McClathcy News Service: North Korea nuclear talks begin North Korea nuclear talks begin By TIM JOHNSON McClatchy Newspapers

BEIJING | Talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program opened on an optimistic note Thursday, with the United States and North Korea in general accord on most of the disablement measures, but there was still no sign of the exact conditions under which the United States would lift its designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The Bush administration’s promise is one of the sweeter carrots on the negotiating table, but earlier this week a senior Republican on Capitol Hill introduced a bill to thwart the move, raising the bar on what Pyongyang would have to do to shake loose of the “terror” label.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, demanded that North Korea halt missile sales to Syria and Iran, end ties to Hezbollah and Hamas, return 15 abducted Japanese citizens, stop counterfeiting U.S. currency and take several other measures before the designation could end. “Our policy towards this regime cannot be based on the hope that it will actually honor its commitments, but based instead on its actual performance,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.

Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy to the talks, shrugged off questions about the bill, which has yet to be discussed in committee, saying, “There are House bills posed every day on a variety of subjects.”

Hill met his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, Wednesday night and again on Thursday. He said he expected to sign a declaration laying out the terms of disabling the North’s program before talks wrap up on Sunday. Also on the table is a “road map” to reward North Korea with a series of economic and political incentives if it disables its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.

“With the joint efforts of all parties, the six-party talks are developing along the right track, and a new harvest season has appeared in front of us,” China’s senior envoy, Wu Dawei, said at an opening session.

Washington first put North Korea on a list of state sponsors of terror in 1988, when a North Korean agent confessed to placing a bomb aboard a Korean Airlines flight bound from the Middle East to Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 29, 1987, killing 115 people.

North Korea agents in the 1970s and 1980s abducted more than a dozen Japanese and forced them to work as language instructors to train future spies.

North Korea tested a nuclear device last October. But in February, it agreed to negotiate the scrapping of its nuclear program in exchange for heavy fuel oil and diplomatic and security incentives. The six parties to the agreement were the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

Washington’s exact terms for lifting North Korea’s “terror“ designation aren’t known, but the U.S. decision apparently is linked to Pyongyang’s willingness to disable its nuclear installations in an irreversible fashion.

To remove a “terror” designation, U.S. law requires that the White House determine that a designated country hasn’t sponsored a terrorist attack for a period, then notify Congress of such a decision.

“It remains in Congress for 45 days, after which the secretary (of state) is empowered to move ahead,” Hill said.

The designation bars the U.S. government from offering economic or military assistance, imposes financial restrictions, blocks U.S. support for access to the World Bank and limits commercial transactions.

“Getting off the terrorism list is a significant political objective for the North Koreans. They want to get off,” said Scott Snyder, a Korean Peninsula expert at the Asia Foundation in Washington, D.C. He noted that Washington holds “the keys to their participating in a number of international arenas, especially in the economic area.”

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AP: U.S. bill would force conditions before lifting North Korea from terror list U.S. bill would force conditions before lifting North Korea from terror list

25 September 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. lawmaker introduced a bill Tuesday that would prevent North Korea's removal from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism until it stops what the lawmaker described as nuclear and missile exports to rogue regimes.

Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said North Korea should also halt training and financing of terror groups, stop counterfeiting U.S. currency and release abducted Japanese citizens before the U.S. lifts economic and political sanctions. "Our policy toward this regime cannot be based on the hope that it will actually honor its commitments but based instead on its actual performance," Ros-Lehtinen said.

Under a February accord, North Korea said it would scrap its nuclear programs. In return, the U.S. agreed to open talks on normalizing relations with the North and to explore removing the terrorism designation.

Ros-Lehtinen criticized the "duplicity of the Pyongyang regime in pursuing proliferation ties with Syria even while continuing" six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.

She was referring to news reports that Israeli warplanes this month attacked a Syrian installation that was allegedly either a Syrian-North Korean nuclear project or a shipment of arms for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. North Korea has denied any nuclear link with Syria.

The North shut down its nuclear reactor in July and has pledged to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by year's end.

