Suicide Bomber May Have Been on Ferry
By TERESA CEROJANO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANILA, Philippines (AP) -
A man - listed by the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf as one of its suicide bombers - was aboard a ferry carrying 899 people that caught fire last week after an explosion, the coast guard chief said Tuesday.
But Vice Adm. Arturo Gosingan said there was no indication so far that a bomb caused the blaze that gutted the Superferry 14 shortly after it left Manila on Friday. Police dogs checked the ferry before it departed.
One body has been found but at least 134 people remain missing, officials say.
Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida-linked group, claimed responsibility for the incident and identified the "suicide bomber" as Arnulfo Alvarado, 33, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper reported.
However, the government has dismissed the Abu Sayyaf's claim of responsibility as propaganda.
Police intelligence reports have cited the ferries, one of the main forms of travel in the sprawling archipelago, as a potential target for Abu Sayyaf, which is on a U.S. list of terrorist groups and is known for kidnappings, murders, bombings and banditry.
A spokeswoman for the ship's owner, WG&A, initially said the name of the alleged suicide bomber was not on the passenger manifest.
But coast guard spokesman Arman Balilo said Tuesday that Alvarado was on the list of those who boarded the ferry. He also is classified as being missing.
"There is still an investigation going on, but the position of the coast guard is that ... anybody can make (such) a statement," Balilo said, referring to the Abu Sayyaf's claim of responsibility.
Witnesses said a powerful explosion triggered the inferno.
Divers, investigators and firefighters continued looking for the missing inside the wreckage, which was moored in the shallow waters of Manila Bay.
Divers retrieved what "looked like bones" but "we are not sure what it is," Gosingan said.
At least 70 percent of the half-sunken ferry has been inspected by divers and arson investigators.
Gosingan said rescue teams were lifting cargo and passengers' baggage from the 10,192-ton, steel-hulled ferry in an effort to find more bodies. He theorized that victims could have been trapped or crushed by falling debris, baggage and cargo when the ship turned on its side.
But those operations were hampered by poor visibility and the danger of jagged metal in the interior passageways, as well as embers and hot gases still fuming in the lower deck, he said.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has said search efforts will continue until all the passengers are accounted for.
The fire occurred the same day that two alleged Abu Sayyaf members were convicted of kidnapping an American in 2000 and another was arraigned for participating in a separate mass abduction.

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North, South Korea Hold Economic Talks
By SOO-JEONG LEE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
A North Korean delegation arrived in South Korea Tuesday for talks on the construction of cross-border railways and roads and an industrial complex in the communist state.
The economic discussions, the eighth between the two sides since a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, are to last four days. The two Koreas last met for economic talks in November.
Both sides are expected to focus on the details of rail and road links across their heavily armed border, and on an industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong. North and South Korean officials broke ground for the park last June.
Political and military tensions have delayed work on the transportation projects, and the two sides have failed to meet a number of deadlines.
The inter-Korean talks come just days after negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program involving the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas ended without a major breakthrough in Beijing.
It was not clear whether South Korean officials would bring up the North's nuclear weapons program in the current talks.
South Korean officials say inter-Korean projects would accelerate if the nuclear dispute is resolved.
Official talks were scheduled to start on Wednesday. The 27-member North Korean delegation plans to return home Friday.
Also Tuesday, South Korea said it plans to provide 200,000 tons of chemical fertilizer to North Korea this spring - the same amount provided last year - to help boost the impoverished nation's farm yields.
In a report to the National Assembly, the Unification Ministry said it will use Red Cross channels to ship the fertilizer in time for the North's planting season in April and May.
South Korea provides fertilizer and other humanitarian aid to the North each year.
North Korea has relied on foreign aid to avert famine since the mid-1990s. Last month, the North Korean Red Cross asked South Korea for fertilizer aid.
The Unification Ministry said it will cost South Korea about $60 million to buy and ship 200,000 tons of fertilizer.

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Australia Troops Ill From Anthrax Shots
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia injected soldiers headed to Iraq with an anthrax vaccine without telling them that forces who received the vaccine before going to Afghanistan had fallen ill, officials said Saturday.
Tony Austin, the defense health services director-general, defended the military's decision to keep quiet about the possible side effects of the vaccine, saying he had no definitive evidence the two were linked.
Austin said the forces already were being deployed to a stressful environment in Iraq and he had no proof that the problems were likely to recur.
"So I think to have advised people of that would have been quite counterproductive. I think that would have increased anxiety levels amongst our people," he said.
