Daily Update
An online roundup of a post-Sept. 11 world.
Ricin: Suspects tinkering with poison in UK
N. Korea: US reverses course and agrees to talks
Caught cooking rice'n beans
British authorities
arrested six men of North African origin on Sunday and found traces of lethal ricin poison in a London apartment where one of the arrests occurred. Police also found material and equipment used to produce the deadly substance, which is derived from the castor bean plant.
Both Iraq and Al Qaeda have
experimented with ricin in the past. However, authorities have found no evidence connecting those arrested with Iraq or Al Qaeda.
The
BBC reports that British anti-terrorism police are
seeking three more people in connection with the group of six. Authorities have not released the names or nationalities of the six already apprehended, saying only that their ages range from late teens to thirties. However, the
Belfast Telegraph
reports they are Algerian.
Ricin is
highly potent, and can be lethal as an aerosol within 36-72 hours. It's this
potential as an aerosol that has some experts worried that ricin could be used as a weapon of mass destruction, as opposed its more infamous use as a tool for assassins. The
BBC retells the story of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was
assassinated with a ricin-tipped umbrella in 1978.
More recently, ricin made news back in August when the Bush administration considered a military operation to knock out a ricin lab in northern Iraq. US surveillance watched as members of the group Ansar al-Islam – believed to have ties to Al Qaeda – experimented with the poison.
ABC reported at the time that the White House eventually
decided not to knock out the operation after "officials concluded the operation was not a major threat to the United States and definitely not a sophisticated laboratory." However, sources also told
ABC that evidence suggested that the group had tested ricin in water, as a powder, and as an aerosol. They used the substance on donkeys, chickens, and "at one point allegedly exposed a man in an Iraqi market. They then followed him home and watched him die several days later, sources said."
The Christian Science Monitor first reported on a potential
connection between Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda back in April 2002. The group, which means "Soldiers of God," numbers in the several hundreds. In that
Monitor report, an imprisoned Iraqi intelligence operative, Qassem Hussein Mohamed, said that Mr. Hussein has secretly supported Ansar al-Islam for several years in the hopes of destabilizing the Kurdish "safe haven" in northern Iraq. Another
Monitor report from March notes the
similarities between Ansar al-Islam and the Taliban.
US will talk, but not negotiate
The Bush administration dropped its demand that North Korea end its nuclear weapons program before any direct talks with the US could occur. After a meeting in Washington between the US, South Korea, and Japan, the allies released a joint statement saying that "
The United States is willing to talk to North Korea about how it will meet its international obligations."
A
BBC analysis chalked up the diplomatic shift to
pressure from the South Koreans, who have been urging Washington to avoid confrontations in favor of negotiations. Also looking to avoid confrontations are US GIs stationed in South Korea.
The New York Times reports on the
increasingly hostile environment:
For each of the eight major American bases here, two kinds of conditions are updated regularly: "road conditions" and "demonstrations." Another sign urged Americans – soldiers and civilians – to go out in pairs, reminding them, "The buddy system is in effect." The
Times goes on to note that many young South Koreans believe that the US came to split the peninsula. In reality, North Korea attacked first, prompting US intervention to save the beleaguered South.
Whether a US-North Korean meeting would actually diffuse the current standoff is entirely uncertain. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday that
"talks" don't mean "negotiations." Mr. Boucher added that the US is hoping North Korea will indicate a willingness to abandon their nuclear programs before talks are held. So far, however, there has been no response from Pyongyang regarding Washington's offer to talk.
If the two nations do talk, but the US won't negotiate, what exactly will they be talking about? Maybe North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will show up and regale his guests with a discourse on movies over his favorite drink, the
$630-a-bottle Hennessy Paradis.
Also...
•
TV ads say S.U.V. owners support terrorists (
The New York Times)
•
New evidence of Mossad involvement in Belgian murder case (
Ha'aretz)
•
'Special Ops' gets OK to initiate its own missions (
Washington Times)
•
No caller ID? Ch���vez falls for Castro prank 'call' (
Miami Herald)
•
Army unveils 'SmarTruck II' (
CNN)
•
India: We would wipe out Pakistan (
CNN)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Ben Arnoldy at
benjamin@csmonitor.com.
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