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Digest 117, originally sent Fri Jun 25 04:37:48 1999
There are 8 messages in this issue.
Topics in today's digest:
1. NucNews-0 Brief 6/24/99
2. NucNews-6 6/24/99 - US-Tech Exports; Whistleblowers; Senate/Labs; FOIA
3. NucNews-4 6/24/99 - Y2K Int'l (6)
4. NucNews-5 6/24/99 - Nuc Waste - Wildlife SC; Contamination NM (3); Bruce Blair etc. MacArthur Fellowships; Rifkin
5. NucNews-3 6/24/99 - Russia (4); Pakistan; Iran; Iraq (2); Lebanon (2); Japan Arms Sales; Turkey
6. NucNews-7 6/24/99 - Kosovo
7. NucNews-2 6/24/99 - China (5); Korea; Germany; Australia
8. NucNews-1 6/24/99 - DU-(5); Gorbachev, Arias; Nuc. Smuggling Tbilisi; Slovakia Nuc Plant
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Message: 1 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:54:09 -0400
Subject: NucNews-0 Brief 6/24/99
[Please address replies to articles to the original publisher (with a copy to prop1@prop1.org and NucNews@onelist.com (Archives)). Your help in refuting false information appreciated! Please put "NucNews" at the beginning of the subject line when you reply or forward to us. We may not notice your message for a while, otherwise.]
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NucNews-1 6/24/99 - DU-(5); Gorbachev, Arias; Nuc. Smuggling Tbilisi; Slovakia Nuc Plant NucNews-2 6/24/99 - China (5); Korea; Germany; Australia NucNews-3 6/24/99 - Russia (4); Pakistan; Iran; Iraq (2); Lebanon (2); Japan Arms Sales; Turkey NucNews-4 6/24/99 - Y2K Int'l (6) NucNews-5 6/24/99 - Nuc Waste - Wildlife SC; Contamination NM (3); Bruce Blair etc. MacArthur Fellowships; Rifkin NucNews-6 6/24/99 - US-Tech Exports; Whistleblowers; Senate/Labs; FOIA NucNews-7 6/24/99 - Kosovo
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1. Poison in the air The environmental costs of the Kosovo conflict must be exposed Interactive guides, useful links, latest news and analysis on Kosovo Mikhail Gorbachev, Friday June 18, 1999 UK Guardian http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,59107,00.html
2. Stopping America's Most Lethal Export By OSCAR ARIAS, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/oped/23aria.html ... A huge amount of American taxpayer money goes to support this immoral weapons trade. In 1995, the arms industry received $7.6 billion in Federal subsidies. After agricultural price supports, this represents the largest subsidy program for business in the Federal budget....
3. Depleted uranium: the lingering poison A-10 tankbusters have also fired DU cannisters in Kosovo By Alex Kirby, News Online June 6, 1999 Environment Correspondent and presenter of BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/newsid%5F362000/362484.stm
4. Depleted uranium: a soldier's experience Doug Rokke cleaned tanks contaminated with depleted uranium By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby, June 7, 1999 http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F362000/362543.stm As debate continues over Nato's use in Kosovo of depleted uranium munitions, one US Gulf veteran has recalled his experiences eight years ago....
5. EPA investigating Shattuck New reports suggest Superfund site may be more contaminated than once believed By Berny Morson Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer June 23, 1999 http://insidedenver.com/news/0623shat0.shtml A top Environmental Protection Agency investigator is examining reports that the Shattuck Superfund site in Denver is more contaminated than previously believed. Hugh Kaufman, a senior EPA engineer, has interviewed two former employees of the defunct Shattuck Chemical Co. who say the plant in the 1970s salvaged uranium from defective fuel rods rejected for use in nuclear reactors.... He acknowledged that Shattuck worked with some depleted uranium that was bought from a defense facility, possibly the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico....
6. Officials Find Nuclear Material In Tbilisi City Center June 22, 1999, Russia Today http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=74724 TBILISI, Jun 22, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Georgian experts on Monday discovered a container in central Tbilisi emitting more than 10,000 times the normal level of radiation, officials said. lead container was found by a roadside close to the city's botanical gardens during a routine check by radiation experts, officials at the interior ministry told AFP....
7. Slovakia to shut down nuclear reactor by 2010-2012 SLOVAKIA: June 23, 1999 http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=1286
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8. 'China conducted nuclear test' June 19, 1999 The Hindu http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/06/19/stories/01190007.htm WASHINGTON, JUNE 18. China set off a small nuclear-related blast over the weekend just before the U.S. special envoy, Mr. Thomas Pickering's visit to Beijing, a media report said today....
9. China Says U.S. Wants To Become 'Lord Of Earth' Updated 7:31 AM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/07/international-china-usa BEIJING (Reuters) - China compared the United States to Nazi Germany Tuesday and said NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia reflected Washington's ambition to become "Lord of the Earth."... -- China Stops Landing of U.S. Plane By The Associated Press, June 24, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Hong-Kong-China-US.html HONG KONG (AP) -- Chinese authorities have stopped a U.S. military airplane from landing in Hong Kong, the latest display of anger following the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.... -- China Defends World Bank Project By The Associated Press, June 24, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-World-Bank-China.html
10. CIA Analyst Raised Alert On China's Embassy Concerns Unheeded Before Belgrade Attack By Vernon Loeb and Steven Mufson, Washington Post, June 24, 1999; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/24/137l-062499-idx.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-China-Bombing.html A mid-level intelligence officer assigned to the CIA persistently questioned the targeting of a building that turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, but his concerns went unheeded inside the spy agency and at the U.S. military's European Command, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday....
11. S. Korea's Kim Defends Policy Toward North President Says Engagement, Not Cold War, Is Best Way to Change Relations By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, Washington Post, June 24, 1999; Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/24/146l-062499-idx.html
12. Germany Tussles Over Nuclear Power By Tony Czuczka, Associated Press, June 22, 1999; 3:35 p.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990622/V000092-062299-idx.html BONN, Germany (AP) -- The Greens party on Tuesday rejected a plan proposed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that would give Germany's nuclear power plants 25 years to shut down, creating dissent inside the ruling coalition....
13. Aboriginal approval for Jabiluka road in question Sunday 20 June, 1999 (12:18pm CST) http://www.abc.net.au/news/state/nt/archive/metnt-20jun1999-4.htm A Senate inquiry has heard conflicting views on whether a mining company would need approval from Aboriginal people to build a road to transport ore from the Jabiluka uranium mine....
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14. X-USSR antinuclear campaign Newsletter * June 1999 * N 19-20 http://www.econet.apc.org/igc/en/hl/99062118650/hl11.html Most important news from field of nuclear power and protests, former USSR
15. Russia In Biggest Military Exercise Since Cold War Updated 7:02 AM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/07/international-russia-mili tary MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top military official said Tuesday that Russia had launched the biggest domestic military exercises of their kind since 1985 but these were not a show of force connected with the Yugoslavia crisis.... -- Russia to increase airborne force Updated 7:47 AM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990622/07/international-russia-troops MOSCOW, June 22 (UPI) Russia will increase the number of its elite paratrooper forces by 5,600 because of the country's increased commitment to international peacekeeping operations, the airborne force's chief of staff says....
16. Russia writes off poorest nations debt Updated 3:48 PM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990622/15/international-debt MOSCOW, June 22 (UPI) Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov says Russia will write off $1.5 billion in debt owed to it by the world's poorest countries, mainly those in Africa, as part of an agreement on international debt relief reached during the G8 summit in Cologne, Germany....
17. Pakistan Calls For Peace With India As Guns Boom Updated 6:29 AM ET June 24, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990624/06/international-kashmir-pak istan
18. Iran denies U.S. weapons charge Updated 9:24 AM ET June 23, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990623/09/international-us TEHRAN, Iran, June 23 (UPI) Iran has denied renewed U.S. accusations that the Persian state is attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
19. Rival Iraq Plans Introduced to U.N By Edith M. Lederer Associated Press Writer Tuesday, June 22, 1999; 8:48 p.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990622/V000340-062299-idx.html UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Still at odds over a new policy toward Iraq, Security Council members introduced three rival proposals Tuesday on ways to restart relations with Baghdad after more than six months with no weapons inspections.... -- U.S. warplanes bomb Iraqi defense facility USA Today (World), June 23, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
20. Ireland may pull Lebanon peacekeepers Updated 2:57 PM ET June 22, 1999 By JOSHUA BRILLIANT http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990622/14/international-ireland -- Israel Attacks Areas in Southern Lebanon By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 24, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/lebanon-israel-ap.html TYRE, Lebanon -- Israel's air force and allied militia gunners opened fire on suspected guerrilla infiltration trails in southern Lebanon Wednesday, hours after two civilians were wounded in a shelling attack....
21. In Arms Sales, Japan Coddles Its Own By SHERYL WuDUNN, June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/062499japan-arms-makers.html TOKYO -- Salesmen on the fourth floor of the Marubeni Corp. building were hunched over their desks late one night earlier this year, blearily working on a deal to sell foreign aircraft to Japan. Suddenly, there was a bang, and the only trace was a perfect bullet-like hole in a window.... 22. Embassy Row Moving an air base [Japan]; No respect for Turkey By James Morrison THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/embassy.html Turkish Ambassador Baki Ilkin yesterday complained that his country continues to get too little respect from Europe, even after fighting with NATO in Kosovo and caring for 27,000 Kosovar refugees.... Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, "has proved itself to be a dependable ally to NATO and the United States," the ambassador said....
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23. U.N. Panel Says More Countries Are Studying Year 2000 Problems By BARNABY J. FEDER, June 23, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/23year.html UNITED NATIONS -- Disruptions from Year 2000 computer problems are inevitable, but are not likely to be as widespread or serious as feared just six months ago, said organizers of an international conference that ended two days of meetings on Tuesday.... -- Experts Send Mixed Message on Y2K By The Associated Press, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Y2K-Global-Readiness.html UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Keep the public alerted to Y2K -- but avoid panic. Hustle to update computers -- but expect to miss the Dec. 31 deadline. The world is ready -- but not quite.... -- House May Accept Senate Y2K Bill By The Associated Press, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Y2K-Lawsuits.html WASHINGTON (AP) -- House leaders may accept a more modest Senate version of a Y2K lawsuit bill, forcing President Clinton to choose whether to carry out a promised veto of legislation backed by the business and high tech communities.... -- Reactors Largely Free of Computers By MICHAEL WINES, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/23atom.html MOSCOW -- The Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valentin B. Ivanov has good reason to promise that Russia's 29 nuclear reactors will be free of the year 2000 computer problem in January. The reactors, it seems, are largely free of computers.... -- Russia Y2K Nuke Tests To Complete In September June 22, 1999, Filed at 8:02 p.m. EDT, By Mo Krochmal for TechWeb, CMPnet http://www.nytimes.com/techweb/TW_Russia_Y2K_Nuke_Tests_To_Complete_In_Septe mber.html NEW YORK -- Russian representatives told a United Nations meeting Tuesday that the country will complete testing of its nuclear power facilities by September, a U.N. official said.... -- COUNTING TO 2000 -- THE RUSSIAN RIDDLE Lagging on Year 2000 Bug, Russia Opens Big Drive By MICHAEL WINES, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/23russia.html MOSCOW -- Armed with thick repair manuals and rosters of experts, Russian officials have opened an all-out campaign to expel the so-called year 2000 bug from the nation's eight million computers, their microchips and their programs....
