4. Asia Pacific

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) has agreed to stricter measures to combat terrorist financing, including cracking down on hawala, the Islamic system of informal financial transfer.

China has blocked access to the popular Google and Alta Vista search engines. The companies are fighting the ban.

Indonesia has experienced more sectarian violence. In the Moluccas, three Muslim women were shot dead, sparking off riots against Christians. Earlier in the week, there was a homemade bomb that killed four. In West Papua, two US teachers and an

Indonesian were shot dead. Government officials blamed the Free Papua Movement (OPM) but they have denied involvement and other local observers feel they are unlikely to have done it and have even suggested the attack was staged to gain support for the fight against the rebels.

In Kyrgyzstan, security council secretary and presidential advisor Misir Ashirkulov has survived a grenade attack but was severely injured.

Detention camps in Malaysia that hold tens of thousands of Filipino migrants, arrested under an immigration crackdown, are under investigation by Philippine representatives who are concerned over the desperate conditions in the camps.

North and South Korea have agreed on a permanent reunion center for separated families.

5. Europe

Europeans are trying to establish a common policy on Iraq, focused on using the United Nations. The two extremes are the UK, where Prime Minister Blair is strongly supporting US President Bush on the subject of regime change, and Russia, doing business with Iraq, as well as Iran and North Korea, identified by Bush as an axis of evil.

Check out the section on Law below for information on the latest arrests in Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Georgia has worked with Russia to investigate terrorist activity and criminal elements possibly hiding in the Pankisi Gorge and President Shevardnadze says the situation is under control.

Spanish police foiled two attempted attacks by the Basque separatist group ETA. These followed the suspension of the separatist party Batasuna.

Northern Ireland faces continued sectarian attacks and fears that police performance is in crisis.

Final talks on the Yugoslavia Federation have failed and discussions are unlikely to resume until next year.

6. Middle East

Arab states continue to insist that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians be resolved before turning any attention to Iraq.

Iranian President Khatami has presented a bill to parliament to reduce the power of the Guardian Council.

Iraq has experienced large air strikes by British and American troops patrolling the no-fly zones. They continue to deny weapons inspectors and the existence of weapons of mass destruction, and are building ties with other Arab countries as well as many others, including Russia. These allies are attempting to find a way to reintroduce weapons inspectors.

Israeli troops continued their assassination operations, killing five people including two children on the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip they carried out another large-scale incursion, arresting a local leader of Islamic Jihad. Following large numbers of civilian deaths over the last two weeks, there was an army inquiry that has now found the soldiers were not at fault. The Supreme Court has approved the expulsion of relatives of a Palestinian militant from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. Human rights groups condemned the judgement and the Palestinians may appeal to the United Nations.

Israel and Jordan have agreed on a plan to pipe water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to stop if from shrinking.

An Israeli paper, Ha?aretz, reported that Syria allowed almost 200 al Qaeda to settle in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. This was denied by both Lebanon and Syria and is viewed as unlikely by analysts and diplomats. Israel is likely to want to gain support for a strike against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, which is controlled by Syria.

The Palestinian interior minister, Abdel Razak al-Yahiya, called for an end to attacks against Israel and instead for the use of peaceful resistance. The radical Palestinian groups responded that as long as Israel occupies, violence continues. Israeli police discovered a huge car bomb but were able to destroy it before it was set off.

7. South Asia

Afghanistan has suffered a series of bombings, including a large blast that killed 22 and injured dozens. There was also an assassination attempt against Hamid Karzai. It killed a bodyguard and an Afghan civilian and one attacker but President Karzai was uninjured.

The US military investigation of the bombing of a wedding party that killed 48 reported that the attack was justified because US troops were returning fire. It is unlikely that the Afghans will accept this conclusion.

The Indian Supreme Court rejected Gujarat state?s request for immediate elections, supporting the election commission that says the situation is too tense from the communal riots that killed a thousand and injured thousands more, and therefore elections must wait until the end of the year.

