Bush arrives in Mongolia
11/21/2005
ULAN BATOR (AFP) - US President George W. Bush became the first sitting US president to visit Mongolia, touching down for a lightning visit to show appreciation for the remote Asian country's help in Iraq.
Bush's presidential Air Force One airplane arrived around 12:15 pm (0415 GMT).
His visit capped a week-long trip to Asia that took him to Japan, South Korea and China before coming to Ulan Bator for a three-hour stay including talks with Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar.
Earlier on day two of his Beijing visit, Bush took his human rights pitch from a church service near Tiananmen Square to a public appearance with Chinese President Hu Jintao, a meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao, and finally to an impromptu exchange with reporters.
"I talked about both political and religious freedom," the US president told reporters, adding that he had raised the issue with Hu of political dissidents who "we believe are improperly imprisoned."
Bush also said he had urged Chinese leaders to discuss Tibet's fate with its exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and tried to convince them they should invite Vatican leaders to discuss religious freedom.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Washington was complaining "quite vociferously" to Beijing after Chinese authorities took forceful steps to keep dissidents and activists out of sight during Bush's visit.
She also said that "one has to be concerned" over China's military buildup because "there's a question of intent" but that Washington was confident of keeping the region in balance.
Still, both Hu and Bush took pains to emphasize the importance of US-China relations, pledging after a 90-minute meeting at the Great Hall of the People to work through what Hu described as "inevitable" tensions.
As their talks got under way, Boeing signed a four-billion-dollar deal in Beijing to supply seventy 737 aircraft to China between 2006 and 2008 as part of a broader arrangement to eventually supply 150 of the 737s.
"Win-win cooperation is the mainstream of China-US relations," said Hu, who promised to work to reduce economic tensions on issues such as currency reform and China's massive trade surplus with the United States.
Hu said China was "continuously raising the level of human rights" enjoyed by its people but that progress must reflect "China's national conditions" and that the country would have "democratic politics with Chinese characteristics."
The two leaders said they would next meet in the United States in early 2006 -- a visit that will replace Hu's planned trip in September, which was indefinitely postponed because of Hurricane Katrina.
On the economic front, Hu said Beijing would "unswervingly press ahead" with currency reform and "gradually" cut its trade surplus with the United States, which was expected to run to about 200 billion dollars this year.
US officials, who have expressed frustration that similar pledges on economic reform in July and September have not borne fruit, said much more work remained to be done on all those issues.
The two leaders also agreed to pursue joint efforts to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis through six-country talks, and to ramp up cooperation to battle the spread of deadly bird flu amid fears of a global pandemic.
The US side reported no breakthroughs on Sunday but pointed to less tangible signs of success, with one senior Bush aide insisting that Hu had been more specific in promising to crack down on rampant counterfeiting of US goods.
Tackling another perennial irritant in Sino-US relations, Taiwan, Hu said that Beijing was "committed to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits" but warned that "we will by no means tolerate so-called Taiwan independence."
Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province that will eventually be reunited with the mainland.
Earlier, Bush attended services at the government-approved Gangwashi church and suggested that China had made progress toward religious freedom, saying "it wasn't all that long ago that people were not allowed to worship openly."
"A healthy society is a society that welcomes all faiths and gives people a chance to express themselves through worship," said Bush, who accepted a Chinese Bible and wrote "May God Bless the Christians of China" in the guestbook.
On a light note, Bush, a fitness enthusiast, went mountain bike riding with Chinese athletes who are training for the 2008 Beijing Olympics -- and jokingly reported back later that he would not qualify to represent China at the Games.
http://www.afp.com/russian/news/stories/051121043536.9yp1mpzy.html
Nov 20, 2005
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
AMMAN (Reuters) - Lawyers defending Saddam Hussein and his aides are willing to attend next week's trial hearing, despite threats to their lives, if the government provides them with proper protection, the team's leader said on Sunday.
Khalil Dulaimi announced earlier this month that the defense team was suspending all contacts with the court trying Saddam for crimes against humanity after the killing of two of its lawyers — one shot in Baghdad on November 8, one killed on October 20
On Sunday, he telephoned Reuters from an undisclosed location and said "We are prepared to attend the trial if our demands to secure proper protection are met … We are ready to attend any moment they tell us and despite our reservations."
Dulaimi accused his opponents in the judiciary of spreading rumors that the defense was boycotting the trial so that they could appoint their own defense lawyers.
"We announced not a boycott of the trial but a suspension of our work with the court in order to preserve the lives of our colleagues," Dulaimi said. "But they want to portray us as having boycotted so they would prepare new lawyers," he added.
Saddam's trial began on October 19 and is due to resume on November 28. The ousted leader and seven aides are accused of killing 148 men after an attempt to assassinate Saddam in 1982.
The defense lawyers are under great pressure, Dulaimi said. "The threats against us have increased and in a systematic way and the Americans have been briefed fully and in detail about this," he added.
Dulaimi said he wanted talks with the government on an elaborate security plan which he said would protect the lawyers, their families and witnesses.
The Iraqi government says the defense lawyers have repeatedly refused offers of police protection made since before the trial began and spurned an offer of safe houses inside the secure Green Zone in central Baghdad after the first killing.
The worsening death threats have made it difficult for the defense team to visit their clients or prepare their case for the coming session, Dulaimi said, and concern for their safety now took precedence over preparing the defense case itself.
Witness intimidation was also a problem, Dulaimi said. "We contacted some witnesses and they totally refused to attend for fear for their lives — but if proper protection is provided, they said they would be ready to attend."
Echoing the view of Saddam's mainly Sunni Muslim supporters, Dulaimi said the recent discovery of a secret detention center run by the Shi'ite-led Interior Ministry in Baghdad raised serious questions about the role of militias linked to the police in recent assassinations.
"There is an escalation in attacks by the militias. We saw it in their torture chambers. They are the ones responsible for the killing of our colleagues," he said.
Reuters News