November 30, 2002 News                                 http://www.aljazeerah.info                                    

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2 million Muslims pray at Holy Mosques
By Siraj Wahab, Arab News Staff

MAKKAH, 30 November 2002 — An estimated two million faithful congregated in the Grand Mosque here and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah yesterday to mark the fourth and last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

Palestinian teenager killed by Israeli fire in Gaza Strip, Israel faces new row with UN

Khaleej Times, 11/30/02

The death brought to 2,732 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation 26 months ago, including 2,004 Palestinians and 678 Israelis. - AFP

Israel also faced a new row with the United Nations over its demand for Israeli troops to be punished for killing a UN employee, while the country picked up the pieces after attacks on Israelis at home and abroad.

Saudis may panic and sell US investments: Alwaleed

Arab News

“The market is getting worried that Arab money would pull out of the States because they fear that their accounts would be frozen if there was another terrorist attack,” said Hans Redeker, global head of foreign exchange strategy at BNP Paribas. (R)

Troops also arrested eight of their brothers, they added. The houses of Omar Mohammed Abu Rub, 19, and Yusef Mohammed Taleb Abu Rub, 20, in the West Bank village of Jalbun, near Jenin, were dynamited by Israeli troops.

Compiled by Daily Star staff

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, resoundingly re-elected to head his Likud Party, vowed Friday to hunt down the plotters behind twin attacks in Kenya that nearly brought down a plane and killed 15, including three Israelis, in a suicide car bombing.
The coffins of the Israeli victims were flown to Israel accompanied by nine wounded compatriots and dozens of other tourists who survived the attack on a hotel near Mombasa.
Among the slain Israelis were two brothers aged 12 and 13 from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
Israel had more dead to bury from another attack Thursday by two Palestinian militants who opened fire on a Likud polling station in northern Israel, killing six Israelis and seriously wounding several others before they were shot. In retaliation, the army destroyed the West Bank houses of the two gunmen, who belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Five of the six victims of the election day shooting were laid to rest in Beit Shean in a funeral attended by three Cabinet ministers, while the sixth was buried in nearby Upper Nazareth.
“We will not give in to terror … Israel will go after those who spilled the blood of its citizens,” a triumphant Sharon said after beating Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Likud leadership primaries. “We saw just how much our lives as citizens and as a democracy are connected with the struggle that we are fighting for our future … It’s difficult for me to say I’m excited.”
And as he eyes another term in office after the Jan. 28 general elections, Sharon said: “The Likud will double its  forces … and if we all work together we will reach the highest result ­ we will lead the country through all the challenges facing us over the next four years.”
One of his advisers told AFP there were similarities between the Mombasa attack and the Bali bombing which killed 190 in October, and admitted that the work of the investigators would be difficult as the operation could have involved several groups.
“In Mombasa, we cannot rule out the scenario where a group, in this case perhaps Al-Qaeda, acted as a subcontractor for a Palestinian organization,” Zalman Shoval said.
The “Army of Palestine” said it carried out the attacks “to make the world hear again the voice of Palestinian refugees … and shine the light on Zionist terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
But in Berlin, Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath vehemently denied any Palestinian involvement in the attacks.
“We have already been through lethal terror attacks, days of blood and fire, bereavement and shock. Still, something special happened to us yesterday. Mombasa and Beit Shean, each in turn, shattered something basic in the Israeli way of life,” the Israeli daily Maariv said Friday.
The latest violence raised tensions in the Middle East, which US President George W. Bush had hoped would remain quiet as his administration looks to unseat the regime in Iraq.
As the bloodshed spiraled, Sharon looked well on course to be re-elected Israel’s prime minister in the Jan. 28 legislative elections. All recent opinion polls predict that Sharon will defeat Labor’s dovish new leader, Amram Mitzna.
Paradoxically, an opinion poll published in the daily Haaretz on Friday indicates that a majority of Israelis support Mitzna’s ideas and back a unilateral withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip, but would vote with their heads rather than their hearts. Daily clashes oppose Israeli troops and Palestinian militants in the narrow densely populated strip, where Mitzna wants all Jewish settlements dismantled. ­ Agencies