India?s Tamil Nadu state says it will not negotiate with the notorious bandit Veerappan over the release of H Nagappa, a former minister from neighboring Karnataka state, but Karnataka says it will negotiate. This difference pales compared to the unresolved negotiations over how to share water from the Cauvery River.

An assassination attempt on Kashmir?s minister for industry failed. The All Party Hurriyat Conference, a separatist alliance, has decided not to expel the People?s Conference.

An explosion in government offices in Nepal injured one person and 40 police were killed in an attack on a remote police post. Both are attributed to the Maoist rebels.

Pakistan has asked the US for the release and repatriation of the 58 Pakistanis detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay. Afghanistan has returned 55 who had been detained for supporting the Taliban. After Benazir Bhutto?s application to run in the general election was rejected, her fellow former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, who had been accepted, withdrew from the poll in protest.

In Sri Lanka, a member of the national cricket team visited Jaffa for the first time since the civil war. More than 10,000 people came to see him. President Chandrika Kumaratunga says she is against lifting the ban on the Tamils that is due to be ended before talks start., but her opposition was ignored and the ban has been lifted.

8. Cyberterrorism and Information Warfare

Security firm mi2g reports rapid increases in malicious hacker attacks. 2001 saw 31,322 but this year is poised to exceed 45,000.

Message Labs reports that Klez worms continue to be the most common virus, topping the charts for the last five months.

Yochi J. Dreazen reports in September 3?s Wall Street Journal on Citibank?s sale of credit card customer email addresses to a third party without verifying each address belonged to the customer. While not in breach of federal regulation, this practice can be expected to come under scrutiny by the FTC and state investigators. It could also lead to calls for privacy regulations. The National Strategy for Securing Cyberspace is expected to include a federal privacy advocate.

9. Finance

The Washington Post (Douglas Farah, September 3) has reported that "Financial officers of al Qaeda and the Taliban have quietly shipped large quantities of gold out of Pakistan to Sudan in recent weeks". Sudan denied these reports but they mesh with other information issued by the United Nations. A recent UN report stated that actions against terrorist funding had stalled. More reports lend substance to this claim. See Jeremy Scott-Joynt?s articles "IMF blocks terror fund blacklist". BBC News, September 2, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/223601.stm and "US terror fund drive stalls" BBC News September 3, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/2225967.stm. Also see The Economist?s report "Terrorist finance: Still flush" in the issue of September 7.

The central bank of Bangladesh has found that four commercial banks were involved in money laundering. (For the second year in a row, Transparency International named Bangladesh as the most corrupt country in the world.)

Since the diamond certificate program began and the war ended, Sierra Leone?s exports of diamonds have skyrocketed, setting a record of $25 million in exports so far this year, the same as last year?s total shipments.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) has agreed to stricter measures to combat terrorist financing, including cracking down on hawala, the Islamic system of informal financial transfer.

10. Human Rights

Ghana?s National Reconciliation Commission has stated its investigation into human rights abuses under Jerry John Rawlings? rule.

The back and forth complaints between the Rwandan government and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda have grown, with a backlog of trials now held up by new travel regulations that the Rwandan government insists have been applied equally.

The International Criminal Court has approved procedures for electing the 18 judges who will serve in the court. The UN and human rights groups have urged the votes be applied to the best qualified candidates and not be subject to political horse-trading.

In the face of criticism over Libya?s nomination for the chair of the UN Commission for Human Rights, the candidate, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has defended the proposal. He suggests if could be a way to begin to improve the human rights situation in the countries of the Middle East with notoriously bad records.

Mehdi Ghezali has locked himself in a metal cage that mimics the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and begun a hunger strike to protest his son?s continued detention without charge.

11. Law and Legal Issues

The Indian government will seek extradition of Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal chemical disaster.

The trial of Theoneste Bagosora, Anatole Nsengiyumva, Aloys Ntabakuze and Gratien Kabiligi for their masterminding of the Rwandan genocide has begun.

Marwan Barghouti?s trial has opened in Israel. The senior Palestinian leader insisted that the court had no jurisdiction over him, an elected official, and that the state of Israel, the occupier, should be put on trial.