Defense documents released Saturday showed that almost three in four Australian troops who were given the vaccine before going to Afghanistan suffered from swelling and pain in the injected arm and a flu-like illness that kept some on sick leave for up to 48 hours.
In late 2001, Australia sent about 1,500 military personnel to Afghanistan to join the U.S.-led military action against the Taliban militia and al-Qaida.
The Weekend Australian newspaper reported Saturday that so many Afghanistan-bound personnel suffered temporary reactions to the vaccine that the anthrax vaccination program was suspended for two months in November 2001.
Vaccinations were resumed without telling troops heading to Iraq a year later of the side effects. Around 2,000 Australian troops were deployed to Iraq.
Austin said while he could not guarantee that the British-made vaccine was 100 percent safe, he could reassure inoculated troops and their families that their health had not been jeopardized.
"To this day, I have no evidence to suggest that the complications we saw in Afghanistan were directly attributable to the vaccine," he said.
Austin added unusual rates of adverse reactions had not been found in subsequent vaccinations.
In 2003, 52 Australian defense personnel were banned from serving in Iraq after they refused to take the anthrax vaccine.

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Arafat Accepts Key Reform for Foreign Aid
By MARK LAVIE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM (AP) -
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday agreed to a new system for paying his security forces - a key administrative reform that removed an obstacle to additional international aid, his prime minister said.
After months of delay, Arafat agreed that security force members would be paid directly, replacing the system of handing bundles of cash to commanders for distribution - an invitation to corruption. Foreign donors were balking at additional aid unless the reform was implemented.
In Gaza City, meanwhile, Arafat's position of authority took another blow early Tuesday when gunmen shot and killed Khalil al-Zaben, a close associate of Arafat for four decades. The killing was seen as part of escalating Palestinian power struggles in Gaza, and some feared chaos and civil war there.
A dire need for an influx of cash overcame Arafat's attempt to hold on to the pursestrings of Palestinian security forces, an element of control.
Israel and the United States have been pressing the Palestinians to consolidate more than a dozen overlapping and competing security forces and wrest control from Arafat, but to no avail.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Arafat agreed to the financial reform step at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. "President Arafat approved paying all the security men through the banks," Qureia said after the meeting.
The 2004 Palestinian budget, approved in January, projected a 50 percent deficit of $800 million, underlining the critical role of foreign aid. The Palestinian economy has been decimated by more than three years of Mideast violence.
Palestinians blame Israel for punitive travel restrictions, but Israelis cite the need for security measures after thousands of attacks, including more than 100 suicide bombings.
Also Tuesday, Arafat hosted European and Arab diplomats after opening a new parliament building in Ramallah, the West Bank administrative and business center, where Arafat has been confined for more than two years by Israeli forces.
Arafat discounted a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to evacuate settlements and withdraw from most of the Gaza Strip unilaterally if peace talks remain frozen.
Arafat said that under a timetable approved in interim peace accords in the 1990s, Israel should have been out of Gaza years ago. "But hundreds of houses were added to these settlements and thousands of dunams (acres) were confiscated," he said.
Negotiations over a permanent peace accord that would have included an Israeli pullout from Gaza broke down in 2000 over issues including Palestinian refugees and disposition of disputed parts of Jerusalem.
Statistics released by the Israeli government on Tuesday showed that construction in Jewish settlements in 2003 increased by 35 percent compared to the previous year, despite Israel's acceptance of a U.S.-backed peace plan that forbids such building.
Work started on 1,849 housing units in settlements during 2003, up from 1,369 in 2002, the bureau of statistics said. Construction inside Israel slumped by more than 10 percent during the same period.
The "road map" peace plan states that Israel must freeze "all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)." Israel insists that first, Palestinians must stop all violence, another "road map" requirement.
About 230,000 Jewish settlers live among around 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israeli captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
Palestinians charge that the settlements are encroachment on their land and demand that all be removed. The United States considers the settlements as obstacles to peace, and most other international bodies call them illegal.
Israel has traditionally said it has a historic, religious and security claim to the West Bank, justifying the settlements, but in recent years even hardliners have admitted that not all can remain where they are.
In Washington, top Sharon aide Dov Weisglass met with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss the Gaza pullout plan, a statement from Sharon's office said.
In violence Tuesday, Israeli troops shot and killed an unarmed man fleeing from a West Bank house they were surrounding. The military said the man ignored orders to halt.

