Nation/world digest 10/21/03

U.S. concludes bin Laden is alive from recent tape

WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden, by referring to recent events in his latest taped message, showed he was alive in the not-too-distant past, U.S. officials said Monday. It was the strongest evidence in months that bin Laden retains command of the al-Qaida network.

Officials with the Central Intelligence Agency said they believed the audio recording of bin Laden, aired Saturday on Arabic al-Jazeera television, was probably authentic. They reached the conclusion after technical analysis in which experts compared the voice to known recordings of the terrorist leader.

Bin Laden made several references in the message that suggested it was recorded in the past several months. For example, he spoke of the government of former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who served from April until Sept. 6. Bin Laden called Abbas' government "a traitor and collaborator government" with the United States.

Although the language suggested the message was recorded before Abbas' resignation, CIA officials said they couldn't be certain of that.

One American killed, 6 wounded in Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Iraq's hit-and-run resistance struck U.S. forces in this tense city west of Baghdad for a second day Monday, killing one American paratrooper and wounding six others, the U.S. command reported.

Two civilians were killed in the clash, including one whose family said he was shot by the Americans after they detained and handcuffed him. The Pentagon said it had no information on the claim, and U.S. military spokesmen in Iraq had no immediate comment.

In the midday raid, insurgents attacked a dismounted patrol from the 82nd Airborne Division, first with a homemade bomb and then with small-arms fire, the U.S. command said. The patrol consisted of about 30 soldiers accompanied by five Humvees.

Federal red ink rises to record $374.2 billion

WASHINGTON -- The federal budget deficit hit a record $374.2 billion in 2003, the administration reported Monday, as the costs of the war in Iraq, a new round of tax cuts and economic weakness pushed the government's red ink to the highest level in history.

Providing a final accounting of the budget year that ended Sept. 30, the administration said that the 2003 deficit was more than double last year's imbalance of $157.8 billion.

In dollar terms, the 2003 figure easily surpassed the old record of $290.4 billion set in 1992 when President Bush's father was president.

However, Bush administration officials noted that the 2003 deficit represented just 3.5 percent of the country's total economic output, below the 5 percent and 6 percent levels hit in the 1980s during the Reagan administration. The administration prefers to link the deficit to total economic output as a better measure of the country's ability to carry the debt burden.

Ten killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli warplanes and helicopters hit Palestinian targets in four separate strikes Monday, a day of intense air assaults that killed ten people, including at least two militants, and wounded 100 others. One missile exploded on a street crowded with schoolchildren.

The airstrikes came a day after Palestinian militants fired eight homemade rockets from Gaza into Israel and Palestinian gunmen ambushed an Israeli patrol in the West Bank, killing three Israeli soldiers.

The violent Islamic movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, threatened revenge for Monday's airstrikes, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged more raids, further clouding Mideast peace efforts.

"The Israeli military will continue to act to foil terror attacks, capture murderers and liquidate terror organizations," Sharon said in a speech to parliament.

Leader of China's church movement arrested

BEIJING -- An activist for China's unofficial Christian church has been detained after investigating the destruction of churches by authorities in eastern China, human rights groups say.

Liu Fenggang, 43, was detained on Oct. 13 in the city of Hangzhou while visiting with leaders of the destroyed churches who had just been released from almost two months in detention.

Police who searched Liu's home in Beijing later that week confiscated two computers, an address book, cameras, documents and other items, said Bob Fu, of the China Aid Association, based in Pennsylvania.

Police told Liu's wife, Bi Yuxia, that Liu would be charged with revealing state secrets, but did not present her with the official notification of arrest needed to hire a lawyer, Fu said.

-- From wire reports