------------
Clinton to participate in online
"town hall" meeting on Monday, November 8, 4 - 5:30 pm Pacific Time http://townhallmeeting.excite.com.
Filed at 10:10 p.m. EST November 3, 1999
By Kurt Oeler, CNET News.com
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_0_4_1429423_00.html
President Clinton will answer questions online in a "town hall" meeting set for next Monday.
Internet users will be able to query the Democratic leader while watching a Webcast featuring Clinton and like-minded politicians discussing "The New Politics of the Information Age." The event is scheduled to run 90 minutes, beginning at 4:00 p.m. PT.
The Webcast will include other centrist or "new Democrat" officials, such as San Jose mayor Ron Gonzales, according to a statement released by the Democratic Leadership Council, a public policy group. Web portal Excite@Home and the DLC are jointly presenting the event.
Some 15,000 users are expected to participate, according to the DLC. Previous White House events have incorporated the Net, but this will be Clinton's most extensive involvement, a White House spokesman told the Associated Press.
In September, Clinton joined British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former South African President Nelson Mandela in a live Internet broadcast that launched the NetAid Web site, an anti-poverty concern.
---
McCain's Trips Focus on Technology
Filed at 10:34 p.m. EST November 3, 1999 Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-McCain.html
LONDONDERRY, N.H. (AP) -- Arizona Sen. John McCain took a high-tech trip through New Hampshire on Wednesday as he met with high school students studying space and employees at a defense electronics firm.
The Republican presidential candidate spoke with Londonderry High School's science fiction and literature classes about the Space Island project, a private venture by a California development group to build a commercial space station.
McCain said he supports the project and would like to hold hearings on it in the Senate Commerce Committee, which he chairs.
``This is a wonderful, visionary project,'' he said. ``We should have hearings and invite students and experts to Washington and educate my other colleagues on the idea. I don't have the power to force it, but it is something that deserves serious attention.''
McCain was less positive about NASA's international space station.
``All of us love NASA and space exploration, but NASA has some serious cost overruns,'' he said. ``They have got to make better use of their budget and develop more realistic costs for projects.''
At Sanders, a military technology firm that is part of Lockheed Martin Co., McCain toured the Jam Lab, where technology to counter surface-to-air missile attacks is developed.
``You may talk to many candidates, but I am the only one you will talk to who was dumb enough to intercept a surface-to-air missile with his airplane,'' the former Navy pilot joked. McCain spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down in Vietnam.
McCain told workers that the increase of ethnic and tribal strife, along with China's emergence as a superpower, has created a less predictable world.
``We need a proactive foreign policy where we are not constantly surprised,'' he said. ``We're always surprised because we don't focus and don't have realistic views on what we want the world to look like.''
-----------
Puerto Rico, Navy Clash Over Reefs
Filed at 7:15 p.m. EST November 3, 1999 Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Virgin-Islands-Coral-Reefs.html
CHRISTIANSTED, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) -- Puerto Rico accused the Navy Wednesday of conducting bombing exercises that allegedly blow apart endangered coral reefs and litter them with debris.
The island government formally complained to the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force and requested intervention. While the task force has no legal authority to stop bombings, it can mediate and make recommendations.
The task force was formed through a 1998 presidential order and concluded a two-day conference in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Wednesday.
Puerto Rico based its complaint on a May survey of the reefs around the island of Vieques.
Scientists found craters in the reef apparently caused by bombs as well as parachutes, shells and other debris covering the coral, said Daniel Pagan, secretary of Puerto Rico's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources.
That was even more damage than was discovered during a 1978 survey, when scientists determined that at least 80 percent of a reef on the island's north coast had been pulverized by the Navy's bombing, he said.
Navy spokesman Robert Nelson could not reached for comment Wednesday. However, the Navy has maintained that it has been a good steward of the environment on Vieques.
Pentagon spokesman Commander Barry Stamey, who attended the task force conference in the U.S. Virgin Islands, said that the Department of Defense ``looks forward to working with Washington and the government of Puerto Rico as soon as possible on this.''
The Navy has conducted live bombing exercises on Vieques, an island with 9,300 civilians, since the 1940s. But tensions between the local government and Navy boiled over in April when a bomb dropped more than a mile off target killed a civilian guard on the range.
This week's conference ended with the task force approving a resolution to ban fishing along 20 percent of coral reefs under the U.S. government's care by the year 2020.
-----------
Greenpeace Protests Brazilian Plans
Filed at 11:31 p.m. EST November 3, 1999Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Brazil-Nuclear-Waste.html
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Fifteen Greenpeace activists on Wednesday chained themselves to the gates of the government's Energy and Nuclear Research Institute to protest a shipment of about 1,500 pounds of spent nuclear fuel back to the United States.
The nuclear waste contains uranium 235, which can be used to manufacture atomic weapons.
The protest, which lasted six hours, ended when the environmental group received documents detailing the safety precautions that will be taken when the spent fuel is trucked 48 miles to the port of Santos, where it is to be placed on U.S. ships to carry it to South Carolina.
The four-truck convoy that will carry the nuclear waste to the port will be protected by the army, navy, air force and federal police personnel, the institute's press office said.
Greenpeace would not comment on the documents it received until they are fully analyzed by an independent commission.
Late last month, Rubens Maiorino, one of the institute's directors, said the estimated $2 million operation -- part of the Department of Energy's Spent Fuel Acceptance Program -- would be financed by the U.S. government.
Maiorino said the original nuclear fuel came from the United States and was used ``for research purposes and for the production of radio pharmaceuticals used to diagnose and treat cancer and other diseases.''
The nuclear fuel currently used by the institute is produced in Brazil, he added.
-----------
AT RISK: Soldiers in protection gear during the Gulf War. But the peril of depleted uranium has raised new health fears
GULF WAR VETERANS:WE WERE BETRAYED
EXCLUSIVE BY GREG SWIFT 3 November, 1999
http://www.lineone.net/express/99/11/03/news/n0100splash-d.html
Image: http://www.lineone.net/express/99/11/03/images/03n07masks.jpg
TESTS designed to establish the extent of radiation poisoning among Gulf War veterans have been exposed as worthless, The Express can reveal.
Former soldiers described the disclosure as a betrayal, while scientists and MPs accused the Government of covering up depleted uranium (DU) poisoning in troops by giving them tests which could only produce negative results.
According to the Ministry of Defence, up to five servicemen have been tested for DU - which is used in armour-piercing shells and bullets - and their results found to be negative. But new evidence seen by The Express shows that just one man - a civilian in the Gulf on an MoD contract - has been tested and that the technology used was not sensitive enough to detect the radioactive metal.
The civilian, former engineer Paul Connolly, has also obtained an admission from Professor Harry Lee, head of the MoD's Medical Assessment Programme (MAP) which monitors veterans' health, that he was not even tested for depleted uranium, only total uranium. Yet the same procedures were offered in September to 30 Gulf veterans. They had already tested positive in Canadian research, but this was deemed unreliable by the MoD.
More than 700,000 rounds of DU- tipped missiles and bullets were used during the war because of its armour-piercing capabilities. Many veterans claimed they inhaled the radioactive dust created during and after battles in the Gulf. The effects of massive DU exposure can be devastating as it attacks the lungs, liver, kidneys and blood, and can cause genetic mutations. Sufferers of DU poisoning are susceptible to developing cancer anywhere in the body. Shaun Rusling, head of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: "Veterans have gone to MAP in good faith to be tested for their many illnesses and they have been betrayed.
"They have asked to be tested for DU and it now seems that MAP's offer of such testing is a hollow one. It is now clear that not only have they been let down but so have their doctors and their specialist consultants.
"Consequently, veterans are not getting the proper treatment for their conditions. Is MAP more concerned about protecting the MoD from embarrassing disclosures that British troops were poisoned by their own weapons than helping the servicemen?" The latest disclosure is a serious embarrassment for the Government which only last month attempted to avert mounting anger over its handling of the issue when Armed Forces minister John Spellar announced that veterans had been offered DU testing.
Now even one of the Government's own scientific advisers has accused officials of a "clinical and calculated attempt at deception" and described them of overseeing a "cock-up verging on a cover-up".
Professor Malcolm Hooper, who sits on the independent panel advising the MoD on Gulf-related illnesses, said: "This is either a deception by MAP or a failure on its part to understand the issue at stake.
"Of course the DU levels being found in these guys is at a low level, but the fact that they are still excreting it eight years after the war ended means they were exposed to a high level and it has been present in their bodies ever since.
"The cumulative radiological effects of such prolonged exposure has considerable long-term health implications for all those suffering from DU poisoning. It makes me very angry that this can happen