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Adviser to Arafat Slain in Gaza
By RAVI NESSMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -
The gangland-style killing of an adviser to Yasser Arafat on Tuesday was a chilling sign of increasing lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, where armed gangs and corrupt security forces are competing for power ahead of a proposed Israeli troop withdrawal.
Some fear the situation in Gaza is spinning out of control, and the territory could descend into chaos and even civil war.
"There is violence against everybody," said Marwan Kanafani, a Palestinian legislator. "You don't know who is killing whom or why it is happening."
"It's going to get worse," he warned.
Israel gets some of the blame, for destroying police installations during more than three years of violence. This may have left the security forces too weak to take on the armed gangs increasingly controlling Gaza's streets, including gunmen with ties to Arafat's Fatah movement.
But the Palestinian Authority's tangled web of competing security services and Arafat's hands-off policy toward gunmen is seen as the main factor in the chaos. As part of his leadership style, Arafat has encouraged rivalries to keep in line possible challengers and has condoned corruption as a perk for loyalists.
"There are those who want to take the law into their own hands, and most of them are in the higher ranks of the security forces," said Hafez Barghouti, editor in chief of the Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.
Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, told a committee of the Israeli parliament Tuesday that Palestinian society "is rife with internal power struggles, maybe we can even call it anarchy."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been talking in recent weeks about a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and some West Bank areas if peace efforts remain stalled.
There is concern Islamic militant groups, the main opposition to Arafat, could try to seize power following such a withdrawal. However, recent vigilante attacks on government offices and journalists in Gaza were blamed on gunmen with ties to Fatah, not on militants from Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
Despite the unrest, many Gazans were stunned when Khalil al-Zaben, 59, was riddled by a dozen bullets early Tuesday as he left his Gaza City office.
Arafat denounced the killing as a "dirty assassination" and convened his Cabinet and national security council to discuss what was seen as one of the most serious challenges to the Palestinian Authority.
"This chaos will not be tolerated. I believe the Palestinian government and security forces must take all action to end this chaos," Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said. "It is really undermining the Palestinian struggle to establish an independent state."
Many Palestinian officials and scores of officers from three different security services attended al-Zaben's official funeral Tuesday. Members of Arafat's bodyguard acted as pallbearers.
There was no claim of responsibility, but one official said privately he suspected the assailants had ties to Fatah. Al-Zaben made enemies in Gaza by filing detailed reports to Arafat about various factions' activities, the official said.
Last week, al-Zaben distributed a leaflet denouncing "gangs of professional killers and assassins" whom he held responsible for a recent attack that wounded a Fatah politician. Al-Zaben, a local publisher, also headed a Palestinian Authority-backed human rights group that monitored the fate of Palestinians imprisoned in other countries.
Reporters Without Borders, a group that works to protect the rights of journalists, issued a statement calling on the Palestinian Authority to "immediately take clear, well-defined and effective steps to ... bring an end to the impunity with which Palestinian journalists are being attacked."
Even before al-Zaben's killing, internal violence was running high in Gaza, with a number of unsolved attacks.
In the past month, the offices of a weekly news magazine that criticized corruption were ransacked and a journalist from an influential newspaper had his car firebombed. Rival security forces opened fire at each other at Gaza police headquarters, killing a police officer.
About 15 masked Palestinians burst into a Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation office, demanding jobs at gunpoint on Saturday, three days after 20 masked men with assault rifles and hand grenades raided the Gaza City office of the Palestinian Land Authority, demanding land deeds be transferred to them.
The Land Authority took the unprecedented step of publishing a front-page ad in newspapers Sunday accusing many of the masked men of being members of the security forces and announcing the closure of all Land Authority offices in Gaza until "those that committed these crimes face justice."
Assailants then threw a hand grenade overnight at a charity backed by the Land Authority chairman.
"There is really almost nobody who is taking care of law and order," said Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian political analyst and pollster whose West Bank offices were raided by a mob last year as he held a news conference.
Shikaki says the attacks are far from random and likely stem from feuding militia leaders, militants trying to crush criticism and groups jockeying for power ahead of a possible Israeli pullout.

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No Evidence Navy Pilot Was in Iraqi Hands
By ROBERT BURNS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigations in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad have found no evidence that missing Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher was held in captivity after being shot down on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War, the Navy's top admiral said Tuesday.
U.S. officials have been interrogating Iraqis and searching throughout the country for evidence of Speicher's fate since the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled by U.S. forces in early April last year.
Despite having found no evidence that the Iraqis captured Speicher, the Navy is sticking to its position, declared publicly in October 2002, that Speicher is "missing-captured," Clark said.
