The following is a brief history of the Kosovo Conflict Chronology.    In 1968 pro-independence demonstrations begin by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, leading to the Yugoslav Constitution being redrawn in 1974 declaring Kosovo an autonomous province within Serbia.    In 1980 Yugoslav leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito dies and eventually ethnic Albanians demand Kosovo be declared a republic, leading to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1989 to strip Kosovo of autonomy and resulting in people being killed in protest.    In 1990 Yugoslavia sends in troops to impose control and Serbia dissolves Kosovo's government.    In 1991 Separatists proclaim Kosovo a republic, which is recognized by neighboring Albania and elect Ibrahim Rugova as president of separatist republic.    Between 1996-1998 Pro-indepence rebel Kosovo Liberation Army emerges using terror bombing, etc, leading to reprisals from Yugoslavian President Milosevic with Serb police action against suspected Albanian separatists.    Serbs reject international mediation on Kosovo resulting in sanctions against Yugoslavia.    The situation worsens in extreme bloodshed.    NATO allies authorize air strikes in October 1998 against Serb military targets forcing Milosevic to withdraw troops and a beginning of unarmed monitors to verify compliance.    Still problems continue.

• 1/15/1999 - 45 ethnic Albanians killed outside Racak, spurring international efforts for a peace settlement.
  
• 1/29/1999 - Serb police kill 24 Kosovo Albanians in a raid on a suspected rebel hideout.    Western allies demand warring sides attend Kosovo peace conference or face NATO air strikes.
• 2/2/1999 - Putin sending warnings of changes for Russia by Michael Wines, New York Times News Service.
      Moscow -- Only Vladimir Putin knows for certain where he wants to take Russia as the nation's acting president.    He is at odds with much of what is going on in his country.    Putin has pledged to restore a strong central government to Russia, which means he wants to subjugate the untamed and fantastically corrupt Russian bureaucracy and economy.    The national tolerance of corruption -- bribes, after all, were sometimes the only way to accomplish anything under Soviet rule -- allowing bureaucrats to ignore Moscow's dictates and to accumulate fortunes at the same time.    Moreover, much of the bureaucracy remains under the control of Soviet-era bureaucrats, who are either ideologically opposed to the Kremlin or simply indifferent to its demands.
      Is the new president capable of making these power structures loyal and to make them work for the new democratic Russia?    Russians have heard all this before, of course, as recently as 1991, and it has yet to come to pass.    Putin will inherit near-dictorial powers in the constitution which his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, pushed into law after thwarting a communist-led coup in 1993.    Putin wants to make changes through the system using the new plurality he won in parliament in the elections.    Putin stated that Russia cannot enter the ranks of advanced nations until it roots out Soviet traditions and bridges the ideological divide that pits the communist third of the nation against the democratic remainder.
      Putin said Russia needs a strong state, "a law-based, workable federative state, a streamlined and corruption-free bureaucracy, a merit system for hiring and rewarding government workers, a more powerful judiciary, and closer ties between Moscow and its regions."
      Putin stated that even if Russia's per-person gross domestic product were to rise by 8% per year for the next 15 years, the nation would still only reach the level of present-day Portugal.    Achieving the level of Britain or France would require a 10% annual growth rate -- and even then, Britain and France would have to stand still.
  
