Atta travelled to Afghanistan for some months in 1999 until early 2000

Klaus Ulrich Kersten BKA director

Klaus Ulrich Kersten, director of the BKA, told the New York Times that Atta was in Afghanistan between late 1999 and early 2000 with two others who subsequently piloted the planes used in the attacks. 

All three men had lived in Hamburg, where they attended university. 

Synagogue blast

Mr Kersten did not say where the evidence had come from, but the German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday that a suspected militant arrested in Germany was currently helping the BKA with its inquires into al-Qaeda. 

Atta is widely believed to have been the leader of the group

The 25-year-old, believed to be a senior member of the radical Islamic al-Tawhid group, has allegedly told German investigators that he was in Afghanistan in 1999 and has provided information about militants who were active there. 

Mr Kersten said the authorities had information on two other men in addition to the three pilots who were in Afghanistan in 1999, and who had also been based in Hamburg. 

While it is known that the three pilots went to Florida in June 2000 to learn how to fly a plane, it is unclear what became of these other two. 

He also said that a suicide bomber who blew up a synagogue in Tunisia last April was in touch with an alleged key al-Qaeda operative who is believed to have played a role in planning the September 11 attacks. 

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, identified by US authorities as a key al-Qaeda planner of the attacks was called by telephone by the bomber three hours before the blast outside the synagogue in Djerba, which killed 21 people, the New York Times said. 

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Monday, 26 August, 2002, 13:21 GMT 14:21 UK 

Civil rights groups say the prison population is too high

BBC World Affairs correspondent Mike Donkin travelled to the Awa territory in the heart of the Amazon to assess the situation. 

We glimpsed her on the bank as our wooden boat skimmed the creepers after a long day rounding the bends and rocks of the Caru River. 

She was fishing, a child asleep against her breasts and a pet monkey perched on one shoulder, at perfect peace in the shade of the rainforest. 

If the Awa's voice is not heard and heeded soon the rainforest will echo to a people's lament

When we landed we followed Kawaia to the hut built of palm fronds where her husband, naked except for a twine armband, was whittling sharp points on a cluster of bamboo arrows. 

Kawaia gutted the fish and chopped leaves for their meal. 

The forest has always sustained the Awa people and they have sustained the forest. Now the tribe's way of life is at risk, and so is their very existence. 

Forest nomads

Kawaia and her husband were found hiding in the trees, the only survivors of a massacre after ranchers and loggers started to exploit their stretch of the Amazon. 

A swathe of forest has since been cut for timber and turned into grazing pastures. This is the land the Awa had always hunted as nomads. 

Some Awa still roam the forest without coming into contact with anyone else. The rest - 230 in all - stay reluctantly, for safety, in villages supervised by the national Indian agency, Funai. They want the forest back, and they have taken their fight to the Brazilian courts. 

Traditional tools survive in the Awa territory

A group of Awa men took us on a trek through their domain. We walked first to a hillside where sunlight scarcely filters through the dense foliage. 

This is where they hunt. The prey might be forest pigs, armadillos, tapirs or brightly plumaged birds. 

The Awa stalk them with long bows and short spears. Their eyes are sharp, their aim usually deadly, but they caught nothing on our outing and that is becoming all too common. 

One hunter, Kamara, explained: "Wherever we look the whites have left their tracks. They destroy the trees where the animals live and the fruits that they eat. Every day there seems to be less game and we must go further to find it." 

Brazil's priorities

Kamara moves cautiously as he hunts these days. Onece, when he climbed a tree to retrieve a monkey he had trapped, a white gunman shot and wounded him. 

He led us to a hillside where a few charred tree trunks rose through acres of green scrub. 

"They plant this grass for the cattle," he said. "But it does not last and then they move on to plant more. The forest can never grow back. They will finish it off, and we cannot live without it." 

The Awa say white ranchers threaten the forest's existence

Moments of daily life around the village seem to confirm this. 

A man sings as he roots through the undergrowth for berries to make medicine. An old woman twists stiff palm leaves to make a hammock. 

A girl paints her young brother's face with a black fruit dye before he joins his first hunt. 

All around them modern Brazil's priorities are closing in fast. A railway has been cut through the forest to transport iron ore from a vast mine funded by the World Bank and the European Union. 

Two hundred wagons rattle behind each train, with loads worth millions of export dollars. 

The line has opened the way for settlers, many poor Brazilians escaping the overcrowded cities, to try their luck at farming on this far frontier in the state of Maranhao. 

The towns they build start small but grow, then the dirt roads turn to asphalt. 

To defend the Awa's interests in the wake of all this, Brazil's Government has stationed a couple of officers from its Indian Affairs agency at each of the four villages. 

They are well-meaning, but effectively powerless. 