"We have not found out new specific intelligence revelations that have changed our fundamental conclusion," Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, told reporters at a breakfast interview.
The Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein maintained from the start that Speicher died in the crash on Jan. 17, 1991, although his body was not recovered.
Asked directly whether evidence had emerged to reinforce the theory that Speicher had been taken captive by the Iraqis, Clark said no. He said there is no evidence either for or against it.
Other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that prewar assertions by informants that Speicher had been seen in a prison in Baghdad have been discredited.
Nonetheless, the Navy is maintaining its position that Speicher is "missing-captured," Clark said.
The Navy has changed its position on Speicher's status over the years.
In October 2002 the Navy changed Speicher's status from missing in action to "missing-captured," although it has never said what evidence it has that he was in captivity. In announcing that decision, Navy Secretary Gordon England wrote at the time, "I have no evidence to conclude that Captain Speicher is dead. He also wrote, "While the information available to me now does not prove definitively that Captain Speicher is alive and in Iraqi custody, I am personally convinced the Iraqis seized him sometime after his plane went down."
Hours after his plane when down, the Pentagon had declared Speicher killed in action, with no body recovered. But 10 years later, in January 2001, the Navy changed his status to MIA, citing an absence of evidence that he had died.
Clark said in the interview Tuesday that resolving the fate of Speicher is a high priority for the Navy.
"We do not have new intelligence that adds clarity and definition to what happened to him" after he was shot down, Clark said. "If you think about what I just told you, that tells you something about the discovery or lack of discovery."
Speicher was 33 when he was shot down. He held the rank of lieutenant commander at the time; he has since been promoted to captain.

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Gulf War pilot's status still `missing-captured'
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
Nearly a year after the fall of Baghdad, the Navy has yet to find evidence to change its position that F-18 fighter pilot Michael Scott Speicher, shot down on the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War, was at one time in Iraqi captivity, the Navy's top admiral said Tuesday.
Iraq has maintained all along that Speicher was killed in the crash. The Navy, which has changed its position on Speicher's status over the years, lists him as "missing-captured."
"We have not found out new specific intelligence revelations that have changed our fundamental conclusion," Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operation, told a group of reporters at a breakfast interview.
In October 2002 the Navy changed Speicher's status from missing in action to "missing-captured," although it has never said what evidence it has that he was in captivity. He initially was listed as killed in action, with no body recovered. But in January 2001, the Navy changed his status to MIA, citing an absence of evidence that he had died.
Asked directly whether any evidence had emerged to support the Navy's position that Speicher had been taken captive by the Iraqis after he was shot down on Jan. 17, Clark said, "I can't answer that question."
Later a senior Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, conceded that no information has emerged that reinforces the theory that Speicher had ever been in captivity.
In fact, other officials have said in recent months that some information from informants, claiming before the U.S. invasion last March that Speicher had been seen in a prison in Baghdad, has since been discredited.
Clark said resolving the fate of Speicher is a high priority for the Navy.
"We do not have new intelligence that adds clarity and definition to what happened to him" after he was shot down, Clark said. "If you think about what I just told you, that tells you something about the discovery or lack of discovery."
Speicher was 33 when he was shot down. He held the rank of lieutenant commander at the time; he has since been promoted to captain. Speicher's family lived in the Kansas City area and moved to Florida when he was a teenager.

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Venezuela Panel Rules on Chavez Recall
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -
Venezuela's elections council ruled Tuesday that the opposition lacked enough signatures to force a recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez. Rioting over council delays had spread from Caracas to other cities before the decision.
Chavez opponents say they submitted more than 3.4 million signatures. Some 2.4 million are needed for a recall election.
But council President Francisco Carrasquero announced that just 1.83 million signatures were valid. Another 876,016 signatures may be valid - if citizens confirm that they indeed signed the petition, Carrasquero said.
The council said that voters whose signatures were under dispute would have between March 18 and March 22 to report to voting centers to confirm that they indeed had signed the petition.
Venezuela's opposition claims that such a monumental task, involving hundreds of thousands of citizens, could indefinitely postpone the referendum or derail it entirely.
Even before the announcement, protests surged as the opposition anticipated the result. National guard troops in armored personnel carriers rolled through several cities as demonstrators burned tires and hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at soldiers.
Protests were reported in at least 10 other cities, including the industrial centers of Valencia and Barquisimeto and the western oil city of Maracaibo.