• February-March 1999 - Yugoslav forces sweep through Macedonian border region, digging in near where thousands of NATO forces gather for a possible peacekeeping mission.    Rebels launch attacks on Serbs.
• 3/6/1999 - WTO calls meeting on banana dispute.
      The World Trade Organization has summoned all 133 member countires to an emergency meeting to discuss European Union claims that the United States is imposing illegal sanctions in a trade war over bananas.    The WTO agreed to a meeting of its general council -- the organization's top decision-making body -- after an EU request that the council discuss its complaint that the sanctions violate global trade rules.    The 15-nation EU bloc is protesting planned U.S. tariffs on $520 million worth of European goods in retaliation of European barriers of banana imports.    The tariffs would double the cost of the targeted goods, pricing them out of the American market.
• 3/7/1999 - Chinese stole secrets of U.S. nuclear arms, officials acknowledge by James Risen and Jeff Gerth, The New York Times.
      Washington -- Working with nuclear secrets stolen from a U.S. government laboratory, China has made a leap in the development of nuclear weapons: the miniaturization of its bomb, according to Clinton administration officials.
      Until recently, China's nuclear weapons were a generation behind those of the United States, largely because they were unable to produce small warheads that could be launched from a single missile.
      United States have accused China of theft of U.S. nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, in the mid-1980s, but not detected until 1995.
• 3/7/1999 - Ethnic Albanians will sign peace agreement, Dole says by T.R. Reid, The Washington Post.
      London -- Ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo have promised to sign a pending peace agreement that grants the separatist Serbian province autonomy, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said.    This means that the pressure will be on (Yugoslav) President Slobodan Milosevic to do the same.    NATO has threatened air strikes against Yugoslavia if Milosevic does not accept the peace plan or continues attacking Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province's population.
• 3/13/1999 - NATO grows to take in 3 former enemies by The New York Times.
      The North Atlantic Treaty Organization embraced three of its former rivals, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, formally ending the Soviet domination of those nations that began after World War II and opening a new path for the military alliance.    The enlargement of NATO from 16 members to 19 has been one of the administration's foremost goals and grew out of a desire to cement the democratic gains made in the former Warsaw Pact countries after the collapse of communism 10 years ago.
• 3/14/1999 - Russia resists expansion of NATO by New York Times News Service.
      Moscow - Almost two years after NATO and Russia sealed a much-advertised cooperation agreement, the two sides are still refighting old battles over the enlargement of the Western alliance.    Despite the obvious weaknesses of Russia's military machine, its nuclear muscle and the superpower mentality of its foreign-policy elite seem destined to ensure those battles grow no less rancorous with time.
• 3/14/1999 - Indonesia closes 38 banks.
      Jakarta, Indonesia -- The Indonesian government closed 38 private banks and took over seven others in line with reforms required by the International Monetary Fund.    Foreign lenders have required that Indonesia open up its shattered economy in exchange for billions of dollars of loans.    Indonesia's banks have been devastated by the economic crisis that swept Asia in 1997 and persists today.    The turmoil fueled riots and protests that helped oust authoritarian President Suharto in May.    "This is a sweeping set of fundamental reforms designed to bring our banking system back to financial health," said Indonesian Senior Economics Minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita.
• 3/18/1999 - Kosovo Albanians unilaterlly sign peace deal calling for a broad interim autonomy and 28,000 NATO troops to implement it.    Serb delegation refuses and talks end.
• 3/20/1999 - International peace monitors evacuate Kosovo, as Yugoslav forces launch offensives against rebels.    NATO aircraft and ships ready for possible bombardments to weaken the Yugoslav army's ability to attack independence-minded ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
• 3/22/1999 - U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke visits Belgrade to warn Milosevic of air strike unless he signs peace agreement.    Milosevic refuses to allow NATO troops in Yugoslavia.    Holbrooke declares the talks have failed.
• 3/22/1999 - Pentagon under the gun on missile defense by Robert Burns, The Associated Press.
      Washington -- Congress has put the Pentagon on a crash course to building a multibillion-dollar defense against long-range ballistic missile attacks on all 50 states of the United States from countries such as North Korea, Russia or China.    But will the system work?    Even the Pentagon, which has spent about $50 billion on missile defense work over the past three decades, admits it cannot yet say.    After six more years and an additional $10 billion, it hopes to be able to say yes.    The high-tech rocket that would shoot down an incoming missile has not been tested yet, projected by 2003.    Air Force Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles, director of the Pentagon office coordinating the project, states if the tests are successful, projected for 2005, the Pentagon intends to build 61 anti-missile missiles, to be located in Alaska or North Dakota.    Defense Secretary William Cohen told Congress that the project still carries a "high risk" of failure, because the $10 billion estimate may be too low by billions.   
• 3/22/1999 - Primakov to visit U.S. in search of IMF loan.
      Moscow -- Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov heads to Washington with a difficult task -- securing billions of dollars to help Russia's economy.    Primakov will see President Clinton, but his concern is a conference with International Monetary Fund chief Michel Camdessus, and the fund's verdict on whether Moscow is worth of a multi-billion-dollar loan.
• 3/25/1999 - Clinton: Force needed to halt Serb aggression by The New York Times.
      NATO authorized air strikes against Yugoslavia as President Clinton declared that force was necessary to halt aggression of the Serbs against ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo.    If Milosevic is not willing to make peace, then we are willing to limit his ablility to make war on the Kosovars.
• 3/25/1999 - NATO Attacks - Yugoslavia declares a state of war; Russia decries 'illegal military action'.
      After months of diplomacy, President Clinton is denouncing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for waging brutal repression in Kosovo and warned that he threatens to destabilize neighboring nations.    In Belgrade, wave after wave of NATO warplanes and missiles struck Yugoslavia and will continue till Milosevic is forced to relent.    Russian and China criticized the United States and its allies for the bombing of Yugoslavia.
• 3/29/1999 - IMF, Russia differ on loan negotiations.
      Moscow -- Only minor differences remain between Russia and the International Monetary Fund over a new loan package, Russian negotiator Yuri Maslyukov said after talks.    But IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus was less sanguine about negotiations for the aid.
• 4/14/1999 - NATO commander acknowledges limited success - Serbia's military has been battered but not destroyed - by The New York Times.
      Brussels, Belgium - Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's commander assessed that the present small dose campaign has caused some damage to Serbian military complex, but has not destroyed any of them.    The offensive will be stepped up.
• 4/15/1999 - Leaders of European Union offer plan for peace - U.S. doubts Belgrade will accept offer.
      NATO intensifies bombings and expanding its ground forces on April 19, 1999, using three new countries Poland, Hugary and Czech Republic to access Yugoslavia.    This will continue through to June 14 1999 as troops enter Kosovo.    A zone was created and agreement between NATO and the Milosevic government which bars heavy weapons from the buffer area.    American troops will patrol the Kosovo side of the zone.
• 4/21/1999 - China hoping to finally enter WTO by The Associated Press.
      Beijing -- Following intervention by China's premier Zhu Rongji, senior U.S. Trade Representive Charlene Barshefsky and Chinese trade negotiators met inside the Communist Party compound in hopes of moving toward an agreement to bolster Beijing's entry to the World Trade Organization.    This is China's best chance to break a half-year stalemate and clear the biggest hurdle in its 13-year bid to join world trade's rule-making body.
      Washington and Beijing reached a deal to admit China to the World Trade Organization, which will allow companies peddling financial services, telecommunications, computers, insurance and agriculture to do business in China.    Although the United States gives up leverage on China on human rights, and some say it could cost jobs.    It also will lay bare China's totalitarian regime, requiring that a number of finanacial standards be met.
• 4/26/1999 - New IMF credit line to aim to prevent financial crises by Martin Crutsinger, The Associated press.
      Washington -- The International Monetary Fund said it had approved procedural changes that will allow it to make available billions of dollars in resourses to countries in hopes of averting future global financial crises.    This pre-approved credit lines idea put forth by President Clinton last fall of a IMF endorsement at the height of the economic crisis that has pushed one-third of the globe into recession and sent the U.S. trade deficit to record levels.
      IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus announced that the IMF's executive board had approved creation of new "contingent credit lines" to make loans available to countries before a crisis strikes.    Also in effect is a proposal to remodel the global financial architecture to prevent or at least better handle future crises.    The hope is that by announcing the pre-approved credit, the IMF will signal to investors that a particular nation is pursuing sound policies and has the foreign reserve resources to support its currency against speculative attacks.
      In the Mexican peso crisis in 1994 and the subsequent Asian currency crisis in 1997 and 1998, the IMF mobilized more than $100 billion in loans, but only after the crisis countries had depleted their own reserves in futile efforts to prevent devaluation of their currencies.    Combine with IMF backing to support its currency, foreign investors may not rush to the exits.    These loans will carry interest rates 3 to 5 percentage points higher than normal IMF loans to discourage countries from drawing on the credit unless necessary.
• 5/1/1999 - Trade group at odds over selection of leader.
      Geneva -- Moves to appoint a former New Zealand premier as head of the World Trade Organization were blocked by Asian supporters of Thailand's deputy prime minister, bogging down the group's decision-making council, after the current chief, Italian trade official Renato Ruggiero, left after four years.
      Ali Mchumo, the group's council chairman, proposed that New Zealander Mike Moore be approved by consensus, as he had slightly more support than Thailand's Supachai Panitchpakdi.    Moore -- backed by the United States -- had declared support of 62 member states, compared with Supachai's 59, he said.
• 5/21/1999 - Russia's new premier takes charge quickly by Angela Charlton, The Associated Press.
      Moscow -- Russia's prime minister Sergei Stepashin, has no economic background and said little about his own plans for Russia's finances, but does propose increased defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2000 and ordered the government to submit next year's budget by August.    Formerly led Russia's police and security forces, he now has to name a new acting Cabinet, cemented by Yeltsin's latest triumph over his opposition in the Communist-led parliament.    Yeltsin outraged lawmakers by firing popular Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov who went to the IMF in March, and then faced down an impeachment vote, ensuring he would call the shots in the new government.    Stepashin said the government should better forecast the behavior of Russia's economy.
• 5/31/1999 - Tiananmen Square Remembered.
      Hong Kong -- Demonstrators gathered at Victoria Park in Hong Kong to mark the 10^th anniversary of the crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square in China.    The demonstrators laid an empty coffin on a basketball court in memory of the hundreds who died in the June 4, 1989, crackdown.
• 6/20/1999 - Nations offer Russia economic, nuclear help by Washington Post and AP Dispatches.
      Cologne, Germany -- The leaders of the world's major industrial democracies pledged to broaden their partnership with Russia with new initiatives designed to help Moscow pay its debts, manage its nuclear arsenal and play a more effective role in the global economy.    A day after NATO agreed to an unprecedented level of military cooperation with Russia in the Kosovo peace-keeping force, the United States and its major allies -- Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Germany -- sought to brush aside differences with Moscow over the bombing of Yugoslavia and to seek ways to build a stronger relationship.
      Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, host of this year's Group of Eight summit, told Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin that the West would urge the International Monetary Fund to release $4.5 billion in immediate aid and help Russia restructure $69 billion in debt relief from the Soviet era.    The Western industrial powers and Japan plan to expand funding to assist Russia in dismantling obsolete nuclear warheads, safely dispose of plutonium stocks and find long-term employment for Russian scientist who might otherwiasse be tempted to sell their nuclear expertise.
      U.S. national security adviser Samuel Berger said the Yugoslav war had "kind of frozen things," making it possible at the end of the Kosovo war to get Russia in a role in the NATO-led peacekeeping force.
      The leaders also approved a program to forgive up to $100 billion in debt owed by the 33 poorest nations.    The leaders endorsed changes in the global financial system aimed at reducing the threat of currency crises like those that have battered Asia, Russia and Brazil.
• 6/20/1999 - Chirac rips U.S. attack on beef ban by The Associated Press.
      Cologne, Germany -- French President Jacques Chirac accused the United States and Canada of ignoring public health concerns by attempting to overturn a European Union ban on beef from cattle treated with growth hormones.    Speaking to a summit of the world's richest nations and Russia, Chirac said the North Americans were acting "with a purely commercial mindset and were not taking into account public health."    Chirac told President Clinton and the other leaders of the Group of Eight -- Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, Germany, the United States and Russia -- that "statesmen commit themselves personally in these issues before their fellow citizens."
      The United States and Canada successfully challenged the ban on hormone-treated beef in the World Trade Organization, arguing the hormones present no health hazard.    They are awaiting authorization from the trade organization to impose $253 million a year sanctions on EU goods if the ban is not lifted.    The EU claims at least one of the hormones used in North America may potentially cause cancer and wants more tests done.
• 7/2/1999 - Russia demonstrates its military muscle by Robert Burns, The Associated Press.
      Washington -- Russia is flexing its Cold War muscles -- sending two TU-95 strategic Bear bombers to probe allied air defenses for the first time in a decade and pushing for a bigger and more independent role in NATO-led peacekeeping in Kosovo.    Earlier this year a State Department report concluded that the Russian military's combat readiness was in rapid decay.    A Russian military delegation led by Adm. Valentin Kuznetsov left NATO military headquarters in Belgium after failing to settle disagreements over several aspects of Russian peacekeeping in Kosovo.    The argument is mainly over a Russian demand to station troops in the Italian-patrolled sector of Kosovo as well as in the three other areas spelled out in an agreement reached in Helsinki, Finland, June 18, plus a Russian demand for closer military and political control over their troops than NATO says was agreed to.
• 8/20/1999 - Thousand demonstrate against Milosevic in Belgrade - Many opposition parties join to organize rally - by The Associated Press.
      Belgrade, Yugoslavia -- Demonstrators converged to demand Slobodan Milosevic's resignation, who must go for Serbia to be free, and since NATO has occupied Yugoslavia for the international peacekeeping mission.    Milosevic's Socialist Party offered to hold elections but opposition wanted international monitoring of the vote.
• 10/22/1999 - Russia, China oppose altering arms treaty by The Associated Press.
      United Nations -- U.N. ambassadors from Russia Sergey Lavrov and China Qin Huasun introduced a U.N. resolution demanding strict compliance with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.    The United States wants Russian consent to alter the treaty so both countries could establish limited national missile defense systems against rogue nations.    In exchange, the United States has offered help in completing a major Russian radar system.
      But the draft resolution presented to the General Assembly's disarmament committee opposes deployment of any anti-ballistic missile systems for national defense and warns that any violation of the ABM treaty would have "negative consequences for world peace."    The draft resolution, also backed by Belarus, must be approved by the Disarmament and International Security Committee before it is submitted to the full General Assembly of the 188 U.N. members.
      This treaty made possible the START I and START II nuclear arms reduction treaties ratified in 1996, which will lead into a START III treaty.
• 10/29/1999 - Poor economy, power struggles help spread violence in region by Judith Ingram, The Associated Press.
      Moscow -- The assassination by Nairi Unanian of Armenia's prime minister Vazgen Sarkisian in the assault on parliament was the latest violence to grip the former republics of the Soviet Union as increasingly radical fringe groups take up arms.    In some republics, the violence has erupted between secular governments and religious movements; in others, bloody conflicts have arisen between political opponents.    Hopes that democracy would flourish across the former Soviet Union collapse in 1991 are threatened by growing political polarization.    Poverty, unemployment and widespread corruption has toppled successive governments in Christian Armenia; in the Islamic republics and fueled militant religious movements to challenge state authorities.
• 10/31/1999 - Japan bites bullet: Corporate downsizing hits 'critical mass' by Joseph Coleman, The Asssociated Press.
      Tokyo -- The titans of the Japanese business world used to guarantee their workers a job for life, but now they are practicing downsizing.    Work force reductions once unheard of in postwar Japan is increasing in top companies announcing cost-cutting plans, and is an irreversible trend.    Companies such as Nissan Motor Co, Mitsubishi Motors Corp, Sumitomo, Sakura banks, Hitachi, NEC Corp, Sony Corp, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., all are considering extensive cuts due to a sluggish economy.
• 11/5/1999 - Treaty dispute leads to Russian testing - Display of nuclear arms may be warning - by Vladimir Isachenkov, The Associated Press.
      Moscow -- Russia's military has been making a rare show of its nuclear forces as Moscow denounces U.S. calls to amend the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, a key nuclear arms limitation treaty.    Boris Yeltsin claims this move could unravel decades of nuclear arms control and push the world into a new arms race.
• 11/12/1999 - U.S., Chinese negotiators fail to reach deal, diplomat says by Charles Hutzler, The Associated Press.
      Beijing -- U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators failed to reach an agreement that would help China join the World Trade Organization.    Chinese foreign trade minister Shi Guangsheng presented a revised offer on how to open China's relatively protected markets with U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky.    The deal fell short in the area of access to China's service sector, which Washington asked it to open its telecommunications and financial service sectors as part of the agreement.    This could spoil China's chances for entering WTO, perhaps for years to come, after trying for 13 years seeking developing-country status that would allow it to protect key sectors.    Before it can join it must reach separate market-access agreements with its main trading partners, particularly the United States and the European Union.    Washington is also demanding that China submit to quotas on textile shipments and to anti-dumping measures to prevnet surges in low-cost exports.
• 11/14/1999 - U.N. is asked to postpone sanctions as talks offered by Amir Shah, The Associated Press.
      Kabul, Afghanistan -- Hours before a deadline for handing over Osama bin Laden for trial, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia made a last-minute plea for the United Nations to postpone imposing sanctions.    Protesters marched in Afghanistan, shouting "Death to America" and burning U.S. flags, Taliban's Radio Shariat said.    The United States, which has already imposed its own sanctions, accuses the Saudi exile of running a terrorist network out of his refuge in Afghanistan and masterminding the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in east Africa that killed 24 people.    Bin Laden, believed to be in his mid-30s, first came to prominence in Afghanistan in the 1980s, fighting alongside the U.S.-backed "mujahedeen" forces against the Soviet Army.    After the war, bin Laden built up a movement, called al-Qaida, opposed to the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia and emerged as a hero of the Islamic resistance to U.S. power.
      He has been living in Afghanistan since May 1996, finding refuge with the Taliban Islamic militia that rules 90 percent of the country.    The United States has place bin Laden on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list and has offered a $5 million reward for his arrest.
      In August 1998, after the embassy bombings, the United States fired Tomahawk missiles at alleged al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan.
      Comment: I guess we created an anti-Rambo, that came back to haunt us.
• 11/17/1999 - The China trade.
      The bargain struck by Chinese and American negotiators does not guarantee China's entry into the World Trade Organization, but U.S. pledges to endorse membership for China in the WTO.    China still must complete agreements with the European Union, Canada and several other countries before it can join the trading organization.    Critics worry that China will not abide by WTO rules, because of breaking international agreements in the past.    But violating WTO regulations would carry a cost for China, which would allow member nations to impose economic sanctions on countries that do not follow the rules.    The U.S., for instance, has imposed sanctions on a number of European products after the WTO found that the European Union was in the wrong in a dispute over bananas.    Many hope that this will strengthen Chinese reformers who want to free up the economy and shut down inefficient state-owned industries.    Who knows, China one day might be as democratic and proserpous as, say, Taiwan.
• 11/28/1999 - Global trade talks could bring a world of trouble by The Associated Press.
      Seattle - As a new round of global trade talks for 135 nations comes to Seattle, President Clinton will be faced with scenes of thousands of protestors demonstrating against what they see as globalization run amok, trampling over human rights, workers rights and environmental protection.    The WTO's 135 members will make a huge mistake if they fail to grasp the core belief fueling these unruly protests, since its secretive procedures undermine public trust, since they talk about the issues but do nothing.    On 12/10/1999 we had the images of "the Battle in Seattle, showing only vandalism and police response, but the real purpose of the demonstration was to show the American public the World Trade Organization, what it is, what it stands for, and how it functions, and to get its issues onto the agenda of the WTO.
  
      To end 1999, here are some highlights of the occurances for the unfolding of the Y2K issue.
  
