The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, March 05, 2003, Image 8

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    8
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
North Korea interception of
U.S. plane raises nuclear tension
By Christopher Torchia
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea —
After North Korean fighter jets
intercepted a U.S. reconnais
sance plane, the communist
country said Tuesday the threat
of armed confrontation on the
Korean Peninsula was growing
because of what it called U.S.
aggression.
North Korea did not com
ment on the interception of the
plane. Its state-run
media instead criti
cized annual U.S.-
South Korean military
exercises that began
Tuesday, saying they
were preparation for an
attack. The exercise,
named Foal Eagle,
ends April 2.
“This Foal Eagle
exercise is escalating
the danger of armed
clashes on the Korean
Peninsula,” said .
Minju Joson, a North
Korean newspaper.
approached the U.S. plane over
the Sea of Japan on Sunday,
coming as close as 50 feet. One
used its radar to identify the
plane as a target, but there was
no hostile Fire, he said.
Davis said it was the first
such incident since 1969, when
a North Korean plane shot
down a U.S. Navy EC-121 sur
veillance plane, killing all 31
Americans aboard.
In Washington, White
House spokesman Ari
Fleischer said President Bush
“bel ieves
u
This Foal Eagle
exercise is escalating
the danger of armed
clashes on the
Korean Peninsula.
— Minju Joson,
North Korean newspaper
that the
issue of
North
Korea can
be handled
diplomati
cally.”
“This is
a matter that
we will
protest and
we’re talk
ing to our
allies
“If the eagle swoops down
on us, a nuclear war will break
out and it is clear that the
whole Korean nation will not
escape nuclear holocaust,” said
the report, which was moni
tored by South Korea’s Yonhap
news agency.
North Korea routinely con
demns such exercises, but the
belligerent rhetoric and the
interception of the American
plane come amid fears the
North could make nuclear
bombs within months.
U.S. military officials say
the annual maneuver is
“defense-oriented” and is not
related to the nuclear dispute.
Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a
Pentagon spokesman, said four
North Korean fighter jets had
about best manner to do that,”
Fleischer said, adding that
“North Korea continues to
engage in provocative, and now
reckless actions. And North
Korea engages in these actions
as a way of saying, pay me. That
will not happen.”
In a commentary. North
Korea’s Minju Joson described
Bush as “a political illiterate
and a shameless impostor who
has dull senses of the times.”
The newspaper also
appealed to South Koreans,
who host 37,000 U.S. soldiers
on their soil, to join North
Korea in resisting the United
States.
The interception of the U.S.
plane appeared to be part of an
effort to pressure the United
States into negotiations on
chief North Korean aims: a
nonaggression treaty and
economic aid.
“The reckless move is a
signal to the United States at
a time when Washington
pays little attention to North
Korea’s repeated demand for
direct dialogue,” said Lee
Suk-soo, a military studies
professor at the National
Defense College in Seoul.
North Korea on Tuesday
reiterated its demand for a
nonaggression pact, saying
through Radio Pyongyang
that it was "to remove an
unreasonable U.S. threat, not
to gain something.” The
radio was monitored by
Yonhap.
Washington, which is
preparing for a possible war
against Iraq, says it will not
be blackmailed into conces
sions and that North Korea’s
efforts to develop nuclear
weapons are a multilateral
issue. The U.N. Security
Council is expected to debate
the matter.
North Korea test-fired a
missile into the sea off its east
coast on the eve of South
Korean President Roh Moo-
hyun’s inauguration last week.
On Feb. 20. a North Korean
MiG-19 warplane crossed over
the South’s western sea border,
but retreated after South
Korean jets flew to the area.
Last week, U.S. officials
said North Korea had restarted
a nuclear reactor that is at the
center of a suspected weapons
program. The reactor could
yield enough plutonium for an
atomic bomb in about a year,
experts say.
North Korea, which has
warned a U.S. attack on its
nuclear facilities at Yongbyon
would trigger war, could also
decide to reactivate a repro-
N. Korea jets
intercept U.S. plane
Four North Korean fighter jets
approached the U.S. Air Force
RC-135S plane over the Sea of
Japan on Sunday, coming as
close as 50 feet.
NORTH
KOREA
Sea of
Japan
S. KOREA
East
CHINA China Sea
JAPAN
Okinawa
Kadena
Air Base
RC-135
Length: 135 feet
Wingspan: 131 feet
SOURCES: ESRI; Associated Press; AP
U.S. Air Force; Jane's Information Group
T I N U M
“Never cease to
amaze her.
Always exceed her
greatest expectations. ’
•. 1 h-*-■ i ,
NER'S
Jewelers ♦ Gemologists
522 University Drive E • Between The Suit Club and Audio/Video
764-8786
THE BATTALION
Filipino explosion
kills 19, injures 147
By Oliver Teves
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
cessing facility near the reac
tor. Such a move could allow it
to make several nuclear bombs
within months, according to
defense analysts.
The United States believes
the North already has one or
two nuclear bombs.
North Korean complaints
about reconnaissance flights by
U.S. planes had grown more
frequent before the incident
Sunday. On Saturday, the
North said a U.S. RC-135
reconnaissance plane intruded
into its airspace off the east
coast daily for a week.