Maher Bashir, leader of the militant Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, was arrested by Israeli troops.

The Bloody Sunday inquiry has resumed after the summer break. IRA hunger striker Raymond McCartney testified and asked that other IRA members follow his example. A retired forensic investigator has given evidence of the possibility of contamination and new research only understood after the event.

The Basque separatist party Batasuna has already been banned for three years but the Spanish government has asked the Supreme Court for a permanent ban.

Kerim Sadok Chatty was arerested at Stockholm airport after a gun was found in his hand luggage. He has been charged with illegal possession of a firearm, preparing to hijack and sabotage a plane e and preparing airport sabotage. Swedish authorities continue to investigate suspected links with terrorism.

Astrid Eyzaguirre and Osman Petmezci were arrested in Germany on charges of planning an attack on the American military base in Germany on September 11. Pipe bombs, explosives, and pictures of bin Laden were found in their apartment. There is no indication they had any external support or connections.

Dimitris Koufodinas, the last major November 17 suspect, has surrendered to the Greek police.

Petra Lievense, girlfriend of the man accused of the murder of Pym Fortuyn, the Dutch politician, has been arrested for possession of potential bomb-making materials.

Nabil al-Marabh, a cab driver in Boson, has been convicted of an immigration violation and will be deported to Syria. Following the US attacks of September 11 he had been held as a major terrorism suspect but has now been found to have no terrorist links.

In the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, accused as the "20th hijacker", the German government has refused to provide evidence unless it can be assured it will not be used to gain his execution. The US government, on the other hand, turned over secret files by mistake. Upon discovering this error, they searched his prison cell to retrieve the material

Eight men have been arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of membership in a radical Islamic group that supported al Qaeda. Four additional suspects were released.

The compensation board for the Omagh bombing has been told not to look at the victim?s scars while the practice of so doing is investigated.

Nuon Paet?s appeal against his murder conviction (of three backpackers when he was a Khmer Rouge general) was rejected.

Maurice Papon, imprisoned in France for collaboration with Nazi orders to deport Jews, asked for release on the grounds of ill health. The appeals court will decide on September 18.

Chhouk Rin has been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the abduction and murder of three western backpackers when he was a Khmer Rouge commander in Cambodia.

Two lawsuits have been filed in New York against Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban and the estates of the hijackers. They are seeking billions in damages. This civil action claims it would provide evidence of Iraq?s involvement in the attacks.

Zapatista rebels seeking indigenous rights in Mexico were turned down by the Supreme Court who said they did not meet international requirements for protection of indigenous people.

12. Narco-terrorism

Asa Hutchinson, Director of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, claims that a US drug ring involved in methamphetamine production has channeled a significant proportion of the proceeds to Hezbollah and other indicted organizations.

The US State Department testified that there was no danger to people in Colombia from aerial spraying of the coca crop. This is one part of a massive effort to repress the industry, that is described in an Economist article, "The weedkiller war", in the September 7 issue.

13. Transportation

The US Bush administration has decided to support arming commercial pilots. The Senate has voted in favor of this proposal as well. Now the House and Senate versions of the bill need to be reconciled.

A number of reporters have joined transportation safety officials in trying to uncover flaws in airport security. New York Daily News reporters brought in prohibited weapons. A British journalist with The People smuggled in a meat cleaver and dagger a day after a television journalist had taken a replica pistol.

In the Financial Times, Bill Glenton asks about shipboard safety in an article in the September 7-8 issue. "A sea change required on security risks".

14. Weapons of Mass Destruction

A joint Japanese and Chinese team has begun digging up some 500 canisters of chemical weapons left by the Japanese in northeast China during the Japanese occupation.

The nuclear industries in Britain and Japan are under threat. British Energy, the UK?s main nuclear power generator, was privatized and now facing serious financial shortfalls is looking to the government to rescue it. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has admitted falsifying records of repairs and the top executives will resign over this event. Prosecutors are seeking prison sentences for six men accused of negligence at the Tokaimura plant that set off a critical reaction in September 1999 by ignoring safety procedures that caused two deaths and exposed more than 400 to radiation. And finally, a TEPCO reactor had to be closed because of radioactive leaks.