  
• 3/6/1999 through 12/31/1999.
      In March of 1999, the doom-and-gloom prophets promoted the coming of the Y2K - Year 2000 - bug will put other disaster to shame.    This was all because computer programmers in the 1960s and 1970s wrote programs to indicate the year as a two-digit number.    For example, 80 is understood to be 1980, and 99 means 1999, but some programs will not recognize "00" as 2000, but as 1900.    Thus promoting the fear that machinery will shut down or distort data in programs that handle everything from running factories and monitoring inventories to computing interest.    Most sources think Y2K bug will be more annoyance than armageddon.    This did not stop some from trying to make a buck from the crisis.    Hardware sellers promoted purchasing batteries, flashlights, and kerosene heaters for emergency preparedness.
      The threat of a cyberattack against critical information infrastructures, medical services, electric power generation, telecommunications, banking and finance and oil and gas production, became a fear from government officials and defense experts.    Many computer system worldwide are expected to malfunction on Jan. 1, 2000.
      Other areas that could be affected are water services, air travel, police, fire and emergency services.    If this chaotic situation occurred, cities would be blacked out in the dead of winter, stoplights would not work, water stops flowing, ATM machines, gasoline-stations, credit-card readers, grocery stores cannot open and paychecks cannot be cashed.
      Companies will be bombarded with sales pitch after sales pitch touting one product or service after another to fix the bug.    Lawyers and consultants will make a killing provided services to paranoid businesses.
      I guess everyone should run to the mountains for a safe haven.
      Around November of 1999, some economic experts predicted a worldwide recession early in 2000, accompanied by a 30% decline in U.S. markets.    The economist predict no effect on the economy, in order to quell fears of a panicked public making a run on banks to stock up on cash.    The Fed even printed an extra $50 billion worth of currency to be distributed to banks if required.    The Nasdaq Stock Market spent $55 million on preparation, including a Y2K simulation involving 170,000 security transactions to soothe investors.    It was noted that 800,000 small businesses did nothing to prepare, which makes them smarter than the consultants who made all the money off the larger companies.
      The FBI's domestic terrorism unit and the Israeli security forces are worried more about religious cults, political paranoids and apocalyptic visionaries doing something delusional for the new millennium.
      In December 1999, most believe that the apocalyptic vision by the earlier experts now seems overblown, because so many fixes have been made.    Even Ukranian officials say Chernobyl, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident, has been purged of the Year 2000 computer problem.    In West Des Moines, Iowa the water bills delivered to 3,600 customers had an extra charge for payments made after Jan. 3, 1900.
      Robert Remer, now 79, developed a feature for a computer language in the 1950s for the IBM Corp., that allowed programmers to use either a two-digit or four-digit field to record years.    To save money and computer space despite his objections and warnings of the pitfalls for years, the powers to be (i.e. Big Business) wanting government contracts adopted the two-digit field.    The Defense Department is the original culprit, as the biggest computer user and busy fighting the Vietnam War, said its keyboard operators could not be bothered to type in four digits.    Whatever was saved in 1964, has cost more than $300 billion in preparation for year 2000.
  
  

  ---

  Return to the overview of years.
      The year 2000, we survived Y2K, the 10 regions start jockeying for economic protection, a new Russian president takes over, IMF and World Bank meet and get protested, the 10-member ASEAN met to resolve future crises, Military Madness rears its ugly head, OPEC oil prices soar, China in, Euro struggling.
  
  
• 1/1/2000 - Russian President Yeltsin resigns - Surprise move elevates his protege Putin - by Celestine Bohlen, The New York Times.
      Moscow -- President Boris Yeltsin shocked his nation and the world by resigning six months ahead of schedule and handing over power to his favored successor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.    President Clinton paid tribute to Yeltsin for dimantling the communist system and putting a democratic structure in place.    He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the age of 30 in 1961, then in 1976 became a powerful boss in the industrial areas of Siberia, where in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev put him in charge of construction, but was dropped in 1988 from the Politburo.    He then got elected to Soviet parliament in 1989, elected chairman of the Russian parliament making him president of Russia in 1990.    He quit the Communist party and has put off any coups against him since, declaring the Soviet Union extinct on Dec. 8, 1991.
• 1/2/2000 - Putin's tough image strikes chord in Russians - His ideas rest on nation's need for authority - by Daniel Williams, The Washington Post.
      Moscow -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, age 47, a former KGB spy for 16 years in the 1980s, who was virtually unknown four months ago, rose to power as Russia's acting president.    After starting the war on Chechnya, a renegade region of terrorist, in August his popularity soared.
• 1/15/2000 - Kremlin doctrine says U.S. wants all power.
      Moscow -- Russia unveiled its new national security doctrine, broadening the Kremlin's authority to use nuclear weapons and accusing the United States of trying to weaken Russia and become the world's dominant power.    The most significant change in the lengthy document concerns the use of Russia's powerful nuclear arsenal, to oppose any attack - nuclear or conventional - if other efforts fail to repel the aggressor.    The previous doctrine stated that Russia would use nuclear weapons only in cases when its national sovereignty was threatened.
• 1/27/2000 - Seattle protesters targeting World Bank, IMF meeting - Some activist groups plan to 'shut down' April session in D.C. - by John Burgess, The Washington Post.
      Washington -- Activist groups that paralyzed downtown Seattle during the World Trade Organization conference late last year plan to converge in the nation's capital in April to protest a joint meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund using civil disobedience, to keep alive "the spirit of Seattle."    The groups view the IMF and World Bank as key institutions for an unjust global economic order that enriches some people and impoverishes others.    Also an issue is to fight about not letting China get normal trade relations.
• 2/20/2000 - U.S. lobbies Mexico for lower oil prices by Mark Stevenson, The Associated Press.
      Mexico City -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson received no promises and little sympathy from Mexico when asking oil-producing countries to lift production limits that have sent heating oil prices soaring in the United States.    Mexican Energy Secretary Luis Tellez said they must respect an agreement with other producers not to increase output before April 1, in a country that relies on oil for about a third of government income.    Richardson warned that U.S. inflation could hurt Mexico's economy.    Almost 85 percent of Mexican exports go to the United States, and they depend on U.S. tourism and money sent home by workers here.
      Oil-producing countires agreed to cut output by 5.2 million barrels per day after prices plummeted to below $10 per barrel in 1998, from as high as $25 to $36 per barrel.    U.S. politicians have urged President Clinton to release strategic oil reserves to the market.
• 2/25/2000 - Rapid negotiated settlement urged on WTO subsidy ruling by Curt Anderson, The Associated Press .
      Washington -- Seeking to avoid a new trade war with Europe, U.S. corporations and members of Congress urged the Clinton administration to negotiate a quick solution to a World Trade Organization decision that outlaws billions of dollars in U.S. tax breaks for exports.    The United States has until Oct. 1 to comply with the WTO decision that its Foreign Sales Corporation program is an illegal trade subsidy, as claimed by the European Union.    After that date, the EU could retaliate with higher tariffs or other trade sanctions.    The Foreign Sales Corporation program created in 1984, allows about 6,000 U.S. companies including Boeing, General Motors, United Technologies and Microsoft to reduce income taxes by 15 percent by creating export subsidiaries in tax havens such as the Virgin Islands and Barbados.    Its intent is to offset an EU tax rebate given its companies for goods sold overseas.
      If this program were to dissapear, company officials say, the United States could lose a competiitve edge that eventually would result in higher prices, fewer jobs and lower profits.
• 3/19/2000 - Iran's hard-liners blast U.S. gesture by Afshin Valinejad, The Associated Press.
      Tehran, Iran -- Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guards accused Washington of meddling in domestic affairs by lifting an import ban on Iranian luxury goods, such as carpets and caviar.    This caused a division between anti-American hard-liners and reformers, led by President Mohammad Khatami, who favors better ties with the United States, to stabilize the Gulf Region.
• 4/9/2000 - Protest aims at IMF and World Bank - Week of disruptions planned for Washington - by New York Times News Service and AP.
      Washington -- The political and environmental activists (students, church groups, labor unions) who disrupted the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization last year are reassembling in Washington to target two agents of the global economy: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.    Their complaints is the institutions have destroyed rain forests, left poor countries in debt, and protected Nike, Disney, and Monsanto instead of workers in the Third World.    No one in this country has any say so on what these institutions do, and their globalization has clearly cut into a nerve.    Officials of the World Bank and IMF say most of the protesters and many political and academic critics have scant knowledge of what these institutions do, and the relative health of the global economy these days proves they are effective.
      Unionist think of it is as multinational corporations creating the rules for wages, where profit and greed rules, resulting in the loss of jobs going to low-wage positions in other countries.
• 4/13/2000 - Union backers rally against full-trade status with China - Protesters fear Chinese imports would cost jobs - by David Stout, The New York Times.
      Washington -- Worried that doing business with China will crowd American workers out of the global economy, thousands of union men and women flocked to Capital Hill to condemn the idea of normal trade relations with Beijing.    Full-trade status with China would allow that country's goods to come into the United States as do good from many other countries -- without high tariffs.    In return, China would be obliged to open its markets to a multitude of American goods.
• 4/13/2000 - IMF optimistic about global economy by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- IMF Managing Director Stanley Fischer and Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said the demonstrators were wrong in blaming global capitalism for problems of poverty, environmental pollution and human rights abuses.    The world economy, after being battered by a global financial crisis, should post the best economic growth in more than a decade this year as long as an overheated U.S. economy does not derail the good times, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank said.    The IMF revised upward its projection for growth in the world economy to 4.2 percent, the strongest since 1988 at 4.7 percent, with world output projected to post a 3.9 percent increase in 2001.    World economic growth had sagged to 2.5 percent in 1998 and the IMF feared that the spreading currency crisis, which had jumped from Asia to Russia and Latin America, could push the whole world into a recession.    The IMF says danger remains, in America's huge trade deficit, the soaring stock market and the inability of the Federal Reserve to slow the economy to a more sustainable pace.
      Comment: The IMF states that globalization is the only way to raise people around the world to the same level as people in industrialized countries.    What is not said, is that those who are already at a higher level will be lowered to the same level as those being raised, by secretive corporations and faceless mediators, pushing democracy on all in its path.
• 4/18/2000 - Finance groups end talks, vow debt relief by Martin Crutsinger, The Associated Press.
      Washington -- World finance officials closed out meetings for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank with renewed pledges to hasten debt relief for poor countries and to increase support for fighting the AIDS epidemic, which has infected 50 million people.    World Bank President James Wolfensohn was glad there were no confrontations with the protests.    The next meeting will be in September in Prague.
• 4/23/2000 - Victories get president off to powerful start by Angela Charlton, The Associated Press.
      Moscow -- President Vladimir Putin's victories in parliament and support from the legislative branch, appears to be setting the stage for a calmer era in Russia after the frenzied confusion of the Boris Yeltsin years.    Putin has persuaded lawmakers to approve the START II nuclear disarmament treaty and fire Russia's top prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov.    He still has not presented his plan for restoring Russia's economy and international influence.
• 4/24/2000 - Expanded China trade will spawn social, political reform.
      Doing business with China has not been profitable for most U.S. companies, but since the Clinton administration is trying to permanently normalize trade relations with China that may change.    The entry of China into the World Trade Organization will benefit American consumers who would gain access to more Chinese goods.    This same thing happened in Mexico since NAFTA opened up its market, changing ruling party states to reform because of growing commercial dealings with the rest of the world.
• 5/7/2000 - Asian nations agree to a currency plan by Patrick McDowell, The Associated Press.
      Chiang Mai, Thailand -- Thirteen Asian nations agreed to help defend each other's currencies in the event of an economic crisis like the one that devastated the region in 1997-1998.    Economic powers Japan, China and South Korea decided to take a role in the fledgling currency protection scheme adopted two months ago by the 10-member Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN), part of a wider goal of creating a more united Asia on the world economic stage.
      Finance ministers from those countries met in the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, a Philippines based institution.
• 5/25/200 - House OKs trade pact with China - Clinton, GOP cheer success of measure - by Eric Schmitt and Joseph Kahn, The New York Times.
      Washington -- A stunning victory 237-197 for the Clinton administration and corporate America, the House swept aside economic restrictions on China, granting Beijing permanent normal trading privileges, even after disputes with organized labor.    The Senate still has to endorse it next month.
• 8/4/2000 - Desert Storm's legacy.     Ten years ago, Saddam Hussein's army rolled into Kuwait,and world oil prices tripled to $40 a barrel.    Then President George H. W. Bush sent troops to the Persian Gulf and within a year drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and left Iraq economically, militarily and politically isolated.    Saddam remained in power in Baghdad, and was still hammering Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and Shiite rebels in the south.    America's economy had slipped into recession that probably cost Mr. Bush his job, even though Operation Desert Storm was to protect Arabian oil fields, in a time when imports accounted for 40 percent of U.S. oil consumption.    Today, the figure is 57 percent and will continue to grow, even with energy conservation and energy security.   
• 8/6/2000 - Venezuelan chief hopes to promote harmony among OPEC countries by The Associated Press.
      Caracas, Venezuela -- Making a push for unity among OPEC members Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the first democratically elected leader, departed on a trip to schedule a meeting on Sept. 27 with leaders of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries.    Chavez from South America's only OPEC country will visit Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria and Algeria.
      With oil prices soaring now, some of OPEC's biggest producers are eager to reap the benefits and are reluctant to keep output down.    Venesuela is the No. 4 supplier of crude oil and refined products to the United States.
• 9/8/2000 - U.N. votes overhaul of peace force - Failures spur push to boost strength, speed - by Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press.
      United Nations -- The Security Council voted unamiously to overhaul United Nations peacekeeping operations to create a more potent, better financed force to respond quickly to threats to world peace.    Presently engaged in 14 peacekeeping operations, with over 37,000 troops and civilian police at an annual cost of about $2.2 billion from Afghanistan to Burundi and Guatemala.    Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, China, France, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mali, Namibia, Netherlands, Russia, Tunisia, Ukraine, Britain and the United States pledge support.
• 9/16/2000 - Maintaining military may cost many billions.     The United States would have to spend an extra $50 billion a year over the next 15 years just to keep the military the size it is today, the Congress Budget Office says.    The report said the Penagon and Energy Departmnet nuclear weapon program should be spending about $340 billion annually to keep the military in a "steady state" -- to hold constant the number of personnel and military bases and to keep replacing equipment.    As a comparison, this year's appropriation was $289 billion.
• 9/24/2000 - China to recieve full trade staus with U.S..
      Washington -- By a vote of 83-15, the Senate approved and sent to President Clinton legislation granting the trade status for China, and sets the stage for accession to the World Trade Organization.
• 9/24/2000 - Japan, U.S. to help bolster declining euro.
      The European Community, Japan and the United States linked up to shore up the flagging EC currency, the euro.    The relentless decline of Europe's single currency was, according to representatives of the three central banks, a threat to the world economy.    The move was the first time in two years that central banks staged a coordinated currency intervention -- and the first time ever that they had done so in support of a European currency.
• 9/28/2000 - Military's defense needs could eat up much of budget surplus by The New York Times.
      Washington -- Senior military commanders chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry Shelton, and the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps testified to congress that the armed services needed an increase in defense spending that would exceed what has been proposed by either major presidential candidate and would consume a large part of the budget surplus.    They touted that aging weapons and equipment were threatening to erode military readiness.
      President Clinton also announced that the federal government had a record surplus of $230 billion for the fiscal year that ends on Saturday.    The Pentagon officials claim they would need an extra $50 billion a year to sustain current spending, we know where that money will come from.
• 10/11/2000 - Clinton signs China trade bill into law by Deb Riechmann, The Associated Press.
      Washington -- President Clinton signed into law a bill that permanently normalizes trade relations with China and could yield billions of dollars in new sales for U.S. farmers, manufacturers and service companies.    China has 1 billion residents for U.S. business to eye.    After it enters the WTO, China's tariffs on U.S.-made goods would drop from an average of 25 percent to 9 percent by 2005.
• 11/15/2000 - House OKs bill to avert trade war with Europe - Congress puts off other issues while awaiting Florida vote - by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- Congress sent President Clinton a bill to stave off a potentially damaging trans-Atlantic trade war by replacing a U.S. export tax system that was judged an illegal subsidy by the World Trade Organization.    With the presidential race unresolved for a recount, lawmakers postponed other major tax and budget decisions until December.    The European Union is prepared to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products after Friday on a bill which has cleared the House and the Senate.    The trade tax bill, costing $4.5 billion over 10 years, would replace the U.S. Foreign Sales Corporation tax system that the European Union successfully challenged in the WTO.    The bill will rewrite the law in an attempt to meet WTO guidelines, to still allow companies to remain competitive globally.
• 11/17/2000 - Russia's Mir space station to be ditched in Pacific by Jim Heintz, The Associated Press.
      Moscow -- Russia's Cabinet decided that the deteriorating space station Mir will end its 15 years (Feb. 20, 1986) of pioneering achievements with a fiery plunge into the Pacific Ocean in February.    Russia wants to concentrate its revenues on the international space station, in order to improve its image of technological prowess and get back up to launching key modules of the NASA-led international space station.
  

