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http://www.asahi.com/english/op-ed/K2003042900087.html

...It seems that some South Korean students at Columbia University are referring to certain Japanese students there as "Japanese neocons." These are students who openly discuss the "three scenarios": constitutional revision and rearmament, support for the Japanese prewar policy of aggression in Asia and nuclear armament. It was a Japanese student at the university's journalism school who told me about them.

...For the last three months, I have been giving lectures at Columbia and elsewhere across the United States. During that time, I have met Japanese students on a number of occasions who acknowledge the "three scenarios." Setting aside whether this means they are neocon or neo-Nazis, speaking to them I realized they were very unhappy with what they termed the Foreign Ministry's "weak-kneed stance" in dealing with China and North Korea. This neocon-like thinking of the Japanese students must be a reflection of the neocon-like mood that is showing signs of spreading in Japan's political circles.

...What is difficult to understand is the way Japanese neocons view the United States and the Japan-U.S. alliance. Are they trying to encourage the United States (and China) to do more to deter North Korea's nuclear armament by alluding to the possibility that Japan could choose to go nuclear? (An extension of the traditional practice of toeing the U.S. line.)

Or are they trying to forthrightly propose that Japan arm itself with nuclear weapons and maintain the Japan-U.S. alliance at the same time? If so, the move goes hand in hand with some neoconservatives in the United States, who tolerate Japan's nuclear armament on the assumption that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons-and possibly bearing in mind that China could also eventually become a threat. (An attempt to establish an alliance with the United States on equal terms.)

Or could they be using the Japan-U.S. neocon alliance simply as a front to plunge down the "three-scenario" path and shed the Japan-U.S. alliance altogether? (An attempt to achieve independence.)

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,945543,00.html

North Korea has offered to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, stop missile exports and readmit foreign inspectors in return for a US pledge not to attack, it was revealed last night... But US officials cautioned against over-optimism.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2982421.stm

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld... told coalition troops at US Central Command in the Gulf state of Qatar that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq showed that America had made a good start... "The task we have is a different one in the 21st century - it is not conventional, it is unconventional. It requires us to seek out and defend and prevent the attacks by terrorists. It may be an untidy world, but our country and our friends and allies are going to be able to preserve our way of life, continue our way of life, not climb into holes and hide."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/international/worldspecial/29TERR.html?ex=1052587547&ei=1&en=ce957ee936671217

American forces in Iraq have signed a cease-fire with an Iranian opposition group the United States has designated a terrorist organization... Under the deal, signed on April 15 but confirmed by the United States Central Command only today, United States forces agreed not to damage any of the group's vehicles, equipment or any of its property in its camps in Iraq, and not to commit any hostile act toward the Iranian opposition forces covered by the agreement. In return, the group, the People's Mujahedeen, which will be allowed to keep its weapons for now, agreed not to fire on or commit other hostile acts against American forces, not to destroy private or government property, and to place its artillery and antiaircraft guns in nonthreatening positions. The accord is apparently the first between the United States military — which in early April was bombing the group's Iraqi camps — and a terrorist organization.

...An American military official said the group could provide intelligence regarding Iranian government activities both in Iraq, and in Iran itself... A State Department official said tonight that the deal was not inconsistent with the broader effort against terrorism.

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http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2643912

A senior U.S. official on Monday accused Iran -- already under pressure from Washington over events in Iraq -- of cheating on its obligations under a key global pact to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. John Wolf, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Non- Proliferation, said that Iran had an "alarming, clandestine program" to get hold of nuclear technology as part of an illegal weapons effort. Despite saying it wants nuclear energy only to generate electricity, "Iran is going down the same path of denial and deception that handicapped international inspections in North Korea and Iraq," Wolf declared. President Bush labeled the three nations members of an "axis of evil."

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http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=482472003

ISRAEL’S supreme court yesterday threw out a bid to bar the army’s use of flechette shells against Palestinians... The three-judge panel said the decision on when and in what circumstances flechette shells could be used lay with Israeli military commanders in the field. But the court said officers must exercise maximum care to prevent injuries to Palestinian civilians "who are not involved in activities which endanger Israeli soldiers or civilians".

...Fired from tanks, flechette shells disperse darts 3.75mm in diameter in a conical arch 300 metres long and 90 metres wide, the Haaretz newspaper reported on its web site yesterday.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/94762.html

President George W. Bush traveled Monday to Michigan to tell a gathering of Arab-Americans that the United States had "no intention of imposing our form of government or our culture" on Iraq and would ensure that all citizens would have a voice and enjoy legal protections... Michigan, which Bush lost in 2000, is considered crucial in presidential elections.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/28/1051381901050.html

Jay Garner, the retired United States general and now civil administrator of Iraq, yesterday declared the beginning of the "birth of democracy" in the ravaged cradle of civilisation.