The Daily Star, 11/30/02

Al-Qaeda and a Somali-based fundamentalist group are the prime suspects in a twin attack targeting Israeli tourists in Kenya, US officials said Friday, as Kenyan authorities announced that they had detained 12 people for questioning.
Those detained included six Pakistanis, Kenyan police spokesman Kingori Mwangi said. The three others under detention were an American, a Spaniard and a Kenyan. But he did not say whether they were suspects in Thursday’s suicide bombing which killed 15 people at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, or the  missiles which narrowly missed an Israeli jetliner taking off from the same port city.
In Washington, a US State Department official said an American woman and her Spanish husband were “innocent backpackers and were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” and would be freed shortly.
The official said the couple, who were not identified, were on vacation in Kenya at the time of Thursday’s attacks and were among 12 people picked up by authorities in a sweep of Mombasa. The husband holds permanent residency in the US.
Mwangi said that nine of those detained were picked up from two boats that were intercepted at sea.
Kenyan investigators, joined by Israeli and US colleagues, were pursuing leads amid growing suspicion the attacks may have been carried out by Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
“At this point is not clear who is responsible ­ it’s too early,” one US official said.
But he said at the top of the list of suspects is the Somali-based Islamic extremist group Al-Itihad al-Islami, known also as AIAI or as the Islamic Union. The official said Al-Itihad, which is on the United States’ “terrorist” watchlist, was a prominent radical Islamist group in the Horn of Africa.
“They also possess ties to Al-Qaeda,” he said.
Analysts said the synchronized attacks were a hallmark of Al-Qaeda’s operations. Just minutes before suicide bombers drove a car into the lobby of the Israeli-owned hotel, missiles were fired at a plane full of Israeli tourists taking off nearby.
“The pattern could fit Al-Qaeda or one of the standard groups that attack Israel,” another US administration official said. “They have in the past attacked Israeli interests outside the Middle East.”
Some analysts who believe Al-Qaeda was responsible say the attacks ­ which would the first by the group directly aimed at Israelis ­ were intended to rally Muslim support.
In its 2001 report on Global Terrorism, the US State Department defined Al-Itihad as Somalia’s largest militant Islamic organization. It said the group, which aims to create an Islamic regime in Somalia, usually utilized “insurgent-style attacks” against Ethiopian forces and other Somali factions.
Analysts say that in the mid-1990s the group was the main militant Islamist political movement in the Horn of Africa. It was active, sometimes militarily, in parts of Somalia and ethnic Somali areas of Ethiopia.
The group claimed a series of bomb attacks in Ethiopia in the mid-1990s and had links to secessionist guerrilla groups among Ethiopia’s Oromo and Somali communities.
But in recent years, the group has shrunk in size and ended most military activities. Many former leaders are now concentrating on business or other areas.
But two or three top Al-Itihad leaders believed by some US officials to have had links to Al-Qaeda have disappeared since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and are believed to be in hiding.
Also in Washington, the government reminded airports of the danger posed to airliners by shoulder-mounted missiles, citing the two weapons fired Thursday at the Israeli plane.
“We have taken the steps we need to take to make sure everyone’s in the loop,” Transportation Security Administration spokesman Robert Johnson said Friday.
The agency on Thursday notified security officials at airports of steps being taken by the federal government to counter the threat of a terrorist shooting down a plane from a portable launcher on the ground, Johnson said. ­ Agencies