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      The year 2001, the U.S economy begins slowing down, Japan and Europe are also struggling, OAU - Organization of African Unity summit in process, a 34-nation 800 million person Free Trade Area promoted in the Americas, the IMF gets an overhaul, 9/11/2001 - an attack on the head of the financial center of the world [WTO, IMF, World Bank], the head of the military center [Pentagon], and the head of the rulers [White House].
  
  
• 1/28/2001 - IMF predicts slower growth by Naomi Koppel, The Associated Press.
      Davos, Switzerland -- Because of the U.S. economic slowdown will cut the global growth rate to 3.5 percent but shouldn't drag the world into recession, the International Monetary Fund Deputy Director Stanley Fischer is revising the predictions made last September at 4.2 percent.    Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori assured world business and government leaders that his country's economic rebound was nearly complete to lead their economy to a full recovery.    Although the IMF considers Japan as vunerable to the U.S. slowdown, which will cut U.S. demand for Japanese electronic products.
      Of interest Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates pledged $100 million to search for an AIDS vaccine and challenged the rich and the powerful at the World Economic Forum to pitch in as well.    Yahoo promised $5 million over three years.    Gates said the private push was meant to correct "an unbelievable market failure" of not developing a vaccine 20 years after the first cases.
• 2/24/2001 - Turkish, IMF officials try to shore up economy.
      Istanbul, Turkey -- Turkish officials met with international lenders to discuss ways to shore up the economy amid worries over a political and economic crisis that saw the nation's currency plunge in value.    The International Monetary Fund's Turkey chief met with Finance Minister Sumer Oral a day after Turkey decided to drop currency exchange rate controls, allowing the value of the lira to plummet against the dollar.    Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said the decision to float the currency would be good for the economy in the long term.
• 2/24/2001 - Taliban hang two convicted prostitutes.
      Kabul, Afghanistan -- More than a 1,000 people watched as two women convicted of prostitution and "corrupting society" were hanged in the sports stadium in southern Kandahar, the headquarters of Afghanistan's Islamic Taliban rulers.
• 3/4/2001 - African leaders gather for Libya summit, make little progress on unity by The Associated Press.
      Sirte, Libya -- Big names from Africa came to Libya to applaud Moammar Gadhafi and his ideas, on creating a "United States of Africa" in order to rescue the continent from poverty and powerlessness.    At the end of the two-day Organization of African Unity summit they did not have enough nations to ratify the proposal, which rescheduled for a year later in Togo.    Two-thirds of the OAU's 53 nations, or 36 states must ratify it before it can come into force.    This Union will also include an African central bank, a court of justice, a single currency and a parliament.    There will be another summit in July in Zambia.    The OAU was founded in 1963, but has failed to come to life as a regional world economy.
• 3/8/2001 - Bush takes hard line on U.S.-North Korea relations by David E. Sanger, The New York Times.
      Washington - President Bush told President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea that he would not resume negotiations with North Korea (leader Kim Jong Il) on missile talks any time soon, putting the United States and a major ally at sharp odds over how to deal with the communist regime.   
• 4/1/2001 - Japan's decline threatens wider world economy - U.S. slowdown adding concern a crisis may be building for Asia - by Robert J. Samuelson, The Washington Post.
      In the past decade, Japan's economy has gone from a powerhouse that could do no wrong to a basket case that can do no right.    It seems incapable of halting its downward drift, and now its stunning reversal of fortune is a growing threat to the wider world economy.    While the American economy flourished, Japan's distress was largely Japan's problem.    The U.S. slowdown means the world's two largest economies, representing almost 30% of global production, are experiencing simultaneous setbacks.    Countries in Asia will be the first victims.    Together, the United States and Japan account for 32% of Korea's exports, 36% of Thailand's, 38% of China's and 43% of the Philippines.    Among the other possible repercussions is a financial crisis triggered, perhaps, by the failure of a major bank or insurance company.
      The largest hazard is that the entire world will suffer from low spending and confidence if all its main economies (Europe is also weakening) retreat.
      The problem with Japan lies in a failure to change from only pursuing a strategy of export-led growth that fit its interests and values (i.e. textiles, steel, cars, machine tools, electronics) and generated large trade and current account surpluses.    Meanwhile the rest of the economy - retailing, construction, banking, farming, communications - was sheltered from competition and change.    In the mid-1980s, the marriage between social values and economic interests broke down.
• 4/21/2001 - Protest disrupt summit, Bush to seek free-trade zone of 34 nations by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post.
      Quebec City -- President Bush and 33 other leaders from the Western Hemisphere seeking to build the world's largest free-trade zone opened a Summit of the Americas' as clouds of tear gas and violent demostrations played havoc.    Bush would like to use that power to negotiate a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005 and penalize any country that strays from the path of democracy.    The summit gave Bush an oppurtunity to promote democracy throughout the hemisphere.    The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank committed more than $20 billion for the nations to strengthen their democratic foundations and prepare for free trade despite disparate levels of development.    This will be the natural expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that links the U.S., Canada and Mexico.    The next summit is on August 25.
      The 34 countries of 800 million people are: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kits and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, United States, Uraguay, and Venezuela.
• 4/30/2001 - IMF backs crisis-aversion plan - Agency mindful of recession set off in Asia - by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- The International Monetary Fund, prodded by the Bush adminstration, endorsed a program to establish better procedures to prevent a repeat of the 1997-98 Asian currency crisis that plunged two-fifths of the world into recession.    The IMF had to assemble more than $100 billion in rescue packages to resolve the Asian currency crisis.    IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler was instructed to overhaul the agency's procedures, to put crisis prevention at the heart of its activities.
• 6/2/2001 - Bush seeks extension of China's trade status by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- President Bush asked Congress to extend for a year China's normal trade relations with the United States to help the U.S. economy and promote a politically stable and secure China.    The U.S. farmers exported more than $3 billion in goods to China and Hong Kong last year.
• 6/10/2001 - China's WTO inclusion nearer.
      Shanghai, China -- American and Chinese trade negotiators said that they had resolved most of the remaining issues that have held up China's entry to the World Trade Organization, including the degree to which China can subsidize its farmers as a member of the trade group.    They may be able to join within months.
• 10/17/2001 - Bush: U.S. faces worst energy gap since 1970s by Ron Fournier, The Associated Press.
      Washington -- President Bush, in his much-awaited energy plan, will warn that the U.S. faces "the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargo of the 1970s."    He will order federal agencies to dismantle regulatory barriers that slow gas, electrical, and nuclear power production and propose opening federal lands for oil drilling.    A fundamnetal imbalance between supply and demand defines our nation's energy crisis, which if continued would undermine our economy,our standard of living and our national security.
• 9/11/2001 - AMERICA UNDER ATTACK - Terror attacks hit U.S., Posted: September 11, 2001.
      NEW YORK (CNN) -- Terrorists struck the United States Tuesday morning in harrowing, widespread attacks that included at least three commercial jet crashes into significant buildings.    The symbols of U.S. power came under attack as all federal government buildings, including the White House, the Capitol building and the Supreme Court, were evacuated.
      See my article at "Volume III - Capitalism and Democracy" spreads throughout the world, to see what happened on this day in more detail.
  

