www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.15.03, 5:27 PM ET By Phil Stewart CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A hard-sought accord on early elections in Venezuela will likely further divide the crisis-wrenched nation, unless grass-roots allies and enemies of President Hugo Chavez are somehow drawn into dialogue, U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro said Saturday. Shapiro suggested Venezuela look to South Africa's efforts nearly a decade ago to forge civil consensus as white minority rule crumbled. The same technique could be used in Venezuela to tear down what he described as a wall of silence polarizing society. "In South Africa ... there was so much violence in the country that it threatened to derail the agreement. So, informal committees were set up" nationwide, Shapiro said. "What happens here (in Venezuela) is that society is so polarized. Somebody said there's an invisible Berlin Wall running through Caracas, and that's true. People aren't talking," he told Reuters in an interview. At least seven people have been killed and scores injured in street clashes since December, as opposition leaders and Chavez wrestle over the timing of elections. Chavez says his foes must wait until at least August for a vote, when the constitution would allow for one, despite a grueling opposition oil-strike designed to make him step down immediately. "Elections divide people. Elections don't bring people together ... Either you're on this side or you're on that side," Shapiro said. Chavez, a former paratrooper, says he has the support of the nation's overwhelming poor majority. He was briefly overthrown in coup last year, and brands his foes "terrorists" and "fascists" bent on destroying his self-styled revolution. Opponents say Chavez's social agenda is a mask for Cuban-style communism, and blame him for a reeling recession in the world's fifth largest oil exporter. The economic contraction, which reached almost 9 percent last year, has been deepened by an opposition strike that shut businesses and banks in December and is still strangling the oil sector. After three months of tortuous talks, an agreement still appears distant. Shapiro has been shuttling between meetings with all sides of the conflict. He and a visiting delegation of U.S. lawmakers met Saturday with Venezuelan congressmen allied and opposed to Chavez's government. He stressed that meetings beyond the formal negotiating table may be equally important in resolving the crisis. "Where you have a society that is so polarized, just a formal agreement at a table -- it's important, and obviously you can't solve problems without that -- but (there is) the idea that there could be agreements, talk and understanding at the community level," he said.

www.itv.com 11.36AM GMT, 25 Dec 2002   "...In the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smouldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided" - Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II has delivered his twice yearly "Urbi et Orbi" blessing and message to crowds in Rome's St Peter's Square and urged joint efforts to avoid war in the Middle East.

On a drizzly, grey morning, thousands of tourists and pilgrims streamed to St Peter's Square to hear the ailing pontiff, 82, give his Christmas Day address in Latin.

The pope said believers in all religions were called to build peace.

"...In the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smouldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided."

Earlier, the crowds screamed and clapped in delight when John Paul, wearing gold-coloured robes, was driven in a white, open-topped vehicle through the square.

In his speech, given in Latin, he reflected on the risk peace faces on the day celebrated as Christ's birthday in Bethlehem.

"From the cave of Bethlehem there rises today an urgent appeal to the world not to yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement, even though the tragic reality of terrorism feeds uncertainties and fears," the Pope said.

He called on believers of all religions as well as on all people of good will to build peace.

Without naming any countries, John Paul singled out two places in urgent need of peace-builders.

In the Holy Land, "to put an end once and for all to the senseless spiral of blind violence, and in the Middle East, to extinguish the ominous smouldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided."

Although he didn't name Iraq, his remarks echoed comments in recent days about the country by top Vatican officials, who reiterated Church teaching that "preventative" war is not considered a justifiable cause to take up arms.

In apparent reference to the turmoil that over recent months and weeks have rocked Argentina and Venezuela, John Paul said that in Latin America, as well as in Asia, political, economic and social crises were disturbing the "serenity of many families and nations."

"May humanity accept the Christmas message of peace!" John Paul declared.

Africa's famines and "tragic internal conflicts," John Paul added, were also worrisome. He said that on that continent, "here and there signs of hope are present," although he did not elaborate.

Last night, in a packed St Peter's Basilica decorated with red poinsettias, the frail pontiff, 82, presided over Midnight Mass, ushering in one of the most joyous Christian holidays amid mounting tensions between Washington and Baghdad.

"Jesus is born for a humanity searching for freedom and peace," the Pope, celebrating the 25th Christmas season of his reign as head of the world's one billion Catholics, said.