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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1051389533193&p=1012571727172

[Yesterday] Jay Garner, Washington's administrator for postwar Iraq, convened a meeting with prominent Iraqis on the creation of an interim authority in their country. The conference comes amid continued problems with basic services and security throughout Iraq and growing signs of disillusion among several opposition groups. It also follows Sunday's arrest by US forces of Mohamed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, a self-styled local leader in Baghdad. About 200 delegates met at a heavily guarded convention centre in Baghdad's bomb-damaged government district - significantly fewer than the 300-400 that US organisers had expected.

...Several hundred Shia's demonstrated in central Baghdad, some claiming that clerics from the holy city of Najaf were not properly represented at the meeting and others raising banners in support of Mr al-Zubaidi, according to Reuters. Mr al-Zubaidi 10 days ago declared himself "chief of the executive council" in Baghdad and proceeded last week to establish a series of shadow ministries in the capital. He had seemed supremely confident of his position as recently as Saturday, when he told the FT: "Someone had to fill the vacuum so we started burying the dead, putting out the fires and bringing back the power and the water." However, he was pointedly not invited to Monday's conference... The US is unlikely to tolerate would-be leaders who try to act outside its umbrella.

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http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=489802003

UNITED States soldiers shot back at anti-American protesters... The shooting took place on Monday night in the town of Fallujah, about 30 miles west of the capital... Dr Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of Fallujah General Hospital, said there were 13 dead, including three boys under 11 years old. He said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured, which he said numbered 75. Residents said the demonstration was conducted by children and students between the ages of 5 and 20... The troops were headquartered in a schoolhouse, and some of the protesters fired on the building, [Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division] said. Arab television channel Al-Jazeera quoted residents as saying the troops opened fire after someone threw a rock at the school. The demonstrators were reportedly protesting against US troops’ presence in the city. Local Sunni Muslim cleric, Kamal Shaker Mahmoud, said the demonstrators were unarmed students who had gone to the school to ask the troops to leave.

...Meanwhile the US reacted angrily to suggestions that a Belgian lawyer might sue its Commander in Chief in the Gulf Tommy Franks for war crimes such as the looting of hospitals, firing on an ambulance, and the deaths of Iraqi civilians. The Bush administration said there would be "diplomatic consequences" for Belgium if it did not block the move.

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Oil-Glance.html

THE OIL FIELDS: Engineers re-established oil flow to the key southern refinery in Basra and were working to restart the plant... A flow of somewhere between 15,000 barrels a day and 75,000 barrels a day has resumed, an oil official with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance said. The Basra refinery should be fully running in four or five days, he said.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,944742,00.html

Oxfam last night launched a scathing attack on the man the US has put in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq. Dan Amstutz is a former senior executive of Cargill, the biggest grain exporter in the world, and served in the Reagan administration as a trade negotiator in the Uruguay round of world trade talks. Oxfam is concerned that his involvement is an example of the potentially damaging commercialisation of the reconstruction effort in Iraq, which it would prefer to see conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.

Kevin Watkins, Oxfam's policy director, said Mr Amstutz would "arrive with a suitcase full of open-market rhetoric", and was more likely to try to dump cheap US grain on the potentially lucrative Iraqi market than encourage the country to rebuild its once-successful agricultural sector... "This guy is uniquely well-placed to advance the commercial interests of American grain companies and bust open the Iraqi market - but singularly ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a developing country." With President Bush on record as saying he wants American farmers to feed the world, Oxfam is worried that the Iraqi agricultural sector will be left unprotected from cut-price US competition at the crucial early stages of its reconstruction.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030429/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_reconstruction&cid=540&ncid=1480

The agency awarding Iraq reconstruction contracts deleted its requirement for a security clearance after realizing it awarded a project to a company that lacked one, an internal report says. The U.S. Agency for International Development justified the change by deciding the situation in Iraq made the clearance unnecessary.

...Meanwhile, USAID on Tuesday awarded three grants in Umm Qasr to aid the new town council. The grants, totaling $76,000, will establish council offices; create a telephone and Internet center; refurbish sports and recreational facilities and provide sports equipment.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030428/tv_nm/television_banfield_dc_1

NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield has ripped television news networks, including her own, for their... coverage of the Iraqi war... She also attacked NBC News for hiring right-wing radio talk-show host Michael Savage to do a show on MSNBC. Savage recently called Banfield a "slut" after her reports portraying the radical Arab point of view. Banfield, who won her first notoriety for her coverage from the World Trade Center on 9/11, might be in some trouble for her comments.