For the Awa, the future is in the balance

It read 'Keep Out' in Portuguese, but as he showed us, a settler wandered past. He admitted defeat. 

"All the time there are more and more invasions," he said. "There are no police, no government forces here to stop them." 

We went on to a nearby settlers' farm. In the compound a woman pounded grain with a primitive wooden pestle. She was grinding flour for her family while her daughter loaded a mule. 

Their house was made from mud and bare of furniture. 

Demarcation

"Life is not just hard for the Indians, it is hard for us too," the woman said. "We need land as well." 

The conflict between Indian rights and development is not new to Brazil. In the early 1980s, the country's parliament agreed that all ancestral indigenous land should be mapped, marked out, set apart and protected. 

When world leaders gathered at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago they endorsed this process of demarcation. 

Many Awa remain in their protected villages

Some of the Amazon tribes have seen demarcation happen - but not the Awa. 

The economy of Maranhao State relies on cattle ranching, and if the ranchers are not politicians themselves they have influence where it matters. 

Few of the state's voters are likely to raise a voice for Indian rights either. This is why the Awa have taken recourse to the law. 

A prosecutor will press their case for demarcation against the determined resistance of one rancher, who claims that the state actually sold him his holding and gave him a paper attesting there were no Indians on it. 

They need their land rights respected so they can live the life of their choosing

Fiona Watson, Survival

The rancher asked in a local newspaper, "Why do the Indians need my land? They have so much already." The court case will almost certainly take years, too long for the Awa. 

The only pressure being brought which may tilt the odds a little more in their favour is a campaign launched by Survival, the international organisation which supports tribal peoples. 

It is led by a Briton, Fiona Watson, one of the few Westerners to visit the Awa. 

"This is not a people who need aid or handouts, they can care for themselves," she says. "They just need their land rights respected so they can live the life of their choosing. 

Awa example

"When the political leaders gather in Johannesburg to see what progress there's been since they last met in Rio they should look hard at Brazil and ask what has become of its promises." 

With sustainability as the theme for the latest summit, the Johannesburg delegates could also do worse than turn to the example set by the Awa. 

As dusk falls in their village the children jump excitedly from tree branches to swim together in the river. Around a fire outside their huts the hunters gather to sing, in their strange staccato language. 

Their songs celebrate days in the forest and the good things it provides. 

Man may be perfectly in tune with nature here, and nature with man. But if the Awa's voice is not heard and heeded, the rainforest will soon echo to a people's lament. 

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Wednesday, 28 August, 2002, 00:29 GMT 01:29 UK 

It will take until 2011 for all the mines to be cleared

 

By Peter Greste  BBC correspondent in Santiago

Chile has destroyed more than 76,000 anti-personnel mines in the first mass detonation since ratifying a mine ban treaty signed in Ottawa five years ago. 

Chile is keen to show a commitment to peace with its neighbours

In a ceremony watched by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, Defence Minister Michelle Bachelet also promised to remove and destroy a total of 330,000 mines, many of which are scattered along its borders with Bolivia, Peru and Argentina. 

Although the treaty was signed five years ago it took until last March for the government to bring it into effect. 

It is the biggest mass detonation this country has ever carried out - more than four times the total destroyed until now, and a clear statement of the government's intention to honour the agreement. 

Commitment

The ceremony took place in Pampa Chaca on the northern frontier, close to Bolivia and Peru, where vast minefields have lain since the 1970s. 

Many of the mines destroyed in Tuesday's explosions were stockpiled - those are the easy ones to get rid of - but it will take until 2011 for the army de-mining teams to completely clear away all the devices believed to have been planted along the borders. 

And at a cost of between five and ten dollars to destroy each one, the final bill will run into millions. 

But Chile is also keen to show its commitment to peace. 

Its relations with Argentina are now better than ever and the country has also been trying to defuse tensions with Bolivia over a long-running territorial dispute in an effort to host a lucrative gas pipeline. 

But it has also acknowledged the damage that mines cause to civilians. 

Ms Bachelet said there would be more support and compensation for the victims. 

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Wednesday, 28 August, 2002, 07:27 GMT 08:27 UK 

West Nile virus death toll rises

The West Nile virus is spread by mosquitoes 

Two more people have died of West Nile virus in the United States - both of them in Illinois, state health officials said on Tuesday. 

If confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the latest deaths would indicate that the mosquito-borne virus, once focused on the South, is increasingly infecting people farther north. 

The Illinois deaths would bring the national death toll to 22. 

The two latest victims were an 83-year-old man from Chicago, who died on 21 August, and a 92-year-old woman from the city's suburbs who died on Saturday. 

Insect repellents can help prevent the disease

The pair suffered from West Nile encephalitis - an inflammation of the brain. 

