2 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 24, 2003 NATION/WORLD Source: Tallban NEWS IN BRIEF{1 .HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD leaders hatching plots in Pakistan ii DUBAI, United Arab Emirates i . .+ Treasury chief vows U.S. will slice deficit GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AP) - Intercepted phone calls show Taliban commanders have been orchestrating deadly attacks here and in other parts of Afghanistan from a safe haven across the border in Pakistan, a senior Afghan intelligence official told The Associated Press. The resurgent Taliban forces - who were chased from Afghanistan two years ago by the U.S.-led war - are getting protection from Islamic hard- line politicians and rogue elements of Pakistani security, Afghan and Western officials charge. Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, has been on the front lines of the recent violence, and many resi- dents say the local government and security officials have been unable or unwilling to end the insurgency. Former Taliban walk the streets of this hardscrabble town, hiding only behind a change of clothes. They bold- ly tried to assassinate the police chief last week and have turned the back roads into a gauntlet of fear for aid workers. It was here in Ghazni province that four workers for a Danish charity were executed by Taliban rebels on Sept. 8; here where three Red Crescent workers met a similar fate in August. In Zabul province, 135 miles to the southwest, rebels battled for weeks through the deep gorges and craggy mountain peaks against an onslaught of Ameri- can air power and more than 1,000 Afghan soldiers. A Sept. 8 order for Taliban fighters in Zabul to retreat during U.S. bomb- ing came in a satellite phone call from a commander in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, the senior Afghan official privy to sensitive intelligence told AP on condition of anonymity. A similar phone call was placed to Quetta in March by Taliban fighters who had stopped a Red Cross vehicle on a dusty road in Afghanistan's Hel- mand province. The voice on the other end of the phone was a senior Taliban fugitive commander, Mullah Dadullah, who gave the order to execute an El Salvadoran national, a survivor of the attack, the intelligence official said in a weekend interview. The brother of Baluchistan's health minister was arrested this month for U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow told global bankers and economists wor- ried about the tide of red ink in Washington that the huge U.S. budget deficit would be halved by the end of 2008. Snow made the pledge yesterday at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, both of which have cited the growing U.S. trade and budget deficits as dark clouds looming over the fragile global recovery. He called the budget deficit an "understandable" consequence of the recent recession, and told delegates from 184 countries that it would be tamed through "ample growth" and "disciplined spending," having earlier ruled out any tax increases as "counterproductive." "We're committed to cutting the deficit by half in the next five years," he said, saying that level would be "certainly very manageable." He offered few other details on how the United States would reduce the deficit, which the Treasury department has said reached $400.5 billion in the first 11 months of the 2003 budget year - twice the total for the same period a year earlier. IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler acknowledged that the "sharp swing" in public spending in the United States had helped stimulate growth after the slow- down - a point Snow also made, calling it "Economics 101." IDDAK, Saudi Arabia 0 Ghanzi's Police Chief Ismael Aziz sits in his house Saturday after being attacked by suspected Taliban last week in the province of Ghazni, Afghanistan. alleged Taliban ties and accused of plot- ting to kill a relative of the governor of Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, which borders Baluchistan. "We have this impression that Quet- ta and surrounding areas are being used by hardcore Taliban forces," Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said in an interview in his Kabul office. Zalmai Rassoul, Afghanistan's national security adviser, told AP the insurgency is being directed almost entirely from abroad - with Pakistani religious schools teaching jihad, and officials failing to crack down. "When the Taliban was first defeat- ed, they were on the run, but they have had time in Pakistan to get a rest and reorganize themselves," he said. "And now they are being incited and encour- aged to come back." Pakistani officials strongly deny that the Taliban are receiving sanctuary in their territory. "There is no truth to the allegations that Taliban have bases in Quetta to harm the interests of President Hamid Karzai's government," Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema said yesterday. Deadly Saudi raid targets 'terrorist' hideout Security forces exchanged fire for hours yesterday with "terrorists" apparently holed up in an apartment in southern Saudi Arabia, killing three suspected mili- tants and arresting two others after the standoff ended, the Interior Ministry said. One security official was also killed in the gunfight at the three-story residential building in Jizan, about 600 miles south of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The early-morning raid was intended to capture militants planning a terror attack, according to an official statement on Saudi state television earlier yesterday. Details of the firefight were sketchy, as news often is in this kingdom whose rulers keep a tight lid on the press. Security officials initially said the gunmen had taken several foreign hostages at King Fahd Hospital. The Interior Ministry statement and later television reports did not mention hostages, but Al-Jazeera television's website said all hostages were released- 10 The building where the militants we complex for 3,000 hospital employees, Bush ak for patient partners in Iraq co""""""U SAN FRANCISCO UNITED NATIONS (AP) - President Bush Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Court returns recall M . >rejected calls from France and Germany yesterday for listened to Bush speak in the vast hall where historic election to Oct. 7 ..<. . . < ..:. ;. n cuio ton fo o rnw r n ro irtnn o1; t - rnt-+ , ,,,, - I, -A F « -- A -- .,L-Cf,..f.. re apparently holed up is part of a housing the ministry said. a swil transler or power in Iraq, urging anites top ut aside bitter divisions over the U.S.