-------------------------------------------------
NucNews-1 8/07/99 - Events / Activists
NucNews-2 8/07/99 - Depleted Uranium-Kosovo (NYT) / Puerto Rico; Arms Sales / US
NucNews-3 8/07/99 - Russia - Y2K, US-v-Fishing-Boat, Military, JFK, US-Mideast, Caucasus, Kosovo
NucNews-4 8/07/99 - Mideast - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,; Sudan, Iraq; Israel/CIA; France/Kosovo
NucNews-5 8/07/99 - South Africa; Canada; Brussels Uranium Smuggling; India; Korea / Japan; Asia/US Silk Road Act
NucNews-6 8/07/99 - US - Trojan (OR), Hanford (WA)
NucNews-7 8/07/99 - Yucca Mountain
NucNews-8 8/07/99 - U.S. DOE Labs/Security
NucNews-9 8/07/99 - Military
-- (1) Events / Activists
TV HIGHLIGHTS--Saturday, August 7, 6:30 pm EDT, PBS (Channel 26-DC)
By Josh Adams, Saturday, August 7, 1999; Page C07
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/07/074l-080799-idx.html
Think Tank With Ben Wattenberg examines the link between nuclear power and political power and the future of the nuclear industry in America (Channel 26, 6:30 p.m.)....
PLOWSHARES PRIEST TO ATTEND PLAY ABOUT HIS ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTEST
AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE 4806 York Road,
Baltimore, MD 21212 Middle Atlantic Region, Since 1917
... Father Kabat, an Oblate priest and missionary, received a five-year prison sentence in 1994. The renowned activist is now out of prison and will attend the play about his most recent Plowshares disarmament action.
WHEN: Saturday, August 7, 1999 7 PMdoors open 8 PM the Plowshares play; discussion to follow
WHERE: 5116 N. Charles St., Stony Run Meeting, Baltimore
Contact: Max Obuszewski [410] 323-7200 or [410] 377-7987
*Fax: 410-323-7292 *E.mail: mobuszewski@afsc.org
[Please note that once again the Washington Post failed to mention that the Stonewalkers joined the 18th annual Hiroshima commemoration at the Lincoln Memorial, where nuclear bomb survivors from Japan spoke about their experience. I observed a TV camera on Carol Moore as she talked about Y2K dangers and WASH. Nothing. Jaded, or something more sinister? Sure seems like censorship of news to me.]
Memorial Stone Rolls Into D.C.
Tribute to War's Civilian Losses Heads Toward Cemetery
By Linda Wheeler Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; Page B04
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/06/125l-080699-idx.html
Hiroshima Recalls Atomic Bombing
Thursday, August 5, 1999; 10:50 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000958-080599-idx.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Japan-Hiroshima-Anniversary.html
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- Amid silent prayer and the ringing of bells, the citizens of Hiroshima commemorated Friday the world's first atomic attack 54 years ago, vowing to push for nuclear disarmament and international peace.
--
Japan Marks Atomic Attacks, Fears Conflict
August7,1999 Washington Post World Briefs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/07/109l-080799-idx.html
HIROSHIMA, Japan -- In a nation increasingly worried about regional tensions, residents of Hiroshima recalled the moment 54 years ago when an atomic bomb leveled the city and killed 140,000 people....
--
Atomic Museum Defends Bomb Earrings
By Chris Roberts Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 5, 1999; 10:06 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000928-080599-idx.html
http://usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Tiny silver replicas of the first atomic bombs that are being sold as earrings at the National Atomic Museum are stirring emotions in Japan....
--
Japanese mark Hiroshima anniversary
August 6, 1999 Web posted at: 12:29 a.m. EDT (0429 GMT)
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9908/06/hiroshima.anniversary/
HIROSHIMA, Japan (CNN) -- The city of Hiroshima marked the 54th anniversary of the world's first nuclear attack Friday with silent prayer, the ringing of bells, and a pledge to work toward nuclear disarmament and international peace.
--
RELATED STORIES:
--
Nagasaki remembers 53rd anniversary of atomic bombing
August 8, 1998 CNN
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/09/nagasaki.01.ap/index.html
--
Japan criticizes India, Pakistan during Hiroshima anniversary
August 6, 1998 CNN
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/06/hiroshima.01.ap/index.html
--
Hiroshima survivors warn against using nuclear weapons
June 15, 1998 CNN
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9806/15/japan.nuke.memory/
--
CNN In-Depth Special:Ground Zero: The nuclear question
http://cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/06/ground.zero/index.html
--
RELATED SITES:
--
Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park
http://www.jlhs.nhusd.k12.ca.us/Classes/Social_Science/Japan_Visit/Peace_Park.html
--
Hiroshima Peace Park
http://www.broadnet.or.jp/nvc/hiroshima/Site/PeacePark/PeacePark.html
-- (2) Depleted Uranium; Arms Sales
[Depleted Uranium in NY Times!]
Mines and Unexploded Bombs Wreak Death and Mayhem in Kosovo
By CARLOTTA GALL, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/080699kosovo-mines.html
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- The danger from mines and unexploded bombs in Kosovo is far greater than previously thought, and casualties have soared to alarming levels.... By far the most dangerous are the volatile British- and U.S.-made cluster bombs, which have been found in almost every part of the province and have already caused some terrible accidents. Depleted uranium ammunition was also used in Kosovo.... Probably 400,000 of the mines are in uninhabited areas near the southern borders, he said, but thousands are also strewn across Kosovo.... But far more alarming for the engineers is the high number of cluster bombs they have found.... NATO has told those clearing the ordnance that it dropped 1,500 cluster bombs on Kosovo during its two-month air war. Each releases 150 to 200 bomblets, small canisters that float down to the ground on individual parachutes or with metal shuttlecocks. Each canister is potentially lethal when jolted or moved.... While many Kosovars are aware of the dangers of mines, few know about cluster bombs or depleted uranium. Some information they are being given is inaccurate.....
--
Related Articles Montenegro Moves to Alter Tie to Serbia
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/wires-yugo-montenegro.html
--
Issue in Depth: Kosovo in Transition
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/kosovo-index.html
[Apache Helicopters (d.u.-loaded?) hovering still in kosovo.]
Russian peacekeepers protested
USA today August 6, 1999
http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso1079.htm
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - About 1,000 ethnic Albanians marched toward a Russian base in Kosovo on Thursday to show their opposition to the troops - even as Moscow prepared to send more peacekeepers to the tense Serbian province. Two U.S. Apache helicopters whirred overhead and American troops stood by as the demonstrators marched in early morning darkness. The protest in the southeastern town of Kosovska Kamenica ended without incident, NATO officials said from the capital, Pristina....
Puerto Rico AG Threatens to Sue Navy
By Paul Tolme Associated Press Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; 4:36 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000598-080699-idx.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Puerto Rico's attorney general threatened on Friday to sue the Navy if it continues to use the island of Vieques for bombing practice and war games. He said the Navy is endangering the people and the environment of the tiny outlying island....
Study: U.S. still biggest arms provider
8/06/99- Updated 01:53 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri03.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States remains the world's biggest exporter of arms, accounting for about a third of the total, even though worldwide demand has been slumping, a congressional study finds....
NUCLEAR THREAT
US chided for inaction on arms control
Date: 05/08/99, By BARBARA CROSSETTE at the United Nations
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9908/05/text/world4.html
The failure of the United States and other nuclear powers to ratify an international treaty banning nuclear testing, while weakening pacts against other weapons of mass destruction, undercuts decades of arms control and is making the world much less safe, a report by nuclear arms experts commissioned by Japan says....
--
Arms Sales Decline Globally but U.S. Still Leads
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/080699arms-sales.html
WASHINGTON -- The United States remained the world's biggest arms exporter in a sluggish market last year, as the weak economies in Asia and among oil producers in the Middle East dragged global sales to developing countries to their lowest level since 1991, according to an authoritative government report....
--
Global Weapons Sales Decline - Report
Updated 6:20 AM ET August 7, 1999 By Tim Loughran
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/06/news-arms-report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conventional weapons sales to developing nations fell last year in dollar terms to the lowest levels since 1991 amid intense price competition in the arms trade and budget constraints in the developing world, an official U.S. report said.... Agreements from the top arms-producing nations to sell weapons across the developing world totaled $13.2 billion last year, down from about $16.5 billion in 1997. The value of arms deliveries fell to $23.2 billion, from $29.7 billion in 1997, the CRS said....
UN Conference On Disarmament Adds Five New Members
10:55 a.m. Aug 05, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. Conference on Disarmament Thursday admitted five new members, expanding membership of the world's only multilateral negotiating forum on disarmament to 66 countries. In its meeting at the United Nations in Geneva, the body admitted Ecuador, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Thailand....
Child Labor Treaty Goes to Senate
By Alice Ann Love Associated Press Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; 2:53 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000487-080699-idx.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration has sent to the Senate an international treaty intended to protect children from jobs that expose them to danger or exploitation.... Administration officials said they sent the treaty to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late Thursday to begin the ratification process. Treaty matters have caused severe strains in the past between the administration and the committee chairman, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.... (A) spokesman for Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's senior Democrat, said Helms joined Biden in passing the word that they would welcome a chance to consider the child-labor treaty.... The Foreign Relations chairman has blocked consideration of a nuclear test ban treaty Clinton signed in 1996. He has threatened to hold up other accords as well, because of a disagreement with the administration over pending updates to antiballistic missile treaties with Russia....
-- (3) Russia
It's Y2K daily for some Russians
By Genine Babakian, Special for USA TODAY, 8/05/99
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsthu05.htm
MOSCOW - A recent conversation with a Russian client sums up for Canadian businessman Ron Lewin why Russians appear nonchalant about the prospect of problems from the Year 2000 computer bug....
--
Accelr8 Provides Y2K Solution to Nuclear Power Plants in Former Soviet Union
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Accelr8 Technology Corporation
August 6, 1999, 11:42 am Eastern Time
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990806/co_accelr8_1.html
DENVER, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Accelr8 Technology Corporation (Nasdaq: ACLY - news) was recently selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as the supplier of software -- Navig8 2000 -- that will aid in the correction of Year 2000 (Y2K) software coding problems in Soviet-designed reactors.... Contact the company at www.accelr8.com.
U.S. Coast Guard Clashes With Russian Fishermen
Updated 1:55 AM ET August 7, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/01/news-trawler-leadall
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday that one of its ships had been involved in an incident with a Russian trawler accused of fishing for pollock in U.S. waters. The confrontation started Sunday, when Coast Guard officials saw a Russian vessel, the Gissar, fishing in U.S. waters, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Roger Wetherell....
Russian PM Wants Military Modernized
By The Associated Press, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Military.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- NATO's high-tech bombing campaign in Yugoslavia demonstrated Russia's need for a more modern military, the prime minister said Friday.
Soviets worried over Oswald's ties to them
By Matthew A. Rarey THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 6, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/nation/nation1.html
Soviet officials feared that press reports of Lee Harvey Oswald's "leftist" politics would harm U.S.-Soviet relations, according to long-secret documents on President John F. Kennedy's assassination released Thursday by the National Archives.... Mr. Leavy did not know if these were all the records Russia has on the Kennedy assassination, but all the records Mr. Yeltsin handed over are included in the released translations.
Russia, U.S. Discuss Mideast, Kosovo
Thursday, August 5, 1999; 12:16 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000379-080599-idx.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the Mideast peace process, Kosovo and disarmament -- a busy agenda reflecting how ties have improved since the end of NATO's campaign in Yugoslavia....
Russian Helicopters Fire On Caucasus Gunmen
Updated 11:02 AM ET August 7, 1999, By Tatyana Ustinova
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/11/news-russia-caucasus
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian helicopters fired on positions held by armed men around a village in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region of Dagestan Saturday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
FOCUS-Russia's armed forces in sights again
10:35 a.m. Aug 06, 1999 Eastern By Martin Nesirky
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The Kremlin awarded medals to the elite troops who made a high-profile dash for Kosovo's Pristina airport but two shooting incidents at remote bases in Russia on Friday underscored the low morale in the rest of the military.
--- (4) Mideast; France/Kosovo
Pakistanis Protest Against Nuclear Threat In Islamisbad
Reuters Photos August 6, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/photo/img/r/islamabad/19990812/isl01?r=/photo/topic/international
Photo
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/img/feeds/r/islamabad/19990812/isl01_full.jpg
PAKISTAN - Pakistanis protest against the nuclear threat to the region in Islamabad August 6. The rally was held to mark the 54th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Photo by Aziz Haidari (Reuters)
---
Pakistan denies nuclear link with Saudi Arabia
10:37 a.m. Aug 06, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
ISLAMABAD, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Pakistan on Friday rejected as baseless reports that Saudi Arabia was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons from it, a day after the report of a similar denial by Riyadh....
--
Visit to Pakistani facility raises missile-buying question
By Toni Marshall and Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 6, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl1.html
A visit by Saudi Arabia's defense minister to a secret Pakistani nuclear facility this spring may have been a preliminary step toward the purchase of a new medium-range missile, U.S. intelligence analysts said Thursday....
[I include this as a rare piece of good government.]
Sudan declares unilateral cease-fire
USA Today, August 6,1999
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
KHARTOUM, Sudan - The Sudanese government on Thursday declared a unilateral cease-fire throughout the country, the Ministry of Foreign Relations said. The cease-fire was to take effect at midnight Thursday and would expire Oct. 15....
Activists Begin Fast in Iraq
Barak wants CIA out of West Bank, Gaza
French Troops Confront Albanians
-- (5) S.Africa, Canada, UN, Brussels, India, Asia
NUCLEAR-SA-GREEN
Canada to watch cancer rates near nuclear plants
Three arrested in bungled Brussels uranium sale
'Exercise democratic rights against nuclear weapons'
S. Korea destroyers come to Japan
World Wide Minerals Ltd.: U.S. House Of Representatives
--- (6) US - Trojan (OR), Hanford (WA)
Oregon Nuclear Reactor Goes Gently (Very) Into the Night
Hanford chromium seepage targeted
--- (7) Yucca Mountain
COLUMN ONE A Timeless Marvel--or Madness?
--- (8) U.S. DOE Labs/Security
Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project Receives DOE VPP 'Star'
Reno defends handling of nuclear secrets probe
Lee failed lie detector test, report says
China Spy Probe Bungled, Panel Finds
Security of Los Alamos Data Could Delay Trial U.S. Says
Richardson May Urge Veto of Nuclear Agency
--- (9) Military
QUOTATION OF THE DAY(August 6, 1999)
Closed Marine Base Is Fought Over
War Colleges Now Training Soldiers in Art of Peace
White House Drug Czar Says Colombia In 'Emergency'
U.S. Doubles Payment to Sole Source of Anthrax Vaccine NucNews-1 8/07/99 - Events / Activists
TV HIGHLIGHTS--Saturday, August 7, 6:30 pm EDT, PBS (Channel 26-DC)
By Josh Adams, Saturday, August 7, 1999; Page C07
Think Tank With Ben Wattenberg examines the link between nuclear power and political power and the future of the nuclear industry in America (Channel 26, 6:30 p.m.).
------
PLOWSHARES PRIEST TO ATTEND PLAY ABOUT HIS ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTEST
AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE 4806 York Road, Baltimore, MD 21212 Middle Atlantic Region, Since 1917
WHO: Guided by Quaker belief in the dignity of all people and the power of nonviolence, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) participated in many of the major movements and historic events of the 20th century since 1917. In Baltimore, headquarters for the AFSC’s Middle Atlantic Region, the organization has consistently called for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
WHAT: The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, a coalition of peace organizations including AFSC-Baltimore, will present a play as part of its 15th annual commemoration of the atomic bombings. New York playwright Daniel Kinch will bring his Plowshares play A Clown, a Hammer, a Bomb and God to Baltimore. On the morning of April 1, 1994, an activist priest dressed in a clown suit disables a nuclear missile. This disarmingly simple play, directed by Rhett Wickham and featuring Ben Roberts, is about Father Carl Kabat, who was one of the original Plowshares Eight. On Sept. 9, 1980, Kabat, the Berrigan brothers and others disarmed nose cones from nuclear warheads at General Electric’s plant in King of Prussia, Penn.
Father Kabat, an Oblate priest and missionary, received a five-year prison sentence in 1994. The renowned activist is now out of prison and will attend the play about his most recent Plowshares disarmament action.
WHEN: Saturday, August 7, 1999 7 PMdoors open 8 PMthe Plowshares play; discussion to follow WHERE: 5116 N. Charles St., Stony Run Meeting, Baltimore
WHY: Father Carl Kabat has sacrificed so much in his passionate quest to rid this planet of nuclear weapons and to promote peace with justice. While A Clown, a Hammer, a Bomb and God has been performed internationally, Fr. Kabat has not yet seen it. The play was originally produced by Artists in Search of… for the 1997 New York International Fringe Festival. It was subsequently broadcast on Pacifica Radio Network’s program Democracy Now on Christmas Eve 1997. Most recently, it toured Belgium and The Netherlands as part of the Hague Appeal for Peace.
The play is based on Kabat’s Good Friday, 1994 Plowshares. It was also April Fools Day, so the activist priest dressed as a clown and entered a Minuteman missile complex in North Dakota, where he disarmed a silo hatch. Roberts, as Kabat, will examine the perspective of the Plowshares and the role of violence in pop culture.
Kabat has engaged in four Plowshares disarmament actions: King of Prussia in 1980, in West Germany in 1983, the Silo Pruning Hooks in 1984 at the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, and in 1994 at Grand Forks Missile Field in North Dakota, the inspiration for the play. For his 1984 Plowshares disarmament, he was given a sentence of 18 years, the most severe sentence in U.S. civil disobedience annals.
While still on parole for his participation in the Silo Pruning Hooks Plowshares, Father Kabat was drawn to Grand Forks. After the play, he will be available to explain his motivations for engaging in serious disarmament actions. The playwright and the actor will also be open to questions regarding their involvement in socially-conscious theater.
The Plowshares are inspired by Isaiah 2:4: "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." More than 75 Plowshares actions have taken place, not just in the United States, but as well in Australia, England, Germany, Holland and Sweden.
As a Quaker peace and justice organization, the AFSC is engaged in economic, human rights and social justice programs in 43 U.S. locations and 22 foreign countries. With a sister organization in Britain, the AFSC accepted the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to the Quakers for their humanitarian work during and after the two world wars.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization which includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.
Contact: Max Obuszewski [410] 323-7200 or [410] 377-7987 *Fax: 410-323-7292 *E.mail: mobuszewski@afsc.org
--------
[Please note that once again the Washington Post failed to mention that the Stonewalkers joined the 18th annual Hiroshima commemoration at the Lincoln Memorial, where nuclear bomb survivors from Japan spoke about their experience. I observed a TV camera on Carol Moore as she talked about Y2K dangers and WASH. Nothing. Jaded, or something more sinister? Sure seems like censorship of news to me.]
Memorial Stone Rolls Into D.C.
By Linda Wheeler Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; Page B04
A memorial stone dedicated to civilian victims of war was pulled on a caisson through the streets of Washington yesterday with a stop at St. Matthews Cathedral and the Capitol before being taken to the Lincoln Memorial last night.
The one-ton memorial was pulled and pushed almost 500 miles in an effort to attract attention to the cause of honoring millions of unknown civilians who have died in U.S. wars.
A core group of six began the trip July 4 in Boston, and those six have stayed with the project the entire way. They were joined en route by supporters who helped pull the 1,500-pound caisson and the 2,000-pound memorial for either a few hours or a day.
Yesterday, about 30 people helped them with the effort.
The trip was organized by members of the Peace Abbey, an interfaith center in Sherborn, Mass., that promotes world peace. Stonewalkers, as those who have brought the memorial to Washington are known, said they expect to make it a gift to Arlington National Cemetery.
However, a spokesman for the cemetery said that it could not accept the stone without the approval of Congress and that there had been no action on the issue.
Yesterday, Stonewalkers co-director Lewis Randa led the group in prayer at the cathedral steps. "We will not accept 'no' for an answer when it comes to placing this stone at Arlington Cemetery," he said.
At noon today, the stone is expected to be taken across the Arlington Memorial Bridge for a final ceremony about a mile from the cemetery gates. Randa said the group would not take the stone back to Massachusetts.
---
Hiroshima Recalls Atomic Bombing
Thursday, August 5, 1999; 10:50 p.m. EDT
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- Amid silent prayer and the ringing of bells, the citizens of Hiroshima commemorated Friday the world's first atomic attack 54 years ago, vowing to push for nuclear disarmament and international peace.
About 50,000 people attended the annual ceremony marking the anniversary. A moment of silent prayer commenced at 8:15 a.m. -- the exact moment a U.S. atomic bomb exploded above the city on Aug. 6, 1945.
Among dignitaries addressing the gathering in the city's Peace Memorial Park, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi pledged anew that Japan would work toward a world without nuclear weapons. But he admitted it was an effort fraught with uncertainty.
``The course toward the abolishment of nuclear weapons is still in a severe situation,'' Obuchi said.
Last year, India and Pakistan both carried out nuclear tests, raising fears that international efforts toward stopping the proliferation of nuclear arms could be seriously hurt.
Obuchi cited Japan's proposal, made earlier this year, for both the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,000 each as the first step toward the total abolition of such weapons.
About 140,000 people were killed by the Hiroshima bomb and another 70,000 were killed three days later when the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba urged leaders of the world's nuclear powers to use the survivors' ``will'' as inspiration for eliminating nuclear weapons.
About 1,500 doves symbolizing peace were released into the sky as 300 children sang a song of peace.
On Thursday, a ceremony to remember 2,558 Korean victims of the bombing drew about 400 people to the park, the first time the service could be held there.
Since 1970, a monument to the Korean victims had stood outside the park, because it was built three years after the city banned new construction there. The monument was moved into the park last month after Hiroshima leaders allowed it to be relocated.
The city's move was seen as a gesture of outreach to Japan's Korean community, which has long complained of a bias against it.
``It is gratifying that we are able to repose of the souls of South Korean victims in this park from now on,'' South Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil said in a message.
---
Japan Marks Atomic Attacks, Fears Conflict
August7,1999 Washington Post World Briefs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/07/109l-080799-idx.html
HIROSHIMA, Japan -- In a nation increasingly worried about regional tensions, residents of Hiroshima recalled the moment 54 years ago when an atomic bomb leveled the city and killed 140,000 people.
About 50,000 people gathered for a silent prayer in the Peace Memorial Park at 8:15 a.m. -- the moment a U.S. atomic bomb exploded above the city on Aug. 6, 1945.
Hanging over the solemn commemoration were more recent concerns about Asian tensions, from North Korea's threat of a missile test to the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan. In a Yomiuri newspaper poll this week, 70 percent of respondents said they were fearful a war may break out near Japan.
---
Atomic Museum Defends Bomb Earrings
By Chris Roberts Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 5, 1999; 10:06 p.m. EDT
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Tiny silver replicas of the first atomic bombs that are being sold as earrings at the National Atomic Museum are stirring emotions in Japan.
``We're very angry,'' said Naomi Kishimoto of the anti-nuclear group Gensuikyo in Hiroshima, one of the two Japanese cities hit with atomic bombs in World War II.
``It's not the sort of thing you should be hanging from your ears or using to decorate your desk,'' he said. ``It's unforgivable that (the) museum would sell through the Internet something that praises the unit that dropped the atomic bomb.''
Members of Gensuikyo found the earrings and other items, including medallions that commemorate the bombing missions over Japan, on the museum's Web site.
The earrings are shaped like the ``Little Boy'' and ``Fat Man'' atomic bombs developed during the war at Los Alamos under the Manhattan Project north of Albuquerque. They sell for $20 a pair at the Energy Department museum on Kirtland Air Force Base.
The bomb dubbed ``Little Boy'' was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Nagasaki was leveled by Fat Man three days later. As many as 175,000 people were killed in the two attacks. The Japanese surrendered five days after the second bomb.
Museum director Jim Walther said Thursday the museum does not plan to stop selling the earrings. He said items sold in the museum store reflect history and present the work of dedicated scientists in the United States.
``This museum does not advocate war or the use of nuclear weapons,'' he said.
Museum store manager Tony Sparks said the shop advances the argument that the bombings saved the lives of U.S. troops as well as pointing out the immorality of war.
He pointed to a book with black and white photos of vast areas in the Japanese cities where buildings were flattened, but acknowledged that the earrings, especially a matched set with one of each bomb, are the most popular item in the store.
``We're aware that it's sensitive,'' Sparks said. ``We have such a high contingency of Japanese visitors, most of whom are interested in hearing our side. We are careful not to glorify it.''
Visitors on Thursday had a wide range of reactions.
Lois Dove of South Fork, Colo., said she didn't blame the Japanese for objecting to the earrings.
``It's not appropriate,'' Dove said.
Ben Parks of Amarillo, Texas, said he understands the Japanese reaction, but thinks the earrings should stay on the shelf since the bombs ended the war.
``It goes back to a few people -- their military leaders. The population of Japan didn't have input into what was going on. There were innocent casualties and victims,'' Parks said.
---
Japanese mark Hiroshima anniversary
August 6, 1999 Web posted at: 12:29 a.m. EDT (0429 GMT)
HIROSHIMA, Japan (CNN) -- The city of Hiroshima marked the 54th anniversary of the world's first nuclear attack Friday with silent prayer, the ringing of bells, and a pledge to work toward nuclear disarmament and international peace.
Some 50,000 attended the annual event held at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. A moment of silent prayer opened the ceremony at 8:15 a.m., the exact moment the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb that exploded above the city on August 6, 1945.
Obuchi vows to work toward nuclear disarmament
Among the dignitaries who spoke before the gathering was Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who vowed to renew his country's efforts to work toward nuclear disarmament. Obuchi cautioned, however, that ridding the world of its nuclear arsenals remains a formidable challenge.
"The course toward the abolishment of nuclear weapons is still in a severe situation," said Obuchi. He noted that some countries have only recently obtained nuclear weapons; while he did not mention them by name, the reference likely was to India and Pakistan.
India and Pakistan both carried out nuclear testing last year, raising fears among many that international efforts toward curbing the spread of nuclear arms would be impaired.
Obuchi cited a proposal by Japan made earlier this year for both the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons to only 1,000 each, as a first step toward the eventual complete abolishment of such weapons.
Hiroshima mayor praises blast survivors
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba praised survivors of the blast for their courage, and urged leaders of the world's nuclear powers to find will similar to theirs in order to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world.
Akiba told the crowd that in vowing not to let mankind repeat the same mistake, the survivors of Hiroshima have been effective in preventing a third use of nuclear weapons.
Nearly 130,000 people were killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing about 75,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.
The ceremony ended with the release of 1,500 doves into the sky, accompanied by a song of peace sung by 300 children.
RELATED STORIES:
Nagasaki remembers 53rd anniversary of atomic bombing August 8, 1998
Japan criticizes India, Pakistan during Hiroshima anniversary
Hiroshima survivors warn against using nuclear weapons
CNN In-Depth Special:Ground Zero: The nuclear question
RELATED SITES:
Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park
Hiroshima Peace Park
NucNews-2 8/07/99 - Depleted Uranium; Arms Sales
[Depleted Uranium in NY Times!]
Mines and Unexploded Bombs Wreak Death and Mayhem in Kosovo
By CARLOTTA GALL, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/080699kosovo-mines.html
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- The danger from mines and unexploded bombs in Kosovo is far greater than previously thought, and casualties have soared to alarming levels, according to international aid agencies and mine-clearing organizations here.
By far the most dangerous are the volatile British- and U.S.-made cluster bombs, which have been found in almost every part of the province and have already caused some terrible accidents. Depleted uranium ammunition was also used in Kosovo, NATO has told those defusing the bombs and clearing the mines.
As the death toll rises and aid agencies contemplate the difficult task ahead, recriminations are growing over NATO's use of the cluster bombs and what an aid worker said was NATO's reluctance to deal with "its own battle junk."
The mines were planted by the Yugoslav army and ethnic Albanian guerrillas during their year-long war before the NATO bombing.
In a report last week, the World Health Organization estimated that between June 13 and July 12, 130 to 170 people were injured or died in bomb and mine accidents, a rate of about 10 per 100,000 residents. This rate "is comparable to that previously experienced in other emergency situations such as Afghanistan and Cambodia," the Mine Action Coordination Center in Pristina said this week.
Those clearing mines are reaching similar conclusions. Former army engineers and explosives experts from a British group, the HALO Trust, are close to completing a two-month survey and have found a far greater presence of mines planted by Yugoslavs and Kosovars than they had expected. These experts have visited every village in Kosovo.
"The mine problem is much higher than the survey anticipated, far higher," said Phil Straw, a senior survey officer at HALO. "We came thinking there was a lot of media hype about mines and what was here. But I can say now that there are 500,000 mines in the ground."
Probably 400,000 of the mines are in uninhabited areas near the southern borders, he said, but thousands are also strewn across Kosovo.
"We have six kilometers of antipersonnel mines," Straw said, pointing to a broad orange line running alongside a map of villages in western Kosovo. "That's in the middle of Kosovo, in village areas. That really is a big task."
But far more alarming for the engineers is the high number of cluster bombs they have found, and have seen kill people. Their storage room in Pristina is full of the ugly casings of bombs, missiles and mine debris, and a whole wall is devoted to the cluster bomb.
There is a three-foot-long oval green bomb casing with a broken tail fin, an eight-inch-long bright yellow U.S. cluster-bomb canister and a spiky metal shuttlecock of the British one.
NATO has told those clearing the ordnance that it dropped 1,500 cluster bombs on Kosovo during its two-month air war. Each releases 150 to 200 bomblets, small canisters that float down to the ground on individual parachutes or with metal shuttlecocks. Each canister is potentially lethal when jolted or moved.
HALO has found dozens of casings and canisters all over Kosovo, and Straw said all of them were out of date and thus more likely to land without exploding. He pointed to one and said, "The date -- you see, they are all under warranty -- is until February '98."
Another engineer added: "I have not seen a single one within date. The high failure rate, perhaps 30 percent rather than the predicted 10 percent, means there is more dangerous ordnance to pick up."
Adem Berisha, 25, and several soldiers with the Kosovo Liberation Army were victims of cluster bombs they found close to the Albanian border. He lies on his bed in Pristina Hospital, contorted with discomfort as nurses clean a deep wound in his foot. His body is peppered with black scars and two long surgical scars cross his chest.
The Kosovars had collected seven cluster-bomb canisters and brought them on a tractor to a weapons storeroom in Rogovo. Italian troops from the peacekeeping force came to inspect them and moved them close to the door.
After the Italians left, one soldier decided to move the canisters to a safer place. Berisha saw him trip.
The explosion was enormous and deadly. Six men were wounded. Two of his best friends were killed.
There is widespread ignorance about the danger of cluster bombs. Villagers and Kosovo Liberation Army soldiers are moving them, and even two soldiers of the British Gurkha regiment were killed when moving cluster bombs into a field to destroy them. Their bodies were reportedly never recovered, so powerful was the explosion.
Aid agencies are angry that NATO has only just released photographs of the cluster bombs for safety campaigns being conducted in schools and villages. It was reportedly four weeks after the bombing ended that allied officers also mentioned that depleted uranium rounds had been used on Serbian tanks, and warned the mine-clearers to avoid crawling over tank wrecks.
While many Kosovars are aware of the dangers of mines, few know about cluster bombs or depleted uranium. Some information they are being given is inaccurate.
Yet even when villagers know of the dangers, it is not enough to protect them. According to WHO, 71 percent of the victims in the last month have been under 24 years old, and 19 percent were injured while clearing ordnance.
"They are forgetting they should be aware of mines," said Bedri Bakalli, chief orthopedic surgeon at Pristina Hospital. "Maybe they need to teach them for longer, and to repeat the message more. It's going to go on being a problem."
As the clearing operations continue, accidents keep happening.
Two young patients tear around the hallways of Pristina Hospital in wheelchairs. The boys, Adem Kelmendi, 13, and his cousin Alten, 9, both lost their legs when they stepped on a mine near their house as they chased the family cow across a field the family presumed was safe.
"The men had cut the hay in those fields," Alten's mother said, "and the cows went there. We did not think there was a problem. We had just been back home four days."
---
Related Articles Montenegro Moves to Alter Tie to Serbia
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/wires-yugo-montenegro.html
Issue in Depth: Kosovo in Transition
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/kosovo-index.html
---
QUOTATION OF THE DAY(August 6, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/front/
No, we don't retrain soldiers not to kill, no way. There isn't any problem of soldiers making that mental leap from wartime to peacekeeping missions. That's just gibberish that comes from watching too many Sylvester Stallone movies. LIEUT. COL. MICHAEL D. CLAY, who helped develop courses in peacekeeping at Fort Bragg, N.C.
---
[Apache Helicopters(d.u.-loaded?) hovering still in kosovo.]
Russian peacekeepers protested
USA today August 6, 1999
http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso1079.htm
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - About 1,000 ethnic Albanians marched toward a Russian base in Kosovo on Thursday to show their opposition to the troops - even as Moscow prepared to send more peacekeepers to the tense Serbian province.
Two U.S. Apache helicopters whirred overhead and American troops stood by as the demonstrators marched in early morning darkness. The protest in the southeastern town of Kosovska Kamenica ended without incident, NATO officials said from the capital, Pristina.
But the event raised concerns about ethnic Albanian animosities toward the Russian peacekeeping contingent, which is set to expand to more than 3,600 troops on Friday. The ethnic Albanians consider them to be pro-Serb, and Russian mercenaries are rumored to have helped the Yugoslav campaign of massacres and expulsions against Kosovo's Albanians earlier this year.
Since the end of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign and the withdrawal of Serb forces from the province, the Serbs have criticized peacekeepers for failing to prevent alleged revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians. More than 100,000 Serbs have fled since June, leaving just 50,000 Serbs in the region.
NATO officials hope Moscow's reinforced presence will reassure the Serb population in Kosovo - but it has also stoked ethnic Albanians' anger.
In another troublesome development, peacekeepers said Thursday they had briefly detained a prominent commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army for the second time in less than a week, and had confiscated his pistol and ammunition.
The KLA has become increasingly restive about their role in postwar Kosovo, where NATO has insisted it is the only legitimate military force.
Rexhep Selimi was arrested Wednesday night after brandishing his pistol in front of British forces.
According to a disarmament accord signed just after NATO peacekeepers entered the province, the KLA must fully demilitarize by Sept. 19.
Selimi, however, was one of 24 top rebel figures who was authorized by the international peacekeeping force to travel armed. Selimi is an interior minister in the so-called provisional government of Hashim Thaci, the head of the KLA.
Selimi, however, did not show the card confirming those privileges when a British patrol stopped his vehicle Wednesday night in Pristina, according a peacekeepers' statement.
The British soldiers first took away his gun, then gave it back when they discovered the card during a search, the statement said. But they arrested Selimi after he loaded the pistol in front of the patrol, held up a round and reportedly said in Albanian, ''This one's for you.''
Selimi was released when British military police arrived.
The incident came just four days after Gen. Agim Ceku, Selimi's successor as KLA chief of staff, was detained briefly by Russian peacekeepers, also for failing to produce the necessary card.
Meanwhile, in an effort to smooth over differences between ethnic Albanian factions, the party of pacifist politician Ibrahim Rugova agreed Thursday to join the U.N.-sponsored interim advisory council for Kosovo.
Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo had boycotted the council's first meeting, but said it would participate after getting an additional seat on the panel for one of its allies.
--------
Puerto Rico AG Threatens to Sue Navy
By Paul Tolme Associated Press Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; 4:36 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000598-080699-idx.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Puerto Rico's attorney general threatened on Friday to sue the Navy if it continues to use the island of Vieques for bombing practice and war games. He said the Navy is endangering the people and the environment of the tiny outlying island.
The Navy is violating clean water, clean air, endangered species and hazardous waste laws by destroying coral reefs, threatening sea turtle habitat and failing to dispose of bombs that land off the range, Jose Fuentes Agostini said.
A lawsuit could be avoided if a federal panel reviewing Puerto Rico's complaints persuades President Clinton to close the bombing range and turn it over to Puerto Rico, he said.
``The Navy must recognize that Vieques belongs to the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico, not the Navy,'' Agostini told the Special Panel on Military Operations on Vieques.
The Navy insists its bombing range on the 51-square-mile island six miles off Puerto Rico is the only site where its Atlantic Fleet air, land and sea forces can train simultaneously with live munitions.
A Navy spokesman said the Navy has complied with various environmental permits and that many areas of the island are better off because of the Navy's presence.
``We have made our case very clear that we have been very good stewards of the environment on Vieques,'' said Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Herman Phillips.
In addition, protesters on the bombing range have made it impossible for the Navy to gather some unexploded munitions, he said.
Hoping to stop the bombing, protesters have set up camps in the live-fire area. Opposition to the bombing range, in use since World War II, has galvanized since a civilian security guard -- David Sanes Rodriguez -- was killed in a Navy bombing accident on April 19.
Agostini showed film clips of the island and said that it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean but that tourism is virtually nonexistent because of the Navy. The film showed Navy gunships blasting the island, which is littered with craters.
Vieques contains three of the seven remaining bioluminescent bays in the world, and the island is ``ringed with stunning and valuable coral reefs,'' Agostini said. In addition there are at least 10 species of federally threatened and endangered animals and plants, including leatherback sea turtles.
In May, the Navy admitted it mistakenly fired 267 rounds tipped with depleted uranium on the island in February in violation of federal law. It also admits to having used napalm on the island in 1993.
The panel is to complete its work in August.
-----------
Study: U.S. still biggest arms provider
8/06/99- Updated 01:53 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri03.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States remains the world's biggest exporter of arms, accounting for about a third of the total, even though worldwide demand has been slumping, a congressional study finds.
In 1998, the United States led in new arms deals, with $7.1 billion - up from $5.7 billion the year before - the Congressional Research Service said in an annual review of arms sales.
Germany ranked second, with $5.5 billion in new sales, and France third, with $3 billion.
The value of all new arms sales worldwide was $23 billion, up from $21.4 billion the year before.
However, the report said that the trend in terms of arms sales has generally been downward, particularly among developing nations, which are the biggest buyers of weapons.
Since 1995, total arms sales declined by 23.2%.
The Asian financial crisis and low oil prices have contributed to the decline in demand, the report said.
Furthermore, an arms-buying spree that came right after the end of the Cold War appears to have slackened, the report suggested.
Even so, the United States increased its sales to developing countries to $4.6 billion from $2.6 billion in 1997.
The biggest buyers of arms last year was Saudi Arabia, with $7.9 billion in new sales. The United Arab Emirates ranked second at $2.5 billion. Malaysia ranked third, with $2.1 billion.
Russia, meanwhile, has seen its exports steadily declining since the end of the Cold War.In 1991, it sold $8.2 billion in arms. In 1998, the total had declined to $1.7 billion.
Developing nations accounted for 69.4% of all arms purchases from 1991 through 1998.
-----------
NUCLEAR THREAT
US chided for inaction on arms control
Date: 05/08/99, By BARBARA CROSSETTE at the United Nations
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9908/05/text/world4.html
The failure of the United States and other nuclear powers to ratify an international treaty banning nuclear testing, while weakening pacts against other weapons of mass destruction, undercuts decades of arms control and is making the world much less safe, a report by nuclear arms experts commissioned by Japan says.
Due to be made public at the United Nations overnight, the report says the most immediate threat is to Asia. China and North Korea have embarked on a series of missile tests, and India and Pakistan exploded nuclear devices last year, changing the entire Asian security landscape for the worse in a matter of days.
The experts also chided the US for allowing relations with Russia and China to deteriorate, adding to tensions and fostering an environment conducive to worldwide rearmament involving not only missiles, but also missile-defence systems and other arms.
The report, sought in response to Japan's concern over the Indian and Pakistani tests, says it is urgent that the US, along with Russia, China, India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, ratify the pact against nuclear testing, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to prevent arms control unravelling further.
Moreover, it says, the world must not condone India's policy nor in any way reward the nation, which wants a permanent Security Council seat and which, the study says, "considers the possession of nuclear weapons an attribute of great-power status".
The South Asian tests tempt others to break restraints against nuclear development, the experts added in a sweeping survey of worldwide developments.
One of the report's authors, Mr Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Centre in Washington, which researches arms and international security, said the report's scope was initially much narrower.
"But the longer we worked on this, the broader it became," he said. "We saw a deteriorating situation on just about every front. It was a very sobering view."
The Clinton Administration signed the nuclear test ban treaty in 1996 but has not made ratification a public issue nor fought strenuously for it in Congress, where Senator Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be "dead on arrival". Last week, a group of leading American nuclear scientists wrote to the Senate urging ratification, if only as a way to block Chinese nuclear espionage.
The treaty has been signed by 152 nations but ratified by only 41.
India's unexpected tests in May 1998, which prompted neighbouring Pakistan to follow suit, caused considerable alarm across Asia, including in China.
In Japan, the only country to have experienced a nuclear attack, the tests led Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, then prime minister, and Mr Keizo Obuchi, his foreign minister and now prime minister, to call together about 24 arms control experts to study the situation.
"The timing of India's action greatly compounds other nuclear dangers and makes nuclear disarmament harder to achieve," their report says. It is critical of India for having revived the spectre of nuclear war at a time when Russia and the United States were making deep, if slow, cuts in their nuclear arsenals, a process the experts said should be speeded up.
They conclude: "At the turn of the 21st century, the momentum towards a universal and effective global nuclear non-proliferation regime generated by the close of the Cold War is in danger of being lost."
As one step, the report recommends speedier action on a treaty to cut off the production of fissile materials, which is stalled in the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. - The New York Times
---
Arms Sales Decline Globally but U.S. Still Leads
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/080699arms-sales.html
WASHINGTON -- The United States remained the world's biggest arms exporter in a sluggish market last year, as the weak economies in Asia and among oil producers in the Middle East dragged global sales to developing countries to their lowest level since 1991, according to an authoritative government report.
The report, released Thursday by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress, showed that the United States negotiated new agreements to sell $7.1 billion worth of weapons in 1998, nearly 31 percent of the $23 billion in sales worldwide. The United States easily surpassed Germany, which sold $5.5 billion, and France, which had $3 billion in new sales.
The United States also led the world in delivering arms ordered in previous years, making $7.8 billion worth of deliveries in 1998.
Russia, which four years ago briefly knocked the United States out of the spot as the world's top arms merchant, has seen its exports steadily drop, despite increases in sales of fighter aircraft and other weapons to China. In 1998, Russia reached agreements to sell only $1.7 billion worth of arms, compared with $3.3 billion in 1997 and $5.3 billion in 1996.
The $23 billion in worldwide arms sales showed a slight increase over 1997, when the worst of the Asian economic crisis hit, but it was far below the levels in the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf war led to an arms-buying spree. In 1993, arms sales worldwide reached $37 billion.
Arms sales to the developing world -- defined as those countries outside Europe and excluding Russia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand -- dropped sharply overall. But the United States increased its sales to those countries to $4.6 billion, from $2.6 billion the year before.
The report predicted that the Asian economic troubles and the relatively low prices for crude oil would prolong the slump in arms purchases by developing countries, which until recently have accounted for a majority of international arms sales.
The report said Saudi Arabia, in particular, was struggling to keep up with purchases made earlier in the decade. It said the country, the world's largest arms buyer, "has even had problems meeting its monthly payments" for existing contracts.
Thomas A. Cardamone Jr., an analyst for the Council for a Livable World Education Fund, which advocates arms control, said the report's findings underscored the fact that the United States was continuing to put more arms into the hands of others than any other country.
He noted that United States retained its dominance of the international arms markets without any multi-billion-dollar sales being completed. Instead, most sales involved less costly items, including upgrades to existing systems.
"It's $7 billion worth of spare parts," he said. "Without a major arms sale last year, the U.S. still leads the world."
This dominance is likely to grow, he added, if the United States completes pending deals with Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is to purchase $2.5 billion worth of F-16s, and the Emirates nearly $8 billion worth of the planes.
---
Global Weapons Sales Decline - Report
Updated 6:20 AM ET August 7, 1999 By Tim Loughran
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/06/news-arms-report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conventional weapons sales to developing nations fell last year in dollar terms to the lowest levels since 1991 amid intense price competition in the arms trade and budget constraints in the developing world, an official U.S. report said.
"Competition...continues to intensify among major weapons suppliers" while "the limited resources of most developing nations...continues to place constraints on significant expansion of the arms trade," said Richard F. Grimmett, author of a report released this week by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress.
"The overall level of the arms trade is likely to remain fairly static in the foreseeable future, not approaching the sales levels of the Cold War or Persian Gulf War periods," said Grimmett.
Agreements from the top arms-producing nations to sell weapons across the developing world totaled $13.2 billion last year, down from about $16.5 billion in 1997. The value of arms deliveries fell to $23.2 billion, from $29.7 billion in 1997, the CRS said.
The United States was the biggest seller and Saudi Arabia the largest weapons procurer in the developing world last year, according to the report. The United States exported weapons to the developing world valued at $4.6 billion in 1998, up from $2.6 billion in 1997.
The United Arab Emirates and Malaysia were the developing world's second- and third-largest weapons procurers.
China saw its sales of conventional weapons to developing nations drop to about $500 million, from $1.6 billion in 1997, reflecting the widespread view that Chinese weaponry "is less advanced and sophisticated than weaponry available from Western suppliers and Russia," said the CRS.
Still, China may be increasing sales of missile technology to developing nations, including Pakistan, Iran and North Korea, to boost its hard currency reserves, the CRS reported.
France and Germany were the second- and third-largest providers of weapons to developing nations in 1998, displacing Russia, which fell to fourth place from second place in 1997.
In the three years ended 1998, Russia sold $15 billion in weapons, including aircraft, missiles, artillery, tanks and small weapons, to developing nations, roughly equivalent to those sold by the United States in that period.
France's sale of 30 Mirage 2000-9 fighter jets to the UAE and Germany's sale of offshore patrol boats to Malaysia helped push them to the front ranks of weapons exporters last year, the report said.
Russian weapons sales to developing nations fell in part of lost subsidies for military exports after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the report said.
Weapons sales to developing nations from Britain fell to $200 million in 1998, down from more than $1 billion in 1997. Italy saw its military sales to developing nations fall to $100 million last year from $300 million in 1997.
-----------
UN Conference On Disarmament Adds Five New Members
10:55 a.m. Aug 05, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. Conference on Disarmament Thursday admitted five new members, expanding membership of the world's only multilateral negotiating forum on disarmament to 66 countries.
In its meeting at the United Nations in Geneva, the body admitted Ecuador, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Thailand.
U.S. Ambassador Robert Grey said that while he welcomed the expansion, his country would oppose admitting any further members because the forum was already ``mired in inactivity,'' a U.N. media release said.
``Thus the U.S. would oppose further expansion of membership until the Conference demonstrated it could accomplish substantive work at its current size -- such as completion of negotiations on a fissile-material cut-off treaty,'' it said.
The forum last August agreed to launch negotiations to stop the production of nuclear bomb-making fissile material -- plutonium and highly-enriched uranium -- but they never got off the ground. It has been unable to reach consensus to renew the negotiating mandate this year.
---------
Child Labor Treaty Goes to Senate
By Alice Ann Love Associated Press Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; 2:53 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000487-080699-idx.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration has sent to the Senate an international treaty intended to protect children from jobs that expose them to danger or exploitation.... Administration officials said they sent the treaty to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late Thursday to begin the ratification process. Treaty matters have caused severe strains in the past between the administration and the committee chairman, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.
This time, however, a spokesman for Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's senior Democrat, said Helms joined Biden in passing the word that they would welcome a chance to consider the child-labor treaty.... Neither Helms nor his staff could be reached immediately for comment.
The Foreign Relations chairman has blocked consideration of a nuclear test ban treaty Clinton signed in 1996. He has threatened to hold up other accords as well, because of a disagreement with the administration over pending updates to antiballistic missile treaties with Russia....
NucNews-3 8/07/99 - Russia - Y2K, US-v-Fishing-Boat, Military, JFK,
US-Mideast, Caucasus, Kosovo
It's Y2K daily for some Russians
By Genine Babakian, Special for USA TODAY, 8/05/99
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwsthu05.htm
MOSCOW - A recent conversation with a Russian client sums up for Canadian businessman Ron Lewin why Russians appear nonchalant about the prospect of problems from the Year 2000 computer bug.
"I was telling him about an American couple I know of who are convinced that Y2K will have catastrophic effects," says the president of TerraLink. His Moscow-based company provides technical consulting and Y2K-preparedness services.
In preparation for the possible malfunction of computers on Jan. 1, 2000, the American couple bought a house in the wilderness and a water pump to ensure that they will have fresh water. They are stocking up on canned foods, batteries, candles and other necessities.
"Oh, yeah," the Russian said. "We're going to the dacha (country house) for New Year's Eve, too."
In Russia, food, water and energy shortages are endemic, and machinery and telecommunications breakdowns are regular events. To many here, the global frenzy to plan for a Y2K disaster looks like normal preparation for a weekend trip to the country - or just coping with everyday living conditions.
As a result, even the Russians and foreign business people who have focused on the Y2K concern treat the news with a shrug. Y2K is just one more risk in a risky environment.
The international rush to get ready has barely made the trek across Russia's borders into the national consciousness. President Boris Yeltsin issued his first "instruction" concerning the problem in June when he called on government agencies to make preventive and contingency planning a priority.
But the various ministries have been left to their own devices.
Alexander Manoshkin, an official at the Ministry of Communications who is in charge of coordinating the government's Y2K commission, says each agency must use its own limited funds to address its Y2K problems. The federal government will find additional money for the Security and Defense ministries, which oversee domestic and international security issues and the country's nuclear weapons. Those agencies have been targeted as safety priorities at home and abroad.
Russian and foreign experts say the chances of missiles being set off by a Y2K glitch are small. But Russian and U.S. military officials are meeting regularly to discuss joint safety projects, Manoshkin says.
Few experts predict doom for the nation of 150 million.
While there is a greater chance systems will fail here, there also is far less technology, particularly digital technology. And Russia's enterprises and people are accustomed to dealing with problem scenarios.
"The good news is that a lot of things don't work in Russia, and, therefore, Y2K will not be a catastrophe," says Lawrence Haw, director of international operations for System Integration Technologies, which helps companies plan for Y2K glitches. He adds that Russians are much more used to putting up with glitches in electricity, telecommunications, transportation and water systems - all of which are vulnerable to Y2K failures - than are Americans .
In Russia, there is no need for an excuse as large as Y2K for water-supply breaks, power outages or dead phone lines.
People in several regions throughout the country have been living with heating and electricity shortages for years, usually because their local administrations can't pay the bills.
"My phone went out last week, and this week my power was off for half a day," says Natalya Ryabova, a Moscow shop clerk who lives in the center of the capital. "Why should I worry about what might happen six months from now?"
Russians, in this respect, are more psychologically prepared for the potential Y2K glitches than their Western counterparts.
But Russia-based foreigners are scrambling to prepare for the worst. Many are buying generators and diesel fuel and stocking up on supplies.
DHL, which delivers goods to 97 regions throughout the former Soviet Union, faces severe problems if Russian planes are grounded or airports are closed due to computer problems Jan. 1.
"We will do our utmost to maintain our business in as many cities as well as we can," DHL's Anita Hayward says.
She says the company is looking into buying a fleet of trucks and stocking up on diesel fuel.
Other international companies are planning to ensure that most of their foreign personnel are out of the country by Jan. 1, Haw says. They don't want to be responsible for expatriates who might be stranded in Russia, he says.
A report on global readiness for the Y2K problem issued last month by U.S. State Department Inspector General Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers warns that there are "unanswered questions with respect to (Russia's) telecommunications sector." She also says the United States is offering assistance, particularly in preparing Russia's nuclear power sector, the source of much of the country's electricity.
Even having a contingency plan is no guarantee against disaster, Haw says. The Philip Morris Cos. is one example of how international corporations are at the mercy of Russia's infrastructure, he says.
"Their logic was that if they get a second telecommunications provider, they will be covered if their phone system goes down," Haw says. "But then they found out that the second provider uses the same network as the first."
Then there's the Moscow warehouse that advertised that it's Y2K-ready.
Haw went to check out the warehouse for a pharmaceuticals client seeking to import medicines that need refrigeration. The owners hadn't purchased backup generators to keep the refrigeration operating in the event of a blackout in January.
"I asked them, 'What happens if the electricity goes out?'" Haw says, chuckling as he remembers their reply. "No problem," they said, noting the frigid local weather conditions in January. "We'll just open the doors."
---
Accelr8 Provides Y2K Solution to Nuclear Power Plants in Former Soviet Union
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Accelr8 Technology Corporation
August 6, 11:42 am Eastern Time
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990806/co_accelr8_1.html
DENVER, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Accelr8 Technology Corporation (Nasdaq: ACLY - news) was recently selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as the supplier of software -- Navig8 2000 -- that will aid in the correction of Year 2000 (Y2K) software coding problems in Soviet-designed reactors.
Use of the Navig8 2000 software is part of a DOE-sponsored project to ensure Y2K computer compliance at nuclear power plants in the former Soviet Union. The software is designed to help plant computer experts detect Y2K vulnerabilities in their computer applications so that any deficiencies can be corrected. Navig8 2000 software functions in a multi-language, multi-alphabet environment, and can analyze and correct source code deficiencies in Roman and Cyrillic alphabets in the same application.
Navig8 2000 is initially being used to assist with Y2K efforts in Ukraine, Russia, and Lithuania. Scientists from these countries recently participated in a two-week training session on operation of the software in Kyiv, Ukraine, conducted by Accelr8's consulting engineers.
``Through this project, Accelr8 Technology has demonstrated its commitment to the international Y2K source code compliance problem,'' said Harry Fleury, president of Accelr8 Technology. ``We're pleased to support this important nuclear safety initiative, and look forward to a smooth transition into the next century for these nuclear power plants.''
Accelr8 provides products and services for Year 2000 and modernization solutions for moving VMS systems to Unix and NT client/server computer environments. Contact the company at www.accelr8.com.
SOURCE: Accelr8 Technology Corporation
-----------
U.S. Coast Guard Clashes With Russian Fishermen
Updated 1:55 AM ET August 7, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/01/news-trawler-leadall
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday that one of its ships had been involved in an incident with a Russian trawler accused of fishing for pollock in U.S. waters.
The confrontation started Sunday, when Coast Guard officials saw a Russian vessel, the Gissar, fishing in U.S. waters, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Roger Wetherell.
The Coast Guard cutter Hamilton chased the ship, caught up with it and boarded later Sunday in Russian waters at a spot about 170 miles west of Alaska's St. Lawrence Island, he said.
On board the Gissar were between 32 and 37 metric tons of pollock, Coast Guard officials said.
But instead of being allowed to escort the Gissar to the nearest Alaska port, standard procedure in such cases, the Hamilton was surrounded by more than a dozen Russian fishing vessels preventing further enforcement action, Wetherell said. Up to 19 fishing vessels blockaded the Hamilton, he said.
The Hamilton turned the Gissar over to the Russian border guard Thursday and withdrew from the scene, a decision that was considered prudent in the circumstances, he said. "It created a very tense situation. There were a lot of obstacles they were faced with," he said.
Russian authorities fined the Gissar the equivalent of $39,000 for fishing violations, and the Coast Guard has forwarded complaints about the blockade and other actions to the State Department, Wetherell said.
"We're working through diplomatic channels with the Russian government to pursue prosecution," he said.
The incident caused reaction in the U.S. Congress. Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski sent a letter Friday to Russia's ambassador to the United States protesting the blockade. "Mr. Ambassador, I must tell you that I find these events inexplicable," said the letter to Ambassador Yuriy Ushakov.
"Our two countries have done much to design workable, mutually beneficial fisheries law enforcement and communication systems...I would hate to think that all of that is now at risk," the letter said.
--------
Russian PM Wants Military Modernized
By The Associated Press, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Military.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- NATO's high-tech bombing campaign in Yugoslavia demonstrated Russia's need for a more modern military, the prime minister said Friday.
``We must think seriously about the re-equipment of our defense complex,'' Sergei Stepashin said.
Russia strongly opposed NATO's airstrikes in Yugoslavia but did not get involved militarily in the conflict.
Stepashin has been pushing to upgrade Russia's defenses since he became prime minister in May. But the government has little money and he has not said where the funding will come from.
The premier traveled Friday to the central city of Samara for a meeting of military, aviation and space manufacturers. He also watched the assembly of a new Soyuz-2 booster rocket, which can be used to launch spacecraft or satellites.
Russia's military, lacking funds to buy state-of-the-art equipment, has been in decline since the 1991 Soviet breakup. Military manufacturers can no longer rely on government contracts and have been seeking to export their products to survive.
-----------
Soviets worried over Oswald's ties to them
By Matthew A. Rarey THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 6, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/nation/nation1.html
Soviet officials feared that press reports of Lee Harvey Oswald's "leftist" politics would harm U.S.-Soviet relations, according to long-secret documents on President John F. Kennedy's assassination released Thursday by the National Archives.
The documents show Soviet intelligence worried in the wake of the 1963 shooting that "fanning the hysteria over the 'leftist' affiliations of Kennedy's assassin" might spark "serious international complications."
The Kremlin documents said "premature conclusions" about Oswald's Communist ties "played into the hands of right-wingers who [are] using this to fan anti-Soviet and anti-Cuban hysteria."
The newly released Soviet documents "clearly contribute to the study and debate about the Kennedy assassination," said National Security Council spokesman David Leavy, referring to the 80 pages of memorandums Russian President Boris Yeltsin gave President Clinton at a June 20 meeting.
The documents detail the Soviet position that Oswald was the fall guy for a conspiracy and the Kremlin's scramble to dismiss reports Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist agent. They include a handwritten letter from Jacqueline Kennedy to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Mrs. Kennedy hailed the commitment to peace her husband and Khrushchev shared.
"You and he were adversaries, but you were also allies in your determination not to let the world be blown up," she wrote Dec. 1, 1963, on White House stationery. "The danger troubling my husband was that war could be started not so much by major figures as by minor ones."
Mrs. Kennedy's letter pleased Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, who recommended inviting her and her children to vacation on the Black Sea in the summer of 1964.
"Such a step by our side would make a very good impression on American public opinion and on U.S. government circles as well," he suggested. "Moreover, it would be useful to maintain contacts with the Kennedy family."
Most of the documents concern Soviet efforts to refute "slanderous fabrications" made by the American press regarding Oswald's "Soviet and Cuban 'connections.' "
Following the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Soviet leaders at first seemed unaware Oswald had lived in Russia from 1959 to 1962.
One memo said Oswald -- who renounced his American citizenship in 1959 but returned to the United States with a Russian bride in 1962 -- was not a Communist agent. His pleas for Soviet citizenship were denied several times because there were "no sufficient grounds." After trying to commit suicide he was allowed to stay in Russia with foreign national status. A year after Oswald left the Soviet Union the Soviets denied his request to reenter the country.
Soviet officials said that those publicizing Oswald's Communist ties were "the real masterminds of President Kennedy's assassination, who stop at nothing in their efforts to mislead the investigation and put it on a false trail." The Soviets posited that Oswald was the front man for a conspiracy and he "was simply bumped off after his usefulness ended."
After Jack Ruby murdered Oswald, a memo noted: "Now that Lee Harvey Oswald . . . has himself been killed under mysterious circumstances, one can see even more clearly the absurdity and malice of the slanderous fabrications . . . which are trying to establish Oswald's 'connection' with either the Soviet Union or Cuba, using that fact that he spent some time in the Soviet Union as the basis for their insinuations."
Mr. Leavy did not know if these were all the records Russia has on the Kennedy assassination, but all the records Mr. Yeltsin handed over are included in the released translations.
-----------
Russia, U.S. Discuss Mideast, Kosovo
Thursday, August 5, 1999; 12:16 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000379-080599-idx.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the Mideast peace process, Kosovo and disarmament -- a busy agenda reflecting how ties have improved since the end of NATO's campaign in Yugoslavia, officials said today.
In a telephone conversation Wednesday, Igor Ivanov and Albright ``pointed to the readiness of Russia and the U.S. to cooperate closely to give a new impetus to the Mideast settlement,'' Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin said at a news conference.
Discussing Kosovo, they reiterated both nations' commitment to the current peace plan for the Yugoslav province. Ivanov called for faster disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Rakhmanin said, according to Russian news reports.
Ivanov and Albright also set a date for Russian-U.S. talks on deeper nuclear weapons cuts.
U.S. and Russian experts will meet in Moscow from Aug. 17-19 to discuss the future START III arms reduction agreement along with possible modifications to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, Rakhmanin said. Talks were agreed upon during Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin's visit to Washington last month.
U.S.-Russian relations grew tense over the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia, which Moscow vehemently opposed. But Russia helped negotiate a peaceful settlement for Kosovo and contributed to the peacekeeping force deployed in the province under NATO command. Relations with the United States and other Western nations are now on the mend.
With the exception of peacekeeping activities in Yugoslavia, Russian relations with NATO have been suspended since the air campaign. Rakhmanin said Thursday that Russia may consider restoring relations on certain conditions.
In particular, NATO should never again launch a military action such as the one in Yugoslavia, and it should make sure its eastward expansion doesn't hurt Moscow's security interests, he said.
-----------
Russian Helicopters Fire On Caucasus Gunmen
Updated 11:02 AM ET August 7, 1999, By Tatyana Ustinova
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/11/news-russia-caucasus
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian helicopters fired on positions held by armed men around a village in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region of Dagestan Saturday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
He told Reuters by telephone from Dagestan the aim was to avoid civilians and hit the armed infiltrators -- up to 500 men who surrounded two or three villages earlier in the day after crossing into the remote mountainous region from rebel Chechnya.
"According to information we have from the scene, about an hour ago helicopters opened fire on positions outside the village of Rakhat to avoid hitting civilians," he said.
Russian Public Television reported from the region that the helicopters were backed by artillery fire, but the spokesman could not immediately confirm this.
Saturday's incident follows two weeks of clashes between police and Islamic militants in Dagestan. Friday, Russian news agencies quoted security sources as saying a group of Wahhabists, followers of an austere brand of Islam, was plotting to turn part of Dagestan into an independent Islamic state.
Earlier Saturday, Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin ordered Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry forces to "normalize the situation" swiftly.
"Bandits are bandits," he said in televised comments during a visit to the Volga city of Ulyanovsk in another region of the vast Russian Federation.
"One needs to tackle them appropriately. We have the forces and means," Stepashin said. "I don't see any other way."
But, mindful of Russia's disastrous failure in its 1994-96 war against Chechnya, he tempered his remarks.
"Russia will not repeat its mistakes in the North Caucasus," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. "No more Russian soldiers will die there."
The deputy commander of Interior Ministry forces told RIA news agency additional interior and regular troops were being deployed in the inaccessible mountain region.
Stepashin played an important role in the Chechen war as head of domestic intelligence. Thousands of civilians and troops died in the conflict. Chechnya is now outside Moscow's control.
Stepashin said the chief of general staff, Anatoly Kvashnin, and the head of Interior Ministry forces would fly to Dagestan Sunday. Russian news agencies said the armed men included Chechens and Central Asian nationals as well as Dagestanis.
Chechen officials denied any armed groups had crossed into Dagestan and vowed to respond to any build-up along the border.
Earlier, Russian agencies said Dagestani leaders had briefed Stepashin Saturday's incident and he then ordered commanders to deal with the problem with "maximum effectiveness."
An Interior Ministry official in Dagestan said by telephone armed groups had seized the villages of Rakhat and Ansalta near the border with Chechnya and were digging in. Russian news agencies said a third village had also been taken.
Friday, Stepashin vowed there would be no new war in the North Caucasus but said any attempts by radical Islamists to seize parts of the region would be dealt with swiftly.
Russia's North Caucasus is a patchwork of fractious regions and republics. The semi-autonomous republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, for example, has been teetering close to violence since a disputed gubernatorial election in May.
-----------
FOCUS-Russia's armed forces in sights again
10:35 a.m. Aug 06, 1999 Eastern By Martin Nesirky
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - The Kremlin awarded medals to the elite troops who made a high-profile dash for Kosovo's Pristina airport but two shooting incidents at remote bases in Russia on Friday underscored the low morale in the rest of the military.
About 200 Russian paratroops based in Bosnia caught NATO napping in June by crossing into Serbia in a convoy and then racing to the main airport in Kosovo ahead of alliance forces. A Defence Ministry spokesman said all would receive medals.
``The lightning dash of Russian peacekeepers changed the course of events in the Balkans,'' the armed forces daily newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda said in a front-page story.
The tactic may have further strained ties with NATO -- already in bad shape after the alliance's bombing of Yugoslavia -- and drawn attention to differences inside Russia's defence command but it also lifted military spirits, albeit briefly.
Moscow's once-mighty forces crumbled with the Soviet Union.
Russia's economic crisis means the military is underfunded, demoralised and ill-equipped. One aviation official told Reuters on Friday that military transport planes would be allowed to carry civilian passengers and cargo as a way to earn money.
Despite cash shortages, the country remains the world's second nuclear power and recently probed Western defences with strategic bombers for the first time in years. Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin said on Friday there were plans to spend millions of dollars improving Russia's ``eyes and ears in space.''
Yet back on the ground, soldiers are lucky to be paid on time. Conscripts who do not escape the draft face bullying and poor conditions. Inevitably some snap, and killings, suicides and violence are relatively common.
The Defence Ministry said a Russian conscript killed two of his comrades in the Tomsk region of Siberia on Thursday before turning his automatic rifle on himself. Another military source said the soldiers had been guarding a weapons research centre.
In a separate incident, two sailors shot the head of their guard unit dead at a base for decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines on Friday in Russia's northern Murmansk region. One was then killed by guards and the other shot himself.
Officials could give no motive for either incident.
In Kosovo, a Russian soldier was wounded in a rash of overnight shooting attacks, a KFOR spokesman in Pristina said.
Ethnic Albanians say Russians are pro-Serb. Moscow is unhappy with KFOR's failure to stop Albanian attacks on Serbs.
Russian newspapers and defence sources say Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev had been planning to visit Kosovo but did not want to be seen meeting NATO commanders at a time of tension there.
One Russian defence source said Sergeyev might still visit the Balkans, including Bosnia. He is on holiday until Monday.
Another Russian military analyst said the way medals had been awarded to officers and men involved in the Pristina mission pointed to high-level differences over the tactic.
Major-General Anatoly Rybkin, who commanded the unit from Bosnia, received a medal ``For Services to the Fatherland.''
Less prestigious awards went to the 205 other officers and men who took part, including Colonel-General Viktor Zavarzin, whom President Boris Yeltsin promoted after the mission.
Zavarzin is still Russia's military representative to NATO but is unlikely to return to Brussels when relations thaw. Zavarzin joined the convoy in Belgrade, earning him few friends among paratroops and irritating Sergeyev, defence sources say.
NucNews-4 8/07/99 - Mideast -
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,; Sudan, Iraq; Israel/CIA;
France/Kosovo
Pakistanis Protest Against Nuclear Threat In Islamisbad
Reuters Photos August 6, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/photo/img/r/islamabad/19990812/isl01?r=/photo/topic/international
Photo
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/img/feeds/r/islamabad/19990812/isl01_full.jpg
PAKISTAN - Pakistanis protest against the nuclear threat to the region in Islamabad August 6. The rally was held to mark the 54th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Photo by Aziz Haidari (Reuters)
---
Pakistan denies nuclear link with Saudi Arabia
10:37 a.m. Aug 06, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
ISLAMABAD, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Pakistan on Friday rejected as baseless reports that Saudi Arabia was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons from it, a day after the report of a similar denial by Riyadh.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Pakistan would continue to abide by what he called ``immutable and unilateral commitment'' not to transfer nuclear and sensitive technology to any country.
On Thursday, the London-based Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz as saying that the kingdom was not looking for nuclear weapons from Pakistan or any other country.
Earlier this month, Western officials expressed concern that Riyadh might be seeking to acquire weapons from Islamabad after Prince Sultan toured the country's Kahuta nuclear plant with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in early May.
The Islamabad spokesman said speculative comments in the Western media reports about Prince Sultan's visit to Pakistani defence facilities were ``entirely unwarranted and baseless.''
``Pakistan has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment not to transfer nuclear and sensitive technologies to any country,'' he said. ``Pakistan has been abiding by this immutable and unilateral commitment in the past and will continue to do in the future.''
Diplomats have said there was concern Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, might have agreed to finance Pakistan's nuclear efforts and might try to buy missiles and nuclear know-how for itself.
The United States imposed financial sanctions on India and Pakistan last year after they staged tit-for-tat underground nuclear tests.
---
Visit to Pakistani facility raises missile-buying question
By Toni Marshall and Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 6, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl1.html
A visit by Saudi Arabia's defense minister to a secret Pakistani nuclear facility this spring may have been a preliminary step toward the purchase of a new medium-range missile, U.S. intelligence analysts said Thursday.
Earlier this week, Western officials were quoted expressing fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, might be trying to acquire nuclear weapons technology from Pakistan.
"What is happening is very serious," a senior British official was quoted as saying on Tuesday. "Proliferation has got to be pushed up the agenda in the interests of everyone."
The concerns were prompted by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz's tour in early May of the highly secret Kahuta uranium enrichment plant and missile factory. He was accompanied by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
President Clinton reportedly raised the issue of nuclear proliferation with Mr. Sharif when he visited Washington last month to discuss the India-Pakistan crisis over Kashmir.
The London-based Saudi-owned daily newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted Prince Sultan Thursday as denying that his country would purchase nuclear weapons from another country.
"Saudi Arabia is a signatory of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and is committed to its international pledges," Prince Sultan told the daily.
He said his visit did not "exceed the first entrances of the site and did not include secret facilities as was reported."
Prince Sultan said the kingdom did not want any weapons of mass destruction in the region, including nuclear weapons.
"We are proud that our relations with Pakistan are always friendly and strong and they should not be interpreted as something else," he said.
The site is so secret that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said she was not allowed to go to there during her tenure in office.
In Washington, an intelligence official said Thursday there was no evidence that the Saudis are seeking nuclear-weapon technology from Pakistan.
Intelligence analysts suspect the visit to Kahuta is more likely to be related to possible purchase of Pakistan's new medium-range Ghauri missile. Pakistan operates a ballistic-missile-research center at Kahuta along with its uranium enrichment center.
Pakistan test-fired its first Ghauri last year and the Saudis may be seeking replacement systems for the Chinese CSS-2 intermediate-range missiles deployed in the late 1980s.
A State Department official Thursday reiterated Saudi Arabia's commitment as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
"We have no reason to believe that Saudi Arabia is any way in violation of that treaty," the official said. Saudi Arabia signed the NPT in 1988.
However, the official said nuclear proliferation is an issue of serious concern to the United States.
"We have been working especially hard with the government of Pakistan to address this issue," he said. "We oppose further proliferation . . . . [B]oth the Saudis and Pakistanis are aware of our views."
Pakistan and India both staged underground nuclear tests last year. The United States imposed financial sanctions on both countries.
Pakistan is desperately in need of an infusion of money to prop up its ailing economy, contributing to fears it may be seeking a deal with oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
-----------
Sudan declares unilateral cease-fire
USA Today, August 6,1999
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
KHARTOUM, Sudan - The Sudanese government on Thursday declared a unilateral cease-fire throughout the country, the Ministry of Foreign Relations said. The cease-fire was to take effect at midnight Thursday and would expire Oct. 15, the ministry said in a statement. Rebels fighting for the predominantly Christian and animist south want increased autonomy and development in their region, which has been traditionally neglected under the government in the Muslim and Arab north. Also Thursday, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail's was quoted as saying Sudan is ready for an ''impartial'' investigation into allegations it used chemical or biological weapons against two southern towns.
--------
Activists Begin Fast in Iraq
By The Associated Press August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Iraq-US-Protesters.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Three members of the U.S.-based Voices in the Wilderness began a three-day fast Friday, setting up tents in front of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad to protest sanctions against Iraq.
A statement issued by the activists' group said the fasting is to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the U.N.-imposed sanctions.
``I can find no moral justification for starving these children to death, and I must make a stand against this criminal policy,'' said David Rolstone, 45, a boat builder from Narbeth, Wales. ``I am fasting in solidarity with the people of Iraq.''
Rolstone was sitting in a tent set up in front of Baghdad's Al-Canal Hotel, which houses six U.N. offices. The group plans to remain there during the fast, which will end Monday night.
Sweeping sanctions were imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and they are not to be lifted until weapons inspectors proclaim Iraq free of all mass destruction weapons.
The United Nations estimates that more than 1 million people, mostly children, have died as a result of the sanctions.
``I find it appalling that since 1997, the minimum acceptable standards for nutrition through the oil-for-food program have only been met six times,'' said Stacia Crescenzi, 30, of Rio Grande City, Texas. She is participating in the fast.
The Chicago-based group has long opposed U.S. policy on Iraq. For years, the group has been donating money, medical supplies and toys to Iraqi children in violation of U.S. federal laws that require permission to do so. U.S. citizens are also not allowed to travel to Iraq without permission.
American and British protesters could face prison time or fines for their actions in Iraq when they return home.
Chris Doycot of Hartford, Conn., is the third member of the fasting team. He donated blood Wednesday in an Iraqi hospital.
---
Dissidents: 30 Killed in Iraq Clash
By The Associated Press, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Iraq-Opposition.html
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Protests over food and medicine shortages in two southern cities triggered three days of clashes that left 16 Iraqi soldiers and 14 civilians dead, a dissident Iraqi group said Friday.
The London-based Iraqi National Congress said the clashes began July 25 when residents of Rumaitha, 150 miles southwest of the capital, Baghdad, and nearby Khudur took to the streets.
The statement said President Saddam Hussein ordered a tank unit from the elite Republican Guard to quell the riots after 16 soldiers were killed. Fourteen people died in subsequent clashes and 112 others were arrested, the group's statement said.
The incidents could not be independently confirmed.
Tank crews also shelled 40 houses and threatened to severely punish those who resisted their orders, said the statement, which was faxed to The Associated Press in Cairo.
The report said the Republican Guard kidnapped Kadhem Abdul-Sayeed, a leader of one of the tribes involved in the clashes.
Rumaitha is in the heart of Iraq's mainly Muslim Shiite south, where government opposition is strong.
--------
Barak wants CIA out of West Bank, Gaza
By David R. Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 6, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/news/news3.html#link
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as part of his push to revive direct peace talks with the Palestinians, is pressing to end the CIA's controversial role as security watchdog on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Mr. Barak, elected in May, urged U.S. officials during a visit last month to consider scaling back the CIA's security-monitoring role, established under the U.S.-brokered Wye River agreement signed in October by his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat.
A reduced CIA role fits into Mr. Barak's larger strategy of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, with the United States acting less as an mediator and more as a "facilitator."
"I don't think the CIA should be involved in counting the number of policemen on the Gaza Strip," Mr. Barak observed.
In an ironic twist, Palestinian Authority leaders who reluctantly agreed to the CIA role during the Wye River negotiations have come to be the arrangement's biggest backers, saying the U.S. intelligence agency has helped it counter Israeli claims that Mr. Arafat's government was not doing enough to prevent terrorist attacks.
"We needed the CIA as judge, since the Israelis were using the security issues to delay implementation of the interim agreement," a senior Palestinian security official told the Jerusalem Post last week.
Palestinian police and security forces have also received training and equipment from the CIA. Under Mr. Netanyahu, the arrangement served as a concrete example of U.S.-Palestinian cooperation at a time when the United States and Israel often found themselves at odds over the peace process.
"The reason the CIA was brought in was because Netanyahu was so suspicious," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism official and now a private consultant on anti-terrorism. "But it turned out that the Palestinians grew to like the arrangement."
The issue is likely to come up again when Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright visits the Middle East later this month to gauge regional sentiment for far-reaching peace talks.
Even with the surge of optimism over new peace talks following Mr. Barak's election, the negotiating agenda is dominated by Israel's security needs and the ability of Mr. Arafat to contain violent Palestinian factions.
Just Thursday, Israel accused the Palestinian Authority of tacitly supporting attacks on Jewish settlers in the West Bank after two Israelis were wounded in a shooting Tuesday in Hebron. Jibril Rajoub, chief of the Palestinian Preventive Security agency, denied the charges.
The dispute has left the CIA and the United States just where Wye River critics predicted last October -- intimately involved in a dispute between the two principals with no easy way to back out.
The surprise enlistment of the CIA in a very public role to monitor the Wye River accords raised criticisms on Capitol Hill last October, as well as fears that U.S. agents on the ground could become targets.
Ismail Abu Shanab, a leading figure in the terrorist Hamas organization, warned in December that the CIA's role in the process could spark violence.
"I cannot assure the safety of the CIA people who come here to implement Wye," Mr. Shanab said. "They are not welcome here."
But while Israel continues to press for a reduced CIA role, fears of violent reprisals have not come to pass.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the agency's role this week, passing along instead an unusual New York Times op-ed piece by agency Director George J. Tenet in October defending the CIA's role.
"The CIA is not making policy, but helping carry it out," he wrote at the time.
"Some have said the CIA is exceeding the limits of its charter," he added. "But fighting terrorism is our charter."
During Mr. Barak's visit here last month, President Clinton endorsed the Israeli leader's call for a less-commanding U.S. role in the Middle East peace process. Now that Israel is talking directly again with many of its adversaries, Mr. Barak argued, the United States should step back.
Mr. Barak "has publicly committed to honoring the agreements made at Wye, including the security provisions, but he has also argued very clearly that the CIA idea was a Band-Aid solution," said an Israeli official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
"All of the past major breakthroughs in the peace process were achieved by Israelis and Palestinians talking directly to each other," he said.
The official said Mr. Barak did not demand an end to the CIA's role during his five-day trip here last month. "But if Barak succeeds in his basic game plan," he said, "the expectation would be that the CIA's role would become less important."
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin took a similar position Thursday.
"The CIA and many people in our government got involved very heavily in the details of the peace process because the two sides were unable to accomplish those details themselves through direct action," Mr. Rubin said, adding that the United States had assumed that role "reluctantly."
He said: "We'll have to see what the direct contact that has now been occurring so regularly between the Israelis and Palestinians yields and make our decisions about our involvement based on these discussions."
The subject of changes to the Wye accords -- whether in the security field or in promised Israeli land withdrawals -- has become extraordinarily sensitive. While saying he won't make any unilateral moves, Mr. Barak has angered Palestinian leaders by suggesting some pullbacks be delayed by mutual consent while the sides move directly to final peace talks.
And some fear that terrorist attacks, which have been cut sharply in recent years in Israel, may flare up if the peace talks show promise.
Mr. Cannistraro said the CIA's argument that its Wye River role was nothing new was "more than a little disingenuous," but said the arrangement had worked out well on the whole.
"The CIA is a tool. It should be used," he said. "And as soon as it's not needed anymore, it should get out."
-----------
French Troops Confront Albanians
By The Associated Press, August 7, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Yugoslavia-Kosovo.html
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Heavily armed French peacekeepers today blocked an angry crowd of ethnic Albanians from marching into the Serb part of this tense industrial town in Kosovo. French troops detained at least four protesters after wrestling them to the ground.
Stray gunshots rang out today as dozens of French troops tried to defuse the confrontation at a bridge over the Ibar River, which divides the town. Hundreds of Serbs hurled stones at the ethnic Albanians as the two sides shouted insults and profanities.
Several ethnic Albanians were injured in scuffles with French troops before the crowds began dispersing after about two hours. One woman caught in the middle of one melee apparently fainted and was taken away in an ambulance.
The incident occurred amid growing concern over the safety of peacekeeping troops. Late Thursday and early Friday, a Russian soldier suffered a thigh wound and one ethnic Albanian was seriously wounded. NATO forces detained 15 suspects.
Trouble started here at midmorning, when about 100 ethnic Albanians assembled on their side of the Ibar bridge for what was supposed to have been a protest attended by politicians from the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Democratic League of Kosovo.
However, the politicians failed to show up, so the ethnic Albanians decided to cross the bridge, where an equal number of Serbs had assembled to stop them.
About 10 French military vehicles and nearly 40 troops separated the two groups. Scuffles broke out as French soldiers pushed back the Albanians, whose numbers swelled to nearly 1,000 as word of the confrontation spread through the town.
Finally, the ethnic Albanians began dispersing after the French allowed them to hold a brief rally on their side of the bridge.
Kosovska Mitrovica, about 18 miles northwest of Pristina, has been one of Kosovo's flash points because of the presence here of large ethnic Albanian and Serb communities.
Serbs live on one side of the Ibar river, Albanians on the other, and French troops separate them. Many on the Albanian side say they were thrown out of their homes on the Serb side during the Kosovo conflict and have been prevented by both Serbs and the French from returning.
``It's not just Serbia that won't let them in,'' said Halit Barani of the ethnic Albanian Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedom. ``It's the French soldiers that won't.''
French Lt. Meriadic Raffray said peacekeepers had been conducting escorted visits across the bridge over the past few days. He accused ethnic Albanian extremists of trying ``to provoke a reaction like this.''
``In all our cases, our way of working is the same,'' Raffray said. ``The only rule is to respect order. We cannot accept them to work outside the law. How do you want us to find a solution to a problem that began centuries ago? We are here for three years. We must have patience.''
In addition, ethnic Albanians have staged several protest marches against the Russians in the past week. They also accuse Russian mercenaries of fighting alongside Serb forces in their campaign of massacres and expulsions against ethnic Albanians.
Since entering the province on June 12 ahead of NATO troops, Russian forces have grown in number to about 3,600. They conduct patrols in the American sector in eastern Kosovo and the German sector in the west.
Serbs blame the rest of the NATO force for not adequately protecting them against attacks from revenge-minded ethnic Albanians. More than 160,000 Serbs have fled the province in the past eight weeks and raised questions about the effectiveness of the peacekeeping mission.
Only three major incidents were reported late Friday and early today in what NATO spokesman, Maj. Roland Lavoie, described as the ``quietest night'' since the peacekeeping mission began in June.
A girl lost her leg when she stepped on a land mines in the American sector, he said. An old man was killed in a land mine accident in the British zone. A man believed to have been an Albanian died in a shooting in the British sector. No further details were available.
Meanwhile, efforts are continuing to establish a strong international police force in Kosovo. Sven Frederickson, the Danish police commissioner heading the force, said there are 270 foreign police officers now working in the province and another 200 going through the five-day induction program.
He said he expects 200 additional policemen to arrive every week until the force reaches its target of 3,100.
Speaking in Helsinki, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari criticized the UN-controlled international police for having an unclear mandate and said the main responsibility for maintaining order should rest on the troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission.
---
NATO And Ethnic Albanians Scuffle In Tense Town
Updated 6:59 AM ET August 7, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/06/international-yugoslavia-kosovo
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia (Reuters) - French NATO peacekeeping troops scuffled with a crowd of around 1,000 ethnic Albanians trying to storm the Serbian district of a divided town in Kosovo Saturday, witnesses said.
The soldiers prevented the angry crowd from marching across a bridge between the rival neighborhoods in the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, a Reuters television cameraman at the scene said.
The town, divided by the Ibar river, is regarded as a potential flashpoint in tension between minority Serbs and ethnic Albanians seeking revenge for years of Serbian police repression.
The French troops handcuffed some of the marchers to lamp posts as a crowd of 500 Serbs on the other side of the river chanted provocative slogans at the ethnic Albanians.
U.N. administrator Bernard Kouchner visited a mass grave of some 70 executed and mutilated ethnic Albanians on a hill overlooking Mitrovica this week.
NucNews-5 8/07/99 - South Africa; Canada;
Brussels Uranium Smuggling; India; Korea / Japan; Asia/US Silk Road Act
NUCLEAR-SA-GREEN
GREEN PARTY OPPOSES PASSAGE OF NUCLEAR SHIPS CAPE TOWN
5 August 1999 Sapa
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/briefing/nw19990806/52.html
South Africa's Green Party on Thursday joined the chorus of opposition to the two nuclear fuel ships expected to round the Cape in September and urged government to intervene.
The ships, Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail were bound for Japan via Britain and France.
In a statement party spokesman Jeremy Acton said: "It is unacceptable to accept the passage of this highly dangerous cargo around South Africa's exclusive economic zone, without the provision of any protection."
The government should negotiate at the highest level with the governments of France, England and Japan, in order to ascertain the course, position and speed of these vessels.
The two vessels, transporting recycled nuclear fuel for Japanese power stations originate from Britain viFrench reprocessing plant.
They left France on July 16 amid protests by Greenpeace.
"According to international accords on the transport of nuclear material of this nature, a naval escort should be provided, but this has been ignored and the shipping nations wish to irresponsibly shirk the duty of guarding this shipment," Acton said.
...The Minister of Envirntal Affairs Valli Moosa has also expressed concern over the shipment and Deputy Minister Joyce Mabudafhasi met British, French and Japanese diplomats for a briefing on the shipment.
She said Cabinet had already decided in 1997 that vessels carrying nuclear material around the South African coast should be treated strictly in accordance with national and intern!hat international law grants any state the right of freedom of navigation of its ships on the high seas or through states' EEZs, and the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea of coastal states.
"Notwithstanding, I have requested that the ships stay out of our territorial waters and EEZ."
She said the government's overriding interest was to minimise risk to human health, marine life and the environment by ensuring the safe passage of the ships to Japan.
She had been given assurances at the briefing that the ships would not dock at any South African harbour.
"Further assurances were received that the radiological protection and safety arrangements meet international standards,"she said.
-----------
4 get massive radiation dose on abandoned nuclear site
Chalk River officials still investigating May 26 'incident'
Graham Hughes, Kelly Egan, Joanne Laucius, Carrie Buchanan and Chris Shulgan The Ottawa Citizen August 6, 1999
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/990806/2691158.html
Atomic energy officials are trying to determine how four workers at Chalk River got up to a year's allowable exposure to radiation in less than two hours.
On May 26, four Atomic Energy of Canada employees inhaled contaminated dust while working in a long-closed plutonium processing facility at Chalk River.
The four spent less than two hours in the basement of Building 220, working on a shut-down ventilation system wearing personal protective and monitoring equipment. AECL is decommissioning the building, which had been mothballed in 1957.
The Atomic Energy Control Board said the men were cutting away a baffle box -- a component of the ventilation system -- and saw dust falling from it. When they finished their work, they left the area and took off their protective clothing and respirators. At that point, monitoring equipment "identified significant levels of contamination on each of the four persons," a AECB report said.
The four men showered twice, reducing the contamination to less than detectable levels, the report says, but subsequent testing of urine samples revealed they had received radiation dosages that required they be removed from any further work involving radioactive materials.
AECL reported the incident verbally to AECB staff June 24, and submitted a formal written report on July 13, when AECL said two men had received a dose of 35 to 55 millisieverts (mSv). The others received more than 20 but less than 50 mSv. A millisievert is an international unit used to measure the radiation dose to the body.
The incident was reported as a "Level 2 Incident" on the International Nuclear Events Scale. The classification is described as "an incident with no off-site impact, related to significant spread of contamination on-site/overexposure of a worker." The scale ranges from zero (deviation) to seven (major accident).
Most people receive two to four mSv of radiation from natural sources each year. Other people might be exposed to higher doses of radiation. Cancer patients, for example, might receive a dose of 20 to 40 mSv in radiotherapy to a small section of their bodies over the period of only a few weeks.
Atomic workers should be exposed to no more than 50 mSv over the course of a year. However, although a report prepared by AECB shows reactor workers average 0.33 mSv annually, with dosages ranging from 0.11 to 5.2 mSv annually.
According to estimates from the International Commission on Radiological Protection, a male radiation worker who is exposed to 50 mSv has a 0.002 per cent greater chance of dying of cancer than someone who wasn't, said Norman Rubin, director of nuclear research at the anti-nuclear organization Energy Probe.
"This incident is a very good indicator of the dangerous conditions at Chalk River," said Dave Martin, a researcher with atomic energy watchdog, the Nuclear Awareness Project. "Building 220 is only one of many dangerous buildings there."
A 1994 government memorandum about Building 220 predicted decommissioning the building would present a number of challenges.
The building, commissioned in about 1950 to extract plutonium isotopes from enriched recycled fuels, was closed about seven years later.
Although breathing air, lighting and heating have been maintained since that time and some equipment was removed in the 1960s, "to a large extent, the facility was left as it was left in 1957," said the memorandum.
"It has been over 30 years since anyone worked at this site and there is little remaining operational experience of the contaminated systems," the document noted. "There appear to be gross discrepancies between the as-built drawings and the actual site."
The memorandum adds that there are also pipes, conduits and vents that are not fully understood or shown on drawings.
"Every time we start cleaning up, we're going to find problems we didn't anticipate," said Mr. Rubin. "It's going to be an enormous job. This is nothing compared to what happens when we start dismantling nuclear reactors. We'll be in for surprises for the next 100 years."
The building in which the incident occurred was once used to test alternative fuels, said Joe Carr, now retired, who was the manager of nuclear services at the plant 14 years ago before he retired.
"This whole area's been shut down. Nobody has worked in it for, I don't know how long. And it's contaminated," Mr. Carr said. "They used it mainly as a plutonium processing plant, to test plutonium for use in various reactors."
However, the absorption of a year's dose of radiation in two hours is "not a big deal," said Mr. Carr, provided the type of precautions that are being taken by AECL in this case are observed.
"This is not the first time that's happened," he said. "I'm sure I've had that happen. I worked in the NRU reactor for nine years."
He was, however, surprised to hear the men had become contaminated despite wearing protective suits. "The suits should have been air-tight."
Yesterday, AECL officials said they consider any incident to be important, said spokeswoman Donna Roach said yesterday from Chalk River.
AECL is working closely with the AECB on the investigation, she said. However, AECL is not expecting any adverse health effects from the incident.
The men have been assigned to work in areas where they will not come in contact with radioactive materials, Ms. Roach said. "We want to make sure that they don't get further exposure -- it's just standard procedure."
She could not say when the inquiry will wrap up. "It's prudent to get all the facts rather than rush it through to meet a date."
It is standard procedures for people working in a contaminated environment is that when they leave the area they are checked for contamination, said Ms. Roach.
"The procedure we follow is that when they come out of the area they've been working in, they're monitored by radiation surveyors. They are generally dressed in multiple layers -- different layers of equipment.
"As they remove each layer individually --there is a special procedure they follow for removing the different layers -- each layer is monitored. Once everything is removed, they're monitored again before they leave the area and then they shower."
Robert Bradley, a manager in the radiation protection bureau of Health Canada, said the fact that the workers received the annual acceptable limit within two hours does not present any additional risk.
"There is a considerable safety margin built into these limits, such that working at that level is not going to cause any immediate effects. Basically it is an indicator of increased risk over a lifetime exposure."
Mr. Bradley said "withdrawing the workers" from the contaminated site was obviously the right thing to do.
According to the accepted medical wisdom, there should be no immediate health effects from the exposure. "Any exposure adds to your incremental risk," said Mr. Bradley. "What they've basically done is picked up what would be deemed to be the incremental risk for the year."
The nuclear industry has set a maximum dosage for radiation workers to ensure that they are not at any greater risk of radiation damage than anyone in any other industry, Kathryn Higley, a radiation health physicist at Oregon State University's department of nuclear engineering.
However, she points out that calculating the dose of radiation is a difficult thing. People who have been exposed to radiation metabolize what they have absorbed over time. Plutonium will also decay over time when it's inside a person's body.
"You can take plutonium now, and it will give you a dose 40 years from now," said Ms Higley.
Radiation workers are being tracked by scientists. "Plutonium is doing a pretty poor job of being deadly," she said. "There are workers in their 80s who were exposed 40 years ago. These guys are still around and they're fine."
Jeff Cox, head of a United Steelworkers local that represents about 440 technical workers at the research centre, said AECL sent around a staff bulletin briefly outlining the incident. The bulletin indicated that at least one set of the protective gear worn by the four was torn, but it didn't explain how the other three workers would have become contaminated.
However, he had no first-hand knowledge about the matter and hadn't been contacted by any of the affected workers.
The incident clearly hasn't caused any panic among workers at AECL. Another union leader said the contamination wasn't even mentioned during the last two meetings of the site's health and safety committee.
Mr. Cox said it's too early to know just how serious the incident was and what, if any, corrective action should be taken in the ensuing decommissioning of the building.
"If indeed they received more than their annual dose, then it would be a serious incident and we'd want to make bloody sure it didn't happen again," said Mr. Cox.
Although he said it's premature to start blaming anyone, "we're going to be watching the investigation with eagle eyes, that's for sure, to make sure that it's done right."
Occasionally, there is low-level contamination of an individual, said Mr. Cox, but "a lot of times, it's a shower and you're OK."
Meanwhile, the AECB announced yesterday it is setting up a system for monitoring cancer rates in communities near nuclear plants.
The system will periodically monitor the number of cancer cases and cancer deaths in those areas, said Sunni Locatelli, a AECB spokeswoman.
AECB is taking action in co-operation with Health Canada because of growing public concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants.
The announcement comes on the heels of the World Conference on Breast Cancer last week in Ottawa, which heard from experts on the risks to people living near nuclear plants.
An American researcher told the conference he found "extraordinarily high levels" of cancers in females living within 16 kilometres of a reactor on Long Island, N.Y.
Dr. Jay Gould, director of the Radiation and Public Health Project in the U.S., later said he thought Canadians living near reactors would be at similar risk.
The control board has always maintained Canadian reactors release less than one percent of acceptable levels of strontium -- the radioactive element Dr. Gould measured in his study.
Chalk River's Building 220
- The building in which four Atomic Energy of Canada employees inhaled contaminated dust was commissioned in 1950 for the extraction of plutonium from enriched recycled fuels.
- It was mothballed about seven years later, although AECL has maintained breathing air, lighting and heating ever since.
- A 1994 federal government memo says that "it has been over 30 year since anyone worked at this site and there is little remaining operational experience of the contaminated systems." It added there are "gross discrepancies" including pipes, conduits and vents that are not fully understood or shown on as-built drawings.
- The anti-nuclear organization Nuclear Probe says "Building 220 is only one of many dangerous buildings" at the Chalk River facility
---
Canada to watch cancer rates near nuclear plants
WebPosted Fri Aug 6 07:42:18 1999
http://www.cbcnews.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/1999/08/05/nukcancer990805
OWEN SOUND, ONT. - Amid concerns over high cancer risks in people living near nuclear reactors, Canada's federal nuclear control agency has announced it will monitor rates of the disease in communities near the plants.
LINKS: Websites related to this story
The Atomic Energy Control Board announced the new system Thursday. It will work with Health Canada to periodically monitor the number of cancer cases and related deaths in the target areas.
The action is being taken after the release of a U.S. study suggesting high cancer rates are linked to proximity to nuclear reactors. The study conducted by Dr. Jay Gould of the Radiation and Public Health Project, was highlighted at last week's World Conference on Breast Cancer in Ottawa.
Gould measured cancer rates as well as levels of the radioactive element strontium within 16 kilometres of a reactor on Long Island, N.Y. He said he found "extremely high levels" of cancers in women living in the study area.
Representatives of Canada's nuclear industry dispute the concerns raised by the study. And the control board says Canadian reactors release less than one per one of acceptable levels of strontium.
Health Canada has done previous testing of cow's milk near the country's reactors but stopped after finding consistently low levels of radioactive materials.
A representative for the Atomic Enegry Control Board says the new monitoring system is being launched now to ease public concerns on the safety of nuclear power plants.
-----------
Three arrested in bungled Brussels uranium sale
11:07 a.m. Aug 06, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
BRUSSELS, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Police arrested three men on Thursday who they alleged tried to sell a five-kg (11 pounds) bar of uranium the size of a large bar of chocolate in a Brussels cafe.
Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the Brussels public prosecutors' office, told Reuters two Belgians and a Congolese were caught trying to sell the uranium for $1.2 million.
She called the attempt ``amateurish.''
The uranium, which was slightly radioactive, was apparently smuggled into Belgium from the Democratic Republic of Congo through the port of Antwerp, Pellens said. It was not known where it originated.
------
'Exercise democratic rights against nuclear weapons'
By Our Science Correspondent, The Hindu, August 6, 1999
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/08/06/stories/0206000m.htm
BANGALORE, AUG. 5. The Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons (ISANW), an association of scientists fighting nuclear weaponisation, have appealed to the people of the subcontinent to ``understand'' the consequences of nuclear warfare and ``exercise their democratic rights'' to save the region from becoming another Hiroshima.
In a statement issued to mark the anniversary of the dropping of the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima (August 6), they said Kargil events showed that nuclear weapons did not act as a deterrent, but had heightened tensions between India and Pakistan.
The statement reads:
``We, the members of ISANW, feel that nuclear weaponisation on the Indian subcontinent has been a huge step backward, which has seriously undermined the internal, external and economic security of our country.
``Recent events in Kargil demonstrate that nuclear weapons fail to prevent nuclear confrontation. In fact, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan has heightened tensions between the two countries.
``We are deeply disturbed by the irresponsible statements made by certain political leaders and people in responsible positions in India and Pakistan about readiness for a nuclear confrontation. The simple fact is there is no defence against a nuclear attack and there are no winners in a nuclear war. The current situation is extremely unstable and dangerous. Even a minor misunderstanding or error could trigger a nuclear confrontation. Civilian populations would then be annihilated and the land would be defiled for generations to come.
``We appeal to the scientists in our subcontinent to add their voices to the protest against nuclear weapons and work towards nuclear disarmament not only on the subcontinent but also globally.
``We appeal to all citizens of our subcontinent to understand the consequences of nuclear armament and exercise their democratic rights to save our subcontinent from the horrors of another Hiroshima.''
The statement has been signed by 16 scientists from the Raman Research Institute, the Indian Statistical Institute, the Indian Institute of Science, the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, all Bangalore based, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at Chennai and Syracuse University in the United States.
---
Peace march evokes mixed reaction
By Kalpana Sharma - The Hindu, August 6, 1999
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/08/06/stories/0406225q.htm
VARANASI, AUG. 5. From the `Rally for the Valley', to the Global Peace March, Ms Arundhati Roy has within one week touched on two issues which she had raised through her recent writings. Ms. Roy arrived in Varnasi today to join the concluding phase of the Global Peace March which began on May. 11 in Pokharan, near last year's nuclear test site.
The march brought together old Gandhians and young peace activists, well-known personalities like Ms Roy and Admiral L. Ramdas, former Chief of Naval Staff and his wife, the educationst, Ms. Lalita Ramdas, and over 400 others from all over the country. Mr. Fujisaka from Hiroshima, a second generation `hibakusha``' people affected by radiation, also joined the march.
The March was the first of its kind. With different people joining at different stages, a core group had travelled 1500 kms through 90 cities and villages. ``This padyatra is an effort to project the views of ordinary people,'' the veteran Gandhian, Mr. Narayan Desai, said.
Mr. Desai said at various stages, particularly in the early days in Rajasthan, the marchers confronted h hostile groups. They were abused and even stoned and some of them were injured.
According to the organisers, the hostile reception was only in three places, Pokharan, Ram Deora and Falodi in Rajasthan. Once they moved into Uttar Pradesh, they generated considerable interest, particularly amongst students. In Uttar Pradesh, they stopped in Agra, Tundla, Ferozabad, Makhanpur, Mainpuri, Kanpur and Allahabad. In each place, local
people hosted the marchers and arranged for their accomodation and meals.
The march set out with the twin purpose of raising the question of security based on nuclear weapons and spreading awareness on radioactivity. One of the groups to join them here in Varanasi is from the Jadugoda Uranium mines in Orissa. Mr. Ghanshyam says, ``We want to tell you a sad story, of how people are suffering from lung, blood and bone cancer just because they live near the uranium mines. People die after a bomb is made and used but we are being killed before it is made. Those who go into the army, do so out of choice but we are being forced to sacrifice our lives in the name of security. We cannot tolerate this any longer.''
The marchers performed sketches and sang songs on peace and against nuclear weapons before curious citizens of this ancient city in front of the main railway station. Scores of people gathered around to listen. But around the periphery of the performers, heated discussions could be heard about the issue.
``We need food, not bombs'', said some while others argued that the country's security was more important and that bombs were essential.
Tomorrow, on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb, the Global Peace March will set out for Sarnath to which representatives of many organisations from around the country concerned about peace are expected to gather.
---------
S. Korea destroyers come to Japan
USA Today August 6, 1999
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
TOKYO - Two South Korean destroyers made the first-ever port call in Japan Friday by combat ships from South Korea's navy, Japan's Defense Agency said. The ships - the Kwanggaeto Daewang and the Chungnam - were anchored at Sasebo, near Tokyo. A Defense Agency spokesman said the goodwill visit by the South Korean ships was scheduled to last until Sunday, when they would return home. The arrival of the destroyers came after the navies of South Korea and Japan held five days of training exercises in the East China Sea. Three Japanese destroyers participated in the drills, the first joint military exercises between their nations' forces.
---
N. Korea Preparing for Rocket Launch
By Robert Burns AP Military Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; 3:17 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000503-080699-idx.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea delivered rocket fuel this week to the launch site where U.S. officials believe it is preparing to test-fire a long-range missile in defiance of American warnings, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
The fuel deliveries were an additional indication that North Korea may test as early as this month, although no missile has yet been detected at the site, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. intelligence also has detected activity by North Korean radars at the launch facility this week, including those radars expected to be used in tracking a ballistic missile in flight, the official said.
The issue is particularly sensitive because the United States and South Korea have insisted that North Korea abandon its ballistic missile development as a condition of normalizing relations. The North and South have been in a technical state of war since an armistice ended the Korean War in 1953. The United States has no formal diplomatic relations with North Korea but is moving in that direction.
The Pentagon on June 30 first publicly acknowledged that U.S. intelligence had detected ``some preparations'' for a launch in coming weeks or months, but it has declined to be more specific.
The Clinton administration has repeatedly said that a missile test launch would have ``serious consequences'' for North Korea but has not threatened military retaliation. The U.S. view is that a long-range missile capability for North Korea would destabilize the region. South Korea, for example, would come under increased domestic political pressure to develop missiles that can strike deeper into North Korea. In the 1970s Seoul agreed -- under U.S. pressure -- to limit the range of its missiles.
Adding to the worry in Washington is a belief that North Korea has or is pursuing nuclear weapons that could be delivered by missile.
The Washington Times reported Friday that U.S. intelligence agencies believe several hundred North Korean military advisers are helping the government of President Laurent Kabila in the Congo's civil war and may be paid in uranium ore from the same mine that was the source of ore for the first U.S. nuclear weapons in the 1940s.
North Korea has denied it is developing nuclear weapons.
The official Korean Central News Agency said in a report Friday that Washington is using the missile test issue as a pretext to attack North Korea and to justify its ``madcap arms buildup in South Korea.''
``We warn the United States once again that whether we launch a satellite or missile, it belongs to our sovereign right,'' the report said. ``If the United States projects a `military countermeasure' at any cost, (North Korea) will retaliate against it with a stronger countermeasure.''
North Korea's first launch of a Taepo Dong missile, last Aug. 31, took the U.S. government by surprise, triggered outrage in Japan and put in doubt the future of U.S. relations with the communist North. The two-stage missile, with an estimated range of 1,000 miles, flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific.
The incident triggered a Clinton administration reassessment of its policy toward North Korea and an offer, conveyed to North Korean officials by former Defense Secretary William Perry in May, to lift the decades-old U.S. economic embargo against the North in exchange for an agreement to end missile development and other concessions.
The United States believes North Korea is developing longer-range missiles, including the Taepo Dong 2, possibly capable of reaching U.S. territory. In addition to the direct threat such a missile could pose, the Clinton administration is concerned that North Korea would sell such technology to other nations hostile to America.
-----------
World Wide Minerals Ltd.: U.S. House Of Representatives Passes Bill That Links U.S. Financial Assistance To Settling Trade Disputes
10:48 a.m. Aug 05, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
WASHINGTON, D.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 5, 1999--World Wide Minerals Ltd. (TSE: WWS) announced today that the United States House of Representatives had passed Bill HR 1152, the Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999.
The Bill as passed, which still requires Senate and Presidential approvals, makes a "Silk Road" country (Kazakhstan and other central Asian countries) ineligible for U.S. assistance unless it has demonstrated "significant progress" in resolving trade disputes registered with and raised by the U.S. Embassy in the host country. World Wide has registered its dispute with the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan and the U.S. Embassy has intervened on its behalf.
The Silk Road Bill is intended to promote free market policies in Central Asia and to encourage foreign investment and trade in those countries. In sponsoring the Bill in the House, Rep. Dan Burton (R. Indiana) supported these goals but pointed out that "... many companies from OECD countries, including the United States, have substantial direct investments in several of these countries and are not being accorded fair treatment. Investment contracts are not being honored, export permits are not being issued and de facto nationalizations of foreign investment have occurred."
Rep. Burton further added that "this Bill should send a strong signal that countries should not expect to receive U.S. assistance if they mistreat companies that provide critical investment capital ..." This position was supported by a majority of the Congressmen who voted for the Bill, including Rep. Tom Lantos (D. California) who is the ranking Democratic member of the Asia Subcommittee of the International Relations Committee of the House. Clearly, there was strong bi-partisan support for the Bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Paul Carroll, Chairman, President and CEO of World Wide, said "we are very gratified with the support we have received from the U.S. Government in our efforts to recoup our Kazakhstan investment. We believe that passage of this Bill is a significant step in the right direction. At a time when Kazakhstan is actively seeking economic assistance from the U.S., American companies and multi-lateral agencies influenced by the U.S., this legislative action should send a strong message that all foreign investors must be treated fairly."
World Wide is an international resource company whose businesses consist of the operation, development, production and marketing of uranium and uranium products based out of Denver and gold exploration and development based out of Toronto and Beijing. NucNews-6 8/07/99 - US - Trojan (OR), Hanford (WA)
Oregon Nuclear Reactor Goes Gently (Very) Into the Night
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 7, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000453-080699-idx.html
RAINIER, Ore. -- Entombed in concrete and six-inch-thick steel, the radioactive reactor of the largest American nuclear power plant ever to be shut down was loaded onto a barge today for a 270-mile river journey right through the heart of metropolitan Portland.
It is the first time a commercial reactor of this size, and level of contamination, has passed through a major American city, said officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency overseeing the shutdown of the Trojan Nuclear Plant. The move worries environmentalists.
Lloyd Marbet, who led three unsuccessful ballot initiatives to shut the plant down before a deteriorating steam generator ultimately forced the decision, said, "I'm not saying if the reactor falls off into the water, everybody would have to be evacuated from Portland, but it would not be good for the Columbia River to have a reactor vessel sitting in it."
"The fact of the matter," Marbet said, "is that the interior of the vessel contains a very high level of radioactivity."
Moving the Trojan reactor, which weighs 1,000 tons, is contentious because environmentalists had urged the power company, Portland General Electric, to mothball the entire site for at least 50 years and wait for the radioactive isotopes to cool before dismantling the plant.
The company opted to move the reactor first by barge and then by truck from its site 42 miles northwest of Portland on the banks of the Columbia River to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south-central Washington. There, it will be buried 45 feet deep.
The huge, dumbbell-shaped reactor, encased in blue plastic, was loaded onto the barge Friday morning.
A tug was scheduled to push off from the quay Friday evening and take the barge past Portland by early Saturday morning. It will continue upstream until it reaches the port of Benton, Wash., on Sunday. From there, two trucks will creep along at 5 miles per hour, pulling the vessel on a 320-wheel, 16-axle trailer to Hanford, 30 miles away.
Utility officials said moving the leakproof reactor by barge was the safest way to dismantle the plant, which for 16 years generated enough electricity to power all of Portland.
It was closed in 1993, two decades earlier than planned.
A spokesman for Portland General Electric, Kregg Arntson, said, "I would characterize it as a risky move, but it's a lot safer than the traditional method of cutting the reactor into pieces and trucking it over the highway."
Arntson said that once the vessel was in concrete, it posed little risk to the workers handling it or to residents along the river.
He said that a person standing within six feet of the reactor for an hour received no more radiation than an airplane passenger would get from the sun while flying round-trip between Portland and New York.
Trojan was plagued of glitches, including a faulty safety system that drew Federal fines in 1989, the accidental release of radioactive gasses in 1992 and cracked steam tubes that forced the plant's shutdown the following year.
Photos:
Reactor Loading Scene
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.1.jpg.html
http://graphics.nytimes.com/99/08/07/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.1.jpg
--
Reactor Closeup
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.2.jpg.html
http://graphics.nytimes.com/99/08/07/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.2.jpg
---------
Hanford chromium seepage targeted
Project will be expanded to intercept entire plume of tainted water
Associated Press / Spokane Net - August 5, 1999
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=080599&ID=s617367&cat=
RICHLAND _ A Hanford Nuclear Reservation experiment to stop chromium seepage into the Columbia River has worked well so far and plans are being made to expand the project to intercept an entire plume of tainted water.
Chromium, a metallic chemical, is not radioactive, but is one of Hanford's most worrisome contaminants because its subterranean migration to the river is potentially hazardous to baby salmon.
The experiment's goal was to see if pumping chemicals into the underground aquifer would neutralize chromium-laden water seeping toward the river.
The 150-foot-wide series of injection wells likely will be broadened to 1,000 feet or more by 2001 in an effort to block the entire chromium plume coming from the D reactors area, said John Fruchter, a staff scientist in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's environmental technology division.
Until now, Hanford's best method of dealing with its worst subterranean plumes has been to pump polluted water out of the ground, treat it and return the water to the ground.
But that's a stopgap measure. Pump-and-treat operations can stop plumes from spreading, but they don't minimize the actual subterranean contamination.
This new process, called "in situ redox manipulation," changes the chromium to a benign form.
Different types of chromium were used to slow corrosion in Hanford's old plutonium reactor systems and to help decontaminate the reactors after they were shut down.
Over the years, chromium leaked into the ground or was disposed of in old, long-gone tanks.
Underground, chromium-tainted water seeps under the Columbia's river bed to bubble up through the gravel on the river bottom. The river's huge volume of water dilutes the chromium to safe levels, but the concentration in the gravel river bed poses a threat to newly hatched salmon.
Fall chinook deposit their eggs in the gravel, and baby salmon stay there for a few weeks after hatching.
Chromium can go through the membranes, gills and mouths of baby salmon to concentrate in their body tissues and internal organs. The newly hatched salmon could then become lethargic, experience breathing problems or die.
Hanford scientists are studying exactly what the chromium does to baby salmon. A level of 11 parts per billion of chromium in the river beds is considered dangerous to the hatchlings, and concentrations of up to roughly 600 parts per billion have been found in the river.
The goal is to get the chromium concentration down to 22 parts per billion when the fluids hit monitoring wells 40 feet away from the river, said Arlene Tortoso, the Department of Energy's groundwater project manager at Hanford.
Ideally, the best way to get rid of the chromium is to attack it at its sources, which can be difficult to find, Tortoso said.
Most outlying auxiliary buildings around many reactors are long gone. Maps showing where tanks used to be are old and suspect. NucNews-7 8/07/99 - Yucca Mountain
COLUMN ONE A Timeless Marvel--or Madness?
Foes call it laughably ill-conceived, but those devoting years to planning a nuclear storage site see an unmatched engineering feat.
By JOHN M. GLIONNA, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, August 5, 1999
http://www.latimes.com/excite/990805/t000069615.html
YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev.--Squinting against the enveloping gloom, engineer Jim Niggemyer boards the dusty yellow mining train for its long, slow descent into the depths of America's nuclear solution--through the twisting tunnel that may one day lead to a nuclear-age pharaoh's tomb.
Far out in the bleak desert 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, government researchers are busy drilling, heating and analyzing the depths of this ancient mountain for its likely future as the nation's first high-level nuclear graveyard.
They toil for a long-term goal: to transform Yucca Mountain by 2010 into the permanent home to 77,000 tons of highly lethal waste--spent uranium and plutonium byproducts from nuclear power plants, nuclear submarines and government test projects dating back to the testing of the first atomic bomb.
Housed in corrosion-resistant alloy canisters the size of compact cars, the fearsome cargo--so radioactive that momentary exposure would mean death within days, if not hours--would fill the bottom of the Rose Bowl to a height of 12 feet.
The nation's spent nuclear fuel is now stored at military bases and in cooling pools and dry storage at more than 100 reactors in 34 states--including California, which has four active and three closed reactors. These sites require constant monitoring and repair.
Niggemyer and his colleagues know that the government is banking on the Yucca Mountain Project to hold the fuel for a virtual eternity. With its remote location and arid climate, officials estimate that the desert repository can isolate the waste for at least 10,000 years--at the end of which, they predict, much of the radioactivity will have diminished.
Still, researchers are trying to gauge the mountain's suitability for a seemingly unfathomable 100,000--and even 1 million--years into the future.
For Niggemyer, the project is a permanent answer to a nagging nuclear waste problem that has perplexed the nation for generations. Since the 1950s, researchers have recommended pie-in-the-sky disposal solutions ranging from launching the waste into the sun to burying it beneath the ocean floor or the Earth's polar ice caps.
Niggemyer is among scores of researchers who have devoted years and even decades of their lives to the project. They hope they are working on mankind's most enduring engineering achievement, one that for a time at least will defy nature's fierce destructive powers.
"When it's finished, this repository will be unlike anything that's ever been accomplished in human history," Niggemyer shouted over the train engine's drone. "We erect buildings to last maybe a couple hundred years. And while the Great Sphinx and the pyramids have been around for 13,000 years, they're no longer functional.
"This site will still be doing its job 100,000 years from now."
Critics Say Project Poses Health Threat
Critics are less sure of that legacy. They say the $35-billion project--to be funded mostly by fees paid by nuclear energy customers--is a laughable combination of high-level waste and low-level logic that will pose a serious health threat to future generations.
Haunted by earlier detonations among these forlorn-looking mountains at the Nevada Test Site, locals say it's easy for the government to think it can dump more lethal waste in an area already tainted by nuclear bomb tests.
Angry Nevadans, some of whom have become quick studies in the rarefied realm of nuclear physics and soil geology, say the mountain is too porous to hold nuclear waste and that over the eons surface water will penetrate the protective casings and enter the water table, carrying radioactive particles to California's Death Valley and beyond.
They say the government's chosen site is prone to earthquakes. Pointing to a magnitude 5.6 quake 12 miles away at Little Skull Mountain in 1992, locals say the Yucca site sits amid a seismic minefield. One good temblor, they say, could crack open the waste containers like peanut shells.
Worse, critics are concerned about the danger of transporting spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain from reactors nationwide, past 51 million people in 43 states, including California. The chance of an accident or terrorist attack moved U.S. Sen. Richard H. Bryan (D-Nev.) to dub the transport scenario "Mobile Chernobyl."
But project researchers say the present generation has an ethical obligation to deal with the nuclear waste in its lifetime. "We're the ones who made it, so we're responsible for its disposal," said Michael Voegele, a senior project engineer. "We can't just pass this problem on to our children."
And they argue that any nuclear disposal plan would be unpopular. "On most issues you deal with the NIMBYs--the Not in My Back Yard types," said project spokesman Allen Benson. "With nuclear waste, you face the NOPEs--the Not on Planet Earth crowd."
In the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy settled on three states as the most likely sites to bury the nation's nuclear waste: Texas, Washington and Nevada. But in 1987, Congress called the selection process too costly and zeroed in on Yucca Mountain.
Still, the location has yet to be approved by Congress. The 5.4-mile, U-shaped tunnel was bored into the side of the mountain at a cost of $80 million solely to allow access for tests. Only after winning congressional blessing would the Energy Department construct a honeycomb of 35 miles of additional tunnels to house the waste.
The agency will report to the president in 2001 on whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for "deep geologic disposal." Congress is scheduled to vote on the project in 2005. At any point, it could be shelved.
But if all goes well for the scientists, the first waste would arrive in 2010, loaded by remote control locomotives. After 20 years, the mountain repository would be sealed, essentially forever.
Scientists describe Yucca Mountain's unknown parameters with the kind of breathless excitement once reserved for early NASA projects. Many liken the gravity of their work to the seriousness of the moon race; the exhausting hours and team spirit are similar as well, they say.
For many, the project is the pinnacle of long academic careers.
"We're pushing science to new realms, accomplishing things only possible if you really believe that you're doing something historic," said John Rosenthal, a senior project scientist. "And sometimes we think, 'What does it take to get this across to the public?' We're not mad scientists. We're doing something we think is moral and right."
As Niggemyer's mining train lumbers deeper into the main tunnel entrance, the light and heat of the Nevada desert quickly recede. Dusty air fills the lungs and grabs the throat. At a diameter of 25 feet, the tunnel is the size of most subway projects, carved by a huge, $14-million boring machine that scientists nicknamed the "Yucca Mucker." Illuminated by the weak electric light, the tunnel walls are jagged and chalky, more like the interior of some carnival fun house than an underground laboratory.
The main tunnel makes a gradual descent to the 1.7-mile mark, where it cuts left for two miles and then left again and out for another 1.7 miles--making the shape of a giant, squared-off horseshoe. If the project goes ahead, the 10,500 waste containers will be stored in more than 100 16-foot-diameter cavities that will be drilled inside the horseshoe loop.
Wearing earplugs and safety goggles, engineers communicate in manic sign language as Niggemyer leads a tour group past experimental sites deep within the Yucca Mountain rock.
'Most Studied Piece of Rock in . . . History'
Since the main tunnel was bored in 1992, Yucca Mountain has become what Niggemyer calls the "most studied piece of rock in human history," probed around the clock by the scientists and engineers who labor inside the jagged mountain ridge that rises about 1,000 feet above a dusty southwestern Nevada plain known as Jackass Flats. Japanese, French and Russian scientists have also examined the research going on inside the mountain.
Scientists have conducted countless tests to determine how water, earthquakes and glacial invasion would alter the buried nuclear waste.
"We're examining climates a million years past to see what might happen in the distant future, to determine the behavior of this mountain when the bulk of North America will be under ice," said Abe Van Luik, a senior project scientist who added that glaciers should next dominate North America 10,000 years from now.
Van Luik embodies the loyalty the Yucca Mountain Project has inspired. The 54-year-old Dutch-born geochemist has been with four contractors at Yucca Mountain, changing firms as each contract ended to stay with the project. He now works for the Department of Energy.
"I've been disloyal to some employers but loyal to this project," he said. "People who leave return begging for their old jobs. The vision of this venture takes over your life. You're creating something with a role to play for the rest of the age of the Earth. And that's simply mind-boggling."
Researchers have studied the dung piles of ancient pack rats, looking for clues to past climates and vegetation that can be used for a glimpse into the future. They've monitored heaters set at 350 degrees to simulate how the waste will literally cook the mountain, changing its rock layers in ways scientists still seek to understand.
On Friday, project officials expect to release a draft study outlining how burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain will affect the environment.
After assuming for years that most surface water would evaporate in the desert, project scientists acknowledge that water will, in the end, have its way. Tens of thousands of years from now, surface water will invade the canisters and--after being exposed to the decaying waste--be carried away by the underground water table.
Under the plan, the fuel containers will each be protected from erosion by a drip-resistant cover shaped like the roof on a shed.
But the researchers believe that communities around the site may be able to live with some degree of radioactivity. To gauge the waste water's effect on future generations, they've used a computer to invent a fictional farming community in nearby Amargosa Valley 10,000 years from now. They're studying the possible radioactive exposure of residents and livestock that might drink water tainted by nuclear waste.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed limiting the annual radioactive exposure of local residents to 25 millirems from their water--the equivalent of two X-rays--and Yucca Mountain scientists are considering alternative waste package designs to meet or exceed the proposed standard.
"In the end, waste packages will fail," senior project engineer Voegele said. "Water will leak in and radioactive particles will escape. We're working hard to keep seepage to a minimum."
Project opponents say any water seepage resulting in increased radiation exposure is unacceptable. "There shouldn't be any exposure whatsoever," said Judy Treichel, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a public advocacy group that opposes the project.
"If this is the disposal solution for radioactive material, that should mean it's gone, that it's not accessible anywhere in the biosphere. But that's not the case. The government shouldn't call this disposal. They should call it delayed release."
Scientists have also tried to account for the person they call "the world's unluckiest human," who may one day stumble across the toxic dump on a misguided dig for water or buried gold.
Before building the exploratory tunnel, they determined that few mineral resources existed near Yucca Mountain to attract such excavators. Scientists conducted geological surveys, interviewed veteran miners and studied satellite photographs of the area.
They're even considering the inscription they'll place on the mountainside monument that will one day mark the site after the repository is sealed. "How will people communicate in 100,000 years?" asked Van Luik. "What language will they speak? Will it be mental telepathy? One thing we assume is that subsequent generations will be smarter than we are."
One government report included notions that a project scientist termed "a cross between a 'Star Trek' episode and a Grimm's fairy tale," including ideas such as a monument featuring a pictograph of universal symbols, much like those used on space probes.
Other proposals include everything from a futuristic skull and crossbones to threatening black spikes--anything connoting extreme danger.
At a government lab in New Mexico, researchers are also testing the canisters for resistance to possible terrorist attacks while the containers are en route to Nevada--pushing them off cliffs, ramming them with Humvees, even firing missiles from rocket launchers at them.
And although they await word on the project's future, scientists remain convinced that they've found their mountain, that the Yucca site is the best place to bury the fallout from three generations of nuclear power.
"I really do believe this country will solve this problem," said Voegele, a 20-year project veteran. "And I believe that Yucca Mountain is the answer. Call me an optimist. I refer to myself as a bona fide believer."
* *
*Nuclear Waste Storage
Scientists are testing a proposed site for a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The nuclear graveyard would house waste essentially forever.
STORAGE PROCESS
1. Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste would be transported to Yucca Mountain by truck or rail in shielded shipping containers.
2. The nuclear fuel and waste would be removed from the containers and placed in corrosion-resistant canisters for disposal.
3. Using a remotely operated crane, waste packages would be placed on supports in tunnels.
4. Shed-like covers would protect against surface water penetrating the canisters.
5. The waste packages would be monitored until repository is closed and sealed 20 years after the storage process begins. NucNews-8 8/07/99 - U.S. DOE Labs/Security
Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project Receives DOE VPP 'Star'
Updated 5:16 PM ET August 5, 1999 Business Wire
http://news.excite.com/news/bw/990805/id-morrison-knudsen
BOISE, Idaho (BUSINESS WIRE) - Morrison Knudsen Corporation (MK)(NYSE:MK) announced today that the Department of Energy's (DOE) Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project (WSSRAP) has received the DOE's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) "Star" status.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson came to the Weldon Spring site on Wednesday to formally announce the recognition and present MK's project team the award and Star Flag.
"This award represents the culmination of several years of effort by labor and management working together to achieve the highest levels of safety and health program performance," said Richardson. "Less than 500 work sites in this country have received this award. Only three other Energy-Department sites have achieved the `Star' level of performance. Considering that there are more than six-million workplaces in the private sector, this is a true testament to your commitment to safety and health and your commitment to one another."
Adding his praise, Thomas H. Zarges, president and chief executive officer of MK Engineers and Constructors Group, said, "I am proud of the work MK has done on this project. Safety is our number one priority in all we do. The workers at this site should be proud of their efforts in achieving this award."
Accepting the award and flag on behalf of MK's project team, Doug Steffen, MK's project director stated, "The employees at the Weldon Spring site have worked very hard to make safety their top priority. We are honored to fly the Star Flag at this site, both as a symbol of our accomplishment and as a reminder of the day-to-day importance of safety."
The VPP Star Award is the highest honor the DOE gives for safety performance and excellence. It reflects the culmination of successful implementation and subsequent verification of a project's Integrated Safety Management (ISM) system, a system designed to improve safety at all DOE sites. WSSRAP is the third DOE site to receive this award and the first environmental restoration project to receive it. By September 2000, all DOE sites will be required to have an ISM system in place.
Conducting the ISM verification at the WSSRAP, Harold Monroe, DOE inspector for the project, explained that the site had met, "the functions and principles of the ISM system and they have been established and adequately implemented."
In addition, Monroe stated the WSSRAP could be used as an example for meeting ISM system standards for other DOE sites. "Having visited WSSRAP during the early years of cleanup, I am impressed by its success in developing and improving the relationships it has with the local population, local and state government, and regulators," said Monroe. "All of DOE could learn and benefit from these efforts."
MK has been managing the cleanup efforts at WSSRAP since 1986. Weldon Spring was the site of the nation's largest explosive plant during World War II. From 1955 to 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission, which later became the DOE, developed an uranium feeds material plant and processed uranium ore, which was instrumental in the country's pursuit of nuclear materials. The plant was dormant until 1986 when the DOE assumed cleanup efforts.
The project is expected to be complete September 2002 when the 45-acre disposal facility is finished. This facility will serve as the burial ground for some 1.48-million cubic yards of contaminated-waste materials.
Morrison Knudsen Corporation (NYSE:MK) has 23,500 employees at work in more than 35 countries serving the nuclear-services, energy, environmental, government, heavy-civil, industrial, mining, operations and maintenance, process, transportation, and water-resource markets as an engineer, constructor, and program manager.
This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act of 1995, which are identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "could," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "estimate," or "continue" or the negative thereof or other variations thereof. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily based on various assumptions and estimates and are inherently subject to various risks and uncertainties, including risks and uncertainties relating to the possible invalidity of the underlying assumptions and estimates and possible changes or developments in social, economic, business industry, market, legal, and regulatory circumstances and conditions and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties, including the corporation=s customers, suppliers, business partners, and competitors and legislative, regulatory, judicial, and other governmental authorities and officials.
Contact: Morrison Knudsen Corporation John Roberts, 208/386-5395
-----------
Reno defends handling of nuclear secrets probe
August 5, 1999 Web posted at: 12:54 p.m. EDT (1654 GMT)
http://cnn.com/US/9908/05/china.spy.02/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Responding to a congressional report critical of the FBI's espionage case against a Los Alamos weapons scientist, Attorney General Janet Reno Thursday again defended the Justice Department's decision-making.
"I had a sneak peek, but it was literally a peek," Reno said of the report released by leaders of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee -- Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tennessee, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat.
The report criticizes the Justice Department's decision to reject an FBI wiretap request on scientist Wen Ho Lee, suspected of links to possible Chinese espionage at U.S. nuclear laboratories.
"As I have said before, the people reviewing it, based on the information that was available to them at the time, considered in the entire context of the matter, they did not believe that there was probable cause," Reno said.
Must have probable cause to tap phones
Federal officials are required to have "probable cause" to believe a crime may have been committed before seeking warrant applications to tap phones.
Reno again acknowledged that the Justice Department has now instituted procedures to follow up on FBI complaints when Justice attorneys reject wiretap requests.
"We should have pursued it with the bureau to see if they had any other information, to see if there was anything else that they could come up with to see if there was anything that could be done," Reno said.
The attorney general, however, said flatly she disagrees with the suggestion that the Justice Department officials possessed "probable cause" to approve a wiretap on Lee but simply ignored it.
The FBI's espionage case against Lee was considered "flawed from the outset," the report said, because authorities identified a number of other suspects, but failed to investigate them.
Failed polygraph test
It also disclosed for the first time that, in a polygraph test in February, when Lee was asked if he had passed nuclear secrets "to any unauthorized person," he failed the test.
The report described a string of missteps, communications lapses and misunderstandings over three years that prevented the FBI from establishing a strong case against the Taiwan-born scientist.
The findings summarized information gathered during two closed-door hearings the committee held on the federal investigation into Lee.
He was fired from his top-secret job last March after being the primary suspect since 1996 in the alleged theft by China of secrets involving the sophisticated W-88 nuclear warhead in the 1980s.
Lee has not been charged with a crime, although a federal grand jury was hearing evidence in the ongoing case. In his only public comments, Lee in a television interview last Sunday categorically denied providing nuclear secrets to China or anyone else.
---
Lee failed lie detector test, report says
8/05/99- Updated 10:55 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu04.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI's espionage case against a Los Alamos weapons scientist was ''flawed from the outset'' because authorities identified a number of other suspects, but failed to investigate them, a congressional report revealed Thursday.
The report also disclosed for the first time that in a polygraph test in February when the scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was asked if he had passed nuclear secrets ''to any unauthorized person,'' he failed the test.
The report by the leaders of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee outlined a string of missteps, communications lapses and misunderstandings over three years that prevented the FBI from establishing a strong case against the Taiwan-born scientist.
The findings summarized information gathered during two closed-door hearings the committee held on the federal investigation into Lee. He was fired from his top-secret job last March after being the primary suspect since 1996 in the alleged theft by China of secrets involving the sophisticated W-88 nuclear warhead in the 1980s.
Lee has not been charged with a crime, although a federal grand jury was hearing evidence in the ongoing case. In his only public comments, Lee in a television interview last Sunday categorically denied providing nuclear secrets to China or anyone else.
But the Senate report disclosed that last February, Lee was asked during an FBI polygraph test whether he had ever given specific classified computer code related to weapons testing, or ''passed W-88 information to any unauthorized person?''
''Wen Ho Lee failed this polygraph test,'' said the report.
Asked Thursday morning if she had seen the report, Attorney General Janet Reno said she had not had time to examine the details.
The 30-page report provided new details on the FBI's failed attempts to get Justice Department approval to search Lee's office computer. The effort, however, was made more difficult in part because of FBI bungling, the report suggested.
As early as 1996, a series of misunderstandings between an FBI field agent and Los Alamos officials failed to make clear that apparently Lee had agreed on his computer being searched and that his computer, in fact, carried a ''banner'' warning such searches could be made.
The failure to provide accurate information to senior FBI and Justice officials had ''significiant implications for the course of the Lee espionage investigation,'' the report said.
Last March, investigators finally searched Lee's computer and found he had transfered thousands of top-secret computer code files from the Los Alamos highly secured computer system to his unclassified office computer that was linked to the Internet. It has not been determined whether any of the data ever left the lab.
At one point, the Justice Department's office that reviewed requests for the Lee computer search described the case as ''flawed from the outset'' because the FBI had focused almost exclusively on Lee and his wife, also a Los Alamos employee, while other suspects were ignored.
''The DOE and Bureau had (multiple) suspects, and only two were investigated,'' Justice attorney Allan Kornblum told the Senate committee, according to the report.
These other suspects also had access to the secret information at Los Alamos, traveled to China, had contacts with Chinese scientists visiting the New Mexico lab, and fit the profile that made Lee a prime suspect, the report said. Still, they were not investigated in any detail, although the FBI questioned some of them earlier this year, the report said.
---
China Spy Probe Bungled, Panel Finds
Senators Say U.S. May Never Know if Atomic Secrets Were Lost
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/06/078l-080699-idx.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000588-080599-idx.html
The FBI and the Energy Department bungled the investigation of a nuclear scientist suspected of giving China secret information about the design of the W-88 warhead, America's most advanced nuclear weapon, a Senate committee said yesterday.
The bipartisan report by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs says the investigators failed to look into other suspects, fought among themselves over a search warrant to a computer, and made other "compound missteps." As a result, the truth of what happened at Los Alamos National Laboratory may never be known.
The Chinese American scientist at the heart of the investigation, Wen Ho Lee, has been fired from his job at Los Alamos for an alleged security breach, but the Justice Department is still trying to determine whether to charge him with a crime. And the 32-page Senate report notes that it is still unclear whether any secrets really were stolen.
"We take no position in this document on whether W-88 or other nuclear weapons information was in fact compromised, or by whose hand this may have occurred," the committee wrote.
Some members of Congress have charged for months that China stole classified data from America's national laboratories, and that the Clinton administration dragged its feet after being alerted in 1997 to the espionage, which allegedly took place throughout the 1980s and '90s. The allegations, combined with NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, have seriously strained U.S.-Chinese relations.
The Senate report contains some disclosures that are damaging to Wen Ho Lee and others that appear to bolster his assertion of innocence.
The report discloses that Lee failed a polygraph test early this year in which he was asked whether he had passed nuclear secrets "to any unauthorized person." It also reveals that Lee and his wife, a secretary at Los Alamos, were already the subjects of an FBI security investigation when Energy Department investigators focused on them in late 1995 as the possible source of Chinese data on the W-88.
According to the committee, the FBI had "in the early 1990s" begun an inquiry based on information could reasonably be interpreted to indicate that Lee had provided significant assistance to" China. Neither the FBI nor the committee chairman, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), would comment yesterday on what that information was.
The report quotes a Department of Justice memo as saying the investigation of the alleged theft of information on the W-88 was "flawed from the start" because the FBI and the Energy Department had "multiple suspects" but quickly focused on Wen Ho Lee and his wife, Sylvia Lee, ignoring the others until much later.
At least some of the other suspects worked at Los Alamos, had access to secret information, were Chinese American, had traveled to China, and had made contact with visiting Chinese delegations, all of the elements that cast suspicion on the Lees, the report says.
However, the report notes one bit of information that might also have pointed investigators toward the couple: the FBI obtained a 1987 note, on the letterhead of a Chinese nuclear weapons institute, indicating that Sylvia Lee had requested that three Los Alamos documents be sent to the institute's deputy director "if they are unclassified."
A large section of the committee report focuses on two years of infighting between the FBI and the Justice Department over a warrant to search Lee's computer. The FBI repeatedly requested a warrant, but the Justice Department said it did not have sufficient information to justify one.
According to the committee, Lee had signed a waiver allowing his computer to be searched, but the FBI did not know about the waiver, because an Energy Department counterintelligence officer had given the bureau misleading information. At the same time, the report says, the FBI field agent failed to pass information about the computer search to his superiors and allowed months to pass before following up on inquiries.
When investigators finally combed through Lee's office computer last March, they found that he had transferred top-secret files from Los Alamos's classified computer system to the unclassified computer on his desk. It is still unknown, however, whether anyone outside the lab got access to the files.
One possible outcome of the Senate report, according to Thompson and the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), is that Congress may revise the law on such searches. Lieberman said he believes Congress should consider lowering the legal barriers for searches and surveillance in cases involving secrets of "huge significance," such as nuclear weapons.
---
Security of Los Alamos Data Could Delay Trial U.S. Says
By JAMES RISEN, August 7, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/080799nuke-china.html
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has sought a delay in the Government's decision on seeking an indictment against a former Los Alamos scientist in connection with the mishandling of nuclear secrets, officials said on Friday.
More time is needed, the officials added, to decide whether to release highly classified information for use as evidence. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has the legal authority to decide what classified information can be released.
Officials said Richardson was waiting for a recommendation from the department's new security czar, a former Air Force General, Eugene Habiger. Habiger has to weigh whether the risks of exposing additional classified nuclear data outweigh the need for the prosecution of the scientist, Wen Ho Lee.
Justice Department officials are mulling how to handle the case, and some reportedly believe that the case is too weak to prosecute.
The United States Attorney for New Mexico, John J. Kelly, has been considering indicting Lee on Federal charges of mishandling classified information, officials said.
The apparent lack of evidence means that the Government is not expected to charge Lee with espionage. The general allegation is that China obtained nuclear weapons secrets through Lee, an allegation that China and Lee have steadfastly denied.
A spokesman for Kelly's office in New Mexico declined to comment.
For three years, Lee has been the chief suspect in a Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry of the possible theft of nuclear secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, including information related to the most advanced nuclear warhead, the W-88. But he has never been charged with a crime.
Instead, prosecutors have been considering the lesser charges of mishandling classified information, because Lee transferred nuclear weapons data into an nonsecure computer network. He has said that the transfers were routine and that no crime was committed.
Such a prosecution would be unprecedented, said John L. Martin, former chief of the internal security section at the Justice Department. Martin, who was in charge of the prosecution of espionage cases until he retired in 1997, said such an indictment would charge "gross negligence" and the mishandling of classified information under Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 793/ F. That is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But it has never been used in a Federal criminal prosecution, Martin said.
A lawyer for Lee in Los Angeles, Mark Holscher, did not return calls for comment. But Lee has previously stated that he has never betrayed secrets and that he transferred nuclear-weapons computer codes into an unclassified computer network to protect the information.
Officials said on Friday that in a polygraph examination in February Lee provided deceptive answers on whether he had passed W-88 information to an unauthorized person and whether he had given computer codes related to nuclear weapons to an unauthorized person. Polygraph results would not be admissible in court, however.
An important problem for the Government is that prosecutors are not certain they can keep classified information from being exposed in a trial. They say they may not be able to use the Classified Information Procedures Act, which was intended to let the Government prosecute spies without revealing secrets in court.
Scientists from Los Alamos in New Mexico have been interviewed by the Government to explain the significance of Lee's transfers of information. Those scientists, as expert witnesses for the prosecution, could be cross-examined, and their information could be compromised.
The debate over charging Lee heated up a day after a Senate report painted a devastating portrait of the many errors by investigators, lawyers and other officials at the F.B.I., the Justice Department, Los Alamos and the Energy Department that have plagued the case. Those errors are part of the reason why the case against Lee is extremely weak, many people in and out of Government apparently believe.
The mistakes may make it impossible for the Government to prosecute anyone. Among the many missteps that the Senate report detailed was the decision early in the investigation to focus on Lee without having adequately reviewed other possible suspects.
The report, issued by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, notes that the F.B.I. had already investigated Lee two times, once in the early 1980's in connection with China's reported theft of neutron-bomb data from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and a second time in the 1990's, just before the the investigation about the W-88 secrets began.
The first inquiry of Lee started when the F.B.I. found that he had called the suspect in the neutron-bomb case. In that investigation, Lee acknowledged having provided unclassified material to China. Bureau officials have said he passed a polygraph examination, and the bureau closed its inquiry.
The Senate report does not identify the second inquiry, but states that it was suspended in 1995 as soon as the bureau was brought into the W-88 investigation. A Federal official familiar with that investigation said the F.B.I. seemed to have prematurely narrowed its focus on Lee, because he was already under scrutiny.
---
Richardson May Urge Veto of Nuclear Agency
GOP-Led Conference Panel's Plan Diverges From Proposal Energy Secretary Endorsed
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 7, 1999; Page A04
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/07/056l-080799-idx.html
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has "a lot of problems" with a congressional plan to create a separately administered agency inside his department to tighten security at the plants and laboratories that design, build and maintain nuclear weapons, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
"The secretary is analyzing the language, but as of now he would recommend the president veto it," said Brooke Anderson, the Energy Department's director of public affairs.
The plan to establish a National Nuclear Security Administration was reached Thursday night by a Republican-dominated conference committee set up to hammer out differences between the House and Senate versions of the $289 billion defense authorization bill.
It would be the first major legislative response to months of allegations of Chinese espionage at America's weapons laboratories. It also would mark the first reorganization in more than 20 years of the nuclear weapons complex, which employs more than 30,000 people at the Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories; the Pantex plant that produces and dismantles nuclear weapons near Amarillo, Tex.; nuclear materials plants at Savannah River, S.C., and Oak Ridge, Tenn.; the nuclear test site in Nevada; and the Energy Department's naval reactor program.
The congressional plan comes after weeks of difficult negotiations between Richardson and key GOP senators. The energy secretary initially opposed the notion of a semiautonomous nuclear agency. But to avoid even more drastic changes -- such as removing nuclear weapons programs from his department -- he reluctantly agreed to go along with a proposal that passed the Senate two weeks ago by 96 to 1.
The plan approved this week by the House-Senate conference committee, however, differs significantly from the Senate plan that Richardson endorsed. In particular, Anderson said, it deprives the energy secretary of direct authority over employees of the new agency. The secretary could exercise control through the agency's administrator, who would also be an undersecretary of energy and thus a subordinate. But under the current wording of the legislation, the secretary "can't fire, hire or directly order" employees of the new agency, Anderson said.
Rep. William M. "Mac" Thornberry (R-Tex.), who helped draft the language, said the measure would "establish clear lines of authority and accountability from the nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities directly to the administrator for nuclear security, who would head the new agency." "With this agree ment," Thornberry said, "Congress is making the reforms that have long needed to be made, and restoring a sense of authority and accountability to the nuclear weapons complex."
But Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said yesterday he did not sign the conference report because its language "blurs the clear lines of authority needed by the secretary."
Levin compared the proposed nuclear agency to the National Security Agency, which is also a semiautonomous organization. The NSA, which collects electronic signals intelligence around the world, is part of the Defense Department, just as the nuclear agency would be part of Energy.
But Levin said the secretary of defense has direct control over all NSA personnel and operations, while the secretary of energy would not have direct control over the nuclear agency. For example, he said, only the administrator of the new agency, and not the secretary of energy, would have authority to establish "special access programs," the most secret nuclear research projects.
Levin also objected that the conference committee plan would result in overlapping responsibilities, because the Energy Department and its subsidiary nuclear agency would have directors of procurement, security and counterintelligence.
"Ironically, the provisions in the conference report may have confused the management and accountability of Energy counterintelligence programs more than they were in the past," Levin said. NucNews-9 8/07/99 - Military
QUOTATION OF THE DAY(August 6, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/front/
No, we don't retrain soldiers not to kill, no way. There isn't any problem of soldiers making that mental leap from wartime to peacekeeping missions. That's just gibberish that comes from watching too many Sylvester Stallone movies. LIEUT. COL. MICHAEL D. CLAY, who helped develop courses in peacekeeping at Fort Bragg, N.C.
--------
Closed Marine Base Is Fought Over
By The Associated Press, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Marine-Base-Airport.html
EL TORO MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, Calif. (AP) -- When the Marines left, war broke out in Orange County.
Residents armed with petitions and ballot initiatives have challenged the county Board of Supervisors in what has become a bitter, costly battle over plans to build an international airport at the defunct air station.
The fight pits the county's wealthy residential communities in the south against its tourist-oriented north. Both sides have amassed multimillion-dollar war chests to influence the fate of the 4,700-acre base.
Other California communities have been divided about what to do with closed military bases. Sacramento officials and residents have argued over the future of McClellan Air Force Base, due to close this year. San Francisco fought over the closed Presidio Army base, which will become part park and part commercial development.
But nowhere has the debate been more expensive or more strident than in Orange County, where board meetings routinely end in arguments and a war of words is waged daily in the opinion sections of local newspapers.
Records indicate the two sides will spend about $35 million debating what to do with the base, which closed in July. The county expects to get the deed next year.
``I'd bet nowhere else in the country do you have people throwing money like this behind an issue,'' said Ellen Cox Call, the county's airport spokeswoman. ``When the airport in Louisville, Ky., was expanded and 500 homes had to be moved, nobody fought against it like they are fighting it here. But here, you have people with a lot of money.''
A coalition of eight southern Orange County cities -- including Irvine, Laguna Beach and Mission Viejo -- leads the opposition. The group has set aside about $8 million, primarily to draw up alternative plans for the base and pay lawyers to fight for them.
Airport supporters, led by three of the five county supervisors, expect to spend about $27 million this year on airport studies and commercial planning. They say a second major airport for Orange County would create new jobs, increase tourism and lure businesses to the county, as well as bring a measure of independence from neighboring Los Angeles.
``This is really about what's best for the county,'' Ms. Call said.
But Meg Waters, a spokeswoman for the cities opposing the airport plan, said most of the jobs created would be low-paying service jobs that would bring problems of their own.
``This is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country,'' she said. ``What we would end up with is a situation where people would have to commute from other communities because they can't afford to live here. Then, we end up with more traffic than we already have.''
The group would rather see housing and commercial development. A San Clemente man even launched a petition drive to give residents the right to ban new toxic waste dumps, prisons and airports.
The initiative has the support of two Republican congressmen, Christopher Cox and Ron Packard. Cox wants the land to be sold to private developers so the federal government can recoup the costs of moving the Marines. Packard said an airport would change the largely residential area's character.
But airport opponents have an uphill battle. Orange County voters have approved building an airport at the base and rejected a referendum to overturn that decision.
The board of supervisors, which still must authorize the plan, is scheduled to vote next May.
``It's going to happen,'' Ms. Call said. She said the only question is whether lawsuits delay the airport's proposed opening in 2005.
-----------
War Colleges Now Training Soldiers in Art of Peace
By ELIZABETH BECKER, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/080699studying-peace.html
FT. BRAGG, N.C. -- Once, soldiers who hoped to become generals came to the military's colleges to study the theory of war and the history of military alliances, and to hone their skills to survive -- and kill if necessary.
Today, while those fighting instincts must still be uppermost, learning the art of war has come to include making and keeping peace.
At the nation's war colleges, here at Ft. Bragg and at the Army War College in Pennsylvania, there is a growing demand for courses in peacekeeping as American ground forces are more often called upon to keep the peace in hot spots like Kosovo, Bosnia and Angola rather than fight prolonged wars.
In a classroom here at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, a group of Army captains and other mid-level officers are learning negotiating skills in an elaborate role-playing exercise.
Feuding Bosnian mayors, played by two members of the class, are stubbornly refusing to compromise. So NATO's political adviser, played by another student, must step in.
"Let's just create a mixed military patrol and put both your police -- Muslim police and Croat police -- in charge of the zone of separation," said Capt. J. Franck, a French trainee sent here by his Ministry of Defense.
When the exhortation fails, Franck chastises the fractious mayors. "Look, in the end you're the ones responsible for the peace," he said. "We're only the facilitators."
But the talks fall apart, and James S. McCallum, the instructor, pulls Franck aside to tell him that while his ideas are sound, his manner is too brusque. "Don't point fingers," he instructs the young captain.
Taken directly from NATO's first year trying to keep the peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this classroom exercise ended a week of intensive course work in negotiating skills. Before the day was up, the 30 officers playing roles from factory owners to education ministers had learned what sounded like obvious lessons.
"I was trying to wire the meetings and turn Kupres, Bosnia, into Fayetteville, N.C., overnight," said Capt. Robert Watwood, who was playing the role of a military civil affairs officer. "You can't do that -- just say 'kumbaya' and make it happen."
In the four years since Bosnia jolted the Pentagon into accelerating its ad hoc peacekeeping training, the Army has made peacekeeping an integral part of the study of war, turning out officers here and at the Army War College who can command what are officially known as "operations other than war."
All of this is relatively new. Last year the negotiating class was added to the syllabus at Ft. Bragg, where the catalog of peacekeeping courses has bulged over the last four years. The Army started its own Peacekeeping Institute five years ago at the War College at Carlisle, Pa., to instruct officers throughout the services, and its instructors make an annual visit to Washington to brief the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the art of peace.
"Our first briefing for the chiefs in 1995 was like grammar school," said Douglas Campbell, the institute's director. "The last one we were already at the master of arts level. Now we're discussing the real hot-button subjects, like force protection."
While proving mettle on the battlefield and receiving a command post in wartime were once the surest routes to the top, peacekeeping has also become its own career track in the military.
"It is a pass for promotion, just as if someone had commanded in war," said Kenneth Bacon, the Pentagon's spokesman. "The importance and complexity of major peacekeeping operations today makes the officers who command them prime candidates for promotion."
Bacon cited as an example Gen. Montgomery Meigs, the second general to command American forces in Bosnia, who was promoted to four-star status as commander of the Army in Europe.
At Ft. Bragg, the most advanced program of its kind, there are courses in negotiation, relief assistance, property control, procurement law and how to work with translators. All are intended to instill the gifts of peacemaker in soldiers trained in the use of force.
Instructors here derided the notion that they need courses to undo a soldier's fighting reflexes. The teaching here, they say, merely adds new skills to ingrained instincts.
"No, we don't retrain soldiers not to kill, no way," said Lt. Col. Michael D. Clay, who helped develop the program. "There isn't any problem of soldiers making that mental leap from wartime to peacekeeping missions. That's just gibberish that comes from watching too many Sylvester Stallone movies."
Early in the Clinton administration, policymakers began encouraging the Pentagon to take peacekeeping more seriously, said James Schear, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping. After hundreds of meetings debating what peacekeeping required -- whether to have a unit dedicated solely to peacekeeping, where and how to train the troops -- the Pentagon settled on an approach in 1994 and refined its training program.
Now, after seven subsequent peacekeeping missions, the Army can begin fielding a peace force within days, not weeks.
The goal is to have trained forces who can fight if necessary but who are also skilled at working with the local population, international organizations, aid groups and the former warring armies. They end up knowing not only how to set up and operate roadblocks but also how to think and act like practical small-town mayors.
They have become so adept that William Cohen, the secretary of defense, fears the military is being drawn into doing too much in missions like Kosovo.
Cohen and Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, are vocal critics of the United Nations, saying it had failed to set up a civilian peacekeeping administration in Kosovo, even six weeks after the military arrived. In particular, Cohen said NATO forces, including the U.S. Army, are being forced to serve as police and civil administrators in Kosovo, and he fears that "the more we do, the less incentive there is for the U.N. to come in and assume that burden."
Promising senior officers are sent to the Army War College for a year of training that includes a mandatory peackekeeping course. Ft. Bragg's programs last from three months to two years and are aimed at mid-level officers.
A civil-military affairs division at Ft. Bragg was established in 1942 with a mission that was not all that different from the one today: to train troops who were to enter and occupy Germany and other countries after World War II. But the school's focus shifted during the Vietnam War when Green Berets came to Ft. Bragg for training in counterinsurgency and other special battle techniques.
There is no official count, but hundreds of active and reserve officers have been through the Army's peackekeeping courses. The Air Force also offers limited training but there is not much demand in the other services because peacekeeping has remained the province of the Army.
"We routinely have to fill the vacuum until the U.N. arrives," said Clay, who was chief of civil military operations of American forces in Bosnia. "Then once the U.N. sets up, you find they've got some guys who don't have a clue how to work with the U.S. Army or any other military. So we have to train our soldiers to work with all of them and make their humanitarian organizations so successful that we can go home."
The Army's courses are also attracting foreign officers whose ministries want to play roles in international peacekeeping operations, which for some nations is the main reason to maintain a standing army. Only Canada has a similar program.
-----------
White House Drug Czar Says Colombia In 'Emergency'
Updated 3:51 PM ET August 6, 1999, By James Vicini
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990806/15/news-colombia-usa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey said Friday that Colombia faced an "emergency situation" with dramatically increased cocaine production, a major economic crisis and violence from guerrilla groups.
McCaffrey, who visited Colombia last week, told a congressional subcommittee that President Clinton and other top U.S. officials shared his assessment about the huge problems the South American nation has to grapple with.
"In Colombia, the melding of guerrilla movements, or in some cases paramilitary groups, and international drug trafficking organizations has created an unprecedented threat to the rule of law, democratic institutions and the very fabric of society," he said.
Asked if Clinton and other officials agreed with his views, McCaffrey said, "They do share a feeling we have an emergency situation in Colombia ...."
McCaffrey, who has proposed as much as $1 billion in emergency funds for Colombia and other countries in the region, said a State Department delegation led by Undersecretary Thomas Pickering would go to Bogota.
Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said he would travel with Pickering next week and assess what Colombia needs to support its anti-drug operations.
Beers said the trip also was designed to reemphasize U.S. support for Colombia's drug-fighting efforts and for the stalled peace process with the guerrillas.
Beers echoed McCaffrey's concerns in testimony before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.
"Colombia stands at a critical crossroads now, and there are considerable dangers for U.S. interests, but also significant opportunities," he said.
"The policy choices we make in the next several months and the assistance we provide could have a significant impact on Colombia's future, helping to determine whether it continues its long, slow descent toward chaos or begins to recover," he said.
"Colombia's national sovereignty is increasingly threatened by a resurgent guerrilla movement, a violent illegal paramilitary movement and wealthy narcotrafficker interests," Beers said.
McCaffrey said Colombia's cocaine production may increase dramatically in 1999, partly reflecting higher-yielding coca under cultivation. He estimated Colombian cocaine production could reach 250 metric tons this year and that it could produce six tons of heroin.
Lawmakers said Colombia produces about 80 percent of the world's cocaine and it has captured 75 percent of the American heroin market.
Republicans blasted the Clinton administration for failing to do enough earlier to support Colombia.
"The U.S. response under the current administration to both the increasing drug threat and the growing insurgency menace in Colombia has been benign neglect at best and gross dereliction at worst," said Representative Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
"I hope the alarm bells that General McCaffrey has now sounded aren't too little too late," he said.
Committee Chairman Dan Burton said he was "glad Colombia is finally on the radar screen of this administration."
-----------
U.S. Doubles Payment to Sole Source of Anthrax Vaccine
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/anthrax-pentagon.html
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's plan to vaccinate every member of the nation's armed services against the deadly biological agent anthrax -- a program already buffeted by questions about safety and effectiveness -- just became a lot more expensive.
Faced with the possibility of running out of vaccine, the Pentagon announced Thursday that it had agreed to more than double what it pays the nation's only licensed manufacturer of the vaccine, the Bioport Corporation of Lansing, Mich., to produce millions of doses over the next six years.
The company -- a new corporation whose directors include William J. Crowe Jr., the retired admiral who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Ambassador to Britain -- bought the laboratory from the State of Michigan last year for $25 million.
But despite the Pentagon's commitment to vaccinate all 2.4 million active-duty troops and reservists, the company had financial trouble and in June warned that it could fail if the Pentagon did not pay more.
After weeks of frantic negotiations, the Pentagon agreed to pay $10.64 a dose for the vaccine, up from the $4.36 a dose under the terms Bioport agreed to when it bought the laboratory last year. The total cost of the contract, which requires the company to produce fewer doses, will rise to $49.8 million over the next five years, from $25.7 million now.
The Pentagon also agreed to advance Bioport $18.7 million to help it cover debts.
Senior officials, who appeared at the Pentagon to announce the agreement but then insisted that they not be identified by name, justified the sharp increase in the contract, saying it was vital to national security that Bioport, as the only producer of the vaccine, remain solvent.
"This action was taken to preserve the financial viability of Bioport in order to insure uninterrupted production of the anthrax vaccine," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Anthrax is a naturally occurring bacterium that infects cattle and sheep. When produced as dry spores, it can be incorporated into one of the deadliest biological agents, capable of causing death within days of being inhaled.
Although no country has ever used anthrax in battle, the Pentagon says that 10 countries, including Iraq and North Korea, have the ability to make biological weapons, and in December 1997 Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen ordered every service member to be vaccinated against anthrax.
The announcement on Thursday prompted criticism from lawmakers and others who have opposed the program for a variety of reasons, including concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said the increase was "a classic example" of the problems of having a sole source for a product or service. Shays, whose subcommittee on Government reform met in June on Bioport's problems, said the Pentagon's determination to move ahead with the vaccinations regardless of questions forced the price higher.
"We have no way of knowing what's a fair price," he said. "My recommendation would have been to put this program on hold."
Since the program began, the Pentagon has vaccinated 320,000 service members, beginning with those serving in the Persian Gulf or Korea or in units likely to be called into combat.
Although the vaccine was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration in 1970, largely for veterinarians and others who work with livestock, there has been scattered resistance to the vaccination program, with scores of troops refusing to take the shots, citing fears about the safety of the vaccine and adverse reactions to it.
At least 200 service members, have been disciplined for their defiance, the Pentagon said.
As it completed its purchase last year, Bioport negotiated its contract with the Pentagon setting the price per dose at $4.36, a price the company's spokeswoman acknowledged Thursday grossly underestimated the manufacturing costs and subsidies from the state Government. The law allows companies to seek "extraordinary contractual relief" in certain instances like financial distress.
"They did not begin to anticipate the cost of producing the vaccines," the spokeswoman, Kelly Rossman-McKinney, said of the company's executives.
Ms. Rossman-McKinney said Admiral Crowe did not take part in the negotiations over the anthrax contract.
By The Associated Press August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Iraq-US-Protesters.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Three members of the U.S.-based Voices in the Wilderness began a three-day fast Friday, setting up tents in front of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad to protest sanctions against Iraq....
Dissidents: 30 Killed in Iraq Clash
By The Associated Press, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Iraq-Opposition.html
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Protests over food and medicine shortages in two southern cities triggered three days of clashes that left 16 Iraqi soldiers and 14 civilians dead, a dissident Iraqi group said Friday. The London-based Iraqi National Congress said the clashes began July 25 when residents of Rumaitha, 150 miles southwest of the capital, Baghdad, and nearby Khudur took to the streets....
By David R. Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 6, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/news/news3.html
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as part of his push to revive direct peace talks with the Palestinians, is pressing to end the CIA's controversial role as security watchdog on the West Bank and Gaza Strip....
By The Associated Press, August 7, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Yugoslavia-Kosovo.html
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Heavily armed French peacekeepers today blocked an angry crowd of ethnic Albanians from marching into the Serb part of this tense industrial town in Kosovo. French troops detained at least four protesters after wrestling them to the ground....
--
NATO And Ethnic Albanians Scuffle In Tense Town
Updated 6:59 AM ET August 7, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990807/06/international-yugoslavia-kosovo
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia (Reuters) - French NATO peacekeeping troops scuffled with a crowd of around 1,000 ethnic Albanians trying to storm the Serbian district of a divided town in Kosovo Saturday, witnesses said.... Armed international civilian police will begin patrolling post-war Kosovo this weekend to try to curb rampant murder, arson and looting, primarily by ethnic Albanians attacking Serbs. Around 38,000 peacekeeping troops have restored basic public order by day but lack the manpower or training to preserve it after dark when much of the crime occurs.
GREEN PARTY OPPOSES PASSAGE OF NUCLEAR SHIPS CAPE TOWN
5 August 1999 Sapa
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/briefing/nw19990806/52.html
South Africa's Green Party on Thursday joined the chorus of opposition to the two nuclear fuel ships expected to round the Cape in September and urged government to intervene....
WebPosted Fri Aug 6 07:42:18 1999
http://www.cbcnews.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/1999/08/05/nukcancer990805
OWEN SOUND, ONT. - Amid concerns over high cancer risks in people living near nuclear reactors, Canada's federal nuclear control agency has announced it will monitor rates of the disease in communities near the plants....
11:07 a.m. Aug 06, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
BRUSSELS, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Police arrested three men on Thursday who they alleged tried to sell a five-kg (11 pounds) bar of uranium the size of a large bar of chocolate in a Brussels cafe...
By Our Science Correspondent, The Hindu, August 6, 1999
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/08/06/stories/0206000m.htm
BANGALORE, AUG. 5. The Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons (ISANW), an association of scientists fighting nuclear weaponisation, have appealed to the people of the subcontinent to ``understand'' the consequences of nuclear warfare and ``exercise their democratic rights'' to save the region from becoming another Hiroshima.
--
Peace march evokes mixed reaction
By Kalpana Sharma - The Hindu, August 6, 1999
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/08/06/stories/0406225q.htm
VARANASI, AUG. 5. From the `Rally for the Valley', to the Global Peace March, Ms Arundhati Roy has within one week touched on two issues which she had raised through her recent writings. Ms. Roy arrived in Varnasi today to join the concluding phase of the Global Peace March which began on May. 11 in Pokharan, near last year's nuclear test site....
USA Today August 6, 1999
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
TOKYO - Two South Korean destroyers made the first-ever port call in Japan Friday by combat ships from South Korea's navy, Japan's Defense Agency said....
--
N. Korea Preparing for Rocket Launch
By Robert Burns AP Military Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; 3:17 p.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000503-080699-idx.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea delivered rocket fuel this week to the launch site where U.S. officials believe it is preparing to test-fire a long-range missile in defiance of American warnings, a senior U.S. official said Friday....
Passes Bill That Links U.S. Financial Assistance To Settling Trade Disputes
10:48 a.m. Aug 05, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search newswires
WASHINGTON, D.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 5, 1999--World Wide Minerals Ltd. (TSE: WWS) announced today that the United States House of Representatives had passed Bill HR 1152, the Silk Road Strategy Act of 1999. The Bill as passed, which still requires Senate and Presidential approvals, makes a "Silk Road" country (Kazakhstan and other central Asian countries) ineligible for U.S. assistance unless it has demonstrated "significant progress" in resolving trade disputes registered with and raised by the U.S. Embassy in the host country. World Wide has registered its dispute with the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan and the U.S. Embassy has intervened on its behalf.... Rep. Burton further added that "this Bill should send a strong signal that countries should not expect to receive U.S. assistance if they mistreat companies that provide critical investment capital ..."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 7, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990806/V000453-080699-idx.html
RAINIER, Ore. -- Entombed in concrete and six-inch-thick steel, the radioactive reactor of the largest American nuclear power plant ever to be shut down was loaded onto a barge today for a 270-mile river journey right through the heart of metropolitan Portland. It is the first time a commercial reactor of this size, and level of contamination, has passed through a major American city, said officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency overseeing the shutdown of the Trojan Nuclear Plant. The move worries environmentalists....
--
Photos:
Reactor Loading Scene
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.1.jpg.html
http://graphics.nytimes.com/99/08/07/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.1.jpg
--
Reactor Closeup
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.2.jpg.html
http://graphics.nytimes.com/99/08/07/news/national/ore-nuclear-reactor.2.jpg
Project will be expanded to intercept entire plume of tainted water
Associated Press / Spokane Net - August 5, 1999
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=080599&ID=s617367&cat=
RICHLAND _ A Hanford Nuclear Reservation experiment to stop chromium seepage into the Columbia River has worked well so far and plans are being made to expand the project to intercept an entire plume of tainted water....
Foes call it laughably ill-conceived, but those devoting years to planning a nuclear storage site see an unmatched engineering feat.
By JOHN M. GLIONNA, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, August 5, 1999
http://www.latimes.com/excite/990805/t000069615.html
YUCCA MOUNTAIN, Nev.--Squinting against the enveloping gloom, engineer Jim Niggemyer boards the dusty yellow mining train for its long, slow descent into the depths of America's nuclear solution--through the twisting tunnel that may one day lead to a nuclear-age pharaoh's tomb....
* *
*Nuclear Waste Storage
Scientists are testing a proposed site for a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The nuclear graveyard would house waste essentially forever.
STORAGE PROCESS
1. Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste would be transported to Yucca Mountain by truck or rail in shielded shipping containers.
2. The nuclear fuel and waste would be removed from the containers and placed in corrosion-resistant canisters for disposal.
3. Using a remotely operated crane, waste packages would be placed on supports in tunnels.
4. Shed-like covers would protect against surface water penetrating the canisters.
5. The waste packages would be monitored until repository is closed and sealed 20 years after the storage process begins.
Updated 5:16 PM ET August 5, 1999 Business Wire
http://news.excite.com/news/bw/990805/id-morrison-knudsen
BOISE, Idaho (BUSINESS WIRE) - Morrison Knudsen Corporation (MK)(NYSE:MK) announced today that the Department of Energy's (DOE) Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project (WSSRAP) has received the DOE's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) "Star" status....
August 5, 1999 Web posted at: 12:54 p.m. EDT (1654 GMT)
http://cnn.com/US/9908/05/china.spy.02/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Responding to a congressional report critical of the FBI's espionage case against a Los Alamos weapons scientist, Attorney General Janet Reno Thursday again defended the Justice Department's decision-making....
8/05/99- Updated 10:55 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu04.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI's espionage case against a Los Alamos weapons scientist was ''flawed from the outset'' because authorities identified a number of other suspects, but failed to investigate them, a congressional report revealed Thursday....
Senators Say U.S. May Never Know if Atomic Secrets Were Lost
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 6, 1999; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/06/078l-080699-idx.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000588-080599-idx.html
The FBI and the Energy Department bungled the investigation of a nuclear scientist suspected of giving China secret information about the design of the W-88 warhead, America's most advanced nuclear weapon, a Senate committee said yesterday.
By JAMES RISEN, August 7, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/080799nuke-china.html
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has sought a delay in the Government's decision on seeking an indictment against a former Los Alamos scientist in connection with the mishandling of nuclear secrets, officials said on Friday....
GOP-Led Conference Panel's Plan Diverges From Proposal Energy Secretary Endorsed
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 7, 1999; Page A04
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/07/056l-080799-idx.html
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has "a lot of problems" with a congressional plan to create a separately administered agency inside his department to tighten security at the plants and laboratories that design, build and maintain nuclear weapons, a spokeswoman said yesterday....
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/front/
No, we don't retrain soldiers not to kill, no way. There isn't any problem of soldiers making that mental leap from wartime to peacekeeping missions. That's just gibberish that comes from watching too many Sylvester Stallone movies. LIEUT. COL. MICHAEL D. CLAY, who helped develop courses in peacekeeping at Fort Bragg, N.C.
By The Associated Press, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Marine-Base-Airport.html
EL TORO MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, Calif. (AP) -- When the Marines left, war broke out in Orange County. Residents armed with petitions and ballot initiatives have challenged the county Board of Supervisors in what has become a bitter, costly battle over plans to build an international airport at the defunct air station. The fight pits the county's wealthy residential communities in the south against its tourist-oriented north. Both sides have amassed multimillion-dollar war chests to influence the fate of the 4,700-acre base....
By ELIZABETH BECKER, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/080699studying-peace.html
FT. BRAGG, N.C. -- Once, soldiers who hoped to become generals came to the military's colleges to study the theory of war and the history of military alliances, and to hone their skills to survive -- and kill if necessary. Today, while those fighting instincts must still be uppermost, learning the art of war has come to include making and keeping peace.... In a classroom here at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, a group of Army captains and other mid-level officers are learning negotiating skills in an elaborate role-playing exercise....
Updated 3:51 PM ET August 6, 1999, By James Vicini
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990806/15/news-colombia-usa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey said Friday that Colombia faced an "emergency situation" with dramatically increased cocaine production, a major economic crisis and violence from guerrilla groups.... Republicans blasted the Clinton administration for failing to do enough earlier to support Colombia. "The U.S. response under the current administration to both the increasing drug threat and the growing insurgency menace in Colombia has been benign neglect at best and gross dereliction at worst," said Representative Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee....
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, August 6, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/anthrax-pentagon.html
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's plan to vaccinate every member of the nation's armed services against the deadly biological agent anthrax -- a program already buffeted by questions about safety and effectiveness -- just became a lot more expensive....
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/07/074l-080799-idx.html
Tribute to War's Civilian Losses Heads Toward Cemetery
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/06/125l-080699-idx.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000958-080599-idx.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Japan-Hiroshima-Anniversary.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990805/V000928-080599-idx.html
http://usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9908/06/hiroshima.anniversary/
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/09/nagasaki.01.ap/index.html
August 6, 1998 Web posted at: 1:20 a.m. EDT (0520 GMT)
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9808/06/hiroshima.01.ap/index.html
June 15, 1998 CNN
http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9806/15/japan.nuke.memory/
http://cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/06/ground.zero/index.html
http://www.jlhs.nhusd.k12.ca.us/Classes/Social_Science/Japan_Visit/Peace_Park.html
http://www.broadnet.or.jp/nvc/hiroshima/Site/PeacePark/PeacePark.html