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Police close bridge, evacuate shops in Northern Ireland noouuuti iju i ncioo BELFAST, NORTHERN IRE LAND — Bomb alerts forced po lice to close a major bridge in one Northern Ireland city and to evacuate shops and homes in another town Wednesday. Ex tremists opposed to the peace process were suspected in both cases. British army experts con ducted a controlled explosion to neutralize a pipebomb in the mailbox of an office belonging to Sinn Fein, the Irish Republi can Army-linked party, in Cookstown, 40 miles west of Belfast. More than 30 sur rounding businesses and homes were evacuated for several hours. Workers for Sinn Fein’s Mar tin McGuinness, the former IRA commander who holds the British parliamentary seat for the Cookstown area, discovered the suspected pipebomb when they opened the front door. McGuinness, who is education minister in Northern Ireland’s joint Catholic-Protestant gov ernment, was on vacation. An extremist Protestant group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders later claimed responsibility in a telephone call to a Belfast newsroom. The group said it had left pipebombs at several other premises, and police later found a pipebomb outside a Gaelic Athletic Association hall in the village of Garvagh.’Gaelic sports are followed mainly by Catholics. i Anti-Catholic groups using a variety of aliases have thrown more than 150 pipebombs and other homemade explosives at Catholic homes and property this year, without wounding anybody seriously. Also Wednesday, police in Londonderry closed the Foyle Bridge after spotting a suspect ed bomb near a railway line running beneath the bridge. They said the bridge, one of two major bridges in Northern Ire land’s second-largest city, could remain closed until Friday while army experts examined the device using remote-con trolled robots. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Londonderry threat. But police and politicians said anti-British extremists active in the pre dominantly Catholic city were suspected. Meanwhile, a judge in Dublin, Ireland rejected bail ap plications Wednesday from three suspected IRA dissidents accused of plotting attacks in neighboring Northern Ireland. U.S. might exit 1972 accoitl BY SARAH KARUSH ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER MOSCOW — The United States is prepared to withdraw unilater ally from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty so it can go ahead with missile defense plans if no agreement is reached with Russia on the accord, a senior U.S. diplo mat visiting Moscow said Wednes day. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton §aid he hoped progress toward an agreement would be made before President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Novem ber. 'MI7„_: — l_X*. . T XT x MV 1 V1UU111 HV^VlUl lllUI. V» can talk to the Russians,” Bolton said. "If contrary to our hopes and expectations we’re not able to move together jointly, we will ex ercise the express right provided by the ABM treaty to give notice of our withdrawal.” But he said November was not a deadline for an agreement. Russia is opposed to disman tling the 1972 treaty, which pro hibits national missile defense sys tems. But the United States says it will go ahead with budding a mis sde defense system because of po tential nuclear threats from coun tries such as North Korea and Iran. The Bush administration has sought to avoid Cold War-style arms control negotiations and pro posed that both countries jointly withdraw from the ABM treaty. But the Russian government re jected that approach when it was presented by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Moscow last week. "The best way to handle this is mutually moving beyond the treaty together. The (Russians) have not yet agreed to that. We haven’t given up on it,” Bolton said. Bolton said the United States would prefer a joint declaration on the accord but would consider a new treaty. "Certainly another treaty is a possibility,” he said. Bolton said the United States was determined not to violate the treaty and therefore that could mean unilaterally withdrawing from the accord - long a corner stone of international security and still considered so by the Russians and many Europeans. The ABM treaty allows each side to withdraw from it six months after notifying the other side of its intentions. At some stage - perhaps next spring or ear ly summer - the Pentagon hopes to begin construction of interceptor missile silos at Fort Greely, Alas ka. In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley acknowledged that the Pentagon’s missile defense activ ities planned for 2002 include some that may violate the treaty. But the administration has not decid ed if it will avoid the violations by withdrawing from the treaty or by altering or delaying the banned activities, he said. Washington hoped to avoid that choice by reaching an agreement with Moscow to set aside the treaty and create a new security “Make no mistake about it: The ongoing work of the ballistic missile defense organization will bring us into conflict with the treaty within months, not years.” JOHN BOLTON U.S. UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE framework under which both sides could pursue missile defens es, he said. Last week, the Department of Defense awarded a contract worth nearly $5 million to local firm to clear trees, build an access road, drill wells and conduct other work to prepare Fort Greely to become a missile defense test site. "Make no mistake about it: The ongoing work of the ballistic mis sile defense organization will bring us into conflict with the treaty within months, not years,” Bolton said at a news conference after two days of formal talks with Russian officials. Bolton was in Moscow this week as part of consultations that began after Bush and Putin an nounced in July that missile de fense would be linked to talks on cutting nuclear arsenals. He said some Russians ex pressed security concerns similar to those of the United States about the possibility of nuclear arsenals being held by rogue states. "Some of them said they actu ally thought that Russia might be at greater risk from some of them than the United States,” he said, pointing to Russia’s proximity to Iran. "I don’t see the disagreement between the U.S. and Russia on threat assessment to be that great anymore.” The Russian delegation em phasized the need to make cuts in strategic weapons "on the condi tion that the ABM treaty is pre served in its current form,” ac cording to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry Wednesday. Russian officials repeatedly have complained that they lack concrete information on U.S. mis sile defense plans, but Bolton said Washington had presented an enormous amount of information about a Defense Department re view of offensive weapons and funding proposals to the U.S. Con gress. “I’d say we’ve made good progress and covered many is sues,” he said of the talks, which included discussions about offen sive and defensive weapons, non proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and export controls. He said both sides had agreed to set up a mechanism for more regular bilateral consultations and had agreed to an extra meet ing before a Sept. 19 meeting in New York between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Stories from the city, state, nation and world THE GAMECOCK MONDAYS WEDNESDAYS FR I DAYS CWe can help with all of your legal needs. Ron Thomas oaff Pre-paid Legal Services Inc. 479_3ot)U and Subsidiaries PPD ronthomas@prepaidlegal.com nVSe www.prepaidlegal.com/go/ronthomas NEW!! Gas powered Motorized Scooters!! • 33cc Chain Driven w/Centrifugal Clutch • weighs only 37lbs; folds down • easily transportable • 22 mph!! • seat is optional Mention this ad and get a 10% discount off the retail price of $595!!!! Call (803) 276-2191 for details! Visit us on the web @ www.GloballyHip.com L Happy 21st Good Job with the aerobics! - DD || Its time to say Bye Bye Beach Hello Books! But you can still keep your tan! 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