The male victim also suffered from cancer and diabetes, the Illinois Department of Public Health said. 

A private laboratory determined that the cause of death was the West Nile virus, but the finding has yet to be confirmed by state health officials. 

"At this point in time it's a presumable or probable West Nile case," said George Miller, manager of the Oakland County Health Division. 

There have been 425 reported cases of West Nile virus in the US so far this year, making it the worst outbreak since it was first detected in 1999. 

That year, the disease was reported to have caused seven fatalities, all of them in New York. 

Since then, people have been diagnosed with West Nile in 20 states and the District of Columbia. 

Northern cases

In the latest outbreak of the virus, cases have been reported from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, but the greatest damage has been done in the South. 

Louisiana is the hardest hit, with 171 cases and eight deaths. 

Louisiana officials said last week it appeared the number of new cases there was decreasing, but northern states have seen a surge in reports of infection. 

On 16 August, the CDC reported only about 4% of West Nile infections, and none of the deaths, were outside the South. 

The latest Illinois deaths, and 29 new cases announced on Monday and Tuesday, bring the figure to almost 30%. 

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Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 09:41 GMT 10:41 UK 

US man freed by DNA tests 

Lloyd (centre) burst into tears upon hearing the news

A man who spent 17 years in prison in the US for the rape and murder of a teenage girl has had his conviction overturned, after DNA tests showed he was innocent. 

Lady Justice is blind. Sometimes, she's deaf

Eddie Joe Lloyd

Eddie Joe Lloyd was sentenced to life in prison after police said he had confessed to raping and strangling 16-year-old Michelle Jackson in 1984. 

However, he subsequently protested his innocence and took advantage of a new law in Michigan allowing convicted criminals to ask for DNA testing to prove it. 

More than 100 people have now had convictions overturned in the US since DNA testing was introduced, and campaigners believe the latest case adds weight to the case for the abolition of the death penalty. 

DNA breakthrough

Mr Lloyd was a patient in a psychiatric hospital when he allegedly confessed to the rape and murder of the teenage girl. 

At the time of his conviction a judge at the Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit lamented that Michigan did not have the death penalty. If it had, Mr Lloyd would be dead. 

But Mr Lloyd later said he had been set up, and insisted on using the new state law allowing DNA testing, which proved his innocence. 

After hearing his conviction was overturned on Monday, Mr Lloyd burst into tears. 

"Lady Justice is blind. Sometimes, she's deaf," he said later at a news conference. 

"Sometimes the wheels of justice grind very slowly, sometimes they grind in reverse." 

Mr Lloyd became the 110th convicted person in the US to be exonerated by DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, which advocates DNA probes to help innocent prisoners. 

Campaigners against the death penalty also say there are hundreds more people - many on death row - who will be killed before science can come to their aid. 

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He went on national television to thank Nigerians for their maturity in helping the country surmount recent problems. 

Our choice of democracy has gone through a litmus test and emerged virile and dynamic

President Obasanjo

Correspondents say intense negotiations behind closed doors forestalled the impeachment attempt. 

They say the threat is expected to be lifted at a meeting of the lower house on Tuesday. 

Checks and balances

President Obasanjo told the television audience that he would continue to serve Nigeria in the same spirit as before. 

MPs sought to embarrass Obasanjo

He expressed confidence that democracy would emerge strengthened from the controversy, but said the crisis had damaged Nigeria's image abroad, with several African leaders telephoning him to express their concern. 

"What we have witnessed in the last two weeks is that our choice of democracy has gone through a litmus test and emerged virile and dynamic," he said. 

"The last two weeks have also shown that no arm of government can run roughshod over any of the others." 

The impeachment move came after disagreements between the government and MPs over the budget. 

The BBC's Dan Isaacs in Lagos said that the initial intention of MPs was to try to damage the president politically ahead of a poll due next year. 

Mr Obasanjo was voted into power in 1999, bringing to an end 15 years of military rule. 

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Monday, 26 August, 2002, 07:09 GMT 08:09 UK 

There seems to be a vacuum of substance at the summit

 

By Alex Kirby  BBC News Online environment correspondent

The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is being followed by Alex Kirby for BBC News Online. In the second of his reports he notes that there is little to stop protesters stepping in to set the agenda.

There is a strange feeling in Johannesburg at the moment, with nobody quite sure what to expect as the sustainable development summit finally lumbers into formal life. 

It must be one of the oddest conferences I've ever covered. 

Protesters are happy to fill the official vacuum with their answer to the global economy - and that answer involves business going a lot further than it already has to reduce its impact on nature

Partly that's because of what is on the agenda, and partly it's on account of what doesn't figure there. 

First, let's take the probable glaring omission. 