The current nuclear dispute
began in October when U.S.
officials said the North
acknowledged it had a secret
nuclear program in violation of
a 1994 agreement.
Washington and its allies
suspended oil shipments and
North Korea responded by
moving to reactivate frozen
nuclear facilities and with
drawing from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
MANILA, Philippines — A
bomb planted inside a backpack
ripped through an airport tenni-
nal in the southern Philippines
on Tuesday, killing at least 19
people — including an
American missionary — and
injuring 147 in the nation’s
worst terrorist attack in three
years.
The blast comes at a time of
heightened debate over the role
of U.S. troops in the war on
terror in the Philippines, where
Muslim insurgents have battled
the government for decades
with attacks, bombings and
kidnappings.
Three Americans — a
Southern Baptist missionary
and her two young children —
were among the wounded.
Many of the injured were in
serious condition, and officials
feared the death toll could rise.
The dead included a boy, a girl,
10 men and seven women.
President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo, who invited U.S. troops
to help train Filipino soldiers in
counterterrorism later this year,
said the bombing at Davao air
port on Mindanao island was “a
brazen act of terrorism which
shall not go unpunished.”
President Bush condemned
the attack as a “wanton terror
ist act” and sent condolences
to the people of the
Philippines, his press secretary
Ari Fleischer said.
“The president notes that the
bombing underscores the seri
ousness of the terrorist threat in
the southern Philippines, and he
emphasizes that the Philippines
have been a stalwart partner of
the United States in the war
against terror,” Fleischer said.
No one claimed responsibili
ty for the blast, but Arroyo said
“several men” were detained.
The military has blamed Moro
Islamic Liberation Front rebels
for a string of attacks, including
a car bombing at nearby
Cotabato airport last month that
killed one man.
Eid Kabalu, spokesman for
the rebel group, which has been
fighting for Muslim self-rule in
the predominantly Roman
Catholic Philippines for
than three decades, denied In
group was responsible. He coir
demned the attack and said!
group was ready to cooperatei:
an investigation,
Police said the bombwa
hidden inside a backpackpta-
ed in the middle of the airport!
la®;
waiting area. The bla
heard three miles away;s
the debris landed on the
100 yards away.
The Southern
Convention’s Intematiom
Mission Board in
Va., confirmed that
William P. Hyde, 59, ofCetk
Rapids, Iowa, died in surgen
from head and leg injuries.
Hyde had gone to them
port to meet American mis
sionaries Barbara Wii
Stevens and Mark Stevens ait;
their family, who were
arrived from Manila when!
bomb went off.
Pi
Intelli
J
J 1
\
50 km \j’ y
Explosion injured
two peoplei
MINDANAO
Tagunji
Mnm
Gulf
Davaoi
Bomb blast at airport killed
at least 19 people and
wounded more than 11
ust last wee
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SOURCES: Associated Press; ESRI
Bush administration:
U.S. gaining in war on terro:
Tanks runr
campus a s
In response to
WASHINGTON (AP) — New terrorism indictments and ab
al-Qaida capture show the United States gaining ground in thegk*
al war on terrorism, three top Bush administration officials!
Congress on Tuesday.
Facing a Senate Judiciary Committee that includes promi# 1
administration critics, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homel®
Security Secretary Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Muet
highlighted recent successes and stressed prevention efforts.
Lawmakers applauded the victories — but many questioned
government’s tactics and the need to expand anti-terrorism lawsl
already raise constitutional questions.
Ashcroft said the weekend capture in Pakistan of al-Qaida
ations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was “a severe blow”!
could “destabilize their terrorist network worldwide” by providi
a trove of intelligence that will prevent new attacks.
He also announced that a Yemeni cleric and an assistant
charged in New York with helping finance al-Qaida. The cleif
Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad, personally
Osama bin Laden $20 million to finance the terrorist
Ashcroft said.
To date, more than 200 criminal terrorism charges have ttf
brought since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Ashcroft said,
108 convictions or guilty pleas. FBI Director Robert Muellerad! ;
that “well in excess of 10” terrorism plots have been
worldwide.
The recent successes muted growing critcism on Capitol Hi
about the slow progress on the war on terrorism. The conctf
reached a high point last month when a new bin Laden
surfaced and the nation was put on high alert for a possibly i
nent terrorist attack.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Texas seeks notaries
abusing immigrants
DALLAS (AP) — Texas Attorney
General Greg Abbott on Tuesday
said his office is cracking down
on notaries public who misrepre
sent themselves as legal profes
sionals to scam money out of
thousands of immigrants — a
practice that was specifically out
lawed two years ago.
He said con artists prey on
Hispanic victims who confuse the
English term "notary" and the
Spanish term "notario." Some
people with notary public licens
es from the state unlawfullypf*
ent themselves as "notaries
lico," which in Mexico are
licensed attorneys.
Abbott said such notaries
disappear with their dW
money, charge high feesforfif
unnecessary documents orpf [
form poor-quality services W
jeopardize immigration cases.
Abbott said victims who co^
forward will not be question!
about their country of origin 11,
immigration status. He uf
anyone who believes tlie/tf
been victimized by such scanis !e
call (800) 252-8011.
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