A new round of talks involving the U.S., the Koreas, China, Russia and Japan is scheduled this week.

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VOA NEWS: HOUSE APPROVES MEASURE STRENGTHENING IRAN SANCTIONS VOA NEWS: HOUSE APPROVES MEASURE STRENGTHENING IRAN SANCTIONS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 -- The Voice of America issued the following story: By Dan Robinson

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation to strengthen economic sanctions against Iran over its support for terrorist groups and refusal to halt uranium enrichment. VOA's Dan Robinson reports the measure passed with an overwhelming 397 to 16 vote, and contains stinging criticisms of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iran Counter proliferation Act is aimed at tightening the economic screws on Iran, through import and export sanctions, and steps to dissuade foreign governments and companies, including subsidiaries of U.S. companies, from investing in Iran's energy sector.

"Iran today faces a choice between a very big carrot and a very sharp stick," said Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my hope that they will take the carrot, but today we are putting the stick in place."

Among other things, the legislation expresses a non-binding "sense of Congress" that the U.S. encourage other governments to direct state-owned companies and persuade private entities to stop all investment in Iran's energy sector and exports of refined petroleum products to Iran.

Other non-binding provisions include a call to prohibit Iranian state banks from using the U.S. banking system, and support for divestment by U.S. federal and state and local pension plans from companies investing more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector.

Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen explains some of the binding changes, which include clarifications in and broadening the scope of existing law.

"This legislation under consideration today builds upon that foundation, reiterates the application of the Iran Sanctions Act to parent companies of foreign subsidiaries that engage in activities that ISA would prohibit for U.S. entities," she said.

The measure would also prohibit U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements with countries assisting Iran's nuclear program or transferring advanced conventional weapons or missiles to Iran.

It directs the president to determine whether Iran's Revolutionary Guards should be designated a terrorist organization, and placed on a list of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction, a step the Bush administration is pursuing.

A separate sanctions-related bill the House approved in August removed legal barriers to state and local divestment from companies investing more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector, although the Senate has yet to pass its version of that legislation.

In approving the measure, the House calls Iranian President Ahmadinejad's persistent denials of the Holocaust a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Lawmakers directed stinging criticisms at the Iranian leader, comparing him to 20th century tyrants and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin.

"The history of the 20th century tells us that genocidal dictators say what they will do and then do what they said," said Republicans Mark Kirk.

Republican Mike Pence said, "This is a man who is on a mis-guided mission, he is a dangerous and deluded leader and we ignore his intents at our peril.

"When Mr. Ahmadinejad says he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and do all kinds of other countless horrific things, he means it," Democrat Eliot Engel said.

In noting that the latest legislation does not authorize use of military force against Iran, House lawmakers nonetheless describe the prospect of Iran achieving nuclear arms as a grave threat to the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

They say the U.S. and its allies should do everything possible in diplomatic, political and economic means, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms.

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Platts News Service: US House votes to tighten Iran nuclear sanctions US House votes to tighten Iran nuclear sanctions

The US House of Representatives Tuesday overwhelming passed a bill tightening sanctions on Iran's lucrative energy sector and branding the elite Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

The measure passed by 397 votes to 16 as tensions spiked between Washington and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, hours before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

The legislation is aimed at depriving Iran of proceeds from energy sales which could be diverted into funding its nuclear program, which the West says is intended to produce atomic weapons, a claim Tehran denies.

Its top sponsor, veteran Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee, Tom Lantos said the bill was needed because Iran's denials of a nuclear weapons program could not be believed.

"I wish that we could take Ahmadinejad at his word, but we obviously cannot," Lantos said.

"This is the same man who yesterday said, 'Our people are the freest in the world, and there are no homosexuals in Iran.'" Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the committee's top Republican, added: "Too many foreign energy firms have become functional allies in Tehran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb." The bill sanctions foreign companies with US subsidiaries which invest in Iran, particularly in the oil and gas sectors.

It also prohibits civilian nuclear cooperation with nations that support Iran's nuclear program and calls on the US government to urge foreign states and banks to divest from Iranian interests.