Ed Blanche
The Daily Star, 11/30/02

The Israeli military disclosed earlier this month that the number of desertions has risen sharply since the intifada erupted in September 2000. This has occurred as thousands of the 445,000 reservists have been mobilized every month, with many refusing to serve in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Military police are pursuing at least 40 percent more deserters than last year. Last week, there were 2,616 deserters, compared to 1,564 in the corresponding week in 2001 ­ an increase of some 67.2 percent.
Army officers said that many of the desertions were attributed to conscripts and reservists whose families were facing difficulties due to the country’s economic problems or because they feared losing their jobs while they served prolonged periods ­ the current average is 33 days a year ­ fighting Palestinians. But many young Israelis, including combat veterans, are refusing to serve in the territories because they find the occupation morally repugnant.
A month ago, it came to light that the army’s Manpower Division had found that 45 percent of young men fit to serve do not do so, with projections that by 2008 the figure will have reached 50 percent. There are probably a variety of explanations for this, but the brutalizing effect of the intifada, the dangers it involves ­ some 210 soldiers killed so far ­ and a growing sense of the immorality of the occupation are undoubtedly important factors.
Last week Maariv, Israel’s leading mass-circulation daily, reported on a special “rehabilitation village” near Caesaria, the ancient Roman city on the coast north of Tel Aviv, where more than 100 former combat soldiers are being treated for major mental breakdowns caused by their experiences during the intifada. They include men who served with elite formations such as Sayeret Matkal, the top commando unit, or the Duvdevan (Cherry) which specializes in undercover operations against the Palestinians, often assassination missions carried out by men disguised as Arabs.
A senior army officer was quoted as saying of the so-called intifada syndrome: “The situation is a real timebomb.”
In January, 52 reservists, including junior officers from combat units, signed a petition declaring that they refused to serve in the territories and participate in “the oppression and occupation of the Palestinians,” but were willing to fulfil their obligations “when it concerns defending the state of Israel.” Since then another 500 reservists have joined them in a movement called Courage to Refuse. They have become known as “refuseniks,” the name given to Russian Jews denied exit visas to leave the Soviet Union.
Some have been imprisoned by military authorities, usually for about a month, but one group of eight officers has taken the unprecedented step of petitioning Israel’s Supreme Court to recognize their refusal to serve in the territories as justified on the grounds that over the last two years the state has systematically violated Palestinians’ human rights in an occupation that they say has become illegal.
The court’s ruling on the petition is still pending. If the officers’ appeal is upheld it would cause a legal and political earthquake, challenging the very basis of Israeli policy since 1967 and the legitimacy and authority of the military to an unprecedented degree. It could open the floodgates of dissent within a once-vaunted military establishment whose pride and sense of mission have been steadily eroded over the last two decades as Israeli society itself underwent profound change. Which is why the odds are against such a landmark decision.
Despite the shock that their actions have inflicted on their countrymen, their cause has found little support in a society that under the onslaught of the suicide bombers has little sympathy for moral issues and seeks only for the army to crush the intifada by whatever means necessary and stop the carnage.
True, the dissidents have breathed new life into the faltering Peace Now movement, founded during the Lebanon war, but not enough to restore the moral force it enjoyed before the intifada. Moderates have been stifled, while the violence has strengthened the right wing and the lunatic fringe of the ultra-nationalists. Indeed, hard-line rabbis have urged military commanders to execute refuseniks.
But with all the hardening of society, there has been a chain of miscalculations and setbacks over the last 20 years that undermined morale and shook Israelis’ sense of security and moral superiority even before the ferocity of the suicide bombers was unleashed. The relative affluence of Israeli society, a growing materialism and use of drugs, the increasing influence of Orthodox Jewry in a largely secular society, a greater emphasis on individual fulfillment and readiness to question venerable institutions like the “Israel Defense Force,” have diluted the Zionist ideals on which the state was founded.
The army’s failings, from training accidents to human rights abuses, have come under public scrutiny to an extent that would have unimaginable not so long ago. The confessions of several former senior officers a few years ago that they had killed up to 1,000 Egyptian prisoners during the 1956 and 1967 wars ­ some by units under the command of Ariel Sharon ­ amplified the findings of Israel’s “new historians.”
Their critical re-examination of the myths of Israel’s creation has painted a less heroic and virtuous picture of how the pioneers won a land already occupied by others than the one with which two generations of Israelis have grown up.
The near-catastrophe of the 1973 war undermined Israelis’ once-unshakable faith and trust in the military, but it was the much-disputed invasion of Lebanon, which became a military disaster, that produced the first real organized dissent.
The first intifada, which erupted in December 1987 and continued until 1993 when the first Oslo accord was signed, brought more scars and many soldiers who did not want to fight in the territories.
“The uprising broke” the military, says Martin van Creveld, the Jewish state’s leading military historian.
As the malaise deepened within the army, Zeev Schiff, Israel’s leading military commentator, wrote in Haaretz on June 16, 1989, that “the intifada has brought about the brutalization of an entire generation of soldiers. For the time being, the price is being paid by the Arab rioters, but the final bill will submitted to Israeli society, to the Jewish state. We will not be able to evade it, and it will not matter that the Palestinians will bear most of the blame for starting the initial violence.
“Some of the side-effects of the miserable war in Lebanon,” he said, “were, aside from thousands of deaths and maimings in a foreign country, instances of looting, drug abuse, and smuggling. The intifada exacts a different price: brutalization.”
Now another generation of young soldiers is suffering the same fate.
The occupation of South Lebanon, following the 1985 pullback from the rest of the country, also took its toll. There were repeated incidents where soldiers abandoned their posts or defied their officers because few could see the value of dying for a chunk of territory that had little strategic value. It was opposition to the occupation on the home front as the body bags kept coming back that eventually compelled Ehud Barak to simply get out.
The refuseniks hope their campaign will ignite the same kind of pressure. Despite public apathy and efforts by the army, fearful of a major collapse in discipline, to keep the lid on this phenomenon, dissident leader David Zonshein, a decorated infantry lieutenant and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, and his supporters keep plugging away.
According to Yesh Gevul (“There is a Limit”), a movement that has supported dissidents like the refuseniks for 20 years, over 1,000 Israelis have refused to serve in the territories since the intifada broke out. A few weeks ago, 200 high-school students vowed to defy the draft when their time came, saying in a letter addressed to Sharon that they would refuse to serve in “an army of occupation.”

