[Article] Havana says Bush seeks regime change

Victor

OK I haven't slept two of the last three nights, so i not quite sure why I'm posting this.

http://home.eircom.net/content/reuters/worldnews/2470393?view=Eircomnet

Havana says Bush seeks regime change
From:Reuters
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2004
By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba has accused the U.S. government of preparing the ground for an invasion of the island and the assassination of President Fidel Castro.

Recent attacks by Bush administration officials on Castro for forging an axis with oil-producing Venezuela to destabilise Latin American countries are building a pretext for an invasion, the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma said.

They aim to "create a climate of artificial hysteria that would justify before American public opinion a military adventure against our homeland, including the physical elimination of companero Fidel," Granma charged in a front-page editorial.

The editorial responded to a Wall Street Journal article on Tuesday that said Castro had found in Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez an "heir apparent" to his revolutionary mantle and the cause of derailing U.S. policies in Latin America.

Castro last week denounced President George W. Bush for plotting with Cuban exiles in Miami to kill him and overthrow his leftist government, which has been a thorn in Washington's side since his guerrillas seized power in a 1959 revolution.

The 77-year-old leader vowed to resist, weapon in hand.

"I don't care how I die, but for sure, if they invade us, I will die fighting," he said in a five-hour speech to hundreds of activists seeking to block the U.S.-backed hemispheric-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Castro has been the target over the years of a number of assassination plots by the CIA, which trained and financed the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles in 1961.

The election of left-leaning leaders in South America on a wave of social discontent and rising anti-Americanism has worried the Bush administration, which sees Castro stirring up trouble for U.S. interests in the region.

Bush administration officials have repeatedly criticised Castro's close alliance with the populist Chavez of Venezuela, a major supplier of oil to the United States.

Granma also said U.S. free-market policies were to blame for turmoil in Latin America.

"If Latin America is an unstable region today the reason is not be found in imaginary and macabre plans by Cuba and Venezuela, but in the real results of imperialist policy of imposing a perverse model of savage capitalism," Granma said.

Havana denied it has fallen into arrears with Venezuela over crucial oil shipments and will pay every penny owed.

The Wall Street Journal said the Venezuelan oil deal is a "vital crutch" for Cuba to keep its mismanaged economy afloat in the face of declining sugar export income and long-standing U.S. trade sanctions.

The newspaper, citing sources close to Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and internal industry documents, said Cuba has run up a massive debt of $752 million (409 million pounds) for Venezuelan oil shipments and has renegotiated the arrears twice.

Chavez's opponents have vowed to cut the agreement to supply Cuba with 53,000 barrels a day of oil and refined products on generous financing terms if they succeed in ousting him in a recall referendum they hope will be held this year.

Victor

Ah, this is why, wrong story. When did they extend the axis of evil and why isn't Pakistan on it?

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/2465563?view=Eircomnet

Pakistani 'hero' admits selling nuclear secrets
From:ireland.com
Tuesday, 3rd February, 2004

Pakistan: Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme has admitted selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea from the late 1980's to the mid 1990's.

Each of the three, together with Syria and Cuba, have been branded part of an "axis of evil" by the Bush administration.

Dr Khan's admissions are said to have been provided in a written statement "a couple of days ago". However, his family says he is being made a "scapegoat". Dr Khan, who was sacked as adviser to the prime minister on Saturday, has yet to speak publicly.

Quoting intelligence and military sources, news reports from Islamabad yesterday declared that the evidence against Dr Khan, who was motivated by "personal greed and ambition", was "strong".

This included a statement from a key middleman in Dubai, through whom all financial dealings surrounding his alleged nuclear secrets sale were reportedly routed.

The 69-year old nuclear scientist's lavish lifestyle, which includes a luxurious villa on one of Islamabad's most expensive streets, vintage cars and overseas properties, was also working against him.

Dr Khan's central role in developing Pakistan's nuclear capability has made him a national hero and presents the authorities there with a dilemma. Do they prosecute him and risk popular wrath, not to mention incriminating evidence he might have on senior army figures (Pakistan is a military dictatorship), or do they do nothing and hope the international community does likewise?

Yesterday, the Pakistani authorities were quick to disassociate themselves from Dr Khan's alleged activities even though he was, for decades, provided unstinting official help, to develop atomic weapons to counter nuclear rival India's atomic arsenal.

According to the official briefing in Islamabad yesterday, the military and security services were in no way involved in proliferating nuclear secrets. And, if the state was guilty of anything, it was merely guilty of, according to itself, a "security lapse".

Investigations began two months ago into allegations that Pakistani scientists had passed on atomic weapons blueprints, technical guidance and possibly even components to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The probe followed information handed over to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency by Iran last year alleging Pakistan's complicity in helping Tehran develop a uranium-enrichment plant that is vital to building a nuclear bomb.

Additional information on Pakistan's proliferation activities was reportedly provided by the US which recently ferried several planeloads of sensitive documents and nuclear equipment from Libya for detailed examination after Tripoli agreed to renounce its programme to build weapons of mass destruction.

But the Pakistani authorities remain undecided if the national hero would be tried. Besides Dr Khan, six other suspects, including scientists and military officers, are being investigated in the nuclear probe.

Senior Pakistani defence and intelligence officials are also believed to be anxious about reports that Dr Khan's daughter had recently gone abroad armed with a videotape and other incriminating material allegedly linking the military establishment's role in proliferating nuclear secrets.

According to the South Asia Tribune newspaper, the damning tape that Dr Khan had reportedly shown to some confidants may be one reason why Pakistan's military rulers are wary of putting the scientist on trial.

A trial also risks a domestic backlash from powerful Islamic opposition parties who have threatened to launch a campaign against Dr Khan's "harassment".

"The Pakistani people think that he is being humiliated because of American pressure," Mr Qazi Hussein Ahmed, head of Pakistan's main religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said. The government moves against Dr Khan are both unjustified and suspicious, he said.

"Whatever reason the government gives to justify its actions, the nation will consider it a step toward completing the American agenda in this region," the widely-read and powerful Nawa-i-Waqt Urdu daily wrote yesterday. The paper accused President Musharraf of blindly following Washington's agenda by supporting the US-led war against the Pakistan-nurtured Taliban regime in Afghanistan and by cracking down on Islamic militants.

Meanwhile, analysts and intelligence sources said the powerful Pakistani military-intelligence combine that has monopolized the country's atomic weapons programme since its inception in the mid-1970's, was "visibly nervous" about a trial that could reveal details it wanted kept under wraps.

"When a State is suspected of unlawful nuclear and missile collaborations with other countries, the scientists alone cannot be blamed," defence analyst Mr Rajesh Mishra said in New Delhi. It is implausible that scientists would act independently, he said.

President Musharraf is expected to speak publicly on the Dr Khan issue soon - probably early next week.