..."You did not see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortars landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me," Banfield said. She ripped NBC for putting Savage on the air saying, "He was so taken aback by my daring to speak to martyrs ... for being prepared to sacrifice themselves, he chose to label me a slut on the air, and that's not all, as a porn star and an accessory to the murder of Jewish children. These are the ramifications for simply bringing the message in the Arab world."

...She said NBC was preparing to close its Kabul bureau, a statement that NBC News denied. "If we had paid more attention to Afghanistan in the '80s, we might not have had 9/11," she said.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39091-2003Apr25.html

One member's attempt to review confidential transcripts exposed a rift yesterday within the independent commission examining the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Timothy J. Roemer, a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, criticized the panel's leaders for not demanding immediate and total access to documents compiled during a congressional inquiry on the terrorist attacks.

...Roemer, a former Democratic House member from Indiana, tried to review the transcripts of the joint hearings held last year by the House and Senate intelligence committees. He learned that he had no permission to see them, even though he had served on the joint committee hearings and had, therefore, read the material before... He noted that the commission, by law, must build upon the work of the congressional inquiry, which found that organizational problems and human failings had prevented U.S. intelligence agencies from unraveling the Sept. 11 plot.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/magazine/27LIVES.html

The whole strange thing began nearly two years ago, when an acquaintance e-mailed me, wondering why the Secret Service had contacted him to ask if he thought I was a threat to George W. Bush. Me? A pretzel is more of a threat to Bush than I am... Private investigators have been known to intimate that they're with the government, so I called the Secret Service's Seattle office to report that someone might be impersonating one of their agents. No, the officer responded, they had wanted to contact me for the past eight months but couldn't find me. Weird -- my name and number were in the Seattle phone book. I went to their office.

...I sat in a small room with the good cop, Steve, and the bad cop, whom I'll call Cruella. Steve said they had received a report that, on Oct. 12, 2000, I was overheard in a D.C. bar saying, ''I have friends in the C.I.A. who will make sure Bush doesn't enter the White House.'' I responded that except for the facts that I don't have any friends in the C.I.A. (that I know of) and that I've never thought, let alone said, something like that, I was in Philadelphia that day.

Unfazed, Cruella opened an inch-thick file... She then said, firmly, ''You've been arrested for trespassing on federal property in Washington.'' The jig was up. Brilliant police work. As was widely reported, in 1986 this son of a librarian was convicted of a petty misdemeanor, having been caught red-handed studying after hours in the Library of Congress.

...''We want your medical records,'' she continued, sliding a paper across the table, ''and want you to sign this release.'' She paused. ''You were in the military, you use the V.A. We can get those records.'' ...My attorney relayed the sobering news that, in a rare First Amendment exception, the simple utterance of a threat against a major presidential candidate can get you five years in prison and a fine -- and what I reportedly said qualified.

Sitting in the interrogation room the next afternoon, I gave the agents a copy of my Philadelphia hotel bill from the day in question and again refused to sign the release...''What do you think of George W. Bush?'' ''He's grammatically challenged, verbicidal,'' I said. ''I made plans to attend the Gore inaugural.'' ...Eventually, they ran out of questions. I left. Steve and Cruella might have been inept, but still, I started looking over my shoulder.

Later, I submitted four Freedom of Information Act requests. The Secret Service ignored them all until my attorney filed suit in federal court. That got their attention, and my Secret Service file recently appeared in the mail. Along with the 85 pages they sent, there was a cover sheet noting, ''In addition . . . 97 pages were withheld in their entirety.'' Much of what I got was blanked out. They spelled my name five different ways, gave my weight variously as 173, 220 and the correct 190, and listed three different birthdays; my height was either 5-foot-9 or my actual 5-foot-11. The report also revealed: ''There is no indication that he has ever behaved violently toward anyone."

...Recently, as I sat in a tavern, talking with a few strangers, the subject of George Bush came up. ''He's an idiot going to war for oil,'' said one. ''He's doing his daddy's dirty work,'' said another. ''He looks like Alfred E. Newman,'' said a third. But I didn't say a word.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030428/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for health authorities in South Carolina to collect names, addresses and other information about women seeking abortions... South Carolina is the only state whose law allows regulators to see, copy and store abortion patients' medical records without stiff requirements that the information be kept confidential, lawyers representing the clinic and outside medical organizations said... Doctors in South Carolina cannot comply with the new law and also adhere to the code of conduct of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that organization told the Supreme Court.