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24. Wildlife Thrive in Bad Environment By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press, June 24, 1999; 2:38 a.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990624/V000320-062499-idx.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Nuclear-Paradox.html NEW ELLENTON, S.C. (AP) -- The ... Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile expanse of longleaf pine forest and marshland along the river that divides South Carolina from Georgia, is an ecological paradox.... For four decades one of the government's top-secret nuclear bomb factories where five reactors produced plutonium and tritium for nuclear warheads, it also is an ecological treasure chest full of wildlife and one of the hottest spots for biological research in the country, including long-term studies on the movement of contamination -- nuclear and otherwise -- through the environment....
25. Waste Container Found To Be Contaminated By Sue Major Holmes The Associated Press, June 21, 1999 http://www.abqjournal.com/news/5news06-22.htm By Sue Major Holmes - The Associated Press - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A routine test detected a tiny amount of radioactive contamination on a container hauling waste to a New Mexico disposal site from a closed Colorado weapons plant. Officials said it posed no safety risk. The contamination on one of three Trupact-2 containers containing plutonium-contaminated weapons waste likely came from a naturally occurring source along the route, the Department of Energy said. The DOE did not report the contamination to New Mexico. State officials said they want to be alerted to such incidents in the future....
26. Shipping halted at INEEL DOE audit finds problems with waste documentation Associated Press - June 23, 1999 http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=062399&ID=s598246&cat= IDAHO FALLS -- Following a U.S. Department of Energy audit, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has lost its certification to ship waste to a New Mexico dump until it fixes waste-handling and record-keeping problems. A team of inspectors from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico found 21 deficiencies last month in the way the site documents what is in drums of plutonium-contaminated waste destined for the $2 billion facility near Carlsbad....
27. Keep N-waste where generated Deseret News editorial, June 21, 1999 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,100007295,00.html? A bill that would keep commercial nuclear waste at nuclear reactors in 34 states until the establishment of a permanent storage site makes sense for Utah and any other state facing the threat of becoming a dumping ground....
28. Genius Has Its Own Reward MacArthur Fellowships Honor 32 Who've Done Their Best By Emily Wax Washington Post, June 23, 1999; Page C01 http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/23/161l-062399-idx.html ... Picture a man who spends his days worrying about the stupefying speed with which nuclear weapons can be launched. Imagine him getting, well, almost jiggy. "I am normally a pretty reserved person," says Bruce Blair, a Brookings Institution foreign-policy analyst, whose voice is shaking as he recalls the phone call that told him he will receive $350,000 (the sum depends on the recipient's age). "I gather I was quite bowled over and excited and happy." ... ALSO: US Foundation Awards 'Genius Grants' To 32 People June 22, 1999, 5:45 PM, Reuters http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/17/news-grants-genius
29. Plotting Corporate Futures: Outlining What Could Go Wrong By BARNABY J. FEDER, June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/biotech-storytelling.html ST. LOUIS -- Whether he is writing books, lecturing at universities or lobbying regulators and politicians, Jeremy Rifkin never misses a chance to argue that the biotechnology industry is leading the world toward environmental and social disaster....
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30. Cold War Architect Backs Looser U.S. Computer Exports Updated 7:06 PM ET June 23, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990623/19/news-computers-export WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Richard Perle, who led a 1980s crackdown on technology sales to the Soviet Union during the Reagan administration, urged Congress to scrap many of the current export controls on common high-tech items like desktop computers....
31. House panel to hear from several whistleblowers By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES, June 24, 1999 http://www.washtimes.com/investiga/investiga1.html Several government whistleblowers will testify today before a House committee that they were fired, demoted or harassed for reporting the "systematic pillaging" of U.S. military and nuclear secrets to their superiors and Congress.... -- Senators Discuss Action On Nuclear Labs Updated 12:23 AM ET June 23, 1999, By Tabassum Zakaria http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990623/00/news-nuclear-spying
32. Freedom of Information Act, US Govt. Site June 22, 1999 http://www.usdoj.gov/04foia/index.html
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33. Executive Order [Sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro] Released by the White House Office of the Press Secretary, Washington, DC, May 1, 1999 http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/eo_990430_ksvo_sanct.html
34. STRATEGY New Army Chief Seeks More Agility and Power By ERIC SCHMITT, June 24, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/kosovo-army.html -- Even in Towns Hit by NATO, Albanians See Serbs at Fault http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/062499kosovo-border.html -- Issue in Depth: Kosovo in Transition http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/kosovo-index.html -- NATO cluster bomb cause of four deaths USA Today, June 23, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso967.htm -- Kosovo rebels say they'll keep weapons USA Today, June 23, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso975.htm --- Clinton Warns Kosovo Refugees On Mine Danger Updated 10:33 AM ET June 22, 1999, By Steve Holland http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/10/news-clinton-macedonia
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Message: 2 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:53:54 -0400
Subject: NucNews-6 6/24/99 - US-Tech Exports; Whistleblowers; Senate/Labs; FOIA
30. Cold War Architect Backs Looser U.S. Computer Exports
Updated 7:06 PM ET June 23, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990623/19/news-computers-export
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Richard Perle, who led a 1980s crackdown on technology sales to the Soviet Union during the Reagan administration, urged Congress to scrap many of the current export controls on common high-tech items like desktop computers.
Lawmakers have recently discussed moving in the opposite direction by tightening technology export controls in the wake of the Cox Commission report that alleged widespread Chinese espionage efforts.
But former Assistant Secretary of Defense Perle said Wednesday that export controls on widely available items like desktop computers were "unfeasible" and "self-defeating."
"If we're going to allow espionage in our nuclear laboratories, controlling export of equipment is not going to solve that problem," Perle said in a speech at the Capitol to congressional staff.
While leading edge technology was once largely developed and controlled by the Defense Department and other government agencies, private companies now create the most advanced systems, Perle noted.
"The balance of technology has shifted from predominantly military to predominantly civilian," he said. "It is the civilian sector that is now the cutting edge of technology."
Perle suggested that much of the resources devoted toward enforcing export licensing schemes should be redeployed toward intelligence gathering operations. He also recommended focusing export controls on more easily controlled technologies like the stealth techniques that hide aircraft from enemy radar.
Under current rules, a computer capable of two billion operations per second cannot be exported to many countries, including India, Russia and Israel, without a notice filed with the U.S. Commerce Department revealing the purchaser.
The department has 10 days to object to any sale and is required to visit the end-user to ensure the computer has not been improperly diverted to military research.
The limits, which are intended to reign in nations that may be developing nuclear weapons, already apply to ordinary desktop computers containing several of Intel Corp.'s Pentium III chips and will cover most PCs shipped in a few years when faster Intel chips reach the market.
According to the Cox report, a rudimentary nuclear weapon can be developed without any nuclear tests using a computer capable of as few as 400 million operations per second. With some nuclear test data, like that possessed by India and Pakistan, a computer capable of one billion operations can be used to design an "intermediate" level weapon.
Perle's argument echoed that of many high-tech firms, including Intel and IBM Corp., that have been lobbying for relaxed computer export limits. The industry argues non-U.S. firms will gladly sell millions of desktop computers abroad if U.S. firms are hampered by the export controls.
The Clinton administration is expected to try to raise the two billion operations threshold, but that could draw the ire of Congress. The current export rules allow the White House to raise the limit but give Congress six months to overturn the decision.
Clinton administration Under Secretary of Commerce William Reinsch told congressional staff that a decision was likely within a week on the computer export controls.
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31. House panel to hear from several whistleblowers
By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES, June 24, 1999 http://www.washtimes.com/investiga/investiga1.html
Several government whistleblowers will testify today before a House committee that they were fired, demoted or harassed for reporting the "systematic pillaging" of U.S. military and nuclear secrets to their superiors and Congress.
According to documents and advance testimony obtained by The Washington Times, the federal employees say the retaliation and harassment was directly linked to their internal criticism and testimony before Congress.
The Government Reform Committee's hearing will focus on the retaliations at the Defense and Energy departments and how advocates of tighter security for technology are facing intimidation.
"These witnesses have important information, and it is extremely troubling that they perceived threats to their jobs for telling the truth," said Indiana Rep. Dan Burton, the committee chairman. "We will not stand for government employees suffering retaliation simply because they told the truth about national security."
Los Alamos physicist Robert Henson, who first uncovered Chinese spying at the laboratory, was fired twice for bringing it to the attention of the Energy Department. He will testify that his firing was in retaliation for delivering a message nobody wanted to hear. He has since been reinstated at the lab after initiating a lawsuit.
Lt. Col. Edward McCallum, director of the office of safeguards and security at the Energy Department, says he was put on administrative leave in retaliation for criticizing security at DOE nuclear facilities.
Peter M. Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser for the Defense Department and a witness in congressional investigations, says retaliation against him prompted letters from Tennessee Republican Sen. Fred Thompson to the Pentagon expressing his concern for his witness.
As a result, the Office of Special Counsel is investigating political reprisals and illegal retaliation against Mr. Leitner.
"Ever since these testimonies, I have been subjected to, in staccato fashion, one adverse harassing act after another," Mr. Leitner states in his testimony.
He says his performance ratings were lowered and he was isolated from meetings on nuclear exports, particularly when the inspectors general were visiting the interagency meetings in response to a Senate inspection request.
Mr. Leitner says he was harassed over sick leave, was given a "trumped-up" letter of reprimand, charged with a security violation and threatened with charges of insubordination.
"To be victimized by my own government -- particularly the Defense Department -- for consistently putting the near- and long-term national security of the United States ahead of all other considerations is something that I still find astounding to this day," he said.
In 1997, Mr. Leitner issued denials for many export-license applications from DOE laboratories, including Los Alamos, Sandia, Livermore and Oak Ridge.
The licenses would have facilitated the transfer of high-technology equipment with direct application to nuclear-weapons development and testing "to the most dangerous entities within the Russian nuclear weapons" design and manufacturing complex.
"I objected then and continue to object today to these so-called lab-to-lab transfers because there was no evidence of a security plan to protect U.S. technologies from being used against us," Mr. Leitner said.
Jonathan Fox, an arms control specialist for the Defense Department, will tell how he was ordered to rewrite a critical memo on the eve of a state visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in October 1997.
Mr. Fox's first memo said one deal with China presented "real and substantial risk" to the United States and allied countries." He was directed to change the memo so that it stated the agreement was "not inimical" to U.S. interests. He will testify that he has also suffered retaliatory actions.
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Senators Discuss Action On Nuclear Labs
Updated 12:23 AM ET June 23, 1999, By Tabassum Zakaria http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990623/00/news-nuclear-spying
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican senators and the energy secretary Tuesday agreed that the structure of the Energy Department must change to better guard secrets at U.S. nuclear weapons labs, but differed on what precise path to take.
In an unusual meeting of four senate committees, there was general agreement that a quick legislative solution would be best, to strike while public furor was hot over allegations that China's spies stole some top U.S. nuclear weapons secrets in the past 20 years. China has denied it stole U.S. secrets.
But disagreements emerged over exactly how to restructure the Energy Department, which oversees the nuclear labs.
Three key Republican senators said they were drafting a plan that would consolidate the nuclear weapons programs in one section of the Energy Department.
The plan was based on recommendations by a presidential advisory board that suggested creating a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department to oversee nuclear weapons programs. It would be headed by an under-secretary.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said he agreed with most of the report from the board chaired by former Sen. Warren Rudman, but disliked the notion of a "semi-autonomous agency" because it would undermine his authority.
"The key to resolving this problem is in the details. I'm not going to agree to something that dilutes my authority," Richardson told Reuters.
Richardson and Rudman spent much of the day testifying on Capitol Hill, first before a joint hearing by an unprecedented four committees whose membership comprised more than half the 100-member Senate, about 30 senators actually showed up. Then they went before the House Commerce Committee.
"There's no question that the Department of Energy will be at a minimum reorganized," said Rep. Christopher Cox, a California Republican who led a special panel that issued a report saying China stole information on seven U.S. nuclear warheads and the neutron bomb over two decades of espionage.
