MIDDLE EAST

U.N. CHIDES SYRIA; E.U. SIGNS FREE TRADE PACT

As the United Nations Security Council rebuked Syria yesterday, the European Union engaged it in a free trade pact. After a week of negotiations, the 15-member council united behind a statement that noted “with concern” the fact that its demands for all foreign troops to leave Lebanon and quit interfering in its internal affairs “have not been met.” It also requested Secretary-General Annan to continue reporting on implementation every six months. America and France, which initiated the drive against the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, were satisfied despite some last-minute compromises they had to make to assure unanimity. “We’re hopeful that Syria will take a message from this resolution and from the unanimous, and we stress unanimous, decision of the Security Council,” said the American deputy U.N. envoy, Anne Patterson.

The Syrian ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, made it clear that Damascus has no intentions of complying. The statement has “taken the council far away from its duties,” he told reporters and argued that Syria is implementing pan-Arabic and bilateral agreements “according to the wishes of the two countries and the interest of the Lebanese people.” Damascus’s Baathist rulers never opened an embassy in Beirut as they consider Lebanon and Palestine to be part of greater Syria.

Meanwhile in Brussels, Syria and the E.U. inked an association agreement as part of a plan for a “Euro-Mediterranean” free-trade zone by 2010.The agreement also seeks “essential provisions on respect for the democratic principles and fundamental human rights, cooperation to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and their means of delivery, and anti-terrorism.”

– Special to the Sun

WESTERN EUROPE

RADICAL CLERIC CHARGED WITH URGING MURDER OF NON-MUSLIMS LONDON – British authorities pre-empted an American bid to extradite radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, charging the fiery preacher yesterday with urging followers to kill non-Muslims, in some cases specifically targeting Jews.

On what was scheduled to have been the first day of his extradition hearing, Mr. al-Masri, 46, sat in court to face 10 charges of soliciting or encouraging the murder of others, “namely a person or persons who did not believe in the Islamic faith.” Four of the charges added: “in particular Jewish people.” The alleged incitement to murder came in speeches that, according to the 16-count indictment, were recorded on tape.

Mr. al-Masri was arrested in May after American authorities charged him with trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, involvement in hostage-taking in Yemen, and funding terror training in Afghanistan. Under British law, the domestic charges, which could carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, take precedence over the extradition case. At Belmarsh Magistrates Court yesterday, Judge Timothy Workman formally adjourned extradition proceedings until Mr. al-Masri has been convicted or cleared of the British charges. A lawyer representing American authorities said U.S. officials intend to ask for extradition proceedings to be resumed once the British case ends.

– Associated Press

FAMILY DONATES HOLOCAUST DIARY

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – A Holocaust-era diary and love letters written by a Jewish teen for her Dutch boyfriend while she was imprisoned in an internment camp in 1943 has been donated to a Dutch archives. Archivists in the Dutch city of Tilburg yesterday announced the rare discovery with parallels to the famed diary by Anne Frank.

The journal was kept by 18-year-old Helga Deen during the final month of her detainment in a Dutch internment camp in April-July 1943. That July, she was shipped off to a Nazi concentration camp in Sobibor, Poland with her brother, father, and mother. All four died at the camp. “She kept the secret diary for her boyfriend in order to help him understand what she was experiencing,” said a worker at the Tilburg Regional Archive, Yvonne Weling. Deen recorded some of her day-to-day experiences for her boyfriend Kees van den Berg, but even more of her emotions, Ms. Weling said. “Maybe this diary will be a disappointment to you because it doesn’t contain facts,” Deen wrote to Van den Berg. “But maybe you’ll be glad that you find me in it: conflict, doubt, desperation, shyness, emptiness.”

“If my will dies, I’ll die too,” she wrote in another entry.

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

SOROS EMPLOYEE ARRESTED BY BELARUSIAN KGB

MINSK, Belarus – An American employee of philanthropist George Soros’s Open Society Institute has been arrested in Belarus by agents of the country’s KGB security police, the New York-based Foundation said yesterday. Ilya Mafter, who also was a consultant for the United Nations Development Program, was arrested Friday, the institute said.

Belarusian KGB chief Leonid Yerin said late Monday that Mr. Mafter was arrested on fraud charges after being suspected of having “misappropriated some of the funds entrusted to him,” the Interfax news agency said.

“We are perplexed by the arrest of Ilya Mafter, who is working on a project benefiting Belarus and its people,” said the Open Society Institutute’s president, Aryeh Neier. “We urge the Belarusian authorities to release him without delay. The OSI is extremely concerned about his health and welfare. “The Belarus branch of the Soros Foundation closed in 1997, citing government harassment including the expulsion of its director and the seizure of its assets.

– Associated Press

SOUTH AMERICA

U.N. TO INSPECT BRAZIL URANIUM PLANT

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – United Nations inspectors visited a uranium enrichment plant in Brazil yesterday, seeking to resolve an impasse over the country’s refusal to permit visual inspection of its uranium centrifuges.

Three International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from South Africa, France, and America arrived yesterday morning at the plant in Resende, some 60 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, said Mines and Energy spokesman Gustavo Cruz da Souza. Brazilian officials do not want to allow full visual inspection of the centrifuges, citing fears the plant’s advanced technology could be stolen by other countries if outsiders were allowed to view it. Brazil claims it has developed new electromagnetic technology that reduces friction in the centrifuges and makes them 30% more efficient than those used in other countries. Some analysts have suggested, however, that Brazil will not allow inspectors full access because it purchased the technology on the nuclear black market – a charge the government denies.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

THAILAND: 23 TIGERS DIED FROM BIRD FLU

BANGKOK, Thailand – Twenty-three tigers have died from bird flu at a private zoo in Thailand after being fed the carcasses of chickens infected with the disease, a government official said yesterday. The tigers had been dying at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in central Chonburi province since September 14, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director of the Bird Flu Prevention and Elimination Center. The animal park was forced to close its doors to the public while authorities investigated.

“We’ve discovered that all 23 dead tigers had bird flu,” he said. “We’ve found that another 30 tigers are sick. We believe that the tigers contracted bird flu because they ate chicken carcasses, and we believe the carcasses had bird flu. “Veterinarians are checking for the disease at chicken farms in the province, where the zoo got the birds that were fed to the tigers, he added. “We have to order the farms to cull all the chickens,” Mr. Charal said. The more than 400 tigers at the zoo are regularly fed raw chicken, a zoo official said on condition of anonymity.

– Associated Press