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http://www.theagitator.com/archives/005730.php#005730

Fahreed Zakaria said on This Week today that the same year Texas reinstated the sodomy law being challenged in the Supreme Court, the same Texas legislature also repealed a law prohibiting beastiality. Meaning Texas lawmakers thought the state had a compelling interest in preventing a man from having sex with another man in his home, but not from having sex with his dog. Kinda' throws Santorum's rant for a loop, doesn't it?

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http://www.arkansasnews.com/283234435128139.bsp

Leon Holmes, a federal judge nominee from Little Rock, has written a couple of very interesting things over the years. One of them was so off-the-wall that a similar comment got Fay Boozman beat for the U.S. Senate in 1998. You remember that Boozman, an anti-abortion zealot, told a civic club that a woman wouldn't get pregnant from rape because fear produced a natural shield.

Research into Holmes' writings reveals that he penned the following in a letter to the editor more that 15 years ago: "The concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami." U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, says he has looked into the matter and found that 32,000 women become pregnant each year from rape or incest, but that it has snowed only once in Miami in a century. If Holmes does not make it as a judge, perhaps he could turn to meteorology.

Holmes also wrote — and this was in 1997 — that women are subordinate to men and that wives should subjugate themselves to their husbands. Even U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which has delayed Holmes' confirmation because of Democratic outrage, says he'd be concerned by Holmes' pronouncements except "apparently the people of Arkansas know more than we do."

...Holmes noted... that the abortion reference was long ago. As for his marital power structure, he seemed to stand by it, explaining his religious belief that a husband and wife symbolize Christ and the church.

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http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2645165

Hundreds of disabled people are expected to converge on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to prevent the confirmation of a conservative judicial nominee who they portray as a threat to their rights. A divided Senate on Monday debated the nomination of Jeffrey Sutton to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, and was expected to confirm the Ohio attorney on Tuesday on a largely party-line vote.

...Sutton successfully helped challenge in the courts their ability to sue states for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

...At a confirmation hearing, Sutton maintained that as an attorney he has also argued on behalf of the disabled, and respects their rights.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45762-2003Apr27.html

The White House made a number of recess appointments last week as Congress fled for spring break. One was April H. Foley, a "homemaker," according to campaign contribution disclosure documents, from South Salem, N.Y. She was named to the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank. The appointment is good until Congress adjourns next year.

So why a homemaker for this job? ...She was president of the United Way of Northern Westchester County, N.Y. Not all of it, just the northern part... [also,] she used to date George W. Bush when both were at Harvard Business School.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45762-2003Apr27.html

Federal boards and commissions often are required to have a minority allotment of seats for the party not in control of the White House... [so] President Bush and Senate Democratic Leader Thomas A. Daschle have met to work out an arrangement to ensure a smooth process -- Daschle's picks would be approved as long as they hadn't actively criticized Bush or called him really bad names.

...[But] The White House recently kicked back a Daschle list of about 10 nominees, including the re-appointment of former Peace Corps director Mark Gearan, president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York, to the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Others for whom the White House had objections included folks for the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation and other fairly small potato posts.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/25/business/25TAX.html

The Internal Revenue Service is planning to ask more than four million of the working poor who now claim a special tax credit to provide the most exhaustive proof of eligibility ever demanded of any class of taxpayers.

The I.R.S., trying to prevent errors and cheating, says it needs greater proof of eligibility months before people claim the credit on their tax returns because its efforts to find errors through audits after the fact have not worked... Some tax experts criticize the higher burden of proof as unfair and a wasteful allocation of scarce I.R.S. enforcement dollars. They say that corporations, business owners, investors and partnerships deprive the government of many times what the working poor ever could — through both illegal means and legal shelters — yet these taxpayers face no demands to prove the validity of their claims in advance with certified records and sworn affidavits.Others warn that the proposed I.R.S. rules will set a standard of proof so high that it will be difficult, and in some cases impossible, for honest taxpayers to meet it. As a result, some people entitled to the tax credit will no longer receive it.

...The earned-income tax credit provides an offset for the Social Security taxes low-income workers have already paid, along with a credit based on their earnings that is intended to give them an incentive to work. The credits vary according to income and family size, but no household with earned income above $34,692 is eligible. The average tax credit, paid by the government by check, was $1,976 for households with children in 2001. That is less than the average food stamp benefit for households with children that year, $2,904. But the I.R.S.'s proposed rules would make it much harder to qualify for the tax credit than for food stamps.

