Al-Ahram Weekly | International

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 12 - 18 July 2001 Issue No.542
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Pact with the devil
THE CASE against former FBI agent and counter- intelligence expert Robert P Hanssen, who was fingered as a mole five months ago after more than two decades of providing highly classified information to the former Soviet Union and Russia, turned a corner last Friday when the US government dropped plans to seek the death penalty in return for Hanssen's full cooperation and details of his activities.
Though Hanssen's crimes have been deemed deeply disturbing and will have lasting repercussions, it is easy to see how the government would be willing to wave the death penalty in turn for assessing the damage done to US intelligence and an account of the nuts and bolts of how Hanssen evaded capture for so long. Hanssen, a 25-year veteran agent who rose to the cream of counter- intelligence circles within the FBI, is said to have gathered some $1.4 million in cash and diamonds in exchange for information that included identifying Russian double agents, selling defence secrets and nuclear war plans.
In accordance with the deal clinched between Hanssen's lawyers and the government, Hanssen appeared in court on 6 July and pleaded guilty to all 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy charges against him.

Sticker shock
IN THE final incendiary move closing out the three- month-long China-US spy plane crisis, the long- awaited return of the dismantled EP-3 surveillance plane grounded on China's Hainan island was followed by an unexpected provocation. China reportedly stuck the US with a $1 million bill for charges incurred while keeping the controversial plane on Chinese soil. The US State Department had indicated that it would reimburse the Chinese government for reasonable charges, but balked at the "exaggerated" bill.
Sino-US relations plummeted after the 1 April collision of the US spy plane with a Chinese fighter jet, whose pilot was killed in the crash. The US plane, packed with highly sensitive surveillance equipment, was forced to land on Chinese soil. The incident soon exploded into a major diplomatic row when China took the plane's 24 crew members into custody for a tense 11 days. Chinese authorities then picked the plane clean before finally returning the $80 million craft on 5 July in pieces.
China was also in the news this week with the publication of Amnesty International's report on increased executions in China. The London-based human rights group released enormously alarming figures stating that China's recently launched crackdown on crime has seen some 1,781 people put to death in the last three months -- more than the rest of the world combined over the last three years. The report was timed to coincide with an upcoming vote by the International Olympic Committee on whether to hold the 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing.
Pushing the limits
WITH LOCAL resentment of the massive US military presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa swelling to a formidable din, the US agreed last Friday to hand over US Air Force Sergeant Timothy Woodland to Japanese authorities waiting to act on a week-old arrest warrant. The handover -- an unusual concession for the US -- allowed a bubbling diplomatic row building around the alleged rape of a local woman on 29 June to simmer down and followed a meeting between US Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker and Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka.
US-Japanese relations were stretched thin earlier this year over an incident in which a US submarine sunk a Japanese commercial fishing boat. A major embarrassment for the US military, the accident occurred while a civilian guest was allowed to take the helm and raise the submarine to the surface.
Okinawan residents are host to some 26,000 US troops. A number of high-profile crimes involving US servicemen have raised the ire of Japanese citizens, who turned out in droves -- a reported 80,000 -- for protests in 1995, when two US sailors were convicted of kidnapping and raping a 12-year-old girl.
On the warpath
MAOIST rebels in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal stepped up their violent attacks on policemen and security checkpoints this week with some 40 policemen and one civilian killed in extended clashes. Still suffering aftershocks from the brutal slaying of most members of the Nepalese royal family, including the king and queen, the country was paralysed by a string of attacks in three separate districts.
The rebels, who emulate Peru's notorious Shining Path, reject the accepted story that the Crown Prince Dipendra carried out the regicide before killing himself, saying that the incident was the result of an extensive conspiracy. Members of the (Maoist) Communist Party of Nepal are believed to have also been responsible for two timed blasts that went off near the prime minister's house and that of the chief justice of the supreme court.
The poorly paid and ill-trained police are the predominant targets of the rebels, who began their sporadic insurgency in 1996. The guerrillas say they want to do away with Nepal's constitutional monarchy and timed the attacks to coincide with the eve of new King Gyanendra's birthday last Saturday.

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