The bill passed as six key world powers working to curb Iran's nuclear activities scheduled new talks on imposing new sanctions against the Islamic state.

It also calls on the State Department to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a "foreign terrorist organization" and therefore open the corps and affiliated companies to economic sanctions.

US military officials and lawmakers have accused the Guards of arming Shi'ite militias in Iraq, and supplying sophisticated roadside bombs that kill US soldiers in the war-torn nation.

The Bush administration said in August it would designate all or part of the Guards as a terrorist organization.

Iran has already been on the US government state sponsors of terrorism blacklist for more than two decades.

The Senate was expected to vote on a bill as early as Tuesday also calling for the Guards to be blacklisted as a terrorist group.

The House bill, named the Iran Counterproliferation Act, takes away the often used power of the US president to waive sanctions against giant global oil firms which do business in the Iranian energy sector.

Already this year, the US government has escalated financial sanctions against Iran.

The US Treasury and other government agencies have blacklisted and applied asset freezes against at least 15 Iranian entities.

Most, including the Atomic Energy Organization and the Mesbah Energy Company, operate in the nuclear, energy and industrial industries.

Iran's banking sector is also in Washington's sights, as well as Iranian groups it says fund "terrorist" organizations such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Shi'ite political and militant group.

The Treasury blacklisted Iran's fifth-largest state-owned bank, Bank Sepah, in January, claiming it had funded weapons proliferation, including a Chinese firm's sale of "missile-related items" to Iran in 2005.

In July, the House passed a bill requiring the naming of foreign companies with more than 20 million dollars in Iran's energy sector, paving the way for US federal and state pension funds to divest from such firms.

The Guards is fiercely committed to defending the ideals of Iran's revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Ahmadinejad fought for the Guards during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

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Kyodo News Service: U.S. House bill would require N. Korea to release abductees U.S. House bill would require N. Korea to release abductees

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 -- U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the United States to keep North Korea on its state sponsors of terrorism list until Pyongyang releases 15 abducted Japanese nationals Japan says remain in North Korea.

The bill, referred to as the ''North Korean Counterterrorism and Nonproliferation Act,'' also stipulates the U.S. president must certify that North Korea no longer engages in missile or nuclear proliferation, supports terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah or the Japanese Red Army, or conducts terrorist activities.

In addition, North Korea must release the estimated 600 surviving South Korean POWs that have been held since the end of hostilities in the Korean War before it can be removed from the list, which the U.S. State Department produces annually.

''North Korea's unwillingness to abide by its promises requires us to establish standards by which we can assess its adherence to treaty obligations,'' Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, said in a statement. ''Our policy towards this regime cannot be based on the hope that it will actually honor its commitments, but based instead on its actual performance.''

Ros-Lehtinen is the ranking Republican on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. The bill has nine Republican co-sponsors.

Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, will determine the immediate future of the bill as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. At this point, it is unclear whether Lantos will support the bill, congressional sources said.

The bill coincides with press reports alleging North Korea is providing nuclear assistance to Syria. A British newspaper reported recently that Israeli commandos seized nuclear material originating in North Korea when they raided a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it earlier this month.

''The duplicity of the Pyongyang regime in pursuing proliferation ties with Syria even while continuing six-party negotiations in Beijing clearly demonstrates that we must achieve nothing less than the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.

At the upcoming six-party talks in Beijing from Thursday to Sunday, negotiators from the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are expected to try to firm up a road map for implementing the second phase of Pyongyang's denuclearization process stipulated in a six-way agreement reached in February.

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Washington Times: Chinese dissident urges boycott of Olympics Chinese dissident urges boycott of Olympics

September 21, 2007

By Bill Gertz - A leading Chinese dissident called on Congress yesterday to lead an international boycott of the upcoming Beijing Olympics because of China's human rights abuses and support for rogue regimes.

Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer under house arrest in China, wrote in a Sept. 13 letter to Congress made public yesterday that "more and more Chinese people are speaking out against the coming Olympic Games in China, which they often refer to as 'the bloody Olympics,' and 'the handcuff Olympics.' "

Mr. Gao was scheduled to speak by telephone from China to a Capitol Hill press conference, but the phone connection could not be made. He was arrested last month and imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities who forced him to renounce his legal activism, which he later repudiated, David Kilgour, a member of the Canadian Parliament, told reporters.

Mr. Gao's 16-page letter was released at the Capitol Hill conference hosted by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"The regime in Beijing, rather than seeing the approach of the Olympics as a time for greater openness, sees it as a mandate for further control and repression of the Chinese people," Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said.

"The Beijing regime seeks only a propaganda victory," she said. "We cannot and must not provide it with such a victory."

Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, are co-sponsoring a resolution calling for a U.S. boycott of the Olympics unless China halts its human rights abuses.

Mr. Gao stated in his letter that Chinese authorities recently began a widespread crackdown on the Chinese people as part of preparation for the August 2008 games. He said China today is facing a "human rights disaster" because of the repression.

"Under the name of securing a success of the Olympic games, all kinds of evils have been committed in broad daylight, including forced eviction, illegal arresting and persecution people who are petitioning authorities, and suppression of religious people," he said.

Mr. Gao said the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP) is using the Games to gain legitimacy, despite its past and current history of repression. As many as 80 million Chinese died under the communist system in China in what Mr. Gao called "crimes against humanity."

"Today the CCP is expanding its moral corruption strategy to the whole world," Mr. Gao said. "If the Olympics are held by the CCP, it will mean the success of the CCP's global moral corruption."

Mr. Kilgour recently investigated China's repression of the Falun Gong religious group, including what he called the "horrible" practice of harvesting body organs from imprisoned members of the Buddhist-oriented group that is opposing communist rule in China.

Edward McMillan-Scott, European Union parliament vice president, said by telephone from Europe that all nations and their leaders should boycott the 2008 Olympics because of Beijing's support for genocide in Darfur, and its repression of Tibetan Buddhists, Xinjiang Uighurs, Chinese journalists and human rights and legal rights activists like Mr. Gao.

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CBS4: Congresswoman Joins Aquanauts For Undersea Lesson Congresswoman Joins Aquanauts For Undersea Lesson 9-Day Undersea Mission Studying Changes To Corals & Marine Life

(CBS4) KEY LARGO Marine scientists were joined by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Friday morning for an undersea educational broadcast from the world?s only permanent working undersea laboratory, situated in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Ros-Lehtinen's (Miami-R) visit came during part of a nine-day mission involving six "aquanauts" who are living underwater in the Aquarius Reef Base laboratory. There primary purpose is to investigate changes to corals and marine life in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Each day, a portion of their activities is Webcast in real time to students and general audiences via the OceansLive.org education portal. The mission ends Tuesday, Sept. 25.

During the mission, dubbed "Aquarius 2007: If Reefs Could Talk," scientists are conducting research mainly on sponge biology and ecology and long-term monitoring of coral and fish species. The mission is using advanced technology for underwater research combined with communications to create and broadcast web-based educational programming.

Ros-Lehtinen and aquanauts had Web-based interactive discussions with elementary school students at the Treasure Village Montessori School (mile marker 87 oceanside) in Islamorada. Topics ranged for preventing oil drilling in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to research being conducted on sponges on North America's only living coral barrier reef.

Located nine miles southeast of Key Largo, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Aquarius lies 60 feet below the surface at Conch Reef. The undersea research station is nine feet in diameter and 43 feet long. The six aquanauts in Aquarius are supported by a shore-based crew on watch around the clock. Real-time video, audio, and Internet feeds provide high-resolution communications and a virtual experience for the public, educators and students.

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NY Sun: Source: Syria Has Nuclear Program Source: Syria Has Nuclear Program

BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun September 19, 2007 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/62924

UNITED NATIONS — Recent reports of cooperation between Syria and North Korea on weapons development, including in the nuclear field, are chilling earlier enthusiasm in Washington about the prospect of North Korean disarmament through diplomacy.