Many opposition leaders had said they would not accept a decision requiring voters to confirm their signatures. The measure was allegedly not included in rules established for the verification process, they said.
"We are not negotiating the signatures," said opposition leader Juan Fernandez.
Chavez's foes have been blocking traffic throughout Caracas since Friday to protest what they view as a government plot to derail the referendum - their last chance of legally ousting Chavez before the next elections in 2006.
At least one person has been killed and 60 wounded since Friday. Dozens have been arrested.
Venezuelans had been waiting since Sunday for the council to release its findings.
The opposition tried to dislodge Chavez, a populist leftist first elected in 1998, through a shortlived coup in 2002 and a general strike that dragged on for two months last year.
Prodded by the Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Center, the government and the opposition agreed in May on ground rules for an eventual recall referendum.
The petitions were delivered in December. But electoral authorities continue to delay an announcement on whether the recall effort can go ahead.
If Chavez loses in a referendum held before mid-August, the midway point for his term, new presidential elections must be held. But if he loses in a vote held after mid-August, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel would take over for the rest of his term.
Opponents fear if that happens, Chavez would merely rule behind his right-hand man for the rest of his term, which ends in January 2007.
The opposition charges the elections council belatedly changed the rules to disqualify hundreds of thousands of signatures. The council says observers were told not to allow voters to simply sign already filled-out forms. But thousands of signatures were delivered that way.
Still, the OAS, Carter Center, Argentina, Brazil and other countries have urged Venezuela to overlook glitches and respect the apparent will of voters. Chavez - re-elected to a six-year term in 2000 - rejects their pleas as foreign interference and insists the petition is ridden with fraud.
Defense Minister Gen. Jorge Carneiro insisted his troops will restore order if necessary in areas where protests have been strongest - especially eastern Caracas, an anti-Chavez stronghold.
Chavez's government urged opposition mayors to stop rioting by deploying their police forces.
"It's amazing to see how some mayors are allowing the destruction of their own municipalities, private property and streets and their citizens' security," said Vice Security Minister Carlos Valter Bettid.
Protests forced private banks to shut 20 branch offices; prevented garbage collection; caused traffic jams and hampered transit by emergency vehicles. For a second day, thousands were unable to get to work.
The government published full-page newspaper ads Tuesday declaring that "violence is the shortest path to losing everything."
Opposition labor leader Manuel Cova countered: "Today they might steal our signatures. Tomorrow they might steal our votes."

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Troops increase presence at Afghanistan-Pakistan border
By Stephen Graham
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S.-led coalition troops have begun strengthening their presence in Afghanistan's lawless border regions in an attempt to crush Taliban and al-Qaida militants and garner intelligence on fugitives like Osama bin Laden, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.
The move to beef up the U.S. presence comes only weeks after the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, pledged that troops would switch from brief missions in pursuit of enemy fighters to taking "ownership" of areas by having more regular contact with villages, sometimes for days at a time.
"That process is under way and is gaining steam," military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty told reporters during a news conference in the capital, Kabul.
The new show of force marks a change in tactics for the military, which had earlier deployed hundreds of troops in large formations for weeks at a time into remote mountainous areas. The new strategy has the advantage of attempting to build closer ties with the community, yielding better intelligence as well as giving troops more time to thoroughly screen an area.
Now, locally based troops do "a long patrol, spend some time in villages and then come back to their main base, but then go back out to that village again," Hilferty said. "So we have repeated visits to places and we have better face-to-face and personal contact."
The new tactics have already met with some success, including the destruction of a terrorist cell that had been plaguing American forces in the restive border region near Pakistan, said Lt. Col. Harry Glenn, the commander of a U.S. military base in the province of Khost.
One operation in January around a remote pass linking Khost with neighboring Paktia province had led to several arrests in a stronghold of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a fabled former Taliban commander.
"There has not been an attack in that pass since," Glenn told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday.
Haqqani apparently fled the area, he said.
The number of U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan has crept up to 13,000 over recent months, including up to 1,000 in Khost.
Barno has said that U.S. forces are planning to work closely with Pakistani troops on the other side of the border in what he described as a "hammer-and-anvil" approach -- Pakistani troops will pressure the militants to cross into Afghanistan where American forces will be waiting.
Pakistani forces have poured into tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in hopes of pressuring fugitives to flee to Afghanistan -- where American forces will be waiting.
U.S. officials say they expect these operations, plus the establishment of security teams in provincial capitals such as Qalat to encourage reconstruction projects and undermine support for militants threatening landmark summer elections.