...There is a similar effort with federally subsidized school lunches. Eric Bost, the under secretary of agriculture for food and nutrition, has increased efforts to weed out students who officials say are ineligible for free or subsidized school meals.

[mrs henry repeats: "The under secretary of agriculture for food and nutrition, has increased efforts to weed out students who officials say are ineligible for free or subsidized school meals."]

...The new [IRS] measures, which are expected to be published for public comment shortly, are scheduled to begin in July, when the first 45,000 taxpayers who fit into a "high-error category" will be asked to submit proof of their eligibility within six months. The program will accelerate to two million taxpayers in 2004. Eventually some four million "high error" claimants — a fifth of the 19 million who now claim the tax credit — will be required to submit advance proof of their eligibility.

The high-error category encompasses all claimants except married taxpayers filing joint returns and single mothers; it includes fathers with sole custody of children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, foster parents and others. They will have to provide papers proving that the relationship with the children claimed is as claimed, and that the children lived with them for at least six months of the year.

Only a few types of evidence will be acceptable to the I.R.S., and some are documents that will be difficult or impossible for people to get within the six-month deadline. To prove their relationships to children, for example, they are expected to produce marriage certificates, in some cases for other people's marriages; for marriages that took place abroad; and in a few cases for marriages of great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents.

Even American weddings may be hard to document adequately in less than six months. The State of California, for example, warns on its Web site that it may take "up to two to three years" to issue copies of marriage certificates, "due to budgetary constraints." The State of Ohio does not even issue copies of marriage certificates, only "marriage abstracts," which are not certified documents and take six months to obtain in any case. New York State will not issue certificates to people who were married in New York City. New York City will not issue the certificates to anyone but the husband and wife, "or someone with written authorization from them." The I.R.S. plan does not offer any guidelines for the children of couples in common-law marriages.

To prove where a child lived, the I.R.S. will require claimants to produce school records, medical records, leases or similar documents that show both the filer's and the child's names and address, and state specifically the range of dates when they lived there together. Filers who have no such documents will be allowed to produce instead a sworn affidavit from a school official, employer, member of the clergy or other person in a quasi-official capacity, specifically stating under penalty of perjury that he or she has "personal knowledge" that the taxpayer and child lived together during the dates cited. An affidavit from a landlord, who may live far away, would be accepted, but not one from a building superintendent who lives on the premises.

...The I.R.S.'s most recent attempt to measure tax cheating — based on 1988 data and published in 1992 — showed that the biggest tax dodgers by far were people running their own businesses. They cost the Treasury about $38 billion in lost 1992 taxes by failing to report all their income. The same I.R.S. study found that people who wrongly took tax credits of all types — including earned-income tax credits — cost the Treasury less than $6 billion in 1992.

...From 1993 to 1999, the I.R.S. undertook four studies of how much was improperly paid to the working poor. These studies showed that there was, in fact, a high rate of erroneous claims for the earned-income tax credit. Some involved cheating. Many more involved disputes over which parent was entitled to the credit for the same child, one aspect of the complexity of this part of the tax code... Prompted by the overpayment data, the I.R.S. stepped up its audits of people claiming the earned-income tax credit in 1995. The most recent I.R.S. databook shows that 300,000 people who claimed the credit were audited in 2002, or about one in every 64.

By contrast, one of every 120 taxpayers with annual incomes over $100,000 was audited, as were about one in 400 partnerships, which are primarily owned by the wealthy.

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solution: establish a nonprofit

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/5728453.htm

Former employees of the James Irvine Foundation said they wondered if the Internal Revenue Service would question the president's pay when it received the organization's 1999 tax return. But the IRS doesn't even read -- let alone audit -- more than a tiny fraction of non-profit organization tax returns, said Marc Owens, a Washington, D.C., attorney who headed the IRS office that would have been responsible for examining Irvine's tax return at the time. Budget cuts, an archaic computer system and shifting priorities have led to a phenomenal decrease in government oversight... Today, only one-fifteenth of 1 percent of non-profit groups are audited annually.

Meanwhile, the number of non-profit organizations has skyrocketed and their total assets have more than tripled from 1975 to 1995, according to a federal study. The salaries of chief executives at private foundations have also mushroomed, growing more than 27 percent from 1998 to 2002, and benefit packages have grown even more.

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