-led war and help lead a massive reconstruction effort. French President Jacques Chirac challenged Bush by demanding a "realistic timetable" for granting sovereignty. In the first gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly since the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, Bush was unapologetic about the war and its chaotic aftermath and unyielding on U.S. terms for creating a democratic government. "This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis -neither hurried nor delayed by the wish- es of other parties," Bush said, spurning demands of France and Germany in a replay of the acrimonious year-old debate over Iraq that has shaken old alliances. debates have echoed for more than a half century. Ahmad Chalabi, the president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, took Iraq's seat. Before Chirac took his turn at the microphone, Bush left the chamber, followed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The French president upbraided the United States for having taken a go-it-alone approach in Iraq after the United Nations failed to sanction the war. "In an open world," Chirac said, "no one can live in isolation, no one can act alone in the name of all, and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules." France has said it wants power handed over to the Iraqis in a matter of months - a position echoed by Schroeder yesterday. In Washington, Senate Minority Leader Tom. Daschle said he thought Bush "lost an opportunity." AP PHOTO President Bush makes welcoming remarks yesterday at United Nations Headquarters in New York. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is at right. WANW TO REA D Tm E DAILY BEFORE EVErYONE ELSE? OIN ONLINE GFNK UiCEDU ED ITING 1 st HOUR FREE " 'Engfish Vsage " Organizing " Shortening " 15 years Experience 734.717.2546 danstein@umich.edu US. assault onfarm leaves 3 dead appeals court yesterday unanimously put California's recall election back on the calendar for Oct. 7, sweeping aside warnings of a Florida-style fiasco two weeks from now. The American Civil Liberties Union, which had sought a postponement, said it would not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, removing the final legal road- block to the recall and setting up a 14- day sprint among-the candidates in the election to remove Gov. Gray Davis. The 11-member panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a decision issued last week by three of the most liberal judges on the court. The three judges had postponed the election until perhaps March to give six counties more time to switch over to electronic voting systems from the error-prone punch-card ballots that caused the 2000 recount mess. WASHINGTON Translator at Cuban base charged as spy An Air Force translator at the prison camp for terror suspects in Guan- tanamo Bay, Cuba, has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy, officials said yesterday, three days after disclosing the arrest of a U.S. Army chaplain working at the same base. The two men knew each other, an Air Force spokesman said, but officials said they didn't know if there had been a conspiracy to breach prison security. The Air Force announced yesterday that the translator, Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi had been charged with 32 crimes including espionage and aiding the enemy, crimes that could lead to the death penalty. WASHINGTON ,Americans have urge for change of scenery America really is a country on the move. In the last five years of the 20th century, close to half the population packed up and moved to different homes. Usually, the moving van didn't have to travel too far - nearly one-quarter of the country's 262.4 million people 5 and older moved to a new address in the same county, according to a Census Bureau report yesterday. The South attracted the most trans- plants - 1.8 million more than moved out of the region - while the West stayed about even and the Northeast and Midwest saw declines. Nevada, the fastest-growing state during the 1990s, had the highest per- centage of movers --63 percent - fol- lowed by Colorado and Arizona, both at 56 percent. About one-quarter of Neva- da's population moved in from another state between 1995 and 2000. AL-SAJR, Iraq (AP) - U.S. sol- diers backed by helicopters firing rockets attacked a farmhouse yester- day, killing three Iraqis and wound- ing three others, villagers said. The U.S. military said soldiers followed suspected guerrillas into this village after a patrol was ambushed. Afterward, five craters ranging up to 10 feet wide and 3 feet deep could be seen in the courtyard of the farm- house. A sixth rocket had crashed through the roof. The yard was strewn with broken glass and a wall on one side of the building was pocked with bullet holes. The fighting in Al-Sajr, a small village west of Baghdad, highlighted the difficulties of combating guerril- las in populated areas and was likely to deepen resentment of the U.S. occupation in an already volatile region. "There never was any trouble in our village and the Americans have never been inside it," one of the wounded, retired army Sgt. Abed Rasheed, said at a hospital. "This is not about overthrowing a government or regime change." The U.S. military confirmed a combined air-ground assault took place here but said it knew of only one death - that of a guerrilla fight- er. A military spokeswoman, Spc. Nicole Thompson, said that after fir- ing on an American patrol, the attack- ers ran into a building. She said the soldiers then called in air support. Villagers insisted no one had fired on the Americans. They did say that U.S. soldiers detained three young men during a security sweep Sunday. Six missiles struck the home of Ali Khalaf Mohammed, killing the 45- year-old farmer. Two of Mohammed's sons, aged 11 and 9 years, were wounded. - ZKye Seed of Abraham Congregation Zera Avraham A Messianic Jewish Synagogue WWW.MICHIGANDAILY.COM The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by stu- dents at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily's office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $105. Winter term (January through April) is $110, yearlong (September through April) is $190. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be pre- paid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press. ADDRESS: The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1327. 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