Elsewhere, the US says it has spy satellite photos that indicate new building at Iraqi nuclear sites and there is evidence that Iraq is trying to acquire additional materials.

Dr Stephen Hatfill has been dismissed from his post at Louisiana State University following US Justice Department warnings that the school could not use him on grants they finance. Dr. Hatfill, a bioweapons expert, blames this dismissal on the Justice Department,( against whom he has filed a complaint), that has repeatedly investigated him for possible involvement in the anthrax letter attacks of last fall.

The US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health recommends that vaccine be given in addition to antibiotics to protect workers contaminated with anthrax, to provide maximum protection, particularly during prolonged clean-up efforts.

A hoax using baking soda rather than anthrax caused serious disruption in eleven police stations that were sent threatening letters filled with white power and citing "Black September".

Siemens has withdrawn its plans to trademark "Zyklon" (which means "cyclone" in German), the same name of the poisonous gas used in Nazi extermination camps.

The US plans to increase its sale of arms to India and the Middle East, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

15. Recently Published

Brisard, Jean-Charles. "Forbidden Truth: US-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden. Thunder Mouth?s/Nation.

Dreazen, Yochi. "Citibank?s E-Mail Data Offer Raises Online-Privacy Concern" Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2002

The Economist? "Terrorist finance: Still flush" in The Economist, September 7, 2002.

The Economist? "Drugs in Colombia: The weedkiller war" in The Economist, September 7, 2002.

Farah, Douglas. "Al Qaeda Gold Moved to Sudan" Washington Post, September 3, 2002

Glenton, Bill "A sea change required on security risks", Financial Times, September 7-8, 2002.

Kolko, Gabriel. "Another Century of War?" New Press.

Inside Out Documentaries. "Unfriendly Skies" by WBUR radio station. Available by broadcast or transcript online at http://insideout.wbur.org/documentaries/unfriendlyskies/

Kruk, Herman. "The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps 1939-1944" Yale University Press.

Langewiesche, William. "The conclusion of American Ground" in The Atlantic Monthly, October 2002.

Mawdsley, James. "The Iron Road: A Stand for Truth and Democracy in Burma" Farrar, Straus, Giroux/NorthPoint

Scott-Joynt, Jeremy "IMF blocks terror fund blacklist" , BBC News, September 2, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/223601.stm

Scott-Joynt, Jeremy "US terror fund drive stalls" BBC News September 3, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/2225967.stm.

Scruton, Roger. "The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat" ISI

"Unseen: A Special Section on Intelligence" series of articles published in The New York Times Week in Review section on September 8, 2002

FEATURE ARTICLE:

The Munich Olympics, 30 years later

1970 began a decade of terrorism dominated by the left in such organizations as the Baader-Meinhof Gang (Germany), November 17 (Greece), the Red Army (Japan), Actione Direct (France), the Red Brigades (Italy), the Symbionese Liberation Army (US), the Black Panthers (US), their older siblings the Irish Republican Army (UK) and ETA (Spain), and many others. Not least of these was an array of Palestinian organizations. In a world recovering after a second global conflict and the chaos inflicted in colonial wars and dissolution of existing power structures, these movements were the extreme expressions of widespread sentiments for civil rights and nationalism.

The extremist movements of this era ushered in the modern age of international terrorism. The Black September attack against Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972 epitomized three principles of modern terrorism:

After their humiliating defeat in the six-day war between Israel and their Arab neighbors, the Palestinians in exile no longer believed that diplomatic channels and existing states could bring about the dream of returning them to their homeland. Instead, they adopted guerilla tactics. There were a huge number of these groups, all with different goals and sponsorship.

Yasser Arafat?s Fatah was the largest movement that represented the Palestinian cause. Two of the larger guerilla organizations rose from policy disagreements within Fatah: George Habash?s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Naif Hawatmeh?s Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

In 1968, the PFLP began a series of spectacular airline hijackings. This upped the ante both for the states under attack and for Fatah, that did not want its leadership position undermined by emerging factions, yet needed to maintain its political presence as the representative of the Palestinian people.