A person identifying himself as a former Syrian military officer who has had access to sensitive military information in Damascus confirmed to The New York Sun yesterday that Syria has been working on a clandestine nuclear program at least since 1986. The former officer added that many North Korean nationals are in Syria in relation to that program. Syrian and North Korean officials have dismissed reports in several press outlets claiming that the target of a September 6 Israeli air raid over Syria was a nascent Syrian nuclear program heavily aided by North Korea.

If Israel indeed hit a target related to such a program, and if, as the Washington Post first reported, the air raid was scheduled several days after a suspicious North Korean delivery arrived in Syria, this would put Pyongyang, which of late has promised to verifiably disarm its nuclear program, in an awkward position. It also may explain the abrupt suspension of a meeting in Beijing, scheduled for today, of six countries involved in the North Korean disarmament diplomacy.

"The North Koreans don't want to be in the glare in Beijing, explaining what they are doing in Syria," a former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said. Mr. Bolton, who has led the charge against an inclination by some in the State Department to invest enough trust in Pyongyang to offer it incentives in exchange for disarmament, warned about ties between the regimes of Kim Jong-Il and President al-Assad as long as four years ago.

Now he has seized on the newly reported ties between those two leaders to warn against agreeing to one of Pyongyang's central demands in the six-party talks. "We don't want to take North Korea off the terrorist list if they support Syria like this," Mr. Bolton told the Sun yesterday, urging the State Department to avoid any "rush to new talks" before Pyongyang dispels suspicions about its nuclear cooperation with Syria. Mr. Bolton is about to receive some support in Congress, as well. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida who is the ranking minority member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, is preparing legislation that would condition North Korea's removal from the State Department's list of countries sponsoring terrorism on "permanent and verifiable" dismantlement of its nuclear program, a Republican House staffer who requested anonymity said yesterday.

The six-party talks on North Korea were abruptly suspended on Monday, but a State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said yesterday that they could resume quickly. "The Chinese have talked to us about the possibility of an envoys-level meeting next week, and we are ready to go next week if everybody else is ready to go," he said. He said, however, that once talks resume, Washington will not shy away from asking about reports of North Korean arms proliferation. "Can you raise nonproliferation at these talks? Absolutely," Mr. McCormack said.

The former Syrian military officer, who asked that no identifying marks beyond the initials A.F. be used for this article, was contacted by the Sun yesterday with the help of the president of the Syria Reform Party, Farid Ghadry. Fearing for his life, A.F. declined to say what country he was speaking from.

He claimed that the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has visited Syria several times at least since 1989, after being introduced to the Damascus Baathist regime by Libya, a "great friend" of Syria at the time. "I know [Mr. Khan] keeps good relations" with the Syrians, A.F. said. Based on press reports about the northern Syrian location of the Israeli attack, A.F. suggested that the target was an area where "critical arms and materials" that are imported to Syria are stored before being transferred to Lebanon.

He also said Syria possesses the "latest Russian technology in air defense" but that it was reluctant to expose it during the latest attack, because two decades ago such exposure allowed Israel to destroy all Syrian anti-aircraft missiles in the Bekaa Valley.

Since it reported the September 6 raid, Syria has maintained that its air defenses chased the Israeli aircraft away and that, far from bombing any target, the Israelis escaped, dropping fuel tanks to allow a quicker departure. Damascus also denied reports of a North Korean-aided clandestine nuclear program in Syria.

"All this rubbish is not true," a Syrian cabinet minister who often serves as the regime's spokeswoman, Bouthaina Shaaban, said. "I don't know how their imagination has reached such creativity." Reports of a North Korean connection are "fabricated stories which have no value and truth," she added. An unidentified North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman denied the reports as well.

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Reuters: UN agency names panel to probe its N Korea actions UN agency names panel to probe its N Korea actions

By Evelyn Leopold Reuters Tuesday, September 11, 2007; 8:26 PM

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Development Program, under fire from the United States, named a Hungarian, an Indian and an American on Tuesday to an outside board to investigate its practices in North Korea and the case of one whistle-blower.

At issue is a muddled ethics and whistle-blower policy at the United Nations that was established last year to allow staffers to expose wrongdoing without fear of retaliation. But member states for decades have created semi-independent agencies and programs not under the jurisdiction of the secretariat that is run by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

UNDP and other specialized U.N. agencies intend to meet later this month to try to define standards for whistle-blowers, since the entities contend they do not fall under U.N. Secretary-General Ban's ethics office.

"We have to harmonize these procedures as much as possible within the U.N. family, UNDP administrator Kamal Dervis told reporters.

But U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad disagreed. "Our position ... is that the ethics office which is an independent office that is part of the secretariat should have jurisdiction over all funds and programs."

"We think that's a cost saving and appropriate way to proceed," he told reporters.

As UNDP last month was harshly criticized for its operation in North Korea, the U.N. ethics office offered to rule on the case of Artjon Shkurtaj, a former UNDP representative in Pyongyang. But the agency refused.

Since then, two others have come forward, an Ivorian and a Pakistani, but they will not be considered in the new probe because they were not based in North Korea, Kamal said.

The new external review team will be lead by Miklos Nemeth, the former Hungarian prime minister, and includes Chander Mohan Vasudev, a former Indian finance ministry official and Mary Ann Wyrsch, former United Nations deputy high commissioner for Refugees and a former acting commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

UNDP pulled out of North Korea in March after Pyongyang refused to accept changes ordered by its board of directors. A U.N. audit published on June 1 said UNDP had violated its own rules in dispersing cash and hiring local staff.

Dervis was asked whether Washington's criticism was political because his deputy, Ad Melkert, was instrumental in the downfall of former World Bank president when both served at the bank.

"He has my full confidence," Dervis said of Melkert. "In politics one has friends and enemies. That is part of life. But what's important now is the work we do."

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, last week wrote to Ban urging him to intervene in the whistle-blower case.

And in the Senate, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, successfully sponsored an amendment to a funding bill for UNDP that would force the agency to introduce a whistle-blowers police before it obtains U.S.

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Second former U.N. employee seeks whistleblower protection, as pressure on the U.N. mounts

 By JUSTIN BERGMAN
 Associated Press Writer

 7 September 2007




 
 UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A second former employee of the U.N. anti-poverty agency is seeking whistleblower protection from the U.N. Ethics Office, claiming he was fired in retaliation for raising complaints to his superiors, his legal adviser said.

 Mathieu Credo Koumoin, who worked for the U.N. Development Program in West Africa, sent a letter to U.N. ethics chief Robert Benson on Tuesday, asking him to review his case under the U.N.'s new whistleblower protection rules, his counsel, Jeanne-Marie Col, said Thursday.

 The request comes weeks after Artjon Shkurtaj, the former operations officer for UNDP in North Korea, also sought whistleblower protection from the Ethics Office, claiming he lost his job after making allegations about the agency's financial transactions in the communist country.

 The cases present a serious challenge to the Ethics Office two years after then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan signed the U.N.'s first whistleblower protection policy.

 The policy requires all U.N. employees to report any breach of the organization's rules and regulations, and offers them protection from retaliation if they do so. But Shkurtaj's case has been rejected on a technical jurisdiction issue, drawing criticism from the U.N. Staff Union and members of Congress.

 Benson said last month there was enough initial evidence to support an investigation into Shkurtaj's claims of retaliation, but the UNDP refused to cooperate on grounds that its operations are not covered by the Ethics Office.

 Because it has its own governing board, the UNDP cannot be investigated by the Ethics Office unless it so requests. Instead, UNDP has said it will seek an external review of its now-defunct North Korea program.

 In the new case, Col said Koumoin's contract with UNDP was not renewed last year after he approached his superiors with complaints that "things were not being done properly" in the agency's West Africa program. She declined to specify what the complaints were because the case is currently being reviewed by the U.N. Joint Appeals Board.

 "He took his grievances to his superiors and he was ignored and he was fired and he was retaliated against," said Col, a professor at John Jay College in New York and a member of the U.N. Panel of Counsel, which provides volunteer legal advice to U.N. staffers.

 "He was close to a promotion and his evaluations were consistent with being promoted," she said. "But a performance review dated after he was fired says he was poor performer."

 Koumoin, a native of the Ivory Coast and a specialist in development economics with a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, has been out of work for months, Col said.

 UNDP spokesman David Morrison said the agency was awaiting the Joint Appeals Board's ruling in the case and declined to comment on it. He said, however, that UNDP has its own whistleblower protection mechanisms in place that have "been applied successfully in the past."

 The U.N. spokesman's office confirmed that the Ethics Office had received Koumoin's letter, but it also declined to comment further.

 Meanwhile, pressure mounted Thursday for the UNDP to allow the Ethics Office to investigate Shkurtaj's claims of retaliation.

 Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to intervene in the case, calling it "a fundamental test of the U.N.'s whistleblower protection policy."

 Ban said last month he hopes the General Assembly will look at the issue again "and give clear guidelines" so that the Ethics Office will have jurisdiction over all U.N. funds and programs.

 Also Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment to the foreign operations appropriations bill that would require the UNDP to institute a whistleblower protection policy before U.S. funding to the agency can be disbursed. The overall bill passed Thursday night.

 The U.S. contributed nearly $245 million (euro179.2 million) to the UNDP last year, according to the office of Senator Norm Coleman, who introduced the amendment.

 Coleman said the Ethics Office's lack of jurisdiction over the agency has had a "chilling effect on UNDP's employees and their willingness to expose wrongdoings in the organization."

 Morrison of the UNDP has said that Shkurtaj's claims of retaliation are "without basis."

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Jewish Telegraphic Agency: GOP Handful Hold Up Iran, Sudan Sanctions GOP Handful Hold Up Iran, Sudan Sanctions

September 06, 2007

Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency

WASHINGTON

It's one of the few bright bipartisan spots in a town that's awash in partisan mud: Republicans and Democrats agree that the tyrants in Sudan and Iran must be isolated, and the sooner the better.

In addition to enjoying bipartisan support, bills that would mandate such isolation also have wall-to-wall Jewish community backing. So why is a small cadre of Republican lawmakers, led by U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), putting the brakes on legislation that would tighten sanctions on both nations?

The question garnered little attention until last week when Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made it an issue in his presidential bid.

"The Bush administration and an anonymous senator are blocking a bill with bipartisan support that would ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian regime," Obama said in an opinion piece in the New York Daily News. "It's time for this obstructionism to stop."

The Democratic hopeful introduced one of the three bills being held up -- a measure that would assist states and other groups that seek to divest from Iran by naming companies invested in the Islamic Republic's energy sector and by protecting divestors from investor lawsuits.

The House version of the bill -- initiated by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) -- was passed overwhelmingly before the congressional summer recess.

Obama's outspoken response to the hold on his bill is unusual. Outside interest groups often will complain about such a maneuver, but in the Senate's clubby halls, it is a prerogative lawmakers often graciously concede to one another.

Shelby is the GOP lawmaker who initiated the holds on the two Iran bills and a Sudan measure, although a few others have since joined him.

The question of why a Republican leader in the Senate would obstruct the legislation is made more vexing because the White House is ostensibly committed to the very same ideas -- isolating Iran until it suspends its suspected nuclear-weapons program and Sudan until it facilitates an end to the genocide in Darfur.

In fact, the Bush administration just ratcheted up pressure on Tehran by designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards -- a major component of the country's military -- as a terrorist group.

Obama's bill has been referred twice to the Senate's banking committee, where it has yet to be considered. What's holding up the measure is unclear. One of Obama's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairs the committee, and Shelby as the committee's ranking minority member is also in a position to advance the bill to a hearing.

Also stuck in the banking committee are two other bills that passed overwhelmingly in the House before summer break.

An Iran bill initiated by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) would extend existing penalties for dealing with Iran to U.S. companies that have set up foreign subsidiaries to bypass the legislation. A separate bill, initiated by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), would ban U.S. government dealings with companies that trade with Sudan as long as that country fails to heed international demands that it allow peacekeepers to police Darfur, the region where government-allied militias have massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians and helped displace millions more.

Bad Timing Danielle Pletka, a vice president of the American Enterprise Institute who's close to the White House, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last week that the Iran-related bills are ill-timed. Europe is finally coming around to a realization of the Iranian threat, she pointed out, and targeting European companies for sanctions now would roll back the hope of a unanimous front against the Islamic regime.

"For many years, a key element of Iranian strategy has been to divide Europe from the United States, leaving America with only unilateral options," wrote Pletka, a former senior legislative aide to former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who headed the Foreign Relations Committee during the Clinton administration. "It would be a cruel irony if, just as European governments finally begin doing the right thing, Congress deepens the Atlantic rift."

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Japan's Daily Yomiuri: U.S. House thanks Japan for help in Afghanistan, Iraq U.S. House thanks Japan for help in Afghanistan, Iraq

Aya Igarashi Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

At its Wednesday afternoon plenary session, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution expressing gratitude to Japan for its contribution to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Passed 405-0, the resolution also called Japan one of the most credible security partners for the United States.

The U.S. lower house in late July adopted a resolution condemning Japan and demanding an apology from Tokyo over the issue of so-called comfort women during World War II.

Some U.S. politicians voiced concern that this might deepen an impression that the U.S. Congress was hostile toward Japan.

To redress the balance, the new resolution was introduced to emphasize the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance.

Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., submitted the resolution, which was seconded by more than 40 members, including Michael Honda, D-Calif., a Japanese-American who submitted the comfort women resolution.

During a debate ahead of the vote, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said the United States was deeply grateful to Japan for the Maritime Self-Defense Force's logistic support in the Indian Ocean.

She said Washington hoped the MSDF's operations, conducted under the Antiterrorism Special Measures Law, would continue.

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Govt welcomes resolution

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kaoru Yosano welcomed the U.S. House resolution praising the bilateral alliance at a press conference Thursday.

"It indicates that the U.S. House recognizes the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance. I welcome it," he said.

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Miami Herald: Commissioners propose 'Marshall Plan' for Haiti Commissioners propose 'Marshall Plan' for Haiti

Posted on Sun, Sep. 02, 2007 BY CHARLES RABIN

Miami-Dade County Commissioners Dennis Moss and Rebeca Sosa want the federal government to spend money and manpower to rebuild Haiti.

Call it the Caribbean Marshall Plan. The two are co-sponsors of a resolution that will be proposed at Tuesday's County Commission meeting which urges the federal government to ``adopt a plan to rebuild Haiti similar to the Marshall Plan.''

That plan, created in 1947 and engineered by then-Secretary of State George Marshall, led to four years and $13 billion worth of reconstruction in Europe to repair war damage, mostly from bombs dropped by allied forces.

The resolution cites Haiti's status as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and notes that a quarter of the country's economy is money that islanders receive from overseas. A Marshall Plan, the resolution says, could result in a massive infusion of food, infrastructure, aid, technical help and trade preferences.

''A Marshall Plan for Haiti could serve to jump-start Haiti's economy just as the Marshall Plan did in many regions of Europe, leading to several decades of growth and prosperity following World War II,'' the proposal states.

It directs the county's federal lobbyists to advocate its passage and asks the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs to include it in the 2007 and 2008 federal legislative packages.

South Florida has one of the nation's largest Haitian communities, estimated at more than 162,000 in the 2000 Census.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, accompanied Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on a trip to Haiti in 2005, just before the country's elections. She said that despite the rampant crime and corruption that has hurt previous U.S. investment in the island nation, she's willing to make another go of it.

''The concept of a Marshall Plan for Haiti proposed by some of our local officials could serve as an instrument of growth and sustainable development,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.

Moss was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Sosa, the resolution's co-signer, said she realizes any help headed Haiti's way has to come from a hybrid of the actual Marshall Plan.

''I'm supporting Commissioner Moss based on the incredible needs of the Haitians,'' she said.

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