Insider notes from United Press International for Oct. 31 ...
The good news for Israel's former Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz is that the Israeli government crisis means he's about to be named defense minister, replacing Labor leader Ben-Eliezer, who resigned. The bad news is that Scotland Yard is investigating him on charges of war crimes. The Muslim Association of Britain (widely thought to be a front for the Muslim Brotherhood) has filed a 17-page dossier of complaint against Mofaz claiming "assassinations and destruction of the family homes" of alleged terrorists, and responsibility for the "massacre of innocent men, women and children" in Jenin during Israel's Defensive Shield operation in April. British advocate Imran Khan argues that as a signatory to the Geneva Convention, Britain must enforce its provisions for crimes against humanity. Not quite. British law requires action when the alleged offenses have been committed on British soil, or when another country files an extradition request, as in the case of Chile's Augusto Pinochet. But the fact that Britain's director of Public Prosecutions has asked Scotland Yard to investigate is intriguing.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is stocking up. Iraqi crude oil sales in October are running at well over 1.5 million barrels per day, the highest volume since March 2002 and well above September's 1.25 million barrels a day.
On the eve of a crucial Turkish election that could decide whether the secular Islamic country finally gets a date to start negotiating its accession to the European Union, the EU may be about to declare itself a Christian community. The European Peoples Party, the grouping of center-right Christian Democrat and conservative parties in the EU's Parliament, is pushing a draft constitution for the EU that stresses their "common spiritual and moral heritage, the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity, and the religious heritage to which Europe owes these essential features of its culture and civilization." The influential German Christian Democrat Elmar Brok insists, "References to Christianity need to be part of a future constitution."
In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, more than 150 Saudi pilots were denied U.S. visas to complete advanced flight training. The Malaysian Flying Academy has stepped into the breach, and has received additional requests from Saudi Arabia Airlines, Gulf Air and Kuwait Airlines to provide the training. MFA General Manager Capt. M. Khasav said, "The airlines were convinced their pilots would get professional training at competitive rates." MFA was established in 1982, and is the leading regional flight school for Southeast Asian countries.
Just as the Czechs, Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks are about to celebrate their joint welcome into the European Union, the four countries have been plunged into rivalry by French automaker Peugeot Citroen, which is holding a beauty contest to see which of the four gets the billion-dollar prize -- a new plant to build a minimum 300,000 cars a year. With Fiat, GM and Ford all cutting production facilities in over-supplied Europe, the new French plant with its 3,000-plus jobs is a real prize. The site decision is made next year, with production to start in 2006.
The Bush's administration's close friend in the Islamic world, the Pakistan of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is about to start holding joint military exercises with neighboring Iran, one of President Bush's three "axis of evil" nations. The first joint exercise is expected next year, after the naval chiefs of the two countries met for discreet talks in the shadows of the IDEAS-2002 defense exhibition in Karachi last month. "There is a desire to increase this cooperation," Pakistani naval chief Adm. Abdul Aziz Mirza has now confirmed. But there is no confirmation of earlier reports, coming from Pakistani officials, that Iran was shopping to buy Pakistani arms and munitions.
Also from Pakistan, a formal diplomatic complaint is heading for Washington over the loose-lipped U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, after some characteristically outspoken remarks about terror attacks on India. In a speech in New Delhi this week, Blackwill said, "India is a victim of terrorism. Problem in Kashmir is cross- border terrorism. In our judgment it (terrorism in Kashmir) is entirely external driven." All this is true. Nor did Blackwill specifically mention Pakistan, whose ISI military intelligence has certainly sponsored such terror groups in the past and is not exactly busting a gut to rein them in now. Still, the Pakistanis are cross, partly because they see Blackwill as a near messianic advocate of an ever-closer strategic partnership between the United States and India. "It would be better if the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi desists from pronouncing himself on Pakistan-India issues," Pakistan's Foreign Office said in a formal statement. "Ambassador Blackwill had previously also made similar inaccurate assertions with a view to pleasing his Indian audience."
