Today Tuesday Wednesday
vM
M'
High: 53 * High: 54
Low: 43 Low: 40
Precip: 80% Precip: 50%
High: 56
Low: 39
Precip: 10%
IN BRIEF
Sharon moves toward
Gaza disengagement
JERUSALEM - Israel’s Cabinet ap
proved a compensation plan Sun
day for settlers who will be uproot
ed by Ariel Sharon’s plan to
withdraw from the Gaza Strip and
part of the West Bank, handing the
prime minister an important victory
two days before a showdown in par
liament over the pullout.
Meanwhile, a team of Tunisian
doctors examined Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat, who is recovering from
the flu, and pronounced him “OK,”
despite speculation he might be suf
fering from something more serious.
The compensation program, ap
proved 13-6, is a key part of Sharon’s
“unilateral disengagement” plan,
which calls for a complete withdraw
al from Gaza and four West Bank set
tlements next year.
The Cabinet victory, though ex
pected, gave Sharon important mo
mentum in the run-up to a far more
important test Tuesday, when the
Knesset votes for the first time on
the entire withdrawal plan. Sharon
also is expected to win that vote,
but he needs a strong majority to
marginalize his opponents.
Zarqawi group claims
killing of 50 Iraqis
BAGHDAD, Iraq — In their boldest
and deadliest ambush yet, insurgents
waylaid three minibuses carrying
U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers heading
home on leave and massacred about
50 of them — forcing many to lie
down on the ground and shooting
them in the head, officials said Sun
day. Some accounts by police said
the rebels were dressed in Iraqi mili
tary uniforms.
Pro-Russian party
falters in Lithuanian vote
VILNIUS, Lithuania — A new pro
Russian populist political party stum
bled in elections Sunday, apparently
failing to get enough support to win
a stake in the government in the sec
ond and final round of parliamentary
elections, a vote marked by record
low turnout.
The Labor Party’s strong first
round showing prompted the coun
try’s more established political par
ties to band together in an effort to
defeat Labor, which they feared
would steer Lithuania from its pro
Western track and back toward
Moscow.
With more than 99 percent of the
votes counted, 28 of the 66 seats up
for grabs went to the largest tradition
al parties, the Social Democrats, the
New Union, the Conservative Father
land Union and Liberal Center Union,
according to early estimates by the
state Election Commission.
The final results will be announced
Oct. 31, and the first session of the
new parliament is scheduled to con
vene Nov. 15.
The Labor Party, led by Russian
born businessman Viktor Uspaskich,
won 16 seats, but analysts said that
may not be enough for it to get a
stake in a new coalition government.
Army faces probe on deals
with Halliburton
WASHINGTON — The Army
has agreed to a Pentagon investiga
tion into claims by a top contracting
official that a Halliburton subsidiary
unfairly won no-bid contracts worth
billions of dollars for work in
Iraq and the Balkans, according to
Army documents obtained Sunday.
The complaint alleges that the
award of contracts to KBR, the
Halliburton subsidiary, without
competition to restore Iraq’s oil in
dustry and to supply and feed U.S.
troops in the Balkans puts at risk
“the integrity of the federal contract
ing program as it relates to a major
defense contractor. ”
Democrats lose ruling
on Michigan ballots
DETROIT — A judge’s order
requiring some provisional ballots
in Michigan to be counted even
if they are cast in the wrong precinct
was put on hold Sunday, the second
time in as many days that a federal
appeals court dealt a setback to
Democrats who wanted to ease vot
ing restrictions. A 6th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati
issued a stay of a lower court ruling
that had reversed Michigan’s policy
for counting provisional ballots,
saying it will hear an appeal of the
issue quickly. On Saturday, the
same three-judge panel had rejected
a similar ruling out of Ohio.
— The Associated Press
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Iran nears completion of
uranium conversion plant
Facility designed to convert powdered uranium into
enrichment stage is 70 percent operational, reports say
BY ALI AKBAR DAREINI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN, Iran — A uranium con
version facility in Iran is nearing
completion, a top official said Sun
day, only days after European coun
tries offered a deal in which Iran
would reportedly have to give up all
nuclear activities.
State-run radio quoted Mo
hammed Ghannadi, second in
charge of the Atomic Energy Orga
nization of Iran, saying the Isfahan
uranium conversion facility in cen
tral Iran was nearing completion.
