only helped the terrorists to modernize their weapons. Authorities say at least 16 soldiers and an undetermined number of rebels have been killed since the abductions.

Demonstrators Urge Japan to Revise Textbook
In Japan, scores of international demonstrators formed a human chain around the Education Ministry to protest its recent approval of a controversial history textbook. Critics say the schoolbook has a strong nationalistic bias that distorts Japan's wartime history. Representatives from civic groups across Asia want the ministry to revise a controversial book, which will be used to teach 13 to 15-year olds about Japan's wartime history. They argue that the book whitewashes Japan's military aggression and neglects the misery inflicted by the Imperial Army on its Asian neighbors. The controversial textbook has strained diplomatic ties between Japan and other Asian countries, especially South Korea and China. But the Ministry of Education says no revisions will be made to the book, which is authored by nationalist scholars.
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U.S.-North Korea Talks to Resume
North Korea has agreed to President Bush's offer to resume a dialogue suspended since the end of the previous U.S. administration. A State Department official Tuesday said the dialogue will resume with talks at the United Nations in New York late this week or next. Last week, the United States informed North Korea that it was prepared to resume the discussions. Their dialogue had been on hold since early this year, when the new Bush administration ordered a comprehensive review of policy toward North Korea. Pyongyang was angered by Washington's decision to suspend the talks, which began during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

A leading newspaper says former President George Bush advised his son to pursue talks with North Korea. The New York Times reported Sunday that President Bush recently received a memo from his father which advocated the re-opening of talks with Pyongyang. The memo written by Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and a close aid to the elder Bush, argued that not to re-engage with North Korea would undermine the current government in Seoul and hurt U.S. security interests in the region. The New York Times says the memo was addressed to former President Bush, who forwarded it to National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, who then passed it on to the president. President Bush said last week that his administration has completed a policy review on North Korea and was now ready to re-launch talks with the communist nation. North Korea has yet to respond to the offer.

Latin America

Indictment Of Castro Possible
The espionage convictions of five Cuban spies last Friday could lead to the murder indictment of Fidel Castro, according to an article in Sunday's Miami Herald. U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis declared that the convictions, particularly of the spy ring's leader, Gerardo Hernandez, proved "beyond any doubt there was a conspiracy to commit murder that had been approved of and ordered by the highest levels of the Cuban government." Jurors found Hernandez guilty of contributing to the deaths of four members of a Cuban exile group, Brothers to the Rescue. The four died in Cuba's 1996 shootdown of two unarmed planes operated by Cuban exiles in international airspace over the Florida straits. The four airmen, Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, Carlos Costa, 29, Mario de la Peña, 24, and Pablo Morales, 29, were looking for Cubans fleeing the island in boats so they could radio their positions to American rescuers. Alejandre, Costa, and de la Peña were all American citizens. Prosecutors said Hernandez passed along the four's flight plans to Cuba before the shootdown. Hernandez and two other defendants were sentenced to life in prison.

U.S. Embargo Against Cuba to Remain
President Bush says the 40-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba will stay in place, until Cuban leader Fidel Castro embraces democracy for the communist-ruled island. Bush made his remarks Tuesday in Madrid at a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. The president told reporters he believes the U.S. policy is the right one and that it will not change until Castro frees political prisoners, holds free elections and embraces freedom. Bush also says his administration will seek solutions to problems that Spanish companies might encounter with the U.S. Helms-Burton law. The measure is designed to punish foreign companies doing business with Havana.

Berenson Lawyer Makes Final Appeal
A lawyer representing a U.S. woman accused of aiding Peruvian guerrillas made a final appeal to a court in Lima, Monday, as the trial of Lori Berenson nears its end. Defense lawyer Jose Luis Sandoval told the court Berenson is innocent and no proof of her guilt has been presented. The court has recessed until June 20, when the defendant herself will be allowed to speak and a verdict will be handed down. Berenson was originally tried in secret by a military court and served five years of a life sentence. But that conviction was overturned last year and a new, civilian trial ordered on lesser charges. Berenson is charged with helping the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement plot an attack on the Peruvian congress. The group carried out a 126-day siege of the Japanese ambassador's residence in 1996 and 1997. Government prosecutors say she lived in a house with guerrilla leaders and was part of their group. Berenson admits she lived in the house, but says she did not know the others were wanted rebels.

Business Leaders Worry About Venezuelan President’s Threat To Expel Foreigners
Business leaders in Venezuela say the nation's prospects for economic recovery could suffer if President Hugo Chavez acts on a threat to expel foreigners critical of his government. The head of the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce, Pedro Palma, said Monday in Caracas such rhetoric could hurt the country's sluggish economy. He also said the comments are not conducive to restoring a climate of confidence among investors. Chavez on Monday threatened to expel foreigners who criticize his government. Chavez issued the warning Sunday at a seminar in Caracas attended by foreign businessmen and diplomats. The Venezuelan leader insisted he does not mind internal opposition and dissent, but said his government would not accept such behavior from visitors. Chavez has in the past denounced what he calls an international media conspiracy to portray him as an autocratic leader and downplay his government's achievements. Critics of Chavez have questioned his increasingly radical policies and say his leftist rule has moved away from democracy.
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Ecuadorian Storms Leave 40 Dead
Ecuadorean officials say an avalanche of rock and mud caused by several days of torrential rain has left at least 40 people dead and forced hundreds more to flee their homes. Authorities say the heavy rains have fallen mostly in Ecuador's eastern and southern Amazon region, causing rivers to overflow their banks and widespread property damage. The severe weather also has caused Ecuador's main oil pipeline to rupture, forcing a delay in the transport of crude oil. Oil is Ecuador's primary export.

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