4 2 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, December 5, 2003 NATION/WORLD Egypt pushes for resolution in Israel NEWS IN BRIEF;f HEADLINES FROM-AROUND THE WORLD CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Palestin- ian factions opened talks yesterday aimed at producing a cease-fire, and Israel hinted it could reduce military activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if a truce were declared. Egypt is mediating the talks, and Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman opened the session by urging the Palestinians to agree to a total cease-fire conditioned on Israeli reciprocity, Palestinian dele- gates at the meeting said. Suleiman told delegates the Unit- ed States was eager for a break- through next year - an election year. The Egyptian intelligence boss also said an accord now could fur- ther feed opposition among Israelis to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies, one delegate said, insisting on anonymity. "It is possible to take advantage of these conditions to come up with a cease-fire that the Israeli side will feel compelled to commit to," Suleiman was quoted as saying. "This requires that the groups think about the political moves to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people." After Suleiman spoke, represen- tatives of a dozen Palestinian fac- tions began meetings among themselves, with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia set to join the talks at a later stage. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the militant groups behind most suicide bombing attacks on Israelis, have joined the talks despite their incli- nation against a cease-fire. They are under pressure to accept a truce - from Egypt, Yasser Arafat's main- stream Fatah faction and smaller groups backing Fatah in hopes of gaining some say in future talks with Israel. In the clearest statement yet that Israel will respond favorably to a cease-fire offer, a defense official suggested Israel would scale back its military operations if the Pales- tinians pledge to halt attacks. "If the Palestinians agree to a cease-fire in Cairo, it's certainly not out of the question that Israel will agree to restrain its military activi- ty," Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio yesterday. Arafat, whose position on a cease-fire remains crucial, despite U.S. and Israeli efforts to isolate him, gave public backing to the Cairo talks yesterday. "The most important thing is to try to reach an agreement ... in order to implement the 'road map' (and) stop the daily Israeli escala- tion against our people," he told the pan-Arab satellite station Al- Jazeera. Egypt wants the cease-fire to eventually lead to a resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, a goal of the United States. U.S. envoy William Burns was in the region this week to press both sides to fulfill their obligations under the "road map," the latest peace plan backed by Washington and the international community. An inter-Palestinian agreement on a cease-fire offer would strengthen Qureia's hand in negoti- ating with Sharon when the two meet. A meeting has been in the works since last month but no date has been set. The Palestinians - ranging from the mainstream to Islamic militants and Marxists - have met informal- ly with Egyptian officials and among themselves since Tuesday. Delegates to the talks say they are weighing both a partial cease-fire - to halt strikes on civilians inside Israel's territory - and a broader truce, being pushed by Egypt, that .,.k Y MAZA -SHA F, Afghanistan w Rumsfeld visits reconstruction sites Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took a ride yesterday on Afghanistan's bumpy road to recovery, finding signs of progress alongside grim reminders the country remains torn by violence and crammed with weaponry. Rival Afghan warlords, responsible for much of the violence, are disarm- ing only slowly, according to a British military commander, and there has been a Taliban resurgence two years after that group's rule ended. Suspect- ed militants ambushed a convoy of government census workers in the southwest yesterday, killing one and wounding others. Rumsfeld, making his fourth trip to Afghanistan since the Taliban's fall, met for the first time with northern Afghanistan's two major warlords, wel- coming them warmly. Afterward, he said he was satisfied they were moving toward disarmament of their rival armies - a step considered critical to extending the central government's authority beyond Kabul, the capital. "Each of them has initiated that process," Rumsfeld told reporters. "It's under way and that is a very good thing. At what pace it will proceed I guess remains to be seen, but we're pleased that they've agreed to do so." WASHINGTON Tariffs lifted in face of threatened trade war Yesterday, President Bush scrapped import tariffs he had imposed last year to help the battered U.S. steel industry, defusing a threatened trade war with Europe and Japan but creating political problems for himself in states that could be key in next year's election. The president declared that the 21 months the steep tariffs had been in place had given the U.S. industry a chance to consolidate and modernize and were no longer needed as a result of "changed economic circumstances." However, the decision prompted an angry response from the steel industry and its political supporters, who accused Bush of breaking a campaign promise and turning his back on an industry that was still in need of protection from foreign competition. "In his rush to appease the Europeans and the Japanese, Mr. Bush willfully ignored the fact that damage to the American steel industry and American steel communities continues to this day," said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America. Gerard said 42 steel companies had gone bankrupt over the past five years. Egyptian girls protect themselves from heavy rain as they pass by portraits of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and several Egyptian presidents, on a Cairo street yesterday would curtail attacks on Israeli sol- diers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has reason to agree to the cease-fire; when it kept up its own attacks during the last truce arranged by Egypt in June, the Palestinians waited only seven weeks before resuming suicide bombings, with devastating results. Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Sharon, stressed that a cease-fire must be total and followed by dis- mantling militant groups as required by a "road map" peace plan. "Israel welcomes a cease-fire, but it must be the first step," he said. Under the "road map," Palestini- ans would stop violence and make efforts to disarm violent cells, while Israel would halt attacks against Palestinians, withdraw forces from Palestinian towns, freeze settlements and take steps to normalize Palestinian life. The "road map" calls for establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005. Qureia has not accepted U.S. and Israeli demands to dismantle radical groups, especially Hamas, because they have a strong political con- stituency among Palestinians. Apparently giving Qureia some latitude, Secretary of State Colin Powell last week suggested the Palestinian prime minister could take steps short of taking up arms against militants and find support from the international community. The Palestinians say a compre- hensive cease-fire - a total end to fighting - would require Israel to also stop settlement building, halt construction of a security barrier along the frontier with Palestinian areas and withdraw troops from sectors reoccupied since the out- break of fighting in September 2000. Iraqi guerrillas attack police station BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Guerrillas attacked a police station in central Iraq yesterday, wounding six people, while -U.S. forces kept up their daily raids against suspected rebel strongholds with an overnight raid in Saddam Hus- sein's hometown of Tikrit. Meanwhile, a London-based Arabic newspaper quoted Iraq's former plan- ning minister as saying that Saddam -might still have stashed away in foreign banks tens of billions of dollars that he skimmed for years from oil revenues. Jewad Hashem, Iraq's planning min- ister in the late 1960s and early '70s who now lives in Canada, said that 5 - percent of oil revenues was ordered deposited abroad in accounts under Saddam's supervision when Iraq nation- alized its oil industry in 1972. Two rockets struck the Ramadi Police Directorate, 100 miles west of Baghdad, as officers gathered inside to receive their monthly salaries, said Maj. Samir Habib. Two policemen and four civil- ians were wounded, he said. Ramadi, a town on the main highway between Iraq and Jordan, is part of the so-called Sunni Triangle - a region north and west of Baghdad that has seen fierce resistance to the U.S.-led occupation. The U.S. raid in Tikrit netted several illegal weapons. Such counterinsur- gency operations have come under increasing criticism recently, with many analysts warning that the U.S. military was risking alienating significant seg- ments of Iraqis through heavy-handed military responses to hit-and-run attacks by the insurgents. Hashem's assertion is in his autobiog- raphy, which is being excerpted in the Asharq Al-Awsat pan-Arab daily. In Wednesday's except, he wrote that Iraq's former Revolutionary Command Council issued the decree to create a sort of war chest for Saddam's Baath Party. There was no way to independent- ly confirm Hashem's story. Interna- tional efforts are under way to track accounts around the world in the name of Saddam, the Baath Party and other former Iraqi officials. The former minister said Saddam did not want to repeat the mistake of 1963 when a military coup toppled the first Baath government after nine months and it could not return to power quickly because it lacked money. Hashem said that by his calculation the 5 percent revenues from 1972 until 1990 would amount to $31 billion. 'We are willing to take people into these forces as long as when they come in they are not operating as members of these other (militia) forces." - Douglas Feith U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy FORT WORTH, Texas Flu outbreak kills at least 10 children As a nasty flu outbreak spreads across the country, schools are reporting more empty seats as parents keep children at home to recuperate or to protect them. The flu is being blamed for the deaths of at least five children in Colorado, three in Texas and one each in Oklahoma and New Mexico. Children's Medical Center Dallas has seen more than 500 children with the flu since October. Yesterday, more than two dozen were in the intensive care unit, said Jane Siegel, a doctor. "Most of those children require IV fluids ... and most have significant enough lung disease so they're on a ventilator," she said. In a typical year 36,000 Americans die from the influenza virus, but flu researchers expect a higher death toll this year. WASHINGTON Holiday celebration supports U.S. troops Lighting the national Christmas tree yesterday, President Bush urged Amer- ican troops who will be far from home and family these holidays to take some solace in the Christmas story and the nation's gratitude. "Separation from loved ones is especially difficult this time of year," Bush said at the 80th annual outdoor "Pageant of Peace" ceremony. "People in uniform can know that their fami- lies miss them and love them, that mil- lions are praying for them, and that America is grateful for the men and women who serve and defend our country." As a light snow fell intermittently, Bush and his wife, Laura, listened to a slew of performers singing holiday songs before flicking the switch that enveloped the 40-foot Colorado blue spruce in a blaze of light. LOS ANGELE Jackson document led to his arrest More than a year ago, Michael Jack- son let a BBC crew into his bizarre world for a TV documentary he no doubt hoped would boost his fading career. Exactly what happened is a matter of dispute, but interviews with sources close to Jackson and the accuser's family reveal one consistent thread: The docu- mentary set in motion a series of events that led to the pop star's arrest last month. The TV special, broadcast worldwide last February to an audience of millions, offered images of Jackson's fairy-tale estate, Neverland, his lonely trips to Las Vegas and his lavish spending habits. It also showed him talking about sleepovers with children at Neverland and holding the hand of a cancer-stricken boy - the boy who is now Jackson's accuser. - Compiled from Daily wire reports. After 1990, United Nations sanctions following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait blocked the free transfer of money abroad. On Wednesday, officials said they were considering creating a specialized Iraqi paramilitary battalion to help fight the insurgents. The plan appears to be aimed at bolstering counterinsurgency efforts and replacing U.S. combat troops in the anti-guerrilla role with Iraqi forces. The tactical unit would be capable of conducting independent operations. American officials in Baghdad and Washington said Wednesday that the new 1,000-member unit would be formed by uniting fighters from five Iraqi political parties under the joint leadership of the U.S. military and the emerging Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. If created, the paramilitary unit would represent a significant policy reversal by the United States, which previously declared private militias illegal and called on Iraqi political leaders to dis- band them. The Pentagon's policy chief said Wednesday the United States would welcome militia members into the Iraqi security forces as long as they agreed to drop their previous party affiliations. "We are willing to take people into these forces as long as when they come in they are not operating as members of these other (militia) forces," U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith said in Washington. The militia members would be recruited as individuals, not as intact units, Feith said. Also Wednesday, U.S. soldiers cap- tured former Brig. Gen. Daham al- Mahemdi, who is suspected of recent contacts with Saddam, in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. 4 , 1 ~1 WWW.MICHIGANDAILY.COM The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students 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. 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