SOUTH ASIA

DNA TESTS CONFIRM IDENTITY OF PEARL’S KILLER

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – DNA tests confirm that a slain Pakistani terrorist was the man accused of beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and carrying out two assassination attempts on Pakistan’s president, a minister said yesterday.

Amjad Hussain Farooqi, 32, leader of an outlawed Al Qaeda-linked Sunni terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was killed September 26 when security forces raided a home in Nawabshah, a town in southern Sindh province.

Authorities said Farooqi was asked to surrender but refused and attacked with grenades instead. Pakistani officials maintained that the slain militant was Farooqi, but said they conducted DNA tests to be sure.

Days after Farooqi’s death, a suicide attacker detonated a bomb hidden in a briefcase at a Shiite mosque in the eastern city of Sialkot, killing 31 people and wounding more than 50. Yesterday, the interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, traveled to Sialkot, where he told reporters that Friday’s attack was possibly a reaction to Farooqi’s death.

Intelligence officials have identified Farooqi as a co-organizer of two attempts to assassinate President Musharraf last December by blowing up his motorcade. Mr. Musharraf escaped injury both times, but 17 others were killed.

– Associated Press

PERSIAN GULF

SAUDI CHARITY ORDERED TO CLOSE

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The Saudi government has ordered the closure of a large charity that Washington accuses of helping finance terrorist activities, a Saudi official said yesterday.

The Riyadh-based Al-Haramain foundation has until October 15 to dissolve all its operations, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Officials from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and from Al-Haramain could not be reached. Adel al-Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, announced in Washington in June that in an effort to prevent charitable donations from bankrolling terrorism, the Saudi government was creating a commission to filter contributions raised inside the kingdom to support causes abroad.

The plan included dissolving Al-Haramain and other Saudi charities and folding their financial assets into the new national commission.

The American government, as part of its anti-terrorism strategy after the September 11 attacks, has sought to cut off the sources of terrorists’ financing.

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

CHECHEN PRESIDENT SWORN IN

GROZNY, Russia – Chechnya’s new Kremlin backed president was sworn in yesterday, taking the helm of this wartorn Russian region under heavy guard nearly five months after his predecessor was assassinated and nearly a month after a wave of terrorist attacks blamed on Chechen rebels.

The major general, Alu Alkhanov, elected August 29 in a vote critics said was rigged, was inaugurated in a tent erected inside the government complex in the Chechen capital Grozny. Its exterior was draped with a sign calling for “durable peace, stable life, and a worthy future” for Chechnya, where the second war against separatist rebels in a decade drags on five years after it began. General Alkhanov’s installation is a key part of the strategy of President Putin’s government for dealing with Chechnya – by fighting rebels while promoting elections and other measures aimed at stabilizing a region where nearly three-fourths of the estimated 1 million residents are unemployed.

– Associated Press

SOUTH AMERICA

POWELL: CONFIDENT BRAZIL WILL NOT DEVELOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Secretary of State Powell said yesterday he is confident Brazil has no intention of becoming a nuclear power, but he called on the country to work out differences with the U.N. atomic watchdog agency over inspections.

“We know for sure that Brazil is not thinking about nuclear weapons in any sense,” Mr. Powell told a breakfast meeting sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce at the start of a two-day visit – his first to the country as secretary of state. Mr. Powell arrived less than two weeks ahead of a visit by a team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to Brazil. The IAEA wants unimpeded access to a factory that produces nuclear fuel. Brazil has indicated that it wants less-stringent standards than the IAEA is seeking.

Brazil claims that centrifuges at its plant in Resende, about 60 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, use advanced technology that could be stolen by other countries if the inspectors are allowed to view it. But analysts doubt Brazil has developed technology that is radically different from what is used at other uranium enrichment plants and point out that technological advances are traditionally protected with patents.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

E.U. TO APPROVE ENTRY TALKS WITH TURKEY

BRUSSELS, Belgium – The European Union head office will likely push for stringent and long-term conditions to membership for Turkey as part of its expected approval today to start entry negotiations, which are likely to last at least 10 years.

The 30-member executive European Commission is expected to warn Ankara in its recommendation that any backtracking on human rights or other democratic reforms could cause a delay in negotiations.

A draft report on Turkey’s progress to meeting E.U. membership requirements says that although Turkey has made progress, “deficiencies remain and it is clear that political reform needs to be further consolidated and broadened.”

A panel of senior E.U. officials reviewed the study and a draft recommendation late Monday. Officials said the panel broadly backed the plan to call for the start of entry talks, but suggested the E.U. retain the right to suspend negotiations with a so-called emergency break if Turkey backtracks on reforms.

Today’s recommendation will be a milestone in Turkey’s membership bid, which has raised major questions of identity both in Europe and in the mostly Muslim nation that seeks to join it.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

REPORT: U.S. TO DELAY TROOP REDEPLOYMENT

SEOUL, South Korea – America has agreed to delay the planned withdrawal of 12,500 troops from South Korea by three years to 2008, a news agency reported today.

Under the deal, Washington will withdraw a total of 5,000 troops this year, and the rest by 2008, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The agency cited an unidentified South Korean official.

America previously said it would redeploy the 12,500 troops by the end of 2005, bringing the total remaining to about 24,500.

Some 3,600 American troops have already redeployed this year from South Korea to Iraq. The South Korean Defense Ministry planned to announce details of the agreement at a news conference later today, Yonhap said.

American Embassy spokeswoman Maureen Cormack said she had no comment.

– Associated Press