2 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, February 16, 2005 NATION/WORLD U.S. pulls ambassador from Syria NEws IN BRIEF , __ .4 . WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States pulled its ambassador from Syria yesterday, expressing "pro- found outrage" over the= assassination of a Lebanese leader who had protested Syr- ian influence in his country. Washington stopped short of directly accusing Syria of = carrying out the murder. In Lebanon, there were noisy street processions mourning for- k mer Prime Minister Rafik Hariri a day ahead of the funeral that will bring international lead- ers to Beirut. Angry Lebanese attacked Syrian workers in the former leader's hometown of Sidon, injuring several and shat- tering the windows of a Syrian- owned bakery. Many Lebanese are press- ing Syria to withdraw its 15,000 soldiers who have been in the country for more than a decade. "We believe the Lebanese people must be free to express their political preferences and . cihoose their own representatives 21 ... without intimidation or the threat. of violence," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher Syrian President Ba said in announcing the imminent The U. S. pulled itsa return of U.S. Ambassador Mar- garet Scobey. Her return does not break diplomatic relations with Syria, a country the United States has accused of exporting terrorism. Syria took no immediate reciprocal action, such as recalling its own ambas- sador from Washington. Hariri died Monday when a huge car bomb blew up his motorcade in downtown Beirut. Sixteen oth- ers also died in the bombing. The killing was the most serious and destabilizing violence in Leba- non in more than a decade. It came just as Israel and the Palestinians were taking initial hopeful steps toward a peace agreement, and as the Bush administration was pressing for greater democratic changes elsewhere in the Middle East. The bombing also made Syria an unwelcome problem for the Bush administration. Not quite ' 11LCLL Lw1 1pl. L"1- V 1V L I 1tl SS ix l . ssKmm-a JERUSALEM Sharon continues with withdrawal plans Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday he has already begun coordinating a Gaza withdrawal with the Palestinians and will not be deterred by increasingly bel- ligerent opposition at home, including threats against him and his Cabinet ministers. In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed two armed Palestinians who the army said approached a West Bank settlement. The two belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Bri- gades, a violent group with ties to Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. Militants said gunmen were from a local Al-Aqsa cell financed by Lebanese Hezbol- lah guerrillas who oppose a fledgling Israeli-Palestinian truce. Al-Aqsa members indicated they would retaliate. They said the two men were guarding an abandoned Palestinian house near the settlement and were killed by Israeli troops without provocation. Sharon, speaking at a carefully scripted news conference, said if Palestinian mili- tants attack Israeli soldiers or settlers during the Gaza withdrawal, set to begin in July, Israel would respond harshly and may even call off the pullout. Israel's parliament was to hold a final vote on the Gaza withdrawal today, with the plan expected to win approval. Having lost the political battle, Jewish extremists have stepped up a campaign of intimidation against politicians who support the plan. FLUXIN, China Miners missing after explosion in China Rescue crews yesterday were searching for a dozen coal miners missing nearly 800 feet underground after a gas explosion in China's northeast killed 203 people in the deadliest mining disaster reported since communist rule began in 1949. The explosion Monday afternoon at the Sunjiawan mine left 12 miners trapped underground and injured 22 others with carbon monoxide poisoning, burns and fractures, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. One trapped miner was rescued yesterday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after the blast, Xinhua said. The cause of the blast was under investigation, Xinhua said. It said the disaster occurred 794 feet below the surface. Late yesterday, a thick cordon of men in dark coats and helmets stood side by side, blocking the entrance to the mine, as cars full of paramilitary police patrolled the site. A line of vans waited to transport any injured to hospitals in Fuxin, a gritty soot-covered city where mining is the main industry. WASHINGTON Government sets up drug monitoring board The government is setting up a monitoring board to keep checking on medicines once they're on the market and to update doctors and patients on risks and benefits. Plans for the board were announced yesterday on the eve of a congressional hearing on the safety of prescription pain killers like Vioxx and Celebrex that blossomed into a $5 billion-a-year business before risks from potential side effects came to light. A medical journal questioned whether continued use of such products was justified. Vioxx was pulled from the market in September after a study showed an increase in heart attacks and strokes among people using it. Other studies have also raised questions of heart problems with the similar drugs Celebrex and Bextra. AP PHOTO shar Assad meets with U.S. Ambassador to Syria Margaret Scobey in Damascus Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004. ambassador from Syria yesterday, expressing "profound outrage" over the assassination of a Lebanese leader. one month into his second term, President Bush was already facing new diplomatic headaches with Iran and North Korea. Syria, which has denied any involvement in Hariri's assassination, keeps its troops in Lebanon 15 years after the country's civil war ended, and has the final say in internal Lebanese politics. Damascus says its troops are needed to keep peace for the Lebanese. The bombing raised fears that Lebanon might revert to-the political violence of the 1970s and '80s. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut warned Americans in the Lebanese capital to be extremely careful. After the killing, Scobey "delivered a message to the Syrian government expressing our deep concern, as well as our profound outrage, over this heinous act of terror- ism," Boucher said. The Bush administration's actions indicated that it saw a Syrian hand behind the bombing, but neither Boucher nor White House press secretary Scott McClellan would say so outright. "We have not made any determination of responsibil- ity," Boucher said. The assassination led to the ambas- sador's recall because the killing "shows the distortions of Lebanese politics that are created by the Syrian pres- ence," and calls into question Syria's explanation that its troops provide internal security. The administration had earlier condemned the killing of Hariri, a billionaire construction mag- nate who masterminded the recovery of his coun- try, and insisted that Syria comply with a U.N. resolution calling for the withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon. TOKYO, Japan Afghanistan cls for more weapony Pact to decrease emission of greenhouse gases Two centuries after the dawn of the industrial age, the world today takes ;to~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ "is nnrn en orl 44naicn fnennc on S KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - As the United States accelerates its training of Afghanistan's fledgling army, the nation's defense minis- ter has revealed a list of high-tech weaponry he says his nation needs to defend itself. Defense Minister Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press his requests include Apache helicopter gunships and A-10 ground attack planes, which the more than 1,000 American train- ers embedded with the new Afghan army can currently call in from U.S. bases in an emergency. He would also like U.S. forces to help create and train Afghan com- mando, engineer and intelligence units. Transport planes and armored vehicles would also help, War- dak said, and predicted a positive response from Washington. "Once we improve our capabili- ties, I think we will be good enough to deal with any sort of internal threat," including Islamic militants, drug smugglers and warlords, War- dak said. "We think if we take more of the burden of security it will be much more economical - in terms Looking for a career that radiates success? Then talk to someone who knows science. of money and human life - for the coalition and NATO." Wardak and Col. Bob Sharp, a senior official in the U.S.-led coali- tion, also said Washington and Kabul are considering a long-term security relationship that may include contin- ued American bases. The office of Lt. Gen. David Barno, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and the U.S. Embas- sy in Kabul had no comment. Three years after a devastating air campaign drove out the former ruling Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden, the U.S. military still has 17,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Swaths of the countryside remain under the influence of militants or warlords resisting the authority of President Hamid Karzai. The re-emergence of the cen- tral government and the expansion of both the U.S.-trained Afghan National Army and NATO-led secu- rity forces in Afghanistan are easing the burden on the American military, which claims that Taliban-led insur- gents are a waning threat. The Afghan national army had been expected to reach its full strength of 70,000, including 43,000 ground troops, by September 2007. Sharp, the British chief of staff of the Office of Military Coopera- tion, which coordinates the training, told AP that the number of Afghan battalions being trained simultane- ously is going up to six in March, and that the increase will allow the force to reach full strength by the end of 2006. With the graduation of 709 train- ee soldiers and officers Sunday, the army numbers almost 20,000 sol- diers, already more than a match for the factional militias they are sup- posed to replace under a U.N.-spon- sored disarmament campaign. Sharp and Wardak said they didn't know when the Pentagon might decide to reduce its pres- ence in Afghanistan, though Barno has suggested it could happen this year if Taliban fighters sign up for a planned amnesty. "The more ANA (Afghan National Army) we get on the ground, wearing their green berets with their very high reputation, the easier we've found it is to stabilize the country and put an Afghan face on it," Sharp said. Wardak said it was too early to say how long the United States would maintain air bases in Afghanistan, which borders Iran, Pakistan and China, as well as oil-rich Central Asia. The country's first post-Tal- ihnn narlrament woaldaloe have tn its first concerted step to roiltack the emission of greenhouse gases believed linked to climate change with the enactment of the Kyoto global warming pact. The agreement, negotiated in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto in 1997 and ratified by 140 nations, calls on 35 industrialized countries to rein in the release of carbon dioxide and five other gases from the burning of oil and coal and other processes. Its impact, however, will be limited by the absence of the United States, the world's leader in greenhouse gas emissions. 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