Republican Sens. Frank Murkowski of Alaska, Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Jon Kyl of Arizona planned to offer jointly an amendment to restructure the nuclear weapons programs.
If approved, it would be attached to a funding bill for U.S. intelligence programs that may be considered by the Senate this week. Ultimately both the House and Senate would have to approve the same bill, followed by the president's signature, for it to become law.
"What has happened is a disaster of major proportion for the national security of our nation," said Murkowski, who chaired the Senate hearing.
Over the past 20 years more than 100 reports by various government entities have been issued criticizing security at the labs and recommending changes, Rudman said.
Among the people interviewed by the advisory board, "one employee said the (Energy Department) was about as organized as the Titanic in the 11th hour," Rudman said.
Every time a president or energy secretary has tried to institute changes, "the bureaucrats have won," he said.
Richardson said he would accept creating an under-secretary post to head the nuclear weapons programs but opposed establishing a separate agency within the department. He warned against creating an "empire" through a separate structure that a future energy secretary would not be able to control.
Some lawmakers wanted to go in the direction of the Rudman report's more drastic recommendation -- to take the nuclear weapons programs entirely out of the Energy Department's jurisdiction. "Take the weapons complex outside DOE (Department of Energy)," said Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican.
A culture of "arrogance" at the labs was also cited as an impediment to security due to scientists' disdain for edicts from bureaucrats.
Some senators said it would be difficult to change that culture and that the solution was a structural change in the bureaucracy that would ensure security lapses were caught and increase accountability.
When one Republican senator tried to place the blame for lab security lapses on the Democratic Clinton administration, Rudman, a Republican, responded: "I think you all deserve some blame," noting that Congress had taken no action despite the many reports issued over the years.
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32. Freedom of Information Act, US Govt. Site
June 22, 1999 http://www.usdoj.gov/04foia/index.html
Like all federal agencies, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is required under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to disclose records requested in writing by any person. However, agencies may withhold information pursuant to nine exemptions and three exclusions contained in the statute. The FOIA applies only to federal agencies and does not create a right of access to records held by Congress, the courts, or by state or local government agencies. Each state has its own public access laws that should be consulted for access to state and local records.
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Message: 3 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:50:38 -0400
Subject: NucNews-4 6/24/99 - Y2K Int'l (6)
23. U.N. Panel Says More Countries Are Studying Year 2000 Problems
By BARNABY J. FEDER, June 23, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/23year.html
UNITED NATIONS -- Disruptions from Year 2000 computer problems are inevitable, but are not likely to be as widespread or serious as feared just six months ago, said organizers of an international conference that ended two days of meetings on Tuesday.
"Action is under way everywhere, by and large on schedule," said Ahmad Kamal, the Pakistani representative to the United Nations and chairman of its working group on information technology.
The meeting had delegates from 173 countries, a jump from the 120 at first global Year 2000 meeting here in December. Organizers said the regional sessions that led up to it were creating ties that could encourage international cooperation on technical issues long after the Year 2000 challenge had passed.
The problem stems from the use of two digits to represent years, like 99 for 1999. Some computers and programs read 00 as 1900 instead of 2000, and others do not recognize it as a valid year, leading to miscalculations or crashes. Most countries started much later than the United States in dealing with the challenge.
"The amount of cooperation going on is fascinating," John Koskinen, chairman of President Clinton's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, said. "A lot of the worry about international preparedness a year and a half ago was because no one could imagine putting all these people together."
Koskinen said Latin American countries had created a continent-wide map of electricity grids and had been discussing using such information in cooperative projects.
Behind the cheer, though, are continuing uncertainties about how far along many countries really are and how thorough their contingency plans are. Russia, speaking directly to a concern in Europe, which has vivid memories of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, pledged to have all its nuclear power plants repaired and tested by September. But there was no information about how the testing would be conducted.
Many countries are still uncertain, as well, about how much information to divulge. Venezuela fears creating runs on banks and food shortages if it follows the lead of the United States in advising citizens to prepare for several days of disruptions, said Hugo Castellanos, head of the Year 2000 agency there. Japan also has yet to decide how to address its citizens, and New Zealand's plans include delivering a checklist of preparations to every house in September.
Some historic tensions proved impossible to set aside. North African and Middle Eastern nations refused to allow Israel to participate in their regional meeting, which Morocco organized.
"We can't force people to invite people they don't want in their homes," Kamal said after reporters had expressed disbelief at his statement that Israel could have been excluded because Morocco had determined that Israel had no "shared problems" with its neighbors. Kamal said Israel had accepted an invitation to make a separate presentation that included an offer to share expertise with any other country.
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Experts Send Mixed Message on Y2K
By The Associated Press, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Y2K-Global-Readiness.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Keep the public alerted to Y2K -- but avoid panic. Hustle to update computers -- but expect to miss the Dec. 31 deadline. The world is ready -- but not quite.
That was the mixed message Tuesday at the second conference on international preparedness for the year 2000 computer bug, better known as Y2K. The first meeting was held last December.
The concern is that some computer programs, especially older ones, might fail when the date changes to 2000. Older programs were written to recognize only the last two digits of a year. As a result, such programs could read the digits ``00'' as 1900 instead of 2000. No country is immune.
The conference at U.N. headquarters in New York drew officials from more than 170 countries. Delegates included experts responsible for checking on anything from computers that run banks and electric utilities, to the machines that keep airplanes flying, get food delivered and water purified.
All aim to ensure that governments and businesses large and very small hum as usual on Jan. 1, 2000.
They're also overseeing contingency plans.
Early in the day, experts gave an optimistic assessment of Y2K readiness worldwide. It just won't be completely ready, they said.
``The Y2K problem is too global, too complex, and too systemic to be totally solved on time,'' said Carlos Braga, head of the World Bank's Y2K program.
Not to worry.
Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Ahmad Kamal said: ``Disruptions are not likely to be major disruptions because by and large problems have been identified.''
Kamal chaired the U.N. working group dealing with Y2K problems until the end of Tuesday's session, when he stepped down and was succeeded by Lesotho's Percy Mangoaela.
Reports on Y2K were delivered from every region Tuesday morning at a closed-door session. The results generated more optimism than expected, Kamal told a news conference. ``Action is under way everywhere, by and large according to schedule,'' he said.
But by afternoon, the tone of self-congratulation was tempered.
``Y2K is the ultimate in preventable disasters,'' said James Lee Witt, head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, which achieved Y2K compliance as of March. Yet, as he put it, ``Prevent what you can, manage what you can't.''
Experts spoke of exploiters peddling Y2K compliant water coolers, and hackers who could cause mischief. They talked of a public nervous about bank machines despite assurances the banks are ready, prompting the U.S. Federal Reserve to make sure there's plenty of currency on hand.
They spoke of people in rural countries who scoff at Y2K, not realizing a faraway machine unable to smoothly enter the next century could interrupt water and food supplies.
While computer chips and software programs are the focus of compliance, Y2K preparedness doesn't stop at the hard drive and the keyboard. It affects issues like news coverage, said David Bohrman, executive vice president of CNN.
The Cable News Network is still pondering how to cover the story -- and logistics should anything go wrong.
``We need to figure out how to get some real information out,'' Bohrman said. ``CNN will be looking to see what is happening, and what is not happening.''
Panelists generally agreed it's best to keep the public abreast of efforts to solve Y2K problems.
``A better-informed public is a more calm and confident public,'' said U.S. Federal Reserve Board Governor Roger Ferguson.
Lots of care is being taken in New Zealand. The first country to greet the new year and new millennium has a Web site to keep the public informed at www.y2k.govt.nz.
The government is plugging a new slogan: ``BY2K wise.'' People are advised to prepare for up to three days of disrupted services, and to stay ready from January through the end of March. All New Zealand households will get a home checklist by September.
The fondest hope was offered by David Spinks, business manager of a British consulting firm, AEA Technology. He quoted a Finnish expression: ``We will have succeeded if afterward they blame us for making too much fuss about this.''
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House May Accept Senate Y2K Bill
By The Associated Press, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Y2K-Lawsuits.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House leaders may accept a more modest Senate version of a Y2K lawsuit bill, forcing President Clinton to choose whether to carry out a promised veto of legislation backed by the business and high tech communities.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, at a news conference Tuesday, said the House was willing to accept the Senate bill, avoiding House-Senate negotiations to resolve differences with a House version that goes further to block lawsuits arising out of year 2000 computer breakdowns.
Armey said the House could vote Thursday on the Senate bill, putting it on an express path to the White House.
But GOP sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Republican leadership had not made a final decision on how to handle the matter. Some in the business community were still pushing for a House-Senate conference that would move the final product closer to the version the House passed last month.
The White House prefers the more moderate Senate bill -- passed last week on a 62-37 vote -- but says it would still be subject to a veto because it goes too far in restricting the rights of citizens to go to court to win damages for losses.
Both the House and Senate bills provide a 90-day waiting period to allow businesses to fix Y2K-related computer problems before a lawsuit can be filed. Both encourage out-of-court mediation, and both have limits on class action suits.
The House bill goes further in capping punitive damages for most defendants; the Senate bill has punitive damage caps only for small businesses. The House version also is stronger in ensuring that defendants will be liable only for the share of damages for which they are responsible -- a provision aimed at stopping ``fishing expeditions'' where plaintiffs go after the biggest and richest companies to sue.
President Clinton has three of his most loyal and generous support groups to consider in deciding whether to veto the bill. Consumer groups and trial lawyers oppose it, saying it will undermine consumer and legal rights and protect wrongdoers, while the high tech industry say the bill is essential if they are to avoid billions in litigation costs that could better be used fixing computers.
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Reactors Largely Free of Computers
By MICHAEL WINES, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/23atom.html
MOSCOW -- The Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valentin B. Ivanov has good reason to promise that Russia's 29 nuclear reactors will be free of the year 2000 computer problem in January. The reactors, it seems, are largely free of computers.
At the nuclear station nearest to Moscow, Ivanov said, "the general engineer promises that he'll have a New Year's party, and he's invited me."
Although American experts said they would quite likely accept such an invitation, they still have nagging questions about how ready the reactors are. The experts said they were unsure whether engineers could locate and check all the microchips and other digital improvements that have been added to Soviet-era plants over the years.
The experts worry that Russian engineers, adept at handling breakdowns in sometimes creaky plants, might be overwhelmed if four or five systems failed at once, and they wonder whether backup water and power systems are sufficient.
Most of all, the experts wonder whether the cash-depleted Government can really oversee all the work at stations flung across 10 time zones, some so remote that it is tough to administer them even in normal times.
"They're taking it seriously," an American official said.
"Our concern is that they won't do enough, either because there are some pockets in Russia that still aren't taking it seriously, even though they've been ordered by the Government to do things, or because they lack the resources."
The official echoed an analysis by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories of the United States Energy Department about potential year 2000 flaws in Soviet-style reactors. The report found that senior Russian officials had made reactor safety a priority, but that "the level of effort devoted to date varied from site to site and organization to organization."
In particular, American experts worry that the nuclear-energy industry is so short of cash and time that even some obvious flaws will go uncorrected. Those experts stress that their views are only well-educated guesses.
Although Americans have visited all 66 Soviet-style reactors in Russia and surrounding nations, they have not evaluated the plants for year 2000 vulnerabilities. In general, they said, the millennium bug poses a small threat.
Analog devices control most "mission critical" functions, including crucial water pumps. Some flawed computers or chips could force a plant to shut down, but none appear vital to stopping reactors in an emergency. In an emergency, a reactor can usually be shut down instantly. But operators still need to pump cool water to the core for a few days, until the plant is completely stabilized.
That underscores American experts' second concern, that reactors could be hampered by the failure of regional power grids or other utilities and that backup systems at cash-strapped reactors might prove inadequate. As in the West, Russian nuclear stations have emergency backups like multiple generators. But they can be thwarted by many factors like poor maintenance or a shortage of diesel fuel.
"Even in Western plants," an American said, "the systems don't work right all the time."
Russian experts nevertheless said they were atop the situation. The top year 2000 official in the Atomic Energy Ministry, Yuri Sokolov, said in March that experts had checked 97 percent of date-sensitive reactor components.
Sokolov did not say what that review found, but he said his ministry would use all means at its disposal to correct any flawed hardware or programs.
Ivanov said flatly that the only computer systems with potential problems were those that process data and that all systems that affected critical reactor operations had been deemed safe, as have the systems that contain radiation. Still, he indicated that Russian experts harbored some of the lingering concerns that nag American scientists.
Russia, it turns out, is not the Americans' greatest concern. The greatest potential for problems is in Ukraine, which is in even worse financial shape. It has 14 reactors in operation.
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Russia Y2K Nuke Tests To Complete In September
June 22, 1999, Filed at 8:02 p.m. EDT, By Mo Krochmal for TechWeb, CMPnet http://www.nytimes.com/techweb/TW_Russia_Y2K_Nuke_Tests_To_Complete_In_Septe mber.html
NEW YORK -- Russian representatives told a United Nations meeting Tuesday that the country will complete testing of its nuclear power facilities by September, a U.N. official said.
"There will be no unforeseen disruptions in that sector," Ahmad Kamal, Pakistan's permanent representative to the U.N., said at an afternoon news conference on the second day of a three-day international conference on the year 2000 computer problem.
"We are pleased to hear [Russia's announcement]," said Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K Cooperation Center, formerly the Clinton administration's chief of information policy and technology.
Mario Tagarinsky, Bulgaria's Y2K conversion director who serves as the regional Y2K coordinator for eastern Europe and central Asia, said the atomic power plants in the area are the regional group's top priority. Further regional meetings are scheduled in July and in September.
Russia's Y2K coordinator, Vladimir Lapshin, said the country must now shift from large-scale projects to work on contingency planning.
"That's the priority," Lapshin said. "We will concentrate on crucial sectors -- the power grids, transportation, telecommunications, public sector, health, and finance."
The initial morning session of the conference, involving Y2K representatives from over 170 nations, was closed to the press.
This meeting was not without political strife. Israel was refused entry to a meeting of Middle East countries, said Kamal.
"The convener of the regional meeting didn't feel they shared problems of preparedness with Israel," Kamal said. Morocco is the leader of the Middle Eastern region, one of eight regional coordinating groups.
(c) 1999 CMP Media Inc.
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COUNTING TO 2000 -- THE RUSSIAN RIDDLE Lagging on Year 2000 Bug, Russia Opens Big Drive
By MICHAEL WINES, June 23, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/23russia.html
MOSCOW -- Armed with thick repair manuals and rosters of experts, Russian officials have opened an all-out campaign to expel the so-called year 2000 bug from the nation's eight million computers, their microchips and their programs.
But 60 miles south of the Kremlin in the little town of Stupino, Mike Tuffs is not waiting for the victory party. Tuffs, regional technology manager for Mars Inc., the American candy maker, asked the regional government and utility officials last year how they planned to deal with the bug.
What he found was that many did not know that their equipment was vulnerable and that others believed -- wrongly -- that they were already protected.
Mars has since outfitted its two Russian factories so that they can continue some production during power and water breakdowns, and it is stockpiling raw materials in anticipation of transportation and customs problems.
"Our greatest concern is for public utilities and state organizations," Tuffs said. "It would appear that many public organizations are not aware of the equipment that they use and how they interact and how a failure in one area will affect another."
What worries Tuffs also rattles the technology chiefs of other companies, as well as computer experts and consultants. They say Russia has awakened to the year 2000 threat too late, spread the alarm too thinly and has far too little money to perform much more than digital triage on the Government and economy.
"There's a potential for major damage to the infrastructure," said Andrei N. Terekhov, a mathematician from St. Petersburg and the general director of Lanit-Terkom, a business that works on year 2000 problems.
The difficulties arise from longtime reliance of computer programs on two-digit date fields for any year, with 19 presumed to be the preceding digits. Many programs were custom written by people who have died, dropped out sight or have moved to Western Europe or the United States and are working on the problem there.
"There are obsolete applications on which, very often, entire factories, banks and real-time critical systems depend," Terekhov said.
There is also the potential that not much will happen. Government officials say they are addressing all problems in critical areas like atomic energy and nuclear missiles. American officials said they were confident that human safeguards would prevent accidental launchings.
The semiprivate companies that supply power, gas and other essential services say they are at work, too.
In addition, Russia enjoys a peculiar advantage. Because it has been slow to adopt computer technology, many functions like factory processes can be run manually.
Alexander Miasnikov, a representative here of the Gartner Group, technology consultants from Connecticut, said in an e-mail posting that most major Russian companies would solve year 2000 problems in their central operations, but that "in remote branches there can be some problems."
The Government predicted in April that even if its assault on the year 2000 bug proceeded as planned, up to a fifth of all computers would malfunction in January. With 56,000 Government computer systems, 16,000 of them critical, officials worry about everything from inoperative elevators to a freeze-up in the network that is supposed to tabulate the vote in the parliamentary election on Jan. 12.
"I can't and shouldn't say either that something is not going to happen or speak of catastrophic outcomes," said Aleksandr Krupnov, the chairman of the state Committee on Telecommunications and Information Technology, which is leading the effort on the year 2000. "I stick to something in the middle."
The Government effort began in earnest in the fall. Regional centers were set up to certify technicians whom businesses could hire. A Government-wide inspection of equipment and new backup plans were ordered. American officials familiar with the plans said Moscow was serious and focused. Nevertheless, the problems are huge. An estimated two-thirds of the desktop computers need repair. But most owners cannot be warned. Many manufacturers are out of business or lack sales records.
Many programs used outside big businesses are bootlegged, illegally copied. Hundreds of military and industrial tasks rely on programs that are decades old, written by programmers who may have left Russia. And nearly everyone is too broke to spend on a nebulous bug, anyway.
The Government said its repairs would cost $1 billion to $3 billion. That is up to one-seventh of a Federal budget that already cannot pay some pensions and debts.
Most agencies have been told to raid their budgets to solve the problems. One expert here said some businesses were having trouble because the Western suppliers whose equipment needs upgrading have yet to be paid, and they are refusing to make repairs until they receive their money.
Much of the nation is uninterested or unaware of the threat. An informal survey of 50 civic leaders in Irkutsk, a city of 500,000 on the Mongolian border, showed that 20 had heard of year 2000 defects.
Ron Lewin, a computer consultant here who also heads the technology committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said:
"At this point, contingency planning is the most important element, developing plans on what to do if there is no water or no electricity. There's not a lot of time left, and there's a high likelihood of failure for some of the utilities."
4 Million to Repair Weapons Systems
The one area where catastrophe seems all but impossible is in nuclear weapons.
Officials say most crucial military computers, including those in the nuclear force, use programs that are not date sensitive, rendering them immune to year 2000 problems.
Russian and American officials allow that in a worst-case scenario early warning systems could send false signals as the satellites on which they rely drift slowly out of alignment. But because such errors have been anticipated, the chances that they would lead to a nuclear strike are all but nil.
Any remaining problems are so small, officers contend, that they can be erased with the installation soon of a mere $4 million worth of new computers and programs.
Washington and Moscow have also proposed exchanging radar information and other figures this winter to diminish the risk of misinterpretations. Russia has said it is suspending cooperation on year 2000 problems to protest the United States' role in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. But that seems highly unlikely to affect nuclear weapons seriously.
Experts appear to believe that midwinter losses of electricity or other basic services will cause hardship in many areas, but stop short of human catastrophe. Brownouts and other breakdowns could cause millions of dollars in damage to industrial complexes like smelters and steel mills that depend on continuous power supplies. Telephone and data-transmission disruptions could leave businesses without the basic information that they need to compile bills and settle accounts.
The experts also are concerned about nuclear reactors and other highly complex sites. The fear is that workers usually adept at handling problems could be overwhelmed by four, five or six minor failures at once.
Russia does not depend on technology as much as the West, meaning that the damage could be limited. Soviet administrators sharply restricted the use of computers. The seven million desktops, 150,000 servers and several thousand mainframes in use are not extensive for such a technologically muscular country.
Although many factories operate with 1950's-technology hand switches and analog gauges, the industrial spine -- oil and gas pipelines, electrical grids, telephone systems and transportation networks -- all rely on microchips and computers to run smoothly.
Much of Russia and Europe's natural gas flows through the Siberian pipeline that belongs to Gazprom, a monopoly that the Government still largely owns. The Central Intelligence Agency says the mainframe computers at Gazprom almost certainly require revamping, as may be the case with microchips at hundreds of remote pumping stations.
Gazprom officials say they can handle any problems, perhaps by placing workers at the remote pumping stations. But the utility has not released details.
The electricity monopoly, Unified Energy Systems, said this month that 17,000 of its 50,000 computers had failed to meet year 2000 standards.
"We think that by September we will be able to replace the most important and vital parts of the system," a press release said. "We will try to renovate the rest by the end of the year."
Challenge for Airlines and Air Control
The Government says that it is renovating the only two major air-traffic-control centers that depend on digital computers, in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, and that others do not require upgrades.
But most of the 400-odd Russian aviation companies have computers with year 2000 problems. The International Civil Aviation Organization is asking the Russian airlines and plane manufacturers for information on their preventive measures. In the spring, Russian insurance companies raised the rates charged airline companies in anticipation of year 2000 risks.
The Gartner Group, the consulting firm, ranks Russia among the worst prepared nations for the year 2000 transition. Gartner predicts a month of turmoil in Russian financial markets, two months for utilities and hospital and three months for transportation and telecommunications.
Other American specialists, though, say they believe that the Russians will weather whatever January brings by virtue of two proficiencies. One is their expertise in programming and maintaining computers, a skill honed by years of military spending. Russia may be poor, those experts say, but it has a corps of computer technologists deserving of any Westerner's envy.
The other advantage is the ability to deal with adversities. Suspensions of power, water and telephone service would cripple most Western cities. In much of Russia, such breakdowns are a fact of life.
International Firms Make Their Own Plans
But many multinational companies that have conducted their own research -- Nestlé, British Petroleum and Global One, an international telecommunications concern -- have elected to prepare for trouble.
Mars candy executives say they expect power and telephone blackouts in early January, followed by weeks of scheduled brownouts.
To avoid any tieup of imports and exports in customs offices, Mars will suspend international shipments around Jan. 1.
The company also has begun to educate local officials and businesses about the problem, part of a longstanding effort to maintain good relations with Moscow and the region. The need is there, Tuffs said. In some cases, Mars has received written assurances from officials outside Stupino that the area is ready for the new year, even when the company's examination proved otherwise.
Executives at Global One said the long-distance networks were safe, but planned to beef up emergency power supplies at a computer center downtown. Most local calls are routed and timed by a switch whose maker no longer exists, according to Lawrence Haw, a telecommunications consultant here.
"It's not year 2000 compatible," Haw said. "There's nobody to work on this switch. There haven't been any software upgrades. There's no vendor for the switch any more. So who's going to do the upgrades?"
Against this backdrop of possible chaos and uncertainty, more than a few Russian experts bridle at the notion that their efforts may not meet Western standards. When a top computer specialist at the Russian Federal Aviation Service, Boris V. Mikhailovich, was asked by a reporter whether year 2000 preparations at air-traffic-control centers were adequate, he had a ready response.
"What do you think I am?" he asked. "An enemy of my own people?"
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Message: 4 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:52:30 -0400
Subject: NucNews-5 6/24/99 - Nuc Waste - Wildlife SC; Contamination NM (3); Bruce Blair etc. MacArthur Fellowships; Rifkin
24. Wildlife Thrive in Bad Environment
By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press, June 24, 1999; 2:38 a.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990624/V000320-062499-idx.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Nuclear-Paradox.html
NEW ELLENTON, S.C. (AP) -- The wide-mouth bass are monsters. The deer are fatter and the alligators longer. And the ponds, wetlands and rich bottomland brim with snakes, turtles, and salamanders -- a bounty of biological diversity.
But the Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile expanse of longleaf pine forest and marshland along the river that divides South Carolina from Georgia, is an ecological paradox.
For four decades one of the government's top-secret nuclear bomb factories where five reactors produced plutonium and tritium for nuclear warheads, it also is an ecological treasure chest full of wildlife and one of the hottest spots for biological research in the country, including long-term studies on the movement of contamination -- nuclear and otherwise -- through the environment.
``It is absolutely a paradox. From the outside, people see it as a nuclear site,'' says Whit Gibbons, a senior scientist at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, whose 35 faculty scientists and dozens of other researchers and students have been closely studying the place for years.
The nuclear complex, mostly mothballed reactors and structures devoted to cleaning up the mess they made over decades of nuclear weapons production, covers only about l0 percent of the Energy Department's property.
The rest is largely pristine wilderness undisturbed by development for a half century -- vast expanses of longleaf pine forests, Cypress swamps, Carolina bay wetlands and a creek that boasts the highest number of different aquatic insect species -- 650 -- of any river in North America.
There are also more than 100 species of reptiles and amphibians, 79 species of freshwater fish, more than 1,500 vascular plants, 7,000 whitetail deer, turtles, several hundred alligators, thousands of migratory birds, bobcats, and a number of endangered or threatened species including the red-cockaded woodpecker, wood stork, smooth purple cone flower and bald eagle.
``People think it has to be an awful place,'' says Gibbons, an ecology professor at the University of Georgia who has scrutinized the Savannah River Site for 32 years. ``But it's not. Ninety percent of it is better protected than the rest of the region around us.'' And thanks to 50 years of isolation from development, the wildlife has thrived.
In the heart of the complex sits Par Pond, a meandering 2,300-acre lake that gets its name from two reactors -- P and R -- that are its neighbors. Once it served as the cooling pond for the reactors, and despite its beauty, it also contains highly radioactive cesium-137, plutonium-237 and strontium-90.
Now the lake is full of fat largemouth bass as well as more than 200 alligators, some of which have grown old and big. Some of the alligators have been measured at more than 12 feet.
``This is one of the world-class bass fisheries,'' says Tom Hinton, a scientist at the laboratory, who has been studying how radiation migrates through the environment. Or it would be, if fishing were allowed.
The fish, says Hinton, are all slightly radioactive, contaminated with cesium-137. The alligators are contaminated, too, as are many of the other wildlife and plants. Hinton says the contamination is generally at low levels.
It is a reminder that even while taking in the isolated beauty of Par Pond, this, indeed, was where the government over four decades produced plutonium and tritium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. And often it cared little about dumping the wastes onto the environment. Not far from Par Pond are the canyons that still hold 35 million gallons of radioactive sludge and liquid awaiting disposal.
But Hinton winces when a visitor suggests that to some the thought of a nuclear bomb factory and wildlife conjures up deformed deer, or amphibians with two heads. He has heard that before.
The radiation levels in the fish and in the deer are slight. While the Savannah River complex is off limits to outsiders, a few times each year controlled deer hunts are conducted to reduce the herd. Hunters are selected by lottery. Tissue samples are taken from each dead deer to make sure radiation levels are within acceptable levels.
There's no such lottery for fishermen, although Hinton says he's heard the stories about people climbing the fence and trekking 3 miles to Par Pond to fish on the sly. According to one tale, someone once landed a float plane on the pond to get at the bass.
What is clear is that wildlife is thriving.
``There's a very simple answer,'' says Hinton, 45, who has been at Savannah River for six years. ``The lack of human disturbance. Period. It's ironic that a contaminated environment that has kept things out, is doing so much for the environment.''
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25. Waste Container Found To Be Contaminated
By Sue Major Holmes The Associated Press, June 21, 1999 http://www.abqjournal.com/news/5news06-22.htm
By Sue Major Holmes The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A routine test detected a tiny amount of radioactive contamination on a container hauling waste to a New Mexico disposal site from a closed Colorado weapons plant. Officials said it posed no safety risk.
The contamination on one of three Trupact-2 containers containing plutonium-contaminated weapons waste likely came from a naturally occurring source along the route, the Department of Energy said. The DOE did not report the contamination to New Mexico. State officials said they want to be alerted to such incidents in the future.
A test detected the contamination while the stainless steel Trupact was being checked over shortly after arriving last Wednesday at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
An analysis determined the contamination was polonium-210, which results from the decay of naturally occurring radon common around Denver and other areas, Kent Hunter of WIPP said Monday.
"Basically, it's one small spot on a huge Trupact," he said. "It's kind of an anomaly."
Tests have not pinpointed a source for the contamination and because the amount was so small, the source may never be known, Hunter said.
An analysis of the contamination searched for isotopes of plutonium and uranium such as would be found in waste shipments "and they were absent," Ines Triay, manager of the DOE's Carlsbad area office, said Monday.
Chris Wentz, coordinator of the New Mexico Radioactive Waste Task Force, said he learned of the incident from Don Hancock, head of an Albuquerque environmental group, the Southwest Research and Information Center. Hancock would not reveal how he learned about it.
"My immediate concern was why the DOE didn't notify the state when they discovered it last Wednesday," Wentz said Monday.
Officials from other states along WIPP shipment routes will seek a conference call with DOE officials this week to emphasize how important it is to states to be notified, Wentz said.
Hunter said New Mexico officials had not been told because it was "immediately apparent it was really small contamination (with) no safety or health consequence." The radiation was barely above a detectable level, he said.
Wentz said officials should have been notified, even if the contamination posed no public health concern.
New Mexico and Colorado inspectors who took external radiation dosage readings on the Trupacts en route found nothing, he said.
"They were OK from that perspective," Wentz said. "So to my knowledge, from what DOE has told us, there were no public health threats. But that is what we're going to confirm to make sure that was the case."
Hancock, a longtime WIPP critic, said the state should demand answers to why the contamination wasn't detected en route and why the state wasn't notified once it was found.
"It's totally irresponsible, ranging from having the contamination in the first place to not detecting it in the second place to not informing people, including the state, about the contamination," he said.
The incident "highlights why we think state oversight is important," said Nathan Wade, a spokesman for the Environment Department. The contaminated Trupact was empty. The load of graphite molds from Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant made up 26 55-gallon drums of waste, not quite enough to fill two Trupacts. But since WIPP waste trucks normally carry three Trupacts, the third was left on the truck for convenience, WIPP officials said.
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26. Shipping halted at INEEL DOE audit finds problems with waste documentation
Associated Press - June 23, 1999 http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=062399&ID=s598246&cat=
IDAHO FALLS -- Following a U.S. Department of Energy audit, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has lost its certification to ship waste to a New Mexico dump until it fixes waste-handling and record-keeping problems.
A team of inspectors from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico found 21 deficiencies last month in the way the site documents what is in drums of plutonium-contaminated waste destined for the $2 billion facility near Carlsbad.
Until a state permit is issued, the underground dump is accepting only radioactive waste that is free of other hazardous contaminants like spray cans or toxic liquids.
The inspectors rated the site's program that evaluates what is in INEEL waste as ``marginal.''
The problems identified in the audit ranged from missing pieces of paper in laboratory data and possible contamination of sampling equipment to improper loading of waste into shipping containers.
Auditors mainly found glitches in record-keeping and in demonstrating that proper procedures had been followed, Energy Department spokesman Dennis Hurtt said.
``There were no major findings that would cause us substantive concern,'' he said. ``What marginal says is you've got some things in fairly good shape, but you've got some things you need to take care of.''
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27. Keep N-waste where generated
Deseret News editorial, June 21, 1999 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,100007295,00.html?
A bill that would keep commercial nuclear waste at nuclear reactors in 34 states until the establishment of a permanent storage site makes sense for Utah and any other state facing the threat of becoming a dumping ground.
The measure cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee by a 14-6 vote Wednesday and now goes before the full Senate.
Keeping the waste at the places that generated it not only makes the most sense but is the fair thing to do. Proponents of shipping the waste elsewhere keep reminding everyone how safe nuclear waste is. If indeed that is the case, those facilities that generate the waste would be safe for as long as it takes to construct a permanent site.
Utahns are well aware of the attempt by Private Fuel Storage, a consortium representing Midwestern and Eastern nuclear power plants, to ship nuclear waste from the East to the Goshute Indian Reservation, just 40 miles west of Salt Lake City.
Private Fuel Storage claims that would be only a temporary site until the permanent one is constructed hardly comforting news considering the proposed lease is for 25 years, with a possible extension for another 25.
By some estimates, 77,000 tons of highly active radioactive fuel rods are being stored at various sites nationwide. Why ship them all to temporary storage facilities, such as the one proposed on the Goshute reservation, only to ship them again in a few years? Despite claims that the rods are safely encapsulated, it is much more risky to move them than it is to leave them where they are.
And, if approval is granted to ship the 10.4 million highly radioactive spent fuel rods to Utah, what would be the incentive to rapidly build a permanent site? The proposed permanent site is near Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Guess who doesn't want the permanent site there? Like Utah lawmakers, Nevada lawmakers don't want their state to be somebody else's dumping ground, either.
While it appears Yucca Mountain will be the permanent site despite opposition from Nevada, it's doubtful the government would be ready to store nuclear waste there until after 2010.
Under the best of conditions, storing nuclear waste is risky. Spent fuel rods have a lethal shelf life of 10,000 years. The way to deal with nuclear waste is the way the new bill prescribes keep it where it is generated until the permanent site is ready to accept the shipments.
In the meantime, Utah must not let down its guard. Gov. Mike Leavitt is correct in his campaign to keep the shipments out of Utah. He ought to continue using whatever legal means are necessary at his disposal.
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28. Genius Has Its Own Reward MacArthur Fellowships Honor 32 Who've Done Their Best
By Emily Wax Washington Post, June 23, 1999; Page C01 http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-06/23/161l-062399-idx.html
The phone was ringing in Gay McDougall's D.C. human rights office, and she was almost too jet-lagged to pick it up.
That's because she was fresh off a 30-hour plane ride. Quick trip to Japan and Korea to argue for reparations for women who were raped as teenagers by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Swing by Thailand: human rights conference, pushing for justice, peace and global benevolence.
Still, McDougall, head of the International Human Rights Law Group, answered the call.
"Gay?"
"Yes."
"I'm calling because you won a MacArthur Fellowship."
Exhaustion turned to euphoria, elation, explosive heart-beating, stomach-churning energy. McDougall will receive a $350,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as one of 32 fellows. The money for the so-called "genius awards" comes with no restrictions. For these world-changers who rarely accumulate large chunks of cash, it's like hitting the jackpot in Las Vegas.
Previous winners include Tim Berners-Lee, a developer of the World Wide Web; William McDonald, a fifth-generation cattle rancher; and David Foster Wallace, a pioneering literary journalist.
This year's MacArthur fellows, named yesterday, include a mathematician who studies knots, an expert on Native American languages and a Louisiana environmentalist who helps ordinary folks combat toxic chemicals. And no matter how they scored on their SATs or how many times they've influenced global policy, reactions after "the call" are never less than extraordinary.
Picture a man who spends his days worrying about the stupefying speed with which nuclear weapons can be launched. Imagine him getting, well, almost jiggy.
"I am normally a pretty reserved person," says Bruce Blair, a Brookings Institution foreign-policy analyst, whose voice is shaking as he recalls the phone call that told him he will receive $350,000 (the sum depends on the recipient's age). "I gather I was quite bowled over and excited and happy."
Others think the call is a prank.
"I was a little dubious," says a giggling David Levering Lewis, 63, a Rutgers professor of history and a scholar on race. "I have some pretty smart grad students. They love a hoax."
Not a hoax at all. There have been 563 fellowships awarded, totaling $176 million, since the program began in 1981. The foundation sees the award as a gift, for whatever the fellow thinks will advance his life. Many say the honor of the fellowship outweighs its monetary value. Others admit the money is a welcome prize.
"We're going to pay back taxes," says an elated Elizabeth Diller, who, with her husband and partner, Ricardo Scofidio, is getting a check for $375,000. They are New York architects who create groovy theater and public art that examines the relationship between culture and space. A recent theater project: "Jet Lag," the true story of a flying granny who kidnaps her grandson and zooms between New York and Amsterdam 167 times in six months. For years, Diller and Scofidio lived on pasta and canned sauce.
"I'm going to buy a grandfather clock," Sara Horowitz, 36, executive director of Working Today, says through a fuzzy cell phone. Her group promotes flexible employment in the work-like-a-dog '90s. She's on an elevator in Albany, N.Y., ready to lobby for workers to keep their benefits even if they change jobs.
"Maybe I'll even give myself a pension," the $275,000 grant winner adds, laughing. "Something I've never really had."
As McDougall scrambles to leave for Sierra Leone--where she is helping encourage the peace process after the country's bloody civil war--she reports that she hasn't had time to think about uses for the money.
But with her interests--she was on the front lines of the fight for South Africa's first all-races elections--she's sure it will further global justice.
McDougall, 51, who lives in Mount Pleasant, grew up in Atlanta when that city was at the center of the civil rights movement. With figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael hanging out in her neighborhood, she was quickly inspired to join picket lines and voter registration drives. Later, after she graduated from Yale Law School, her interests moved to the American-based anti-apartheid movement.
Today she trots the globe looking for human rights violations and works to bring peace after war, as she is doing in Sierra Leone, where a cease-fire began last month after eight years of fighting. "It's a war far worse than Kosovo," she says, adding that someone should care.
Caring and a healthy dose of fear that the world would end brought Blair to his cause: trying to persuade the government to take strategic missiles off alert so they can't be launched as quickly. (Both Russia and the United States keep their forces on "hair-trigger" alert and can lob 5,000 thermonuclear bombs in less than half an hour.)
Blair almost missed the call from the MacArthur Foundation because he rarely answers the phone.
"I only answered because I thought it was going to be my wife," says Blair, 51, of Chevy Chase.
The former nuclear missile launch officer will use some of the money to upgrade his home computer. He will also give some of the cash to his parents and other family members....
ALSO:
US Foundation Awards 'Genius Grants' To 32 People June 22, 1999, 5:45 PM, Reuters http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/17/news-grants-genius
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29. Plotting Corporate Futures: Outlining What Could Go Wrong
By BARNABY J. FEDER, June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/biotech-storytelling.html
ST. LOUIS -- Whether he is writing books, lecturing at universities or lobbying regulators and politicians, Jeremy Rifkin never misses a chance to argue that the biotechnology industry is leading the world toward environmental and social disaster. If he thinks it will help slow the industry down, he is quick to file lawsuits and promote boycotts or moratoriums.
But last week, the activist who was once described by critics as the "abominable no-man" took on another role. Intrigued by an invitation to an industry meeting at one of biotechnology's inner sanctums, he happily trekked to the headquarters of Monsanto Co. here to offer up his vision of the future. "I've never been to a meeting like this in the 23 years I've been talking about these issues," he said.
It was not Monsanto's idea to seek his input, as the company was quick to tell anyone who asked. The 54-year-old Rifkin was called in by Ulrich Goluke, a consultant hired by Monsanto and 13 members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, to help them paint a portrait of the biotechnology landscape of the year 2030 and how it evolved.
The exercise, known as story building or more formally as scenario creation, is a specialized form of crystal-ball gazing that big corporations in the United States and abroad are increasingly turning to as an early warning system for how their strategies could go astray.... Rifkin said he found the process fascinating but was unsure what to make of it.
"I have to say I was really impressed by the ability of the people here to put aside their assumptions," he said. But he did not expect it to signal the end of his battles with the industry or bury their mutual scorn.
As he headed off to Washington, where he is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, Rifkin predicted that the "thanks but no thanks" story of biotechnology's decline was closest to the mark and that most of the biotechnology giants in the group that met here would fail to adapt in time to avoid being pushed aside by nimble upstarts.
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- Fifth message - _________________________
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Message: 5 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:49:40 -0400
Subject: NucNews-3 6/24/99 - Russia (4); Pakistan; Iran; Iraq (2); Lebanon (2); Japan Arms Sales; Turkey
14. X-USSR antinuclear campaign Newsletter *
June 1999 * N 19-20 http://www.econet.apc.org/igc/en/hl/99062118650/hl11.html
Most important news from field of nuclear power and protests, former USSR
CONTENTS
DUMA DRAFTS NUCLEAR IMPORTS LAW Mutants march in support for nuclear imports in Moscow
SHUT-DOWN LOOMS FOR TOMSK REACTORS Tomsk reactor suffers incident. Russian Nuclear Regulatory insists on shut down
THE ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY OF THE RUSSIAN MOX PROGRAM US-RUSSIAN GROUP OF EXPERTS QUESTION THE BULGARIAN NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY Kozloduy' reactors 1-4 must be shut down, Bulgaria must stop its nuclear waste transportation to Russia, experts say...
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15. Russia In Biggest Military Exercise Since Cold War
Updated 7:02 AM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/07/international-russia-mili tary
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top military official said Tuesday that Russia had launched the biggest domestic military exercises of their kind since 1985 but these were not a show of force connected with the Yugoslavia crisis.
Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, said the exercises were significant in involving top military officials across the entire territory of European Russia.
"All forces of five military districts from the Black Sea to the Arctic White Sea are involved now in unprecedented military exercises code named Zapad (West) 1999," he told a news conference. "They are so-called top staff level exercises involving 50,000 troops on the ground."
"The exercises started on June 21," he added.
Russia was a strong critic of the spring NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a military campaign which plunged U.S.-Russian relations to their lowest level since the Cold War.
NATO halted the air war after Yugoslavia agreed to withdraw troops and police from Kosovo. NATO-led peace troops have since entered Kosovo, allowing ethnic Albanian refugees to return.
Baluyevsky called the Russian military exercises the largest of their kind since the Zapad 1985 drills, but said the action was not a direct reaction to events in Yugoslavia.
"The exercise were planned in December 1998," he said. But "events in Yugoslavia were certainly taken into account in planning the exercise."
The official said special attention was focused on anti-aircraft defense.
Weaknesses in Yugoslavia's air defense network allowed NATO aircraft to fly and bomb virtually at will, and there was only one confirmed case of Belgrade shooting down a NATO jet.
Baluyevsky said military officials from neighboring Belarus, which is seeking to expand ties in a Moscow-Minsk union, were also taking part in the military exercises.
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Russia to increase airborne force
Updated 7:47 AM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990622/07/international-russia-troops
MOSCOW, June 22 (UPI) Russia will increase the number of its elite paratrooper forces by 5,600 because of the country's increased commitment to international peacekeeping operations, the airborne force's chief of staff says.
Lt. Gen. Nikolai Staskov says the decision to send 3,600 Russian paratroopers to take part in the KFOR peacekeeping operations in Kosovo played a role in the decision to increase the total size of the forces to 37,600, following a sharp reduction of airborne forces last year.
The cash-strapped Russian military was forced to cut 14,000 troops from the airborne forces in 1998, decreasing the service's size from 46, 000 to 32,000.
Russian peacekeepers are involved in operations in Bosnia- Herzegovina, the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and some forces are also stationed in Tajikistan.
The Russian armed forces are undergoing a painfull process of reform in an effort to form leaner, more professional units of elite troops to replace similar units that are overmanned, underfunded, and consist primarily of poorly trained conscripts.
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16. Russia writes off poorest nations debt
Updated 3:48 PM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990622/15/international-debt
MOSCOW, June 22 (UPI) Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Kasyanov says Russia will write off $1.5 billion in debt owed to it by the world's poorest countries, mainly those in Africa, as part of an agreement on international debt relief reached during the G8 summit in Cologne, Germany.
Cash-strapped Russia is itself seeking to reduce its enormous debt burden, but Kasyanov says that, as a member of the G8, Russia will forgive unpaid debts still on the books.
The debts, which have been accumulated over decades, are mainly a result of Soviet arms sales and aid to developing countries, including former Soviet republics.
Russia still hopes to receive payment from big debtors like Iraq, which owes Moscow billions of dollars for past arms purchases.
Russia has been pushing for a lifting of sanctions imposed by the U. N. Security Council against Baghdad, and Iraq has said it is ready to repay the debts in barter by providing oil, as well as opportunities for Russian oil companies to develop new oil fields.
Russia is also keep to resume close ties with Libya, formerly an important trade partner of Moscow.
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17. Pakistan Calls For Peace With India As Guns Boom
Updated 6:29 AM ET June 24, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990624/06/international-kashmir-pak istan
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Thursday called for a "reconciliation" with arch-rival India as he visited troops on the tense border in the disputed Kashmir region amid artillery duels.
"I invite the government of India to adopt the way of reconciliation," the official APP news agency quoted him as saying while addressing troops at Gultari in northern Kashmir. The sound of artillery fire in the rugged terrain could be heard as he spoke, APP said.
Sharif's call was the third time in a week that Pakistan has suggested talks between the nuclear rivals to avoid their most serious standoff in about 30 years from escalating into full-scale war.
"Time and again we tried to tell India that we want peace," APP quoted the prime minister as saying, adding that for this reason he had extended an invitation to India for talks.
"If there is war, or if the present confrontation continues on the borders, it will bring so much devastation, the damage of which will never be repaired," he said.
India has said there can be no peace talks until infiltrators into Indian-controlled Kashmir retreat behind the cease-fire line separating the two nations.
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18. Iran denies U.S. weapons charge
Updated 9:24 AM ET June 23, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990623/09/international-us
TEHRAN, Iran, June 23 (UPI) Iran has denied renewed U.S. accusations that the Persian state is attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said today that at a time the U.S. Administration is accusing Iran of trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, it is helping develop the Israeli arsenal of conventional and nuclear weapons.
Asefi was commenting on statements made Tuesday in Abu Dhabi by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Martin Indyk, who said Washington was greatly worried about Iran's arms program and its possession of weapons of mass destruction and long-range ballistic missiles.
He said Indyk's accusations were a "sabotage attempt meant to confuse the world public opinion and distract the attention from the Israeli armament and increased arm sales to the countries in the (Gulf) region." Asefi regretted what he described as "attempts by some U.S. circles which did not like Iran's regional rapprochement to force a wedge between Iran and its neighbors as well as to prevent any useful regional arrangements."
He was referring to recently improved ties between Iran and some Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia.
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19. Rival Iraq Plans Introduced to U.N
By Edith M. Lederer Associated Press Writer Tuesday, June 22, 1999; 8:48 p.m. EDT http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990622/V000340-062299-idx.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Still at odds over a new policy toward Iraq, Security Council members introduced three rival proposals Tuesday on ways to restart relations with Baghdad after more than six months with no weapons inspections.
The council is expected to begin discussing the proposals Monday, the first substantive consultation since the United States and Britain launched airstrikes in mid-December over Baghdad's refusal to cooperate with inspectors.
There was guarded optimism that the council could eventually suspend all or part of the 9-year-old U.N. sanctions on Iraq in return for cooperation on arms inspection.
That concept is common to all three proposals -- a draft resolution by the British and Dutch, a rival resolution proposed by the Russians and Chinese, and a working paper submitted by the French.
``The important breakthrough I think is in the fact that the idea of suspension ... which was not acceptable to many, is now accepted,'' said Slovenia's U.N. Ambassador Danilo Turk, a non-permanent council member.
The most important difference between the British-Dutch draft and the rival proposals is the condition for suspending sanctions.
The British and Dutch would suspend the oil embargo only if Baghdad answers all key remaining questions about its weapons programs -- a proposal already rejected by Iraq.
The Russians, Chinese and French would suspend all sanctions if Iraq cooperates with a new commission that would monitor its banned weapons programs.
Russia, China and France, all veto-wielding permanent members, are Iraq's closest allies on the Security Council.
The United States is the only permanent member of the Security Council backing the British-Dutch draft, but it has wide support among non-permanent members.
Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors report that Iraq has dismantled its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs and long-range missile capability.
Iraq has demanded the end of sanctions before arms inspectors are allowed to return.
``It's a wicked program to prolong sanctions on Iraq forever,'' said Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Saeed Hasan. ``This is unacceptable for Iraq after nine years of cooperation.''
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U.S. warplanes bomb Iraqi defense facility
USA Today (World), June 23, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
ANKARA, Turkey - U.S. fighter planes bombed a military command center in northern Iraq on Tuesday after being fired on by Iraqi forces in the northern no-fly zone, the U.S. military said. The Air Force F-16s and F-15s attacked a military command and control center northwest of Mosul, a city 250 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. European Command said. The attack came after the warplanes, which are enforcing the no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel, were fired on by anti-aircraft artillery, the European Command said. All U.S. planes returned safely to Incirlik air base in southern Turkey. Damage to the Iraqi sites is being assessed. U.S. and British warplanes have been enforcing the no-fly zone in northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War to protect Iraqi Kurds against the forces of Baghdad. Another no-fly zone was set up in southern Iraq to protect Shiite minorities. Baghdad does not recognize the zones and has challenged allied planes there since December.
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20. Ireland may pull Lebanon peacekeepers
Updated 2:57 PM ET June 22, 1999 By JOSHUA BRILLIANT http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990622/14/international-ireland
TEL AVIV, Israel, June 22 (UPI) Ireland's Defense Minister Michael Smith has warned his Lebanese and Israeli counterparts that Dublin may pull its U.N. peacekeeping force from southern Lebanon unless its security is ensured.
Smith met Lebanon's Defense Minister Zhaiter Ghazi on Monday. Today he flew to Israel to meet his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Arens.
Ireland's ambassador to Israel, Brendan Scannell, told United Press International his government was very concerned about the increasing attacks on Irish soldiers and U.N. positions in southern Lebanon.
The latest incident occurred on June 3, when a South Lebanon Army shell hit an Irish compound. No one was hurt. In an earlier incident, on May 31, an Irish soldier was killed and another was critically injured.
The increase in violence is "dramatic," Scannell said. "That situation cannot continue. We put our positions (to the two governments) in the strongest terms."
The Irish Times, in a report from south Lebanon today, quoted Smith as saying: "We're here to finish the job we came here to do 21 years ago, but not under conditions that would jeopardize our soldiers."
U.N. Lebanon mission spokesman Timor Goksel told UPI the Irish battalion suffered 41 fatalities during the last two decades, about half in clashes.
Scannell said Irish participation in the U.N. peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, will be reviewed in two months. "No decision will be taken lightly," he said.
Smith got a hands-on feeling of the situation Monday, when he visited the Irish battalion in southern Lebanon. The visit was delayed, then shortened because of heavy fighting in the area.
Today he went to the Rambam hospital in Haifa, where he met Pvt. Ronnie Rushe, the soldier critically injured on May 31. Rushe, who had been in a coma, managed to exchange a few words with his visitor. Smith called on Israel to pressure the South Lebanese Army to control its men. Ireland says the South Lebanese Army should listen to Israel since Jerusalem trains, equips and pays the forces. Smith also called on the Lebanese to do the same with the guerrilla groups.
Ghazi reportedly raised the matter with fellow ministers and "contacts," an apparent reference to Hezbollah. Arens' spokesman, Avi Kalshtein, declined comment.
An Israeli defense source told UPI the problem is on the other side.
"The main problem is that Hezbollah men move and operate near UNIFIL positions, shoot from nearby sites, and in doing so endanger the UNIFIL soldiers' lives." UNIFIL's Goksel said, "No one fired from anywhere near the Irish position" in the May 31 case. "That doesn't always wash," he said.
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Israel Attacks Areas in Southern Lebanon
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 24, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/lebanon-israel-ap.html
TYRE, Lebanon -- Israel's air force and allied militia gunners opened fire on suspected guerrilla infiltration trails in southern Lebanon Wednesday, hours after two civilians were wounded in a shelling attack.
An Israeli jet fired two air-to-surface missiles on a valley near Yater, a village just southeast of the port of Tyre, Lebanese officials said.
The valley is believed to be used by Lebanese guerrillas to infiltrate the Israeli-occupied border zone and launch attacks on Israeli troops and the allied South Lebanon Army.
There was no immediate word on casualties, the latest in a series of Israeli air strikes aimed at suspected guerrilla bases.
In Jerusalem, an Israeli Army spokesman confirmed the air attack.
He also said guerrillas fired mortar shells toward an Israeli outpost on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Israeli forces returned fire, he said.
Earlier Wednesday, shrapnel wounded a boy, 10, and his 70-year-old grandfather in Qabrikha, Lebanese officials said.
Qabrikha is a half-mile beyond the zone that Israelis set up in southern Lebanon in 1985 as a buffer against guerrilla attacks.
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21. In Arms Sales, Japan Coddles Its Own
By SHERYL WuDUNN, June 24, 1999 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/062499japan-arms-makers.html
TOKYO -- Salesmen on the fourth floor of the Marubeni Corp. building were hunched over their desks late one night earlier this year, blearily working on a deal to sell foreign aircraft to Japan. Suddenly, there was a bang, and the only trace was a perfect bullet-like hole in a window.
What exactly happened may never be known because police have declined to investigate. But many people involved in the episode believe that they were fired at.
Drive-by shootings are unheard of in Japan, and so some think the point was to send a crude message: don't peddle foreign airplanes to Japan.
The episode underscores how protectionism and crony capitalism still prevail even in Japanese markets -- like the $16 billion defense industry -- that in theory have been partly opened to foreign competition.
In that sense, whatever it was that pierced the window that night -- some suggest soothingly that it may have been nothing more than a pebble -- was probably unnecessary. Analysts say that throughout Japan's military contracting industry, whatever the theatrics of opening up the markets, the odds are heavily stacked in favor of local companies
"This is a very symbolic, representative case," said Kazuhisa Ogawa, a leading military analyst in Tokyo. "The Japanese defense industry operates in an unfair environment, and the unfairness operates in this case."
Every country has its own version of a $1,000 jet-fighter coffee maker or a $900 toilet seat. But in these hard economic times, a couple of contracts can mean the life or death of the weapons division of a Japanese company, so the stakes now are higher.
Moreover, prices run especially high in Japan, and the government is often saddled with costs for unusual practices. Partly to keep jobs in the aircraft maintenance industry, for instance, the government pays for workers to repeatedly disassemble entire engines and clean the parts every few years during the life of the aircraft.
This can raise the cost of a weapons purchase by 40 percent, at a time when the government's debt burden has skyrocketed and its money matters are a mess.
Marubeni is representing a Swiss company, Pilatus Aircraft Ltd., which exports around the world, in a bid to make 50 fighter-trainer aircraft for the Japanese Air Force.
Last year, the government opened the tender process for the trainers to foreigners but in the end, it gave the $315 million contract to Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd., a longtime aircraft manufacturer that made kamikaze planes during World War II under the name of Nakajima Aircraft. Then in December, Fuji was banned from doing business with the government for one year after Fuji got caught bribing an influential Parliament member in exchange for securing a separate contract to make sea rescue aircraft for Japan's military.
Yojiro Nakajima, the Parliament member, happens to be a former Defense Agency official, and he belongs to the family that founded the Nakajima Aircraft company. He was arrested last year.
That scandal, along with other incidents last year of overcharging on defense contracts, provoked an effort to reform the contracting process at the Defense Agency, but some politicians are still dissatisfied and want to make the defense business more open and competitive.
"The Defense Agency is a department of the nation, and if this public tender is not honest, then the country is lying to the world," said Yukihisa Fujita, a politician in the Democratic Party of Japan, who has raised the issue recently in Parliament. "This can be a very dangerous thing for the state of Japan -- for its credibility and integrity."
Now, Japan's Defense Agency has nullified the previous award and is starting the bidding again. The process seems likely to drag on until the end of the year, when Fuji's suspension ends. Thus politicians and military experts say that the award will probably go to Fuji.
Japanese defense manufacturers are forbidden by law to export weapons abroad, so in return, they have been given special consideration in the domestic weapons business, and the government has happily obliged.
When it wanted new submarines, the government split the order, which began last year, between two Japanese contractors who each make one submarine a year. At the end of 17 years, as has been done for decades, a new cycle of contracts will begin.
The rationale is the same as the reason the government is expected to choose Fuji: Tokyo wants to preserve some of its military industry in case its allies abandon it and it must rely on itself.
"From the taxpayer's point of view, the lowest cost is the best choice," said Kensuke Ebata, a prominent military analyst for Jane's Defense Weekly. "The question is are we willing to pay a high price because we want to keep our own defense development capability?"
Fuji, which referred questions to the Defense Agency, notes that in the case of the fighter-trainers, it offered a lower price than Pilatus. But even this has stirred controversy, for a few years earlier Fuji had made a precursor aircraft and sold it to the naval forces for double the price.
Thus, some politicians are accusing Fuji of either overcharging in the previous case (where there was no rival bidder) or undercharging now. In military contracts, companies are not allowed to charge less than their cost.
The Defense Agency is widely viewed as being a watchdog with neither bark nor bite. One reason is that agency bureaucrats typically retire in their mid-50's and then go to work for military contractors, in a practice called amakudari.
In a hierarchical society, it is awkward for defense agency officials to ask tough questions of their former seniors who are now in the private sector. And those still in the agency are also cautious because they do not wish to offend their likely future employers.
"Amakudari is for high-ranking officials but lower ranking Self Defense Force members need to secure new jobs, too," said Kohki Ishii, a Parliament member for the Democratic Party. "They're finding jobs by using taxpayers' money."
Defense Agency officials deny this and insist that they are embarking on reform. Hideo Matsui, a director in the procurement office of the Defense Agency, said that the agency hopes to "shift to a competitive environment."
"It just so happens," he said, "that Japanese companies have been the best at coming up with what we need."
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22. Embassy Row
Moving an air base
Japanese Ambassador Kunihiko Saito is hoping for "substantial progress" in talks to relocate part of a U.S. air base before next year's Group of Eight summit in Okinawa. Mr. Saito told reporters this week that closing the U.S. Futemma Air Station and relocating its heliport are among Japan's top priorities. The air station is in a residential area of Okinawa. Mr. Saito noted that President Clinton reaffirmed his commitment to close Futemma when he met Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi at the G-8 summit in Germany.
No respect for Turkey
By James Morrison THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/embassy.html
Turkish Ambassador Baki Ilkin yesterday complained that his country continues to get too little respect from Europe, even after fighting with NATO in Kosovo and caring for 27,000 Kosovar refugees.
"Turkey's record in support of the NATO operation is impeccable," he told reporters. "Turkey has accepted more refugees than any other country in Europe."
Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, "has proved itself to be a dependable ally to NATO and the United States," the ambassador said.
He expressed disappointment that the European Union refused to invite Turkey to join the 15-nation trading bloc at a summit meeting earlier this month in Cologne, Germany. Mr. Ilkin said Greece and another country that he declined to name blocked a proposal by Germany to declare Turkey a "full candidate" for membership.
"We thought we shared a common destiny in the Cold War," he said. He said Turkey is frustrated by "double standards and different yardsticks."
"We will continue with our Western orientation," he said. "If the EU becomes hostage to one or two members, they will have to decide what to do."
Mr. Ilkin, sitting in a conference room in the new Turkish Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue NW, also discussed the makeup of the new government and developments in the case of Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, on trial for his life.
The new government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, formed May 28, has already launched a program of sweeping reforms, Mr. Ilkin said.
Mr. Ecevit plans to deregulate banks, reform social security, provide better protection for foreign investment, reform the judiciary and improve Turkey's human rights record.
The judicial reforms included the removal of a military judge who sat on the tribunal in the Ocalan case. The three judges are now all civilians.
Some EU countries without the death penalty have criticized Turkey for planning to execute Mr. Ocalan if he is found guilty. Mr. Ecevit said Mr. Ocalan will have an automatic right of appeal.
He said Mr. Ocalan and his Kurdistan Peoples' Party are responsible for the deaths of 30,000 people.
Mr. Ilkin insisted that the human rights reforms are not aimed at placating critics in Europe, who have cited Turkey's spotty record as a reason to keep it out of the European Union.
He said, "We have a real reform package, not to please our friends in Europe . . . but to set a higher standard for ourselves."
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Message: 6 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:54:00 -0400
Subject: NucNews-7 6/24/99 - Kosovo
33. Executive Order [Sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro]
Released by the White House Office of the Press Secretary, Washington, DC, May 1, 1999 http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/eo_990430_ksvo_sanct.html
EXECUTIVE ORDER
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BLOCKING PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA (SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO), THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA, AND THE REPUBLIC OF MONTENEGRO, AND PROHIBITING TRADE TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA (SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO) IN RESPONSE TO THE SITUATION IN KOSOVO
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of America, in order to take additional steps with respect to the continuing human rights and humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and the national emergency described and declared in Executive Order 13088 of June 9, 1998, hereby order:
Section 1. Amendment to Executive Order 13088. (a) Section 1(a) of Executive Order 13088 of June 9, 1998, is revised to read as follows:
"Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)), and in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may hereafter be issued pursuant to this order, all property and interests in property of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Republic of Serbia, and the Republic of Montenegro that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, including their overseas branches, are hereby blocked."
(b) Section 2 of Executive Order 13088 is hereby revoked, and a new section 2 is added to read as follows:
"Sec. 2. Except to the extent provided in section 203(b) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)) and in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may hereafter be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date of this order, the following are prohibited:
"(a) the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Government of the Republic of Serbia, or the Government of the Republic of Montenegro, of any goods (including petroleum and petroleum products), software, technology (including technical data), or services;
"(b) the importation into the United States, directly or indirectly, of any goods, software, technology (including technical data), or services from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or owned or controlled by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Government of the Republic of Serbia, or the Government of the Republic of Montenegro; and
"(c) any transaction or dealing by a United States person, wherever located, in goods, software, technology (including technical data), or services, regardless of country of origin, for exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply to, or exportation from or by, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Government of the Republic of Serbia, or the Government of the Republic of Montenegro. This prohibition includes, without limitation, purchase, sale, transport, swap, or brokerage transactions in such items, and approving, financing, insuring, facilitating, or guaranteeing any such transactions."
(c) Section 4 of Executive Order 13088 is revised to read as follows:
"Sec. 4. Any transaction by a United States person that evades or avoids, or has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate, any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited. Any conspiracy formed to violate the prohibitions of this order is prohibited."
(d) Section 7 of Executive Order 13088 is revised to read as follows:
"Sec. 7. (a) The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall give special consideration to the circumstances of the Government of the Republic of Montenegro and persons located in and organized under the laws of the Republic of Montenegro in the implementation of this order.
"(b) The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall give special consideration to the humanitarian needs of refugees from Kosovo and other civilians within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in the implementation of this order.
"(c) The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby directed to authorize commercial sales of agricultural commodities and products, medicine, and medical equipment for civilian end use in the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) under appropriate safeguards to prevent diversion to military, paramilitary, or political use by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Government of the Republic of Serbia, or the Government of the Republic of Montenegro."
Sec. 2. Preservation of Authorities. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under the authority of IEEPA, except as hereafter terminated, modified, orsuspended by the issuing Federal agency.
Sec. 3.No rights or privileges conferred. Nothing contained in this order shall confer any substantive or procedural right or privilege on any person or organization, enforceable against the United States, its agencies or its officers.
Sec. 4. (a) Effective date. This order is effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on May 1, 1999.
(b) Transmittal; Publication. This order shall be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE, April 30, 1999.
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34. STRATEGY New Army Chief Seeks More Agility and Power
By ERIC SCHMITT, June 24, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/kosovo-army.html
WASHINGTON -- The new Army Chief of Staff vowed Wednesday to redouble the Army's efforts to become a more agile yet powerful force, acknowledging that the service was ill prepared to move 24 Apache helicopter gunships and artillery into Albania in the early stages of the Balkans air conflict.
On his second day as the 34th Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said the Army was organized and equipped to have an armored brigade of soldiers and tanks battle-ready in 96 hours in a potential hot spot like Kuwait.
But a place like Tirana, Albania, with poor rail connections, a shallow port and a limited airfield, proved a logistical nightmare for commanders, who jockeyed to bring in military equipment alongside relief supplies bound for refugees who were pouring out of nearby Kosovo. Even after their long-delayed and costly arrival, the Apaches never flew a combat mission in the 78-day campaign....
Related Articles
Even in Towns Hit by NATO, Albanians See Serbs at Fault http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/062499kosovo-border.html
Issue in Depth: Kosovo in Transition http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/kosovo-index.html
NATO cluster bomb cause of four deaths USA Today, June 23, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso967.htm
Kosovo rebels say they'll keep weapons USA Today, June 23, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso975.htm
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Clinton Warns Kosovo Refugees On Mine Danger
Updated 10:33 AM ET June 22, 1999, By Steve Holland http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/10/news-clinton-macedonia
SKOPJE (Reuters) - President Clinton visited Macedonia Tuesday to implore Kosovo's ethnic Albanians not to take revenge on Serbs as they return to the shattered province to rebuild their lives.
Clinton, accompanied by his wife Hillary, flew to Skopje on a C-17 U.S. Air Force transport escorted by three Apache helicopters bearing the markings of KFOR, the new NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo.
The couple went to the Stankovic I camp, a vast tent city near Skopje that at its peak held about 30,000 people who had fled Kosovo.
Clinton appealed to refugees not to rush back to Kosovo before the danger of land mines had been cleared. "You have suffered enough. I do not want any child killed by a mine when you get back there," he told a wildly-cheering crowd.
The camp is now emptying out, with refugees pulling down tents and leaving piles of blankets behind as they rush back to Kosovo following the withdrawal of Serbian security forces from the Yugoslav province.
About 10,000 people who are still there gave a rapturous welcome to Clinton, with the chant of "NATO, NATO, KLA, KLA," echoing around the camp.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is the separatist ethnic Albanian guerrilla group that fought Serbian forces in the province before NATO arrived.
Clinton planned to spend about two hours at Stankovic, touring around the refugee camp on foot, visiting refugee families in their tents and then making a speech.
Earlier Clinton met the presidents of Macedonia and Albania Tuesday afternoon to thank them for bearing the brunt of the exodus of 800,000 Kosovo ethnic Albanians over the past four months.
"I came here as much as anything else to say thank you...for helping a just cause," Clinton told Macedonia's President Kiro Gligorov in a speech at the Skopje parliament building.
"Without you, the people of Kosovo would not be going home to a peace and autonomy," he added.
Clinton said that NATO and the U.S. recognized their debt to Macedonia and pledged aid in overcoming the severe economic damage caused by the Balkans' conflict.
Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic which broke away peacefully in 1991, says it has lost some $1.5 billion mainly through lost commerce with Yugoslavia and disruption to its trade routes.
"NATO and the U.S. has a responsibility to help Macedonia to overcome the economic hardship that the recent (Kosovo) crisis has imposed," said Clinton.
Both Macedonia and Albania form part of a group of Balkan countries that the West intends to help under a so-called Stability Pact designed to shore up their economies and democratic systems.
A donor conference is due to be held in Sarajevo in July.
A senior U.S. official said that in a joint meeting with the two presidents, Clinton received an assurance that "they would not be competing for resources."
The official said the two leaders also told Clinton they also realized that their fate in the Balkans was "intertwined."
About 50,000 Serbs have themselves fled the province fearing reprisals from returning ethnic Albanian inhabitants or the Kosovo Liberation Army, whose guerrillas are supposed to disarm by agreement with KFOR but still roam largely at will.
"The message will be more one of tolerance: as you go home, try not to let your hatreds overwhelm you," said one U.S. official. "We've all got to live together, and that includes the Serbs," said another official, paraphrasing the speech.
While the refugees' return was a key aim of NATO's 11-week bombardment of Yugoslavia, Western military officials and aid workers have warned them against going home before mines and booby traps are cleared and food and shelter supplies ensured.
The warnings have largely fallen on deaf ears and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Monday announced that it would begin organized repatriations, seeking to instill some order in the process.
While in Macedonia, Clinton will also meet troops in KFOR before flying to Aviano Air Base in Italy, where he will speak to some of the NATO pilots who bombed Yugoslavia.
He returns to Washington early Wednesday.
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Message: 7 Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:46:23 -0400 Subject: NucNews-2 6/24/99 - China (5); Korea; Germany; Australia
8. 'China conducted nuclear test'
June 19, 1999 The Hindu http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/06/19/stories/01190007.htm
WASHINGTON, JUNE 18. China set off a small nuclear-related blast over the weekend just before the U.S. special envoy, Mr. Thomas Pickering's visit to Beijing, a media report said today.
The explosion took place in China's test site at the Lop Nor facility in Xinjiang and was detected on June 12 or 13 and reported through intelligence channels, the Washington Times said, quoting Pentagon intelligence sources.
Intelligence analysts were unable to confirm whether it produced a nuclear yield, the paper said. The Cox Committee has reported that China had stolen the designs of American nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.
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9. China Says U.S. Wants To Become 'Lord Of Earth'
Updated 7:31 AM ET June 22, 1999 http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990622/07/international-china-usa
BEIJING (Reuters) - China compared the United States to Nazi Germany Tuesday and said NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia reflected Washington's ambition to become "Lord of the Earth."
"If you ask which country wants to become 'the Lord of the Earth' as the then Nazi Germany had tried to, there is only one answer," said a commentary in the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party.
"It is the hegemonism-pursuing United States."
In likening the United States to Nazi Germany, the newspaper cited its massive defense budget, the bombing of Yugoslavia without U.N. sanction and the killing of civilians during the air campaign in Yugoslavia.
NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia "has let more and more people see more clearly the ferocious appearance of the U.S. hegemonism and its ambition to dominate the world," it said.
China's embassy was bombed by NATO planes during the U.S.-led alliance's air campaign against Yugoslav forces. The United States called the deadly bombing a mistake and apologized to China, but an enraged Beijing has rejected this explanation.
B