The chaotic and unending violence in 1968-1969 put the entire region at risk. During this short time, there were at least 500 attacks between Jordanian forces and various Palestinian militants. With added international pressure from the hijackings, Jordan and its neighbors believed that something had to be done to subdue the Palestinians.

September 6, 1970, the PFLP hijacked four airliners. This was the beginning of a series of events that precipitated martial law in Jordan and a direct attack against the Palestinians. The fighting was horrific and there was widespread brutality against civilians. The Palestinians were forced from Amman and by the middle of 1971 were forced from Jordan. The Palestinian resistance movement was crushed.

Black September was born from the disarray that followed this humiliating defeat. It brought together Fatah radicals, the PFLP, and international terrorist organizations beginning with the Japanese Red Army. (Abu Nidal?s exclusion from this group led him to form his own, determined to be even bloodier and more radical than all others.)

They planned the attack carefully, choosing a target -- the Olympics -- for maximum impact. They wanted to put Palestinian nationalism back in front on the public stage. The leader of the squad had lived in Germany for five years, went to university in Berlin and got an engineering job in the Olympic village. His second-in-command also had experience in Germany and got a job in the village as a cook. They were able to move freely, plan carefully, and even obtain a key to the apartment that housed the Israeli team.

Before dawn on September 5, 1972, 8 men dressed as athletes and carrying sports bags followed the path that the Olympic competitors took when they wanted a late night out, and climbed the smooth, six-foot high fence that surrounded the perimeter of the specially constructed Olympic village.

They walked through the village, changed their clothes and took out their Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenades. At the Israeli team headquarters they entered the unlocked foyer and used their key to open the door. In just a short time, two of the athletes had been shot dead and nine were taken hostage.

At 6 a.m., a ransom note was issued, demanding the release of political prisoners held in Israel. Negotiations began. Israel refused to free any prisoners but offered special forces to help the German police.

Germany, still determined to continue with the Olympics, searched desperately for an alternative that would spare the lives of the hostages. They failed in an attempt to storm the building and that night agreed to take the group by helicopter to an airfield where the militants and their hostages could take a plane to an Arab country and there release the hostages. Instead, upon reaching the airport, German police snipers launched a disastrously botched attempt at a rescue that turned into a gunfight and ignited the plane.

All nine hostages died as well as one policeman and five of the Black September guerillas. The three survivors were arrested, but freed in response to another hijacking a few weeks later. Israeli special forces, whose help had been rejected during the hostage crisis, were able to take revenge in a widespread attack now labeled the "Wrath of God" in which many Palestinian activists, including two of the three survivors (as well as unintended civilian casualties) were murdered.

In 1972, the Olympics had returned to Germany for the first time since 1936. Determined to expunge the Nazi legacy, there was virtually no security. Security guards were armed only with their radios, there were no prohibitive physical barriers, no background checks. Times have changed!

The rash of hijackings led to an international treaty on hijacking, and the installation of X-ray machines and metal detectors. These measures led to a 90 percent reduction in hijackings.

Since 1972, there has only been one other attack on the Olympics, in Atlanta at the 1996 summer Olympics. Unlike Munich, were Black September penetrated the heart of the Olympic village, this attack occurred in an unsecured public area and the perpetrator(s) have never been discovered.

This attack came from a bomb planted inside a knapsack that was left under a bench in the Centennial Olympic Park. A call had been made to emergency services, people were asked to move from the area, and a bomb team from the FBI was on its way. Before they could arrive or the area be cleared, the bomb exploded, killing one and wounding more than 100.

This experience of this attack led to more attention to perimeter areas and their access and to other measures that have been implemented subsequently.

The winter Olympics in Utah that followed the attacks of September 11 saw the most thorough security yet. The challenge was large: protecting a city of 800,000, greeting 70,000-80,000 visitors each day -- more than a million in total -- spanning an area of more than 900 square miles. Measures taken included: