SOUTH AMERICA

VENEZUELA INVESTIGATING HEAD OF U.S. GROUP FOR COMMENTS

Venezuelan authorities said yesterday they will investigate comments made by the head of the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy in which he allegedly disparaged the government.

Carl Gershman was quoted in the Caracas newspaper El Universal last week as saying “Venezuela is not a democracy or a dictatorship, but somewhere in between.”

The prosecutor general’s office said in a statement it will “investigate Gershman’s comments” after the Supreme Court called them “degrading to Venezuela’s democratic system.” The National Endowment for Democracy has given funds to several organizations in Venezuela, some of which are reported to oppose the leftist President Chavez.

One of those organizations, Sumate, helped organize an August 15 referendum that sought to oust Mr. Chavez. But the fiery former coup leader, who is highly popular among the poor, won the public referendum by a near 60% margin.

The National Endowment for Democracy receives funding from the American Congress, fueling Mr. Chavez’s charges that the American government is out to undermine him. But, during a visit in Caracas last week, Mr. Gershman denied there was a political agenda behind the funding, saying his organization only funds “democratic groups which promote civil rights, whatever their political ideas may be.” The prosecutor’s office said the investigation of Mr. Gershman would start as soon as they open a case on charges of treason against the leaders of Sumate.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

U.N.: OPIUM UP IN AFGHANISTAN

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Afghanistan is on its way to becoming a “narco-state” and American and NATO-led forces in the country should get more involved in fighting the drug trade as well as terrorists, according to a U.N. report released yesterday. The agency found that cultivation of opium – the raw material for heroin – was up by nearly two-thirds this year. Bad weather and disease kept production from setting a new record, although it still accounted for 87% of the world supply, up from 76% in 2003.

“It would be a historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we reclaimed it from the Taliban and Al Qaeda,” said the executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa. The illegal trade is booming despite political progress in the country, including the first presidential election, and local drug control efforts led by British military advisers.

Opium is now the “main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond among previously quarrelsome peoples,” the report said. It valued the trade at $2.8 billion, or more than 60% of Afghanistan’s 2003 gross domestic product.

– Associated Press

CAUSE OF ARAFAT’S DEATH MAY SOON BE REVEALED

LONDON – Nearly a week after his death, speculation still swirls around what killed Yasser Arafat. Cirrhosis of the liver, AIDS, a blood disorder, and poisoning are frequently mentioned in unconfirmed reports – all consistent with the little that is publicly known about the medical condition that landed the Palestinian Arab leader in a French hospital.

However, the mystery may soon be resolved: The French say they will hand Arafat’s records to Nasser al-Kidwa – a relative, as required, but also the Palestinians’ ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. al-Kidwa is scheduled to fly to Paris on Friday to collect the medical files.

“The full medical report of President Arafat is a historical document for the Palestinian people,” said the Palestinian Cabinet secretary, Hassan Abu Libdeh, yesterday. “We will get the report and the Palestinian Authority will take the necessary decisions, including informing the Palestinian people about the full details of the report.”

Officials in Paris insist French law prevents them from making Arafat’s medical records public, and they have refused to announce the cause of his death November 11 in a hospital outside Paris.

– Associated Press

U.N. DRIVE TO END SUDAN’S 50-YEAR WAR

LONDON – The U.N. Security Council held an extraordinary meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi yesterday, launching a new effort to end the civil war in southern Sudan.

It was the first time in 14 years that the council had gathered outside the U.N.’s headquarters in New York. The war in the south, which is separate from the war in the western region of Darfur, has raged for almost half-a-century and cost 2 million lives. Since Sudan achieved independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1956, the south has known only 10 years of peace.

John Danforth, the American ambassador to the U.N., told diplomats that the council’s presence showed “we care about Sudan.”

Mr. Danforth, the council’s current chairman, said the civil war was the “focus” of international concern but added that that focus would not last for ever.

The war pits Khartoum’s Arab-dominated Islamist regime against black African rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. The southern tribes want to secede and create their own state. But pressure from America has brought the government and SPLA to the negotiating table. Peace talks have taken place in the Kenyan city of Naivasha since 2002 and a series of agreements have been reached.

– The Daily Telegraph

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAELI ARMY MISTAKENLY KILLS EGYPTIANS

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli troops mistook three Egyptian police officers for Palestinian Arab terrorists and shot them dead yesterday along the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, increasing tensions between the neighbors. Prime Minister Sharon called President Mubarak to express his “deepest apologies” for the incident and promised a quick investigation. But Egypt did not appear satisfied, issuing a rare statement lambasting Israel.

“Egypt condemns and strongly protests this regrettable incident,” the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said in a statement. “We demand that the Israeli authorities conduct an immediate, thorough and comprehensive investigation into the circumstances that led to this incident, and present an explanation.”

The shooting comes at a sensitive time for Israel and Egypt, two former enemies that signed a peace agreement in 1979 but have had a frigid relationship in recent years. Aboul Gheit is scheduled to travel to Israel next week for talks on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinian Arabs amid concerns over stability in Gaza following the death of Yasser Arafat.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

U.S., N. KOREA AGREE ON MISSION TO RECOVER MIAs

BANGKOK, Thailand – American and North Korean officials agreed yesterday to conduct recovery missions for remains of American servicemen missing from the Korean War for a 10th consecutive year. The missions, in which personnel from America carry out search operations in the communist state, are a rare example of cooperation between the two nations, which have been at odds over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

The plans for 2005, set in two days of talks in Bangkok led by Jerry Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/MIA affairs, call for American excavation teams to work in two areas in North Korea where more than 2,000 soldiers and Marines disappeared. The operations will take place in April-October in Unsan County,60 miles north of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and near the Chosin Reservoir in the northeastern part of the country, the American Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office said. Unsan County was the site of fighting between communist forces and the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry and 25th Infantry divisions in November 1950.

– Associated Press