1982 debacle gave birth to dissent

It really all started during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
For the first time, Israeli soldiers questioned the reason for the war into which their leaders had thrown them, especially when then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon led them into West Beirut, the first Arab capital ever conquered by Israeli forces, and they became bogged down in a costly war of attrition with Lebanese resistance forces that did not seem to have any purpose that they could discern.
For decades, the close identification of Israel’s military forces with society at large had been a major source of strength. But the Lebanon war changed all that, with dissension within the military reflecting the swelling anti-war sentiment in Israeli society.
Eventually, soldiers began to openly defy their commanders.
The most prominent among them was Colonel Eli Geva, who commanded the brigade that spearheaded the western pincer thrust into Lebanon on July 5, 1982, and fought its way up to Beirut. Geva, the youngest brigade commander in the army, was a distinguished armored commander, the son of a general and a hero of the 1973 war. He questioned the need for Israeli forces to move into West Beirut and refused to lead an attack on the city, in which civilian casualties were bound to be high.
Israeli troops had never fought large-scale engagements in an urban arena, with the partial exception of the battles for Jerusalem in 1948 and 1967, and had rarely come into contact with civilians in combat in wars that were fought almost exclusively in desert or thinly populated areas like the Golan Heights.
Geva asked to be removed from his command. He later told Prime Minister Menachem Begin that he would not kill women and children and offered to resign his commission and fight with his men as an ordinary soldier.
The request was denied.
He was dismissed from the military, but his dissent became a cause celebre in Israel as opposition to the war intensified. Another colonel who wrote an anonymous defense of Geva’s action published in Haaretz was also dismissed when he was identified by military authorities.
Several senior officers tendered their resignations because they publicly disagreed with the conduct of the war. Among them was General Amran Mitzna, a soldier with a distinguished combat record who was then the head of the military Command and Staff College. Miztna was elected leader of the Labor Party a couple of weeks ago and says he is prepared to talk to Yasser Arafat in an effort to find a political solution to the intifada. ­ E.B.