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      The year 2002, the world is in shock, ecomony still down, U.S. shows anger towards terrorism, and war on anyone who does it is promoted, Republicans finally justify the war budget going up again to aid economy, U.S. enters Afghanistan to destroy Taliban to find Osama bin Laden, Osama is slippery as an eel, Russia and NATO makeup, Iraq defies U.N. resolutions, U.S. readies to attack Iraq another war for weapons of mass destruction or is it for oil.
  
  
• 1/11/2002 - Report: China may soon have 100 missiles aimed at U.S. by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- China is expected to have as many as 100 long-range nuclear missiles aimed at the United States by 2015, according to the CIA.    China sees a larger, mobile force as necessary to maintain its nuclear deterrent against the United States.    North Korea and Iran probably will possess long-range missile capable of reaching the United States by the same year, according to the report prepared by the National Intelligence Council, a panel of experts that advises U.S. intelligence agencies.    Similar assessments have been used to justify U.S. plans for multibillion-dollar missile defense systems.
      Last month President Bush used the threat of missile attack by terrorists as a reason for the United States to pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia.    "I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks," the president said.    The report says that terrorist would not employ long-range missiles to deliver nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, but would use ships, trucks, airplanes, which are more covert, cheaper and accurate.
• 1/24/2002 - Bush seeks $48 billion defense hike - Additional budget spending urged for war on terrorism - by Richard W. Stevenson and Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York TImes.
      Washington -- President Bush said he would seek $48 billion in additional spending on the military next year, a war-time increase that will be the centerpiece of the budget proposal he sends to Congress next month.    This request was larger than even some Pentagon officials had expected and the biggest since the former Republican Reagan-era military buildup, illustrated what administration officials said would be a foucus by the president on two basic themes in the coming year: doing what ever it takes to win the war on terrorism and reviving the economy, at the expense of domestic programs.
      Comment: See article on 9/28/2000 about military defense needs $50 billion more a year, most likely will use up the Clinton era record surplus of $230 billion.
• 1/31/2002 - Afghan factions clash in key province, threaten al-Qaida hunt by The Associate Press.
      Kabul, Afghanistan -- Afghan factions of the Northern Alliance who helped topple Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers after two months of U.S bombing, battled for the capital of a province Gardez, where U.S. forces are hunting al-Qaida fugitives.    U.S. official said American forces have evidence that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida fighters are regrouping near Khost, about 35 miles from Gardez.
• 3/5/2002 - Leaders contemplate challenges facing China by Ted Anthony, The Associated Press.
      Beijing -- Talk is about China's fresh membership in the World Trade Organization, Chinese lawmakers convened for an annual session, with Premier Zhu Rongji to discuss future changes that will come.
• 5/14/2002 - NATO hails agreement with Russia by Paul Ames, The Associated Press.
      Reykjavik, Iceland -- NATO foreign ministers after five months of negotiations, hailed a landmark agreement with Russia to fight terrorism and other dangers together as part of the Western alliance's transformation to tackle post-Sept. 11 security threats.    "This is ... the funeral of the Cold War.    It marks a profound, historical change.    With this, Russia comes out of the cold as a partner, ally and friend of NATO," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.    Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov was schedule to meet his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and other NATO ministers to seal the agreement.    Russia will sit alongside the 19 NATO nations to formulate joint policy on terrorism and other shared threats.    This deal springs from Russian Pressident Vladimir Putin's support for the West since Sept. 11., who will set down with President Bush and other NATO leaders in their first meeting in Rome on May 28.
• 9/22/2002 - Baghdad to defy U.N. resolutions - U.S. general says American forces are ready to attack Iraq - by Sameer N. Yacoub, The Associated Press.
      Baghdad, Iraq -- A defiant Iraq said it will not abide by a U.N. resolution imposing new conditions in the weapons inspections issue or threatening war, while in Kuwait a top U.S. general said his forces are ready to attack Iraq if called on.    The sharp words come as America and Britain try to overcome Russian, Chinese and French resistance to a new U.N. resolution threatening Iraq with war if it does not destroy its weapons of mass destruction.    President Bush has recieved a detailed set of military options from Gen. Tommy Franks to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and neutralize his most dangerous weapons.
      Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stated that in the past decade the Iraq government defied some 16 U.N. resolutions and change their position depending on what they thought was tactically advantageous to them thus jerking the United Nations around.    This is an important test to the United Nations resolve for the Iraqi noncompliance, as they still tried to bargain and divided the Security Council and Bush had dismissed it as a ploy to avoid military action.
• 9/22/2002 - Oil companies stand to gain if Saddam is ousted by Dave Montgomery, Knight Ridder Newspaper.
      Washington - A U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could sharply retool world oil markets and open Iraq's vast oil reserves to U.S. energy companies if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is driven from power, international energy experts say.    Saddam's ouster is the principal objective of a military strike, but oil is quickly emerging as an important subtext.    American oil producers are already contemplating enormous potential in a post-Saddam Iraq.    Iraq boast the world's second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, but development has been stifled by more than a decade of U.N. sanctions.    Iraq is allowed to export oil under a U.N.-supervised oil-for-food program, its oilfields are in serious decline after years of neglect and inefficient recovery methods.    A military invasion effect on world oil prices could cause turbulence in world markets, dwindle supplies and drive up prices or do the reverse increase world supplies and drive prices down.    Iraq could become an influential player in the world's oil economy, rivaling Saudi Arabia.    This could force members of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, to cut production to avoid a worldwide oil glut.    Russia, France and China have already signed deals to develop Iraqi oil reserves whenever U.N. sanctions are lifted, which explains their resistance to the U.S. attacking Iraq, who was an outsider.    A new government in Iraq may dump existing agreements and open a new round of negotiations.
      This is still all speculation since if Saddam dies, there are 15 more just like him to take over.    The country is divided among at least 12 tribes, and Iraq's Muslim population is split between Shiite majority and a Sunni minority.    Although the upfront cost to restore their oil fields may be the deciding factor on who gets control.    I see the oil companies drooling already.
• 9/29/2002 - IMF directed to develop new attack on debt crises by Martin Crutsinger, The Associated Press.
      Washington -- Policy-setting committee of finance leaders directed the 184-nation International Monetary Fund to develop a dramatic new approach to resolving debt crises that have engulfed countries from Asia to South America, putting 40 percent of the world's economy into recession.    The goal to overhaul the global finance system by creating a process by which nations with unmanagable debt could declare bankruptcy and force creditors to negotiate more lenient repayment terms.    Argentina was forced into a record default of $141 billion, but to get IMF help they must develop a sustainable economic program.    This plan still requires approval from each of the organizations 184 members.    There are still rising worries in the plunging stock markets, Latin America's debt crisis and possible war in Iraq.
• 10/22/2002 - Vision of one Arab superpower helped fuel Iraqi dictator's rise by John Yaukey, Gannett News Service.
      Amman, Jordan -- Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has long espoused dreams of a unified Arab superpower with nuclear weapons, stretching from the Euphrates River to the Suez Canal.    Unity has eluded the Arab world since it was carved into artificial sheikdoms after World War I.    Saddam, whose name roughly translates into "he who confronts," was born April 28, 1937, to poor peasants in the Tikrit district of Iraq.    As a young boy he witnessed imprisonment of family members by colonial British forces which has instilled a hatred of the West.    After a rebellion against the colonial powers that saw Egypts's Gamel Abdel Nassar topple the British-installed monarchy in 1952, then take the Suez Canal, this began Saddam's career in thug politics and joining of the Baath socialist party, giving shape to his passionate anti-colonialism.    In 1940 the Harakat al-Baath al-Arabi, or the Movement of the Arab Baath, gained momentum in Iraq and eliminated the artificial boundaries imposed by colonial powers.
      In 1958, Saddam botched an assaination attempt against then-Iraqi leader Abdul Karim Kassem, viewed too cozy with the West, and was forced into exile.    In 1968, Saddam succeeded in a Baathist coup and eventually took the presidency in 1979 after executing about 450 potential adversaries.
• 10/22/2002 - Iraqi leaders see world's support as key advantage by John F. Burns, New York Times News Service.
      Baghdad, Iraq -- As Iraq confronts the possibility of a new war with the United States, its leaders appear to have concluded that they have one decisive advantage that they lacked during the countdown to the Persian Gulf War 12 years ago: This time, they seem convinced, the world is on their side and against the United States.
      Saddam"s inner circle has taken heart from the inability of the United States to win United Nations, backing for a resolution threatening military action against Iraq.    Since 1991, Baghdad has defied many of the terms imposed on it by the United Nations.    Obviously Saddam does not grasp the wider changes in the world since 1991.
      Bush in a Sept. 12 speech to the U.N., he challenged members of the Security Council to enforce tough weapons inspections against Iraq and other Security Council resolutions that have long been ignored by Saddam.    Saddam now faces a U.S. president with authority to wage war.
  

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  Return to the overview of years.
  
      The year 2003, U.S. forces begin building around Iraq, the United Nations accused of reaching its level of incompetence, U.S. attacks Iraq anyway, easy war no competition, U.S. proposes (MEFTA) Middle East free trade area zone for lasting peace within 10 years, China has new leader attempts to emerge as world economic power, U.S. still cannot find Osama or Saddam, WMDs or al-Qaida connection, IMF and World Bank prepare Iraq for reconstruction and oil companies help restore production but terrorism is on the rise foiling those plans, After 54 years NATO takes control of force in Afghanistan outside of Europe's frontiers, Iran's effort to build nuclear weapons is complicating U.S. attempts to establish democracy in Iraq and to expand its influence in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, Libya is settling to end U.S. sanctions in order to give its economy a boost by bringing back U.S. oil companies, China taking more active role in international diplomacy risk of nuclear weapons and war on the Korean Peninsula, A six-nation summit with the U.S., the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan will try to resolve the development of nuclear weapons and threat to stability in northeast Asia (East Asian Region) with North Korea, North Korea announced it has nuclear weapons and plans to test one, U.S. is struggling in the global market and China has depressed the Chinese currency lowering prices of Chinese goods sold in the United States, WTO allow poor nations access to inexpensive copies of drugs to fight diseases as AIDS and malaria with US endorsement, U.S.-led coalition force will be transformed into a U.N.-authorized multinational one under a unified command for UN role in Iraq, U.S. Proliferation Security Initiative with 10 countries makes an accord for uncovering weapons of mass destruction, U.S. will consult allies about security assurances for North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program to avoid economic sanctions, Bush asks Congress for $87 billion for war on terrorism, troops and rebuilding Iraq into a free and democratic country, Bush wants to untie the hands of law enforcement officials with wider legal powers to combat terrorists, World trade talks collapsed amid differences between 146 rich and poor nations regulate the world's trade, IMF warns U.S. about currency demands and other governments should stop demanding changes to foreign currency controls to win votes at home, OPEC surprises experts with plan to cut output, U.S. keeps currency pressure on China for more trade to help American businesses to halt a slide in manufacturing jobs, North Korea said it has built at least one or two atomic bombs for defense against a U.S. invasion, Oil pipeline in Africa opens from World Bank project and Bush administration as an alternative to Mideast supplies, U.S.-China square off over trade imbalance, lost jobs becoming election issue, Pacific Rim leaders say economic issues getting short shrift as Bush pushed North Korea's nuclear threat to the forefront of a 21-nation summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) intended to get the World Trade Organization to restart talks for a new global commerce deal, U.S. imposes import limits on some Chinese textiles, Military shifting forces to encircle hotbeds of global terrorism, U.S. and ministers from 15 other nations plan on the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas spanning 34 countries (800 million people), WTO rejects U.S. steel tariffs, China warns U.S. that duties may rise, China threatened to raise import duties on some U.S., Advisers urge president to repeal tariffs on steel, Global warming took a blow since Russia won't ratify the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions to save its economy, U.S. legislation threatening sanctions against Syria makes it more difficult to improve relations with the United States, European Union summit ends amid power struggle and scuttles plan for a new president, foreign minister and a chance to rival with the United States, Saddam 'CAUGHT LIKE A RAT' by U.S. forces in hole, Libya comes clean - Gadhafi admits nuclear weapon program.
  