Hours before, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, headlined its Christmas editions: "Humanity can win the 'battle' of peace."

"While the clouds of war lengthen, the minds and hearts of men in all continents are drawn to Christmas," the newspaper wrote in a front-page article.

It is the latest in a chorus of Vatican voices coming out against a war in Iraq, which the US says is harbouring weapons of mass destruction.

In recent days, top Vatican officials have said a "preventive" war against Iraq had no legal justification and could spark an anti-Christian campaign in the Muslim world.

Archbishop Renato Martino, the prefect of the Council for Justice and Peace and the Vatican's former UN envoy, told journalists that a preventive war was a "war of aggression" and therefore not a "just war."

On Monday, the Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, warned of the consequences a war on Iraq could ignite in the Islamic world.

"A type of anti-Christian, anti-Western crusade could be incited because some ignorant masses mix everything together," the Rome daily La Repubblica quoted Tauran as saying.

www.channel5.co.uk A successful terrorist attack on London is inevitable, the city's mayor Ken Livingstone has warned. But he says they will never manage to replicate the scale of destruction seen in Washington and New York on September 11. Mr Livingstone claimed that while every counter-terrorist measure was being taken to thwart potential attacks, one small group would inevitably achieve their aim as the IRA had done in the past. Describing the terror alert currently gripping Britain as a tragedy, Mr Livingstone said: "Someone will one day get through with something but I don't think we will see an attack on this city on the scale of September 11. "There is clearly a danger but I don't believe that al-Qaeda has the resources to do the sort of massive co-ordinated attack it managed on Washington and New York. "We are much more likely to see a small group of people succeed with something like a car bomb with devastation in one small area. "We would be lying to say that we will always be able to nip the terrorists in the bud. One day they will get through as the IRA did." Mr Livingstone also accused Labour Party chairman John Reid of being "alarmist" and going "over the top" when he compared the seriousness of the current threat to Britain with that on September 11. A total of nine suspects have been arrested near airports in England over the past week, while Heathrow's terminal two was evacuated after a security alert yesterday. Six of the suspects were subsequently released from arrest under anti-terror laws. Five were later handed over to the immigration service. One man caught with a hand grenade getting off a jet at Gatwick airport on Thursday was today still being questioned by anti-terrorism officers. Police in West Yorkshire arrested two men aged 25 and 26 on Thursday, and seized a car near the perimeter fence of Leeds/Bradford Airport. The men have been released without charge. Roads have been closed around Stansted in Essex while security has been beefed up at airports in Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham since high-profile security measures were launched on Tuesday. Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter said the Metropolitan Police was doing all it could to protect the capital. "We're taking every measure necessary to keep London safe and the evidence of our activity is out there on the streets. We'll do everything that is required to deal with the threat that we perceive at the moment," he said. Passengers were evacuated in a security alert at Heathrow's terminal two, which was closed for 90 minutes yesterday. It reopened in the afternoon after a suspect package was found. It turned out to be a false alarm. Scotland Yard revealed yesterday that four men in their 20s were arrested on Thursday afternoon in Langley, Berkshire, four miles from Heathrow. They were later released from arrest under anti-terrorism laws but were kept in custody and handed over to immigration officials. Two other arrests made in the Hounslow area, near Heathrow, were described as not significant. One man was released yesterday and one handed over to the immigration service. Anti-terror squad detectives were still questioning the 37-year-old man from Venezuela caught with a live hand grenade in his luggage at Gatwick. At Stansted, the access road to the terminal was closed for five hours amid heightened security measures. It is understood the action was taken due to the arrival and departure of flights by the Israeli airline El Al to Tel Aviv, which are considered a potential target for terrorists. The road was guarded by armed police.

www.channel5.co.uk A successful terrorist attack on London is inevitable, the city's mayor Ken Livingstone has warned. But he says they will never manage to replicate the scale of destruction seen in Washington and New York on September 11. Mr Livingstone claimed that while every counter-terrorist measure was being taken to thwart potential attacks, one small group would inevitably achieve their aim as the IRA had done in the past. Describing the terror alert currently gripping Britain as a tragedy, Mr Livingstone said: "Someone will one day get through with something but I don't think we will see an attack on this city on the scale of September 11. "There is clearly a danger but I don't believe that al-Qaeda has the resources to do the sort of massive co-ordinated attack it managed on Washington and New York. "We are much more likely to see a small group of people succeed with something like a car bomb with devastation in one small area. "We would be lying to say that we will always be able to nip the terrorists in the bud. One day they will get through as the IRA did." Mr Livingstone also accused Labour Party chairman John Reid of being "alarmist" and going "over the top" when he compared the seriousness of the current threat to Britain with that on September 11. A total of nine suspects have been arrested near airports in England over the past week, while Heathrow's terminal two was evacuated after a security alert yesterday. Six of the suspects were subsequently released from arrest under anti-terror laws. Five were later handed over to the immigration service. One man caught with a hand grenade getting off a jet at Gatwick airport on Thursday was today still being questioned by anti-terrorism officers. Police in West Yorkshire arrested two men aged 25 and 26 on Thursday, and seized a car near the perimeter fence of Leeds/Bradford Airport. The men have been released without charge. Roads have been closed around Stansted in Essex while security has been beefed up at airports in Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham since high-profile security measures were launched on Tuesday. Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter said the Metropolitan Police was doing all it could to protect the capital. "We're taking every measure necessary to keep London safe and the evidence of our activity is out there on the streets. We'll do everything that is required to deal with the threat that we perceive at the moment," he said. Passengers were evacuated in a security alert at Heathrow's terminal two, which was closed for 90 minutes yesterday. It reopened in the afternoon after a suspect package was found. It turned out to be a false alarm. Scotland Yard revealed yesterday that four men in their 20s were arrested on Thursday afternoon in Langley, Berkshire, four miles from Heathrow. They were later released from arrest under anti-terrorism laws but were kept in custody and handed over to immigration officials. Two other arrests made in the Hounslow area, near Heathrow, were described as not significant. One man was released yesterday and one handed over to the immigration service. Anti-terror squad detectives were still questioning the 37-year-old man from Venezuela caught with a live hand grenade in his luggage at Gatwick. At Stansted, the access road to the terminal was closed for five hours amid heightened security measures. It is understood the action was taken due to the arrival and departure of flights by the Israeli airline El Al to Tel Aviv, which are considered a potential target for terrorists. The road was guarded by armed police.

www.sfgate.com MONTE HAYES, Associated Press Writer Saturday, February 15, 2003

(02-15) 09:15 PST LIMA, Peru (AP) --

Vladimiro Montesinos was once the most feared man in Peru, the untouchable spymaster dapper in his Italian silk ties, Christian Dior shirts and diamond-studded Rolex watches.

These days he's in isolation at a maximum-security prison, sleeping on a thin foam mattress over a cold slab of concrete and taking medicine for depression, high blood pressure and gastritis.

Many Peruvians say Montesinos deserves to spend the rest of his life there because of the criminal empire he ran for a decade while he was the right-hand to since ousted President Alberto Fujimori.

But the wily lawyer is believed to still have powerful friends within the judiciary he controlled during Fujimori's authoritarian rule, and he is striving mightily to avoid long jail time despite a mountain of charges. Many people worry he may walk free in a few years.

With one of the many trials he faces scheduled to begin Tuesday and another Friday, Peruvians are hoping they'll finally get to see Montesinos squirm as he begins to answer to some of the 60-plus charges that include corruption, drug trafficking, arms dealing and running a death squad.

The investigation has implicated a swath of Peruvian society, from politicians and judges to a talk show host and a former soccer star.

The prosecution is considered the most complicated in Peru's history. And in Montesinos, Peru's notoriously inefficient and corrupt court system is confronting a master of manipulation who learned his wiles early from his father, who once faked his own wake to hear what people would say about him.

It has been 20 months since Montesinos was captured in Venezuela after he made a sensational cloak-and-dagger escape from Peru, skipping by yacht and small plane through Central America and the Caribbean.

After his arrest, the 57-year-old Montesinos used his knowledge of the law to delay his trials. His strategy has been to stall, gain time, cooperate on minor charges and deny all guilt on more serious charges.

Montesinos recently complained to prison psychologists that he was having thoughts of suicide, bringing charges from some that it was yet another ploy to win further delay.

"It's part of his strategy. As far as I'm concerned, it's a theatrical act," said Francisco Loayza, a former member of Peru's intelligence service who has known Montesinos since the 1970s and has written a book about him, "The Dark Face of Power."

Loayza introduced Montesinos to Fujimori during Fujimori's first presidential campaign in 1990. The candidate was facing a tax evasion investigation and was desperate for help. Montesinos used his contacts in the judiciary to torpedo the probe, and became Fujimori's most trusted aide.

Montesinos' first two trials are on relatively minor charges. In one he is accused of using his influence to get his girlfriend's brother out of prison. In the second, he is charged with contributing $25,000 in public money to the campaign of a candidate for mayor, an act documented in one of the hundreds of infamous "Vladi videos" he taped during private meetings with Peru's political elite.

"Montesinos' central objective is to be sentenced for minor charges that carry a maximum sentence of 10 years," Loayza said. "With time off for good behavior, he will be out of prison in three to four years. That would be a total success for Montesinos."

Prison sentences do not accumulate in Peru, meaning that if Montesinos was convicted on dozens of charges carrying a maximum of 10 years each, he would serve no more than 10 years.

A judge has already thrown out one drug-trafficking charge carrying a life sentence, ruling there was insufficient evidence. The prosecution has appealed the decision to a higher court.

Ronald Gamarra, a special state attorney assigned to the investigation, said Montesinos' tactics were wearing down the judges.

"I think the judicial authorities could be doing more than they are at this time," he said.

Also working in Montesinos' favor are the changes in Peru since the collapse of Fujimori's 10-year rule in November 2000, two months after a television station broadcast a video showing Montesinos bribing an opposition congressman to support the government.

With the election of President Alejandro Toledo in 2001, Peru returned to a full democracy and plunged back into nasty partisan politics, tumultuous sessions in Congress and allegations of corruption in the new government. As a result, Montesinos has been pushed off the front pages.

Public anger over the hundreds of millions of dollars that Montesinos and his cronies amassed in foreign bank accounts has begun to wane.

"People have to think about putting food on the table, finding a job," said Melissa Dominguez, a 28-year-old lawyer. "In the long run we end up forgetting."

One place where people maintain a vivid interest in Montesinos' fate is Arequipa, the volcano-ringed city where he grew up. Former friends, neighbors and relatives there trace his quest for power and wealth to a childhood dominated by his father, Francisco Montesinos.

An ardent Marxist with a penchant for imported whiskey but little ability to make a decent living, Francisco named the boy after Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union's founder.

Vladimiro and his siblings were raised in Tingo, a neighborhood of cobblestone streets and narrow alleys in Peru's second largest city, 465 miles southeast of Lima.

Memories of Tingo's most famous son and his father linger -- particularly about the phony wake.

After adorning his living room with candles and funeral wreaths, Montesinos' father propped open the window and lay in a coffin, his eyes shut and arms crossed over his chest.

"He did it so he could listen to the people talk about him, to hear who held him in high regard and who criticized him," said Pastora Pacheco, a neighborhood pastry vendor.

Andres Bedoya, Vladimiro's second cousin and a newspaper columnist in Arequipa, described Francisco Montesinos as "a complete nut," whose obsessive behavior eventually drove away the son.

The last thing Francisco Montesinos told his son before they parted ways was "never be poor." By all accounts, Vladimiro took that advice to heart.

When the elder Montesinos killed himself in the mid-1970s, Bedoya recalled, Vladimiro's initial reaction was: "Do you think this will affect my military career?"

But it was an accusation in 1976 that Montesinos sold state secrets to the CIA that derailed the then army captain's rise through the ranks. Cashiered from the army, he served a year in a military prison.

He spent the 1980s as a defense lawyer for drug traffickers, cultivating valuable contacts within the judiciary and prosecutor's office, ties that leapfrogged him into government power when he was able to fix Fujimori's tax problem.

Today, Fujimori lives in self-exile in Japan, the homeland of his parents. He is protected by Japanese citizenship from efforts by Peru to extradite him to face charges of embezzlement and sanctioning a death squad to kill suspected collaborators of leftist rebels.

Fujimori denies the accusations and says he was betrayed by Montesinos.

Montesinos answers that everything he did was at the request of his former boss. He has challenged Fujimori to return to Peru so the two of them -- "like men" -- can together face the consequences of their actions.