Riad al Khouri
The Daily Star, 11/30/02

The acceleration of globalization has sparked a renewed focus on migration dynamics. This growing interest has materialized in a number of migration-related actions and events at the global level as well as in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Though internal migration is important in MENA, the region’s biggest headaches as far as the flow of people is concerned are with the European Union, and recent signs are this situation will get more difficult in the near future.
One of the reasons for this harsh outlook is an increasingly tough EU stance on unwanted migrants. This was the message delivered this week by the first European “readmission” accord with a foreign entity, in this case Hong Kong, though with direct implications for MENA. The pact provides for the “rapid and effective identification and return of persons illegally entering or remaining” in the EU from Hong Kong (and vice versa). Such a readmission agreement, which sets out conditions for repatriating illegal immigrants, will be central in efforts to minimize the flow of unwanted migrants to Europe. This first readmission agreement will therefore give a push to the EU’s efforts to develop a tough common policy on illegal immigration.
The relevance of this for MENA is enormous. The EU is already in readmission talks with Morocco and Pakistan, among other countries, and following the Hong Kong pact, has decided to discuss accords allowing for the rapid repatriation of illegal immigrants with more countries, including Algeria and Turkey. Estimates are that about 500,000 people enter the EU illicitly each year, adding to the roughly 3 million illegal immigrants already there, many of whom are from MENA.
The Afghan immigrant question is a separate one, for obvious reasons, but it is no less thorny. To deal with it, arrangements to repatriate Afghans living illegally in Europe have also just been made by European interior ministers. The plan is part of an EU clampdown on illegal migration, endorsed by EU leaders after electoral gains by anti-immigration parties across the continent. Returnees would go mainly on a voluntary basis, but the European Union has endorsed the use of force in sending Afghanis back to their country. The program will be launched during the coming spring, and would return some 1,500 Afghans a month. About $17 million will be spent in 2003 to fund the return program.
The other side of this coin is the increasing focus in the MENA states themselves on various aspects of issues related to migration to Europe. This has been especially true of Arab countries, where as part of a more proactive policy, the Arab League’s Population Policies Department and the International Organization for Migration will be holding a major regional conference on “Arab Migration in a Globalized World,” from April 15-17, 2003.
To be held at Arab League headquarters in Cairo, the gathering will be an opportunity for Arab decision-makers and international as well as regional experts to contribute to better understanding of Arab migration in the context of changing international economic relations.
The increased mobility of labor, the inter-dependency of markets and the growing need for skills in the fields of information, technology, and knowledge management pose a new set of unsolved questions for the MENA Region in general and the Arab world in particular, such as: Has the relative composition of the different kinds of migratory flows (temporary, permanent, documented, undocumented) changed in the last decade? Have migratory flows changed in magnitude, pattern and characteristics? Did migration reduce income difference between countries and regions?
By answering these and related questions, the conference aims to contribute to the dialogue and research about the various issues concerning Arab migration in a globalized world.

ISTANBUL: Elected to form Turkey’s first majority administration in 1 years, the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) has already won friends on the international stage. Its pragmatic attitude to regional conflict, its hands-on approach to the 28-year-old problem of Cyprus and its stated total commitment to realizing Turkey’s bid for membership in the European Union have all gone down well abroad, but at home it will be its management of the economy that defines its success.
The AKP inherits an economy that in February 2001 all but collapsed, with the Turkish pound losing 60 percent of its value almost overnight, necessitating a $16 billion bailout by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Now, after 18 months of strict IMF controls, Turkey’s battered economy appears to be well on the way to recovery, with inflation falling and industrial output soaring. Production figures for October for the automotive sector ­ among Turkey’s key export earners and one of the few sectors to have attracted significant direct foreign investment ­ showed a 78 percent increase on the same month last year, fueled largely by an export boom driven by low Turkish manufacturing costs brought about by the weakened pound.
In other export-led manufacturing sectors such as textiles and household appliances, the story is similar. Overall manufacturing output for November is expected to indicate that demand is well on the way to returning to pre-crisis levels, with exports being supplemented by increased domestic buying on the back of heightened market stability and consumer confidence ­ both in turn buoyed by the political stability brought by the new administration.
In short, despite the recent crisis, Turkey’s new moderate Islamist government is far from inheriting an economy on the verge of death.
“The government has a historic opportunity to heal the economy. With very little effort they will be able to achieve significant results,” said Ishak Alaton, head of Turkey’s giant Alarko Corporation, which is active in sectors ranging from construction and manufacturing to tourism.
Alaton, a leading member of Turkey’s tiny Jewish community, adds that he is “close to a number of the AKP leaders, including the new economy minister Ali Babacan.”
This supports perceptions that while generally referred to as an Islamist party, the AKP has succeeded in breaking down barriers and inspiring trust across a wide spectrum of Turkish society. Alaton sees the AKP as being composed of pragmatic people who “understand the importance of maintaining market confidence.”
Indeed, market confidence has already emerged as a major consideration of the new government as both its appointments and early policy statements have caused ripples. The appointment of the American-educated Babacan as economy minister raised many eyebrows in financial circles ­ at 35 he is the youngest economy minister in Turkish history, and one of the youngest to occupy any portfolio. Similarly, the news that the new government planned to push for growth sparked fears that it may introduce major changes to the IMF rescue program, requiring Babacan and other AKP leaders to make repeated denials that they will push the IMF to revise its plans.
“They are showing great sensitivity to the markets ­ and are sweeping up carefully when someone makes a mistake,” said Cem Akyurek, senior economist at Istanbul’s Global Securities. “If they show the same sensitivity to policy institutions such as the central bank and stick with the existing program, inflation will drop, interest rates will come down, demand will increase and the growth will occur naturally.”
The Turkish Central Bank has gained credibility with international lenders by sticking to the interest rate targets laid down by the IMF. As a result, inflation has dropped and by the end of the year is expected to fall to the target of 35 percent ­ well on the way to the 20 percent figure the rescue plan foresees for end of 2003.
Though it might have a historic opportunity, the new government is also faced with a difficult balancing act. Much of its support comes from sectors of society badly hit by last year’s collapse, which saw over 2.5 million people lose their jobs and left as many as 9 million ­ 15 percent of the Turkish population ­ living on or below the poverty line. It has also attracted support from the country’s huge agricultural sector, unhappy at the IMF-sponsored removal of farm subsidies.
Hints by the new government that it aims to help both Turkey’s poor and its farmers by pumping up to $1 billion into the economy have raised fears of “overheating.” Any such move would be doubly risky, on the one hand making it difficult to meet established inflation targets which in turn would leave interest rates high, risking the very growth the government aims to promote, and on the other hand jeopardizing market confidence.
The new administration is obliged not only to continue working with the IMF, but also to be seen to be doing so without any hint of dispute. Its first opportunity to show the markets that it can work effectively with the fund comes on Dec. 2-3 when IMF Europe director Michael Deppler and Turkey desk chief Juha Kahkonen are due in Ankara to meet with officials, a visit that will be followed on Dec. 9 by the arrival of the main IMF mission charged with conducting the fourth review of Turkey’s economic progress since the start of the $16 billion rescue program in mid-2000.
“Deppler won’t be spending much time with the central bank and the treasury. It’s the AKP people they need to convince,” said Cem Akyurek, referring to reports that AKP officials were not committing themselves to IMF targets.
“The IMF wants a 6.5 percent surplus ­ we’ll discuss that and make an agreement,”  Trade and Industry Minister Ali Coskun said at a recent press conference. “Their emphasis has been on monetary policies, but we want to add a social dimension to the program.”
Few would argue that Turkey’s poor deserve some consideration, but it remains to be seen just how much leeway the IMF will allow the new administration, and how far the new government is prepared to go to get its way.
“The bottom line is that the government hasn’t finalized the details of its program yet,” said Global Securities’ Akyurek. “We won’t know exactly what they’re planning to do until after they’ve met with the IMF.”

Benazir vows to fight 'another dictatorship'
By Amir Zia, Gulf News,  30-11-2002


Former premier Benazir Bhutto vowed yesterday that her Pakistan People's  Party (PPP) would remain in the forefront to fight against what she called another dictatorship in which the "establishment is seeking to rewrite the constitution to perpetuate its stranglehold on power and deny the people their rights".

"The principles of democracy and 'power to the people' were trampled last week in Islamabad when a government lacking in moral basis was foisted on the people through horse-trading and floor-crossing of the worst kind," said Bhutto in a statement on the eve of PPP's 35th founding day falling today.

"Within days these principles were trampled once again when... the Sindh Provincial Assembly session was postponed indefinitely to buy time for buying conscience to deny the people their mandate," she said.

Ten of 80 lawmakers belonging to the PPP in the National Assembly have formed a dissident faction of the party called the PPP Parliamentarians Patriots, which has joined the coalition government led by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

The fragile government has been formed with a simple majority of just one vote and it has been shaken after a key coalition partner, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), announced its decision two days ago to sit on the opposition benches.

Bhutto, who lives in self-imposed exile, said that her party is "determined more than ever before to foil the state-sponsored bid" to divide the mainstream political parties to perpetuate what she called establishment's undemocratic agenda.

The October 10 elections have brought a hung parliament and the PPP has been accusing the military establishment of trying to force its members change its loyalties at the centre and also in the Sindh province, considered the party's stronghold.

Bhutto said that it is the proud heritage of her party to have led the resistance against "dictatorships, given the country a unanimous constitution, nuclear capability and a democratic culture".

"I ask the party workers to forge unity in their ranks and frustrate the state-sponsored bid to fractionalise the party through bribery and intimidation," she said.

"The PPP workers should gear themselves to face the challenges that lie ahead."

PPP's founding chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged in 1979 by military dictator Gen. Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, who targeted the party until he himself perished in 1998 in a mysterious plane crash.

Since then, Benazir  was elected to power twice, but both times she failed to complete her five-year term and was removed from power on charges of corruption and misrule.

Bhutto denies these charges and says the country's powerful establishment, which is opposed to what she calls her liberal and pro-people policies, cooked up these charges to keep her out of power.

Also yesterday, Bhutto condemned the dismissal from service of 67 teachers and doctors recently for protesting against the board of governors in hospitals and denationalisation of educational institutions.

Scores of other teachers and doctors have been given other punishments for taking part in the joint action committee demonstrations against the board of governors in educational institutions and hospitals and the model university ordinance.

In another statement, Bhutto said that teachers are the nation's heroes. "It is most unfortunate that a highly educated class of people, including teachers and doctors, are thrown out of jobs  and given other punishments for agitating for their rights," she said.

Sinn Fein plays down reports IRA disbanding

BELFAST - Sinn Fein rejected newspaper reports on Saturday that the Irish Republican Army guerrilla group was edging towards disarming and disbanding. "The British have not put anything on the table that would warrant anybody talking to anybody about such a move," a senior source in Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, told Reuters. "These reports are speculative".

Several British newspapers reported on Saturday that the IRA was moving towards a historic declaration that its war with Britain was over and that it had given up military operations and would decommission all weapons. The reports coincided with a private meeting in England between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern.

"The negotiations are at a very early stage and our focus at this time is getting the British government to spell out clearly how it plans to deal with reinstating the political institutions and implement the Good Friday Agreement," the Sinn Fein source said. "And they have not been able to do that at this time."

Britain suspended Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly last month after Protestant unionists said they would no longer sit in government with Sinn Fein while the IRA remained active. The Catholic-backed IRA, which fought for three decades to end British rule in the province, stands accused of a string of alleged ceasefire breaches, from spying on British ministers in Belfast to training leftwing FARC guerrillas in Colombia. The IRA recently reaffirmed its commitment to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

PRESSURE ON BLAIR

But it said there were elements, including British intelligence services, who were "planting mischievous stories in the media" alleging IRA involvement in illegal activities in a bid to discredit republicans' role in the peace process. It denied sending anyone to Colombia and said it had not broken its ceasefire.

Blair has backed demands by Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble for IRA disbandment, saying the peace process could not continue "with the IRA half in, half out". The UUP have also indicated they may veto next May's Assembly elections if there is no movement by the IRA. The IRA's ceasefire is the basis of its political ally Sinn Fein's participation in the assembly.

The IRA has decommissioned two of its weapons dumps, as verified by arms inspectors, but is believed to have many more. Although it has refrained from attacking British troops and police or bombing "economic targets" since its 1997 ceasefire, security sources say its organisation remains intact.

More than 3,600 people were killed during Northern Ireland's "Troubles" between majority Protestants committed to links with Britain and a Catholic minority in favour of unity with the Irish republic to the south. - Reuters

The Arab American Institute would like to extend a Happy Thanksgiving and Ramadan Karim to all its friends in the United States and around the world!

Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday, our offices will be closed from November 28^th to December 1^st. Please note as well that there will not be an issue of Countdown this week. We will return to our normal schedule on December 2^nd.  Here's a list of things to watch for over the holiday weekend and in the coming weeks.

If you're looking for a movie to see this weekend, check out the new film Extreme Ops by Arab American writer/director Michael Zaidan. The film is being released tomorrow (November 27^th, Thanksgiving Day). For more information, please visit the film's website at http://www.extremeopsmovie.com/

Synopsis:
A film crew travels to the Austrian Alps near the (former) Yugoslav border to film three extreme sports enthusiasts being chased down by an avalanche for a commercial. What they don't know, however, is that they're filming near the secret hideout of Slobodan Pavle, a Serbian war criminal. Accidentally catching him on film, they become locked in a life-or-death chase through the mountains that includes skiing, snowboarding, sky diving, white water rafting, helicopters, motorcycles, and base jumping.

Next week, the Arab American Institute will release a statement and information on the extension of the Justice Department's special registration rules. Previously, men over the age of 16 from five countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan, and Syria) were required to present themselves to federal authorities for questioning and fingerprinting. This program has been extended to the nationals of 13 additional countries. They are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The deadline for registration is January 10^th, 2003. Please watch next week for more information.

In the coming weeks, the Arab American Institute will release its 2002 election report, which includes a summary of important races as well as an analysis of the impact of the elections on the Arab American community.

DOJ (U.S. Department Of Justice Agrees to Releases Patriot Act data to ACLU

II Wishes its Friends and Supporters a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday

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