  
• 3/6/2003 - U.S. Forces are Deployed Around Iraq for a potential war.    U.S. troops are in: Turkey; Mediterranean Sea; Sinai, Egypt; Israel; Saudi Arabia; Manama, Bahrain; United Arab Emirates; Persian Gulf; Qatar; and Kuwait.    More units are in transit, and still more units stateside have gotten orders but have not departed.
• 3/13/2003 - The Bush administration vs. the U.N..
      "Below the surface of public attention, internationalists have been working for decades to build the United Nations into an all-powerful world government," as stated by John Birch Society's "Get US Out" Web site.
      The U.N.: 'A Bad Idea' by George Will, The Washington Post.
      Washington -- War precipitates clarity as well as confusion, and the war against Iraq already has clarified this: The United Nations is not a good idea badly implemented, it is a bad idea.    The disarming of Iraq will soon be supplanted by the imperative of insulating U.S. sovereignty from U.N. hubris.    The U.N. is a disunited collection of regimes, many of which do not represent the nations they govern.    The U.N. is grounded in neither democratic consent nor territorial responsibilities, nor independent fiscal means, nor in the material means of enforcing its judgments.    France, Russia and China are trying to use the cobwebs of U.N. procedures to hold America back from a defiant Iraq, but this just lit the fuse making ware inevitable.
      Time To Quit by Cal Thomas, Tribune Media Services.
      A long time ago, the United States of America was feared and respected, among its enemies.    No nation or terrorist group considered attacking America on its own, soil, and most people thought twice before harming an American overseas.
      Terrorists now attack us here and around the world.    Rogue regimes and even some European nations forget that we spilled our blood for their freedom.
      It has been six months since Presidnet Bush told the United Nations that unless it acted on all of the resolutions it had already passed, it faced irrelevancy.    It has not acted and debates still more resolutions.
      If the United Nations will do nothing about a murderous monster like Saddam Hussein, the United States should look for other associations and other ways to create a coalition of nations that will help perserve our national security and other that wish to pay the price and bear the burden of freedom.
      U.N. is behaving properly - we aren't by Norman A. Lockman, Gannett News Service.
      The United Nations is now acting as a summit, a forum for negotiations for avoiding war, not imposing agendas on others.    If the United Nations were intended to be a military power it would have its own standing army, but then it would flip from peace broker to warmonger.    The U.N. would veto any approval of an Arab nation for invading Israel for defying a U.N. resolution.    The U.N. only disagrees with the U.S. posture that Iraq should be invaded as punishment for past failures.    It is folly to demonize the United Nations for trying to put the brakes on war -- and resolve the problem -- when that is what it was designed to do.
• 3/21/2003 - War with Iraq by The Associated Press.
      This war will be an urban conflict, with concern that Hussein may use weapons of mass destruction if pressured to, if the U.S. oust Saddam they would be faced with rebuilding Iraq to a country of future economic value, and that comes with the securing of Iraq's oil reserves estimated at 112 billion barrels, and finally they may have trouble catching the elusive Saddam.    The demise of Saddam would probably be widely cheered in the Arab world, with many countries standing to gain.
      The war proceeds, U.S. marches through Iraq, no problem, etc., etc, short war.    Begin process as mentioned above.
• 5/10/2003 - Bush proposes free trade for Mideast - President says prosperity critical to lasting peace - by Deb Riechmann, The Associated Press.
      Columbia, S.C. -- President Bush promoted the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by dangling an attractive economic prize: the removal of U.S. trade barriers for countries in the Middle East within the next decade.    The president said economic prosperity is critical to a lasting peace accord and that unrestricted U.S. trade could help the Middle East to prosper.    The new hope in the Middle East is to replace corruption "with free markets and fair laws, the people of the Middle East will grow in prosperity and freedom," Bush said.
      The combined gross national product of all Arab countries is smaller than that of Spain, the president said.    The Arab world is missing out on the economic growth that other areas of the world have enjoyed.
      "I propose the establishment of a Middle East free trade area" within 10 years, Bush said.    He suggested that the United States would bring countries across the region into such a pact on a country-by-country basis.    He also said he had a vision of "two states, Israel and Palastine, side by side in prosperity and peace."    Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared for negotiations in the Middle East with Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohmoud Abbas, to gain acceptance for a plan developed by the United States, the United Nations, The European Union and Russia for a cease-fire, freeze on building homes and rollbacks on existing settlements.
      A free trade zone in the Middle East would put Arab countries on a more equal footing with Israel.
• 6/1/2003 - Bush, China's Hu to discuss North Korea, sanctions, trade and SARS by Michael Dorgan, Knight Ridder Newspapers.
      Beijing -- When President Bush and Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, meet in Evian, France with the G-8 group of seven wealthy industralized democracies plus Russia, next week for the first time since the Chinese leader took office in March, the leader of the world's only superpower and the new leader of the biggest emerging power will have much to discuss.    The topics will probably be North Korea, Taiwan, nuclear proliferation and the reconstruction of Iraq, SARS, sanctions and trade.
      Tensions between the two countries remain, but the Bush administration hasn't put China in the same enemy camp with Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran under the mullahs or North Korea under Kim Jong Il.    The hope is China will help in stopping international terrorism and the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, since it is emerging as one of the world's most powerful economies and political influence.
      Chinese officials continue to complain about U.S. arm sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China considers a renegade province.    Many suspect that the United States intends to dominate the world, a suspicion heightened by the Bush administration's military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
      Last week, the United States slapped a two-year $100 million a year ban on imports from one of China's biggest state-owned conglomerates North Industries Corp, known as Norinco, because it allegedly sold rocket fuel and missile components to North Korea, which Bush has named a member of his "axis of evil."
• 6/15/2003 - Thai premier says terrorist suspect planned bombing during APEC summit.
      Bangkok, Thailand -- A terror suspect has confessed to plotting to bomb embassies in the Thai capital during an upcoming summit of Asian and Pacific Rim leaders that President Bush is due to attend, as was China and Japan prime ministers, Thailand's prime minister said.    Arifin bin Ali, an alleged leader of the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, told Thai authorities that "he was planning to blow up embassies during the upcoming 18-nation APEC meeting coming up in October," Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said.
• 6/15/2003 - Czechs overwhelming vote yes to European Union, turnout was more than 50 percent.
      Prague, Czech Republic -- Czechs voted overwhelmingly 77.33 percent to join the European Union in a referendum, to bring a definite end to isolation brought on by decades of communist rule, and elated Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla.    Next May, 10 new members are due to join the 15-member bloc
• 7/6/2003 - Nuclear club not seeking new members - U.S., others with nuclear weapons remain concerned - by George Edmonson, Cox News Service.
      Washington -- The world's most powerful club -- nations with nuclear weapons -- is not looking for new members.    Concern is who has nuclear arms, who is trying to develop them and what preventive procedures are in place.    Current concern focuses primarily on Iran who may be trying to pull the wool over in order to initiate a weapons progam and North Korea who may already have one or two nuclear weapons.    North Korea became the first country to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
      The United States has an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 nuclear weapons, Russia has an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 nuclear weapons, Great Britain has about 185, France thought to have 350, China just over 400, India between 50 to 100, Pakistan between 30-50, Israel between 60-100, and South Africa had dismantled its program.
• 7/13/2003 - President's key advisers defend claim of Iraq-Africa uranium link and the overstated link between Iraq, al-Qaida by The Associated Press.
      Washington -- Adminstration officials insisted that President Bush's disputed statement about the British government has learned that Iraqi was uranium shopping in Africa was accurate, but concede it should have been deleted from his Jan. 28 State of the Union address because U.S. agencies had questioned the validity of the British intelligence.    The forged documents purported to confirm approaches by Iraq to Niger in West Africa, the world's third-largest producer of mined uranium, are a matter of British classified foreign intelligence sources.
      Critics are accusing Bush and Blair of exaggerating the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's regime to justify the invasion of Iraq.
      The alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) still have not been found.
      As President Bush works to quiet the above controversy, another of his prewar assertions is coming under fire: the alleged link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida.    Before the war, Bush said Saddam was harboring top al-Qaida operatives and suggested Iraq could slip the terrorist network chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.    No such evidence has been found to support this assertion either.
• 7/14/2003 - Rumsfeld: U.S. might increase troops in Iraq by The New York Times.
      Washington -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the United States might need to send additional troops to Iraq to quell an increasingly well-organized guerrilla resistance.    There are 148,000 American and 13,000 allied troops currently in Iraq.
      Saddam Hussein has still not been found, but three months after his fall on April 9, they are now setting up the first interim government of Iraq.    Also brought up is a group claiming to be an Iraqi branch of al-Qaida said it - and not Saddam - is behind recent attacks on U.S. forces, according to a videotape shown on an Arab TV station.
• 7/20/2003 - Concern rises over N. Korea nuke material - Secret plutonium plant suspected say U.S., Asian intelligence reports - by New York Times News Service.
      Washington - Evidence has emerged that N. Korea has built a second, secret plant for producing weapons-grade plutonium, complicating both the diplomatic strategy and military options.    Sensors have begun to detect elevated levels of krypton 85, a gas emitted as spent fuel is converted into plutonium.
• 7/23/2003 - Next target: Saddam - Death of sons may help curb resistance.
      The deaths of Saddam Hussein's two eldest sons (Quasai and Odai) in a battle with U.S. troops in northern Iraq could be an important victory in the campaign to control, and even end, the guerrilla-style insurgency.    An unidentified Iraqi wanting the reward, had tipped off the Americans where they were located.    The hope is that this will convince Iraqis that Saddam's regime is over for good.
• 7/31/2003 - Council in Iraq selects first rotating president by The Associated Press.
      Baghdad, Iraq -- Iraq's U.S.-picked interim government named its first president - a Shiite Muslim Ibrahim al-Jaafari from the Islamic Dawa Party, which was banned during Saddam Hussein's rule, was the first of nine men who will serve one-month stints leading postwar Iraq.    The 25-member Governing Council met with World Bank president James Wolfensohn to work out terms for lending money for reconstruction of Iraq, who must have a constitution and an elected government to be a recognized government.
• 8/1/2003 - N. Korea may accept invitation for U.S. talks.
      North Korea appears ready to accept President Bush's proposal for six-party talks to resolve growing concerns about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons, the State Department said.    The initial round of talks with the U.S., N. Korea and China held in Beijing last April will be expanded to include South Korea, Japan and Russia.    Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov had a major diplomatic breakthrough with N. Korea.
      North Korea and Kim Jong Il, warns that any moves to discuss its suspected nuclear weapons programs at the United Nations would be a "prelude to war," for fear of economic sanctions.
• 8/2/2003 - Aide says Saddam destroyed weapons - Iraqi leader reportedly wanted to leave other nations guessing about programs - by Slobodan Lekic, The Associated Press.
      Baghdad, Iraq -- A close aide of Saddam Hussein says the Iraqi dictator got rid of his weapons of mass destruction, but deliberately kept the world guessing about it in an effort to divide the international community and stave off a U.S. invasion.    Saddam still retained the technical know-how to restart the programs at anytime.  The Pentagon officials claims the search for WMDs will continue, not believing Saddam's alleged weapons bluff.   Saddam's bluff backfired after Sept. 11, 2001 from containing the Iraqi leader to going after those who could supply terrorists with deadly weapons.
• 8/12/2003 - Rebuilding could cost $600 billion by The Associated Press.
      Washington - The U.S. bill for rebuilding Iraq and maintaining security there is widely expected to far exceed the war's price tag.
• 8/12/2003 - NATO takes control of force in Afghanistan - Move intended to establish stability - by Amy Waldman, New York Times News Service.
      Kabul, Afghanistan - In the first mission beyond Europe's frontiers in its 54-year history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took formal control of Afghanistan's multinational peacekeeping force.    This new mission is NATO's transformation to meet the security challenges of the 21^st century.
• 8/13/2003 - Iraq pumps first oil through Turkish pipeline since war.
  
• 8/13/2003 - Iran's effort to build nuclear weapons must not be ignored.
      U.N. inspectors are grappling with Iran plans to build weapons of mass destruction at the same time the Bush administration is trying to find WMDs in Iraq.    There is a great fear that a nuclear-armed Iran would become the first avowed adversary of Israel to possess such a weapon and escalate an arms race.    This would also complicate U.S. attempts to establish democracy in Iraq and to expand its influence in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
• 8/15/2003 - Libya hopes settlement will end U.S. sanctions by Donna Abu-Nasr, The Associated Press.
      Cairo, Egypt - For years, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has been trying to get into America's good graces.    He condemned the Sept. 11 attacks, arrested Islamic militants and handed over two Libyans for trial in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.    Libya wants to reengage with the rest of the world, and not be on a list of states that support terrorism.    Their intention is to give its economy a boost by bringing back U.S. oil companies.
• 8/17/2003 - Pipeline blast halts Iraqi exports to Turkey by D'Arcy Doran, The Associated Press.
      Saboteurs blew up a giant oil pipeline in northern Iraq, halting oil exports to Turkey days after they resumed and cutting off vital income for an economy in shambles.
• 8/17/2003 - China taking more active role in international diplomacy by John Pomfret, The Washington Post.
      Beijing - Fearing chaos on its borders, China has come to a new realization about the risk of nuclear weapons and war on the Korean Peninsula and launched its most significant diplomatic offensive in years to find a peaceful solution to the standoff.    They are trying to secure a new meeting between the United States and North Korea, with talks to be held Aug. 27-29 in Beijing among North Korea, China, the United States, Russia, Japan and South Korea.
• 8/20/2003 - Foes aim to foil U.S. efforts to calm Iraq - Bomb kills U.N. envoy, 19 others - by Thom Shanker, New York Times News Service.
      Washington - Bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad provided bloody evidence of a new strategy by anti-U.S. forces to depict the United States as unable to guarantee public order.    A truck packed with explosives detonated outside the offices of the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, leaving a 6-foot-deep crater and devastated the building killing 19 and wounding 100 people, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the attack would not drive the world body out of the country.    Without U.S. agreement on a broader international role in Iraq, the United States faces an uphill struggle to win support for a new U.N. resolution in a Security Council still bitterly divided over Washington's decision to launch a war without U.N. approval.
• 8/21/2003 - U.S. will price itself out of the global market.
      Jobs are leaving the United States in record numbers to India, Mexico, Malaysia and Panama, which was encouraged by our government, and appealed to the greed of humanity by Wall Street and businesses seeking out cheaper labor.    Eventually there will be no one in the United States that will be able to afford their products.    Will this equalization come before the United States and possibly the world economy have been irreversibly damaged?    Most likely this is what the WTO wants, which is all countries/regions on equal status.
• 8/24/2003 - America could seek to disband North Korea's entire arsenal - Nations meet about N. Korea's nukes - by Christopher Torchia and Audra Ang, The Associated Press.
      Seoul, South Korea - The U.S. wants to talk to North Korea not only about nuclear bombs but the communist nation's entire arsenal: suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, missiles that can reach all of South Korea and Japan and massive conventional forces massed near the border.    The Aug. 27-29 talks in Beijing, featuring the U.S., the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan will try to resolve the suspected development of nuclear weapons, and quell the threat to stability in northeast Asia (East Asian Region).    These talks will lay the foundation for the next talks.    China wants to avoid being dragged into a conflict between its longtime ally, North Korea, and a vital trading partner, the United States.    The North, faced with economic collapse, wants more food and humanitarian aid.
      On the 29th, North Korea did tell the six-nation conference that it has nuclear weapons and has plans to test one.    North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il said the North intends to formally declare it has nuclear weapons, has the ability to deliver them, and intends to conduct a test.    This made the Chinese representative visibly angry.
• 8/25/2003 - China's exchange rate dismays U.S., world officials by John Schmid, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
      Milwaukee - The Beijing government deliberately has depressed the Chinese currency, the yuan exchange rate at 8.3 against the dollar and, in doing so, lowered the prices of any Chinese goods sold in the United States.    This applies to running shoes, mobile phones and furniture, irking American business leaders who argue that Chinese imports already enjoy an advantage because they come from the world's premier low-cost production sites.    So begins the debate over "free trade" vs. "fair trade," with China causing a downward spiral of falling prices that depresses earnings, wages and hiring.    The U.S. trade deficit with China has reached unprecedented levels and is blamed for decimating American jobs.
• 8/29/2003 - Deal would give poor nations cheaper drugs.
      Geneva - A World Trade Organization group agreed to allow poor nations access to inexpensive copies of drugs to fight diseases as AIDS and malaria, after the United States gave its endorsement.    This lets developing countries ignore some patent rules in importing drugs from cheaper generic manufacturers.    This is to counter critics who say the WTO, which sets global trade rules, puts corporate profits in rich countries ahead of the suffering and death in poor ones.    In the United States the average AIDS patient takes a combination of drugs that costs about $14,000 per year, thus generic versions would cost a fraction of this for patients in Africa.
• 9/4/2003 - Powell outlines U.N. role in Iraq - Draft resolution gives world body key duties - by Barry Schweid, The Associated Press.
      Washington - The Bush administration and Secretary of State Colin Powell offered to share with the United Nations a role in Iraq's postwar reconstruction, which pleased the European governments.    The draft would transform the U.S.-led coalition force into a U.N.-authorized multinational one under a unified command, with an American officer in charge.
      French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder demanded that Wahsington give the U.N. more influence in Iraq's political future.
• 9/5/2003 - U.S., others sign weapons pact.
      Paris - The United States proposal of a Proliferation Security Initiative with 10 other countries struck an accord outlining steps for uncovering shipments of weapons of mass destruction, including boarding ships, forcing suspected planes to land and inspecting cargoes.
• 9/8/2003 - U.S. to discuss N. Korean security with allies by The Associated Press.
      Washington - The U.S. will consult with its allies about what kind of security assurances they can offer North Korea to get it to end its nuclear weapons program.    At the talks in Beijing, North Korea said it would disarm if the U.S. would resume free oil shipments, provide economic and humanitarian aid, sign a nonaggression treaty and open diplomatic ties.    Bush's tool of choice right now against a reclusive communist state, would be economic sanctions, to inhibit the building and testing of those weapons.
• 9/8/2003 - Bush asks for billions for Iraq - Funds needed for troops, rebuilding - by Deb Reichmann, The Associated Press.
      Washington - President Bush will ask Congress for $87 billion for the upcoming fiscal year for the war on terrorism and to sustain U.S. troops in Iraq and rebuild the shattered nation into a free and democratic country.
• 9/11/2003 - Anti-terror powers sought - Bush: Congress should expand legal powers in war on terror.
      Washington - Bush wants to untie the hands of law enforcement officials with wider legal powers to combat terrorists, in order to beef up the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, making the law more intrusive and a threat to civil liberties.     These threats from terrorist are real, even though the enemy has been wounded it is still dangerous.    He is looking for ways to better secure America.
• 9/15/2003 - Divergent agendas sink world trade talks by Niko Price, The Associated Press.
      Cancun, Mexico - Talks designed to change the face of farming around the world collapsed amid differences between 146 rich and poor nations, the second failure for the World Trade organization in four years.    Developing nations want a way to end rich countries' agricultural subsides that make it hard for them to compete globally.    European nations and Japan are pushing new issues that many poor countries see as a destraction.    The failure to compromise was a major blow to the WTO, and to efforts to regulate the world's trade.    In 1999, talks in Seattle collapsed amid violent street protests and divisions between rich and poor nations.    More than 50 advocacy groups issued a joint statement attacking the WTO for making decisions in private and saying it was failing to listen to poor member states.
• 9/22/2003 - Iraq's return to OPEC unlikely to affect crude output limits by Bruce Stanley, The Associated Press.
      London - Iraq's long-awaited return to the OPEC fold will not have much impact when the organization sets output policy for the next few months.    OPEC supplies about a third of the world's oil, and Iraq's recovery is taking longer than expected, due to sabotage.
• 9/24/2003 - Bush faces critics at U.N. - World leaders call pre-emptive actions such as Iraq war a threat to organization - by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post.
      United Nations - President Bush, defending the invasion of Iraq before the United Nations, endured a torrent of criticism from world leaders who warned that his policy of unilateral action to confront emerging threats to U.S. security could destroy the organization.
      President Bush did win a commitment from German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to help train Iraqi police and security forces, to help Iraq grow to be a peaceful and stable and democratic country.
• 9/25/2003 - IMF warns U.S. about currency demands.
      Dubai - The United States and other governments should stop demanding changes to foreign currency controls to win votes at home, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Horst Koehler said after the Group of Seven industrialized nations called for more flexible exhange rates.
• 9/25/2003 - OPEC surprises experts with plan to cut output by Bruce Stanley, The Associated Press.
      Vienna, Austria - Defying most expectations, members of the OPEC oil cartel agreed to make a pre-emptive cut in their production target for crude in an effort to bolster prices ahead of an expected decrease in demand early next year.    The 3.5% cut startled the market, and oil futures jumped more than $1 a barrel.
• 9/27/2003 - Summit will test Bush, Putin alliance - President seeks support for U.N.'s role in postwar Iraq - by Bob Deans, Cox News Service.
      Washington - President Bush will play host to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for a two-day summit at Camp David.    Bush is seeking help from Putin, who opposed the war, on a new resolution that would expand the United Nations' role in Iraq, and possibly even Russian contributions to reconstruction efforts there.    Other concerns are Russia's commercial relations with Iran and contracts limited to development of civilian nuclear power.    United Nation inspectors state they have found traces of highly enriched uranium at two locations in Iran.    Putin has backed the anti-terror campaign, providing key intelligence, regional bases and helped with U.S. toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan.    Bush has muted his criticism of conflict in Chechnya and human-rights violations, but only wanting a political solution between Putin's government and Islamic separatists in the southern region of Russia.    Putin has also joined with Bush's effort to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
• 9/28/2003 - Iran divided on nuclear program - U.N. deadline seen as both opportunity and coercion - by Ali Akbar Dareini, The Associated Press.
      Tehran, Iran - Hard-line clerics, who have rallied against the U.S.-led assault on Iran's atomic agenda, want Iran to reject an Oct. 31 U.N. deadline to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.    Reformists and President Mohammad Khatami are pressing for Tehran to comply with international demands and allow U.N. inspectors unrestricted access to any site they wish to visit in Iran.
• 10/2/2003 - U.S. keeps currency pressure on China official says - Bush wants flexibility, more trade to help American businesses - by Martin Crutsinger, The Associated Press.
      Washington - The Bush administration, insisting it is doing everything possible to halt a slide in manufacturing jobs, assured Congress it is pressing China to move to a flexible currency system and dismantle barriers to U.S. exports.    China is one of the largest economies in the world, and these are commitments it made when joining the World Trade Organization.    China is afraid to float the yuan, because its banking system is to fragile right now.
• 10/3/2003 - N. Korea claims technological ability to make atomic bombs - Communist nation's statements escalate international tension - by Sang-Hun Choe, The Associated Press.
      Seoul, South Korea - North Korea said it had solved "all the technological matters" involved in using plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear rods to build at least one or two atomic bombs, as a deterrent against what it calls a U.S. plan to invade.    They also plan to make five or six more bombs after reprocessing the 8,000 spent fuel rods.
• 10/6/2003 - Oil pipeline in Africa opens by The Associated Press.
      Yaounde, Cameroon - The first tanker set off from a Cameroon port with crude oil from a massive $3.7 billion pipeline, officials said, launching an ambitious World Bank project and President Bush's administration aimed at developing West African oil as an alternative to Mideast supplies.    The pipeline was developed by ExxonMobile, Malaysia's Petronas and ChevronTexaco.    West Africa, led by Nigeria, already supplies the United States with about one-fifth of its oil - roughly equal to Saudi Arabia's share of the U.S. market.
• 10/14/2003 - U.S., China square off over trade - Imbalance, lost jobs becoming election issue - by Martin Crutsinger, The Associated Press.
      Washington - China has Washington seeing red over trade.    Chinese exports to the U.S. have tripled since 1995, with U.S. consumers snapping up clothes, shoes, toys and electronics, reuslting in a hemorrhaging of U.S. manufacturing jobs and a skyrocketing trade deficit with China.    President Bush will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok, Thailand, with Congress considering retaliatory tariffs.    China cannot continue their illegal, anti-free market trade policies, and since there is growing pressure for trade protectionism in an election year the hope is China will change their mind and comply to their commitments.    Of interest, its not just Chinese companies who benefit: 10 of China's 40 top exporters are U.S. companies with factories in China.
• 10/21/2003 - N. Korea impasse dominates conference - Pacific Rim leaders say economic issues getting short shrift - by Terence Hunt, The Associated Press.
      Bangkok, Thailand - President Bush pushed North Korea's nuclear threat to the forefront of a 21-nation summit and the communist country shoved back with an attention-grabbing missile test.
      The summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ended with pledges to dismantle terror groups, which have battered Asia's economy.    Most of the summit was spent discussing how to get the World Trade Organization to restart talks for a new global commerce deal following the collapse of negotiations in Cancun, Mexico last month.
• 10/26/2003 - Military shifting forces to encircle hotbeds of global terrorism by Matt Kelly, The Associated Press.
      Washington - Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon clearly is digging in for the long slog, by repositioning its forces to encircle areas of the world seen as possible hotbeds of terrorism.   
• 10/27/2003 - Skilled workers fight free trade - Many see their jobs moving overseas - by Michael Schroeder and Timothy Aeppel, The Wall Street Journal.
      A new anti-free-trade movement is emerging in the United States, comprising highly skilled workers who once figured they would be big winners in the globalized economy, but now see their white-collar jobs moving overseas in growing numbers.
      Intel Corp. Chairman Andy Grove, a pioneer in the American high-tech industry, warned that the U.S. could lose the bulk of its information technology jobs to overseas competitors in the next decade, largely to India and China.    Grove, acknowledged that Intel has been part of that trend, because of cost and productivity pressures is sending work abroad.    The new free-trade opponents include design engineers, skilled machinists, information-technology experts and chief executives of specialized manufacturers who long believed they were protected from foreign competition, are now worried their jobs are at risk.    They are asking for a congressional study of the economic impact of outsourcing.
• 11/9/2003 - U.S., Brazil still trying to agree on trade plan.
      Washington - The Bush administration reported no breakthroughs in informal discussions aimed at trying to resolve deep differences with Brazil over the scope of a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement.    U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and ministers from 15 other nations wrapped up two days of talks in the Washington area on the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas.    The agreement, which would span the Western Hemisphere and cover 34 countries, is a key goal of the administration.
• 11/11/2003 - WTO rejects U.S. steel tariffs - Retaliation almost certain unless Bush removes duties - by Paul Blustein, The Washington Post.
      Washington - The World Trade Organization issued a final ruling that the steel tariffs imposed by President Bush violate international trade rules, escalating the pressure on the president to remove the tariffs.    The decision by the WTO gives the European Union, Japan, Brazil and other countries the right to impose retaliatory tariffs on a host of American exports unless Bush reverses the decision he made in March 2002 to give American steel makers protection from imports.    The EU plans on punitive duties of more than $2 billion in U.S exports in December on American motorcycles, citrus fruit and farm equipment, among other goods.
      If Bush abides by the WTO ruling and rolls back the steel tariffs, he will anger voters in key steel-making states such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.    But if he maintains the tariffs, he risks courting the wrath of industries in other states hurt by the duties.    When Bush imposed the tariffs he was giving U.S steel makers three years of protection to give them time to restructure.    President Bush has about a month to review his policies before the retaliatory tariffs would go into effect under WTO rules.
• 11/15/2003 - Putin tries to ease tensions following arrest by The Associated Press.
      Moscow - President Vladimir Putin reached out to Russian business leaders in an effort to ease tension over the arrest of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, promising there will be no return to Soviet-style authoritarianism and pledging closer cooperation between the state and the private sector.
• 11/16/2003 - Trade meeting rancor erupting inside, as well as outside, talks by John Pain, The Associated Press.
      Miami - At most free trade meetings, protestors on the streets are the most vocal opponents of global economic expansion.    Recently, Brazil and other developing nations have been equally resistant to proposed U.S. policies to ease trade restrictions.    Miami will be the center of all those disputes at talks to create the world's largest free trade area (800 million people), as the 34 nations, except Cuba involved in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) try to resolve their differences.
      Brazil is butting heads with the Bush administration who refuses to discuss slashing subsidies and tariffs that protect U.S. farmers, arguing that those trade protections should be negotiated in global trade agreements, not regional ones, because the European Union is the biggest subsidizer of agriculture.
      The President is in an awkward position for his re-election campaign next year.    The FTAA is a key part of his plans to expand the U.S. economy and create new jobs while reducing poverty in the hemisphere.
• 11/19/2003 - U.S. imposes import limits on some Chinese textiles - Struggling domestic industry applauds action; critic calls move 'pure politics' - by Raju Chebium, Gannett News Service.
      Washington - In a move to protect the domestic textile industry, the government decided to limit the quantity of dressing gowns, robes, knit fabric and bras that China ships to the United States.    U.S. textile companies, which are clustered in the Carolinas, Alabama, California and Georgia, praised the Bush administration for putting China on notice that the U.S. will not tolerated trade tactics that include slashing prices below market levels.    This action is legal under the World Trade Organization's rules granting membership to China.    Tariffs on all products China sends to the U.S. are schedule to be lifted on Dec. 21, 2004.
• 11/20/2003 - U.S., Brazil push draft of the free-trade pact for Americas by The Associated Press.
      Miami - Negotiators who want the Western Hemisphere to be the world's larget free-trade zone adopted a draft text that would allow countries to disregard parts of the agreement.    The buffet-style draft, pushed by Brazil and the United States, will be given to trade ministers from the 34 nations in the Americas, excluding Cuba, for two days of meetings to complete the text.    The Free Trade Area of the Americas talks are being held to eliminate or reduce trade barriers among all nations in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba.    Canada, Chile, Mexico and several Of the 15-member Caribbean countries had pushed for a more specific text.    U.S. wants to keep subsidies to American farmers out of the FTAA, where Brazil the same on investments and intellectual property rights.    Scott Otteman, director of international trade policy for the National Association of Manufacturers wants the Americas turned into a true free-trade zone with no tariffs.
      Protestors see the FTAA as a traiff-free trading bloc and an expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 1994 treaty covering Canada, Mexico and the U.S., which has destroyed jobs, family farms and the environment.    Others claim it has improved market access and steered Latin America toward both stability and democaracy.
      After two days trade ministers gave a final approval to the buffet-style framework, which is due to be finalized by January 2005.    This will chnage what food consumers buy in supermarkets as well as dictate future jobs for the hemisphere's workers.
• 11/21/2003 - China warns U.S. that duties may rise by The Associated Press.
      Beijing - In a bitter trade spat, China threatened to raise import duties on some U.S. products after a World Trade Organization ruling that Washington's tariffs on steel are illegal.
• 12/2/2003 - Advisers urge president to repeal tariffs on steel by Lara Jakes Jordan, The Associated Press.
      Washington - White House advisers are urging President Bush to head off a global trade war by rolling back steep tariffs on imported steel.    Bush imposed the tariffs in March of 2002 and fulfilled a 2000 campaign promise to Democratic voters in West Virgina, Ohio and Pennsylvannia - three states he hopes to win in 2004.    The auto industry and other steel consumers in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin complained the tariffs hiked steel prices just as small manufacturing companies were being hit by the slumping economy.
• 12/3/2003 - Putin adviser rules out Russian ratification of Kyoto climate pact - Official says treaty would damage country's economy - by Steve Gutterman, The Associated Press.
      Moscow - In what would be a mortal blow to the accord aimed at halting global warming, a top Kremlin official said that Russia won't ratify the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions because it will hurt the country's economy.    The U.S. rejected the accord for the same reason.    Without Moscow, the protocol cannot come into effect even if approved by every other nation because only Russia's industrial emissions are large enough to tip the balance.
• 12/5/2003 - Bush lifts steel tariffs, averts trade war.
      Washington - President Bush lifted tariffs on foreign steel choosing to face the wrath of steelworkers in states key to his re-election rather than risk a global trade war.    Bush says the "government will closely monitor imports to prevent a surge of shipments."
• 12/14/2003 - Syria: Sanctions will put strain on U.S. relations by The Associated Press.
      Damascus, Syria - U.S. legislation threatening sanctions against Syria makes it more difficult to improve relations with the United States, Syria said.    Syria has been accused of playing host to Palestinian militant groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and seeking biological and chemical weapons.    They must also withdraw its 20,000 troops from neighboring Lebanon and stop militants and weapons from crossing the border into Iraq.
• 12/14/2003 - European summit ends amid power struggle - Proposal pits Spain, Poland against France, Germany by Paul Ames, The Associated Press.
      Brussels, Belgium - A summit to forge a constitution for a united, post Cold War Europe collapsed after leaders failed to agree on sharing power within an expanded European Union.    The deal-breaker was a proposal to abandon a voting system accepted in 2000 that gave Spain and incoming European Union member Poland almost as much voting power as Germany, which has a population equal to those two countries combined.    The failure scuttles the union's plan for a new president, foreign minister and a greater profile on the global stage to rival that of the United States.    Poland and nine smaller nations will join the bloc on May 1, expanding it to 25 members, from 15.
      Germany and France are concerned that the expanded union could force Europe to "march to the slowest step," and suggestions of a "pioneer group" of nations could move forward alone with closer cooperation on areas such as the economy, justice and defense.    Others were dubious about such a "two-speed Europe."    A plan backed by France and Germany would replace the union's complex, population-based voting system with a formula under which key decisions could be passed by a simple majority of 13 of the 25 members - if they represent 60 percent of the union's population.    Spain and Poland are in disagreement with this plan.
• 12/15/2003 - 'CAUGHT LIKE A RAT' U.S. forces locate Saddam in hole - by Susan Sach and Kirk Semple, The New York Times.
      Baghdad, Iraq - A force of 600 American soldiers captured Saddam Hussein in a raid on an isolated farm near Tikrit, found haggard and disoriented, hiding in an 8-foot hole.    A former Saddam bodyguard gave interrogators the location of the farm.    President Bush announced, "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over.    A hopeful day has arrived."    This capture is triumph for U.S., Iraq and world.
• 12/20/2003 - Libya comes clean - Gadhafi admits nuclear weapon program - by Jennifer Loven, The Associated Press.
      Washington - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, after secret negotiations with the U.S. and Britain, agreed to halt his nation's drive to develop nuclear and chemical weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them.    Libya's nuclear effort was more advanced than previously thought.    Their decision was influenced by the war in Iraq, and U.S. efforts to rein in weapons of mass destruction capabilities in North Korea and Iran.

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      The year 2004, can be seen on my file at Volume III - EU and G7 - 2004 One World Economy.
  

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  Return to the overview of years.
  
      The years 2005 through 2010, can be seen on my file at Volume III - EU and G7 - 2005-2010 One World Economy.
  

Last updated June 19, 2004, and April 1, 2006.