Bush selects number of warheads to trim

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 8, 2001

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Wednesday that he had decided how many nuclear weapons he could safely cut from the U.S. arsenal -- a big step toward an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"And I am going to do it," Bush said.

Russia has proposed new limits on U.S. and Russian stockpiles of no more than 2,000 long-range warheads for each country, down from a current total of about 6,000 each. The Bush administration was said to be considering 1,750 to 2,250 warheads apiece.

Bush declined to reveal how many weapons he intended to jettison. He meets next week with the Russian leader in Washington and at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Bush only said the new level would be much lower than past negotiations with Russia produced.

India kills 6 militants in Kashmir battles

SRINAGAR, India -- Indian security forces fought gunbattles with Islamic militants in three parts of Kashmir, killing six guerrillas, police said Wednesday.

Three militants were killed when security forces searched houses in a village in Baramullah, 45 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu-Kashmir. The guerrillas belonged to the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul Mujahedeen group, police said.

In a second gunbattle Wednesday, security forces killed two guerrillas hiding in a house in Sopore, 35 miles north of Srinagar, police said.

The sixth militant was killed Tuesday night in a shootout between armed guerrillas and paramilitary forces in Kupwara district, 80 miles north of Srinagar, police said. The dead militant was a member of the Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islami group, police said.

Bosnian Serb indicted in war crimes case

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- As forensic experts unearthed another mass grave in Bosnia on Wednesday, the U.N. war crimes tribunal unsealed an arrest warrant for a Bosnian Serb general accused of murdering and terrorizing unarmed civilians in the Balkan war.

The indictment named Dragomir Milosevic, charging the 59-year-old Bosnian Serb general with crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war during the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict.

Milosevic, who is not related to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, is believed to be hiding in Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, but officials declined to comment on his whereabouts.

Global economic meeting to move to New York

GENEVA -- The annual gathering of world economic leaders held for the past three decades at the ski resort of Davos, Switzerland, is moving to New York City for the next meeting in January, its founder said Wednesday.

Organizers said they want to show solidarity with New York in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. But local opposition has frustrated plans for staging the event in Davos this year. The Swiss are worried about security costs, which have soared since the meeting became a target for antiglobalization protests.

Negotiators nearer final terms of climate pact

MARRAKECH, Morocco -- After agreeing on mandatory penalties for violators of an international climate treaty, negotiators worked Wednesday on how countries can meet targets to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.

Negotiators, meeting at Marrakech, are trying to work out formulas for meeting goals set by the Kyoto climate treaty, signed by nearly 180 nations in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.

President Bush renounced the treaty in March, saying it was unfair and too costly for American business.

Without Washington's backing, the treaty will need the approval of virtually every other industrial country to be ratified and enter into force. It must be endorsed by 55 countries, including those emitting 55 percent of greenhouse gases in 1990.

U.N. report warns of population near 11-billion

LONDON -- The world's population could skyrocket to 10.9-billion people by 2050 if women do not gain better access to education and health care, a United Nations report said Wednesday.

Women must receive adequate reproductive health care and have equal status to men and the right to plan the size of their families if the planet is to rein in a population already expected to grow by 50 percent to 9.3-billion over the next half century, the U.N. Population Fund said.

At a news briefing in London to launch the report, editor Alex Marshall said wealthy countries were failing to provide the $20-billion a year needed to meet those goals.

Two more Turks commit suicide in prison protest

ANKARA, Turkey -- Two prisoners died Wednesday after setting themselves ablaze to protest a police raid that killed four of their friends, their lawyer said.

The deaths are the latest incidents in a yearlong standoff between the government and leftist prisoners protesting Turkey's new maximum security prison system.

More than 40 inmates and their supporters have died in a hunger strike launched over a year ago to protest the treatment of prisoners.

Elsewhere . . .

PRINCESS DIANA CASE: A French court denied Mohamed Al Fayed's claim for damages Wednesday over what he had called a flawed part of the inquiry into the Princess Diana case.

Al Fayed had claimed $141,000, saying that two French investigating judges erred when they didn't immediately investigate a charge of invasion of privacy against the news photographers at the scene.

U.N. COPTER CRASHES: A U.N. helicopter with seven people on board crashed into the sea off the Sierra Leone coast on Wednesday, a U.N. spokesman said. Three bodies were recovered.

MOUSE PATENT: European officials in Munich, Germany, upheld Harvard University's patent on a mouse genetically altered so that it predictably develops cancer, throwing out a complaint by Greenpeace and other groups.

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