U.S. Major General Eric T. Olson speaks during a news conference in Kabul March 7, 2005. Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has lost control of the insurgency in Afghanistan and the number of attacks has fallen dramatically, Olson said. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters)
British Worker Shot Dead in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan - Gunmen shot and killed a Briton who worked with Afghanistan's development ministry in a nighttime attack in downtown Kabul, police said Tuesday.
Two vehicles, one of them a black landcruiser, followed the British man's pickup truck then drove ahead of him and blocked his way, Gen. Sher Agha, a Kabul police commander, told The Associated Press.
From inside the landcruiser, an unidentified gunman opened fire, killing the man, before driving away, he said.
The attack happened about 10.15 p.m. Monday in front of the main guest house for U.N. workers in Kabul and the Dutch Embassy, he said. Agha did not name the victim.
The British Embassy could not immediately confirm the incident.
Agha said police were investigating the shooting.
U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva confirmed that a foreign national had been shot dead late Monday in Kabul, but said he was not U.N. personnel.
Since holding its first direct presidential elections in October, Afghanistan has enjoyed a period of relative calm, marked by a decline in attacks by Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents that have plagued restive areas of the south and east.
But in November, three foreign election workers were kidnapped in Kabul by a Taliban splinter group. They were released unharmed a month later.
In December, a Turkish engineer working on a U.S.-sponsored road project was kidnapped and killed by unidentified kidnappers in eastern Kunar province.
A Chinese delegate walks into the Great Hall of the People during the National People's Congress in Beijing March 8, 2005. China outlined an anti-secession bill on Tuesday that allows military force to head off any independence bid by Taiwan, legislation that has heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait. REUTERS/Jason Lee
China: Law Would Allow Action Vs. Taiwan
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - China unveiled a law on Tuesday authorizing military action to stop rival Taiwan from pursuing formal independence, but said an attack would be a last resort if peaceful means fail.
Taiwan immediately lambasted the legislation, calling it a pretext for attack that "gives the (Chinese) military a blank check to invade Taiwan."
Chiu Tai-san, vice chairman of Taiwan's policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, speaks at a news conference to give Taiwan's official reaction to China's draft anti-secession law in Taipei on March 8, 2005. China unveiled an anti-secession bill on Tuesday that allows the use of military force to thwart and bid for independence by Taiwan but sought to ease U.S. Concerns by leaving itself other options. REUTERS/Richard Chung
"Our government lodges strong protest against the vicious attempt and brutal means ... to block Taiwanese from making their free choice," Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which handles the island's China policy, said in a statement.
Chinese leaders say the law is meant to curb what they claim is an effort by Taiwan's president to make the self-ruled island's independence permanent. The legislation drew strong and immediate protest from Taiwan as an attempt to dominate the island.
The proposed law, read out before China's figurehead parliament by one of the body's leaders, doesn't give details of what developments might trigger an attack on Taiwan. The two sides have been separated since 1949 but Beijing claims the self-ruled island as its own territory.
The communist mainland has threatened repeatedly to invade if Taiwan tries to make its independence permanent, and the new law doesn't impose new conditions or make new threats. But it would codify the legal steps required before China would take military action.
"If possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ nonpeaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Wang Zhaoguo, a leader of the National People's Congress, as he read from the law.
A leading member of Taiwan's parliament called on Chinese leaders not to act rashly, saying they should "rein in the horse before the precipice."
"We will not accept any resolution to allow the Chinese communists to unilaterally decide Taiwan's future," said Chen Chin-jun, a member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. "We will reject China's annexation and safeguard Taiwan's sovereignty and democracy."
Chinese officials say the law was prompted in part by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's plans for a referendum on a new constitution for the island. Beijing worries that it might include a declaration of formal independence.
"Every sovereign state has the right to use necessary means to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity," Wang said.
The United States has appealed to both sides to settle Taiwan's future status peacefully and says it doesn't want to see either change the status quo unilaterally. Washington is Taiwan's main arms supplier and could be drawn into any conflict over the island.
A final vote on the law is scheduled for March 14. It is certain to pass, because the NPC routinely approves all legislation already decided by Communist Party leaders.
Wang repeated Chinese complaints that Taiwanese independence activists are a "serious threat to peace and security in the Taiwan Straits and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole."
The legislation lays out legal requirements for taking military action, saying the Chinese Cabinet and the government's Central Military Commission "are authorized to decide on and execute nonpeaceful means and nonpeaceful measures."
China and Taiwan have no official ties and most direct travel and shipping between the two sides is banned. But Taiwanese companies have invested more than $100 billion in the mainland and the two sides carry on thriving indirect trade.
Until recently, China military was thought to be incapable of carrying out an invasion across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. But Beijing has spent billions of dollars in recent years on buying Russian-made submarines, destroyers and other high-tech weapons to extend the reach of the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army.
Chinese leaders have appealed repeatedly in recent months for Taiwan to return to talks on unification. But they insist that Taiwanese leaders must first declare that the two sides are "one China" — a condition that Chen has rejected.
In an apparent attempt to calm Taiwanese public anxiety about the law, Wang said it promises that Chinese military forces would take all possible steps to protect Taiwanese civilians. He said the rights of Taiwanese on China's mainland also would be protected.