Foreign Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

EAST ASIA
KOIZUMI WINS RE-ELECTION IN JAPAN
TOKYO – Prime Minister Koizumi scored a political triumph yesterday as the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party headed for a landslide win in an election touted as a referendum on his push to privatize Japan’s cash-swollen postal system. Early today, public broadcaster NHK projected the LDP won 296 seats in parliament’s 480-seat lawmaking lower house.
Mr. Koizumi is expected to stand by his dispatch of troops to support the American-led coalition in Iraq over opposition objections, and he also strongly supports the continued presence of 50,000 American military personnel in Japan.
– Associated Press
CLINTON SAYS CHINESE MUST BETTER TOLERATE DISSENT
BEIJING – China will have to tolerate more dissent as its economy grows and opens up to the rest of the world, President Clinton said yesterday. Mr. Clinton, who is on a four-day visit to China, also said he would have raised the case of a Chinese journalist imprisoned for allegedly providing state secrets to foreigners when he spoke at a conference on Saturday but he had not been aware of the issue at the time.
Mr. Clinton delivered the keynote address at a conference hosted by Internet powerhouse Yahoo’s new Chinese partner, Alibaba.com, at the eastern resort city of Hangzhou. The French watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said Chinese authorities convicted the journalist Shi Tao, who had written an e-mail about press restrictions, using information provided by Yahoo. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the country’s vague state security laws. The group said court papers showed Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) helped Chinese investigators trace the personal e-mail Mr. Shi sent containing his notes on the issue.
Human rights activists had sent a letter to Mr. Clinton asking that he raise Mr. Shi’s case with his Chinese hosts. He explained yesterday that he was suffering from a bad cold and “didn’t know about that issue until this morning.”
– Associated Press
PERSIAN GULF
IRAN WARNS AGAINST U.N. SECURIT Y COUNCIL REFERRAL
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran said yesterday it would not stop uranium conversion and warned of consequences if it was referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran wants to continue dialogue with Europe without preconditions and rejected an American-European threat that Tehran has about a week to freeze uranium processing activities or face referral to the Security Council. Mr. Mottaki also said Iran plans to seek bids for building two more nuclear power plants in the Islamic republic.
– Associated Press
MIDDLE EAST
JORDAN SENTENCES 12 IN PLOTS AGAINST EMBASSIES
AMMAN, Jordan – Twelve Islamic terrorists screamed praise for the September 11, 2001, attacks as a Jordanian court jailed them for up to three years yesterday for plotting terrorist strikes against the American and Israeli embassies in Jordan.
The convicted defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 1 1/2 years to three years after being found guilty of conspiring in 2004 to attack the embassies. The 12 defendants, who did not enter pleas, were also accused of planning other attacks, including against a hotel popular with Israeli tourists in the city of Irbid and the home of a cultural festival director.
– Associated Press
WESTERN EUROPE
COMMUNISTS MAKE COMEBACK AHEAD OF GERMAN ELECTIONS
DRESDEN, Germany – Sixteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ex-communists from the former East Germany are making a political comeback.
Although surveys show that only 8% to 10% of Germans back the Left Party, its transformation of a collection of fringe groups into a cohesive political organization has become a nightmare for Chancellor Schroeder. The Left Party is the brainchild of a former finance minister under Mr. Schroeder, Oskar Lafontaine, who quit the government in 1999 after he criticized the chancellor for cozying up to big business, and a former leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to East Germany’s Communist Party, Gregor Gysi.
They want to establish an annual gross minimum wage of $21,000, as well as more generous welfare, pension, and health care benefits. To pay for the huge increase in spending, they would raise taxes on businesses and impose a 50% income tax on anyone earning more than $75,000 a year.
– The Washington Post