“The Isfahan UCF facility is opera
tional by 70 percent right now,”
Ghannadi told 21 lawmakers during
a visit to the plant, which Iranian offi
cials said was inaugurated in March.
Ghannadi was quoted as saying
21 of 24 workshops have been com
missioned at the facility, which con
verts uranium powder called yellow
cake into hexafluoride gas, a stage
prior to enrichment. He did not
elaborate.
In talks Thursday in Austria, en
voys from Britain, France and Ger
many offered civilian nuclear tech
nology and a trade deal to the
Iranians reportedly in return for Iran
permanently giving up all uranium
enrichment activities — technology
that can be used to produce nuclear
fuel or nuclear weapons.
“The proposal by the Europeans
is unbalanced,” Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a
news conference on Sunday. “How
ever, the Europeans have chosen
the correct path of dialogue.”
Iran’s nuclear program is now a
matter of national pride, and is one
of the few issues on which hard-lin
ers and reformists agree. The con
servative-dominated parliament is
drawing up a bill requiring the gov
ernment to resume uranium enrich
ment, the only stage in the nuclear
fuel cycle that Iran says it is not yet
carrying out.
Britain, Germany and France
have warned that most European
countries will back Washington’s
call to refer Iran’s nuclear dossier to
the U.N. Security Council for possi
ble economic sanctions if Iran does
n’t give up all uranium enrichment
activities by the Nov. 25 meeting of
the International Atomic Energy
Agency.
Iran, Asefi said, was still studying
the European proposal.
“We think we have to reach a so
lution acceptable to both sides so
IRAN, page 5
Columbia's military destroys
large stockpile of land mines
I
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe urges land mine
removal advocate Queen Noor to 'be our ambassador
BY DAN MOLINSK1
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s
armed forces blew up 6,800 stock
piled land mines Sunday as President
Alvaro Uribe, Queen Noor of Jordan
and dozens of mine blast victims
watched on large screens, launching
an effort to eventually rid the country
of the weapons.
The queen, U.S. Ambassador
William Wood and other dignitaries
gathered in Bogota’s main plaza as the
land mines were destroyed in eight
thunderous explosions in a rural area
near the northern city of Barranquilla.
The unprecedented act was aimed
at underscoring Colombia’s commit
ment to destroying all state-owned
mines, Uribe said, even though Marx
ist rebels who have battled the gov
ernment for 40 years have increasing
ly used them.
“Be our ambassador, Queen Noor,
and tell the world ... that the Colom
bian government is destroying its
mines,” Uribe said.
The queen sat next to Uribe and
applauded as each explosion took
place. Dozens of land mine victims
and soldiers wounded in Colombia’s
civil war also were present and
Juanes, a Colombian pop star, per
formed “Suenos” (Dreams), a song
from his new best-selling album that
deals with the everyday life of a
Colombian soldier.
“(Colombia) has been ravaged by
internal conflict,” Queen Noor later
said. “And it is unique in the world
for being (in conflict) and at the same
time destroying its stocks of land
mines. ... It takes a lot of courage for
the armed forces to take these kinds
of decisions.”
Land mines have become a huge
problem in Colombia, where govern
ment troops and allied militia fighters
are battling two leftist rebel groups.
Each faction has planted land mines.
As a result, the Andean nation has the
fourth-largest number of annual casu
alties from mine blasts, behind Chech
nya, Afghanistan and Cambodia.
Anti-personnel mines have killed
or injured some 560 people in Colom
bia this year, up from just 29 in 1990,
according to the office of Vice Presi
dent Francisco Santos. Sixty percent
of this year's victims were govern
ment soldiers.
Queen Noor has made the reduc
tion of land mines in Third World
countries one of her main platforms
for peace in recent years.
The queen, who was born Lisa Na
jeeb Halaby in Washington D.C. in
1951, is the widow of King Hussein of
Jordan, who died five years ago. She
planned to visit mine blast victims in
southwest Colombia on Monday.
Colombia in 2000 ratified the Ot
tawa Convention that calls for ban
ning and destroying all land mines
worldwide by 2009. After Sunday’s
blasts, Colombia will have completed
the first phase of the agreement,
which calls for destruction of stock
piled mines. However, the military
will retain several hundred mines for
training purposes.
For the second phase, Colombia’s
government said it will destroy
thousands of government-planted
mines that remain in the ground,
ready to explode.