There is no big headline-grabbing agreement or convention up for signature here. 

It looks at the moment as if the best anyone can hope for is a fairly milk-and-water statement exhorting us all to do more about poverty. 

So that leaves a vacuum, inviting anyone to step in. 

Focus of protest

Enter one key agenda item, which looks likely to get more of an airing on the streets than in the conference centre: globalisation. 

It is down for discussion, but you'd be hard put to find anyone who expects radical decisions from the conference here - or any decisions, probably - on making industries that span continents answer to national governments. 

That doesn't mean globalisation will go unnoticed, though. 

It has already been the focus of protest, and it looks set to bring more protesters out, conscious of the chain they see linking Seattle, Gothenburg, Genoa - and now Johannesburg. 

The rainbow nation is turning grey around the edges, and many of us are not quite sure what to hope for any more

They are happy to fill the official vacuum with their answer to the global economy. And that answer involves business going a lot further than it already has - or perhaps can, if we want to go on living the lives we do - to reduce its impact on nature. 

On Saturday I met two police officers in a lift, both enjoying ice-creams. When I said they seemed very relaxed, one replied that it was going to be a quiet and peaceful summit. 

Two hours later his colleagues were firing stun grenades at protestors a few miles away. 

On Sunday even the police horses were picking their way round the conference centre complete with protective headgear. 

Faded hopes

Another presence is also waiting in the summit's wings - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. How much attention he may get, and what influence he may have on the agenda, no-one can yet say. 

But many South Africans are dismayed at the turn events have taken across their northern frontier, so Zimbabwe will be hard to ignore. 

Perhaps the biggest difference between the 1992 Rio earth summit and the Johannesburg 2002 development summit is the withering of hope. 

Then the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overnight evaporation of the Cold War were recent memories. 

The day was discernibly close when the last apartheid President, F W de Klerk, would hand power to Nelson Mandela in a speech which he ended with the words of the new South African national anthem - Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika, God Bless Africa. 

Now, though, new enemies have been defined. 

Now the rainbow nation is turning grey around the edges. And many of us are not quite sure what to hope for any more. 

Click here to read Day 1 of Alex Kirby's summit diary

Theo-Ben Gurirab said that land reform was a major priority for the government, together with poverty eradication. 

In an interview with the BBC's Network Africa, he said he was disappointed that white farmers were not as "forthcoming as we'd like them to be" when it came to selling land for resettlement. 

Germany owes us reparations, or otherwise the only road left for us as Africans will be the Zimbabwe way.

Paramount Chief Riruako of the Herero

The Paramount Chief of the Herero people of Namibia warned on Sunday that if his people were not paid reparations for crimes committed against them during the colonial era they would forcefully repossess farms, according to the Namibian news agency. 

About 4,000, mostly white commercial farmers own just under half the arable land in Namibia. 

Namibia's government is committed to the principle of "willing-buyer willing-seller" - which means no-one is forced to sell up, but if they do the state gets first refusal. 

So far Namibia has avoided the violent scenes witnessed in neighboring Zimbabwe. 

The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent Alastair Leithead says that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe has raised the expectations of landless black farmers across southern Africa and generated fear of repossession among white farmers. 

People died for land

The new prime minister, appointed in a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday and sworn in on Wednesday, told the BBC that Namibia's land reform programme had been successful since its launch in June 1991. 

Over 20 million Namibian dollars were being spent every year to buy farms for redistribution, he said. 

The new prime minister says land reforms is a priority

But white farmers while not resisting the land reform policy were not offering enough land for sale, according to Mr Gurirab. 

Land reform was a priority and Namibians who risked their lives during the fight for independence did so "for freedom and land", the prime minister said. 

His comments followed those of Namibia's President, Sam Nujoma, at the congress of the ruling South-West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) at the weekend that "arrogant" white farmers must embrace the government's land reform programme. 

He told party members that 192 farms that were not being utilised or were owned by "foreign absentee landlords" would be earmarked for repossession. 

Compensation would be paid for those farms which were taken for redistribution, the president said. 

Mass extermination

Land reform and the issue of reparations for suffering during the colonial period are major issues for the Herero people of Namibia. 

They make up about seven per cent of Namibia's 1.8 million inhabitants. 

Nearly half the farming land is owned by whites

Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako of the Herero is leading the community's legal attempts to be paid reparations for the extermination campaign by the German government and German companies which operated in Namibia. 

"We have been wronged. A decree was issued regarding our extermination and our properties were expropriated. In order to bring about equilibrium, bring reparations now," Chief Riruako demanded. 

"Germany owes us reparations, or otherwise the only road left for us as Africans will be the Zimbabwe way." 

Whites make up six per cent of the Namibian population and about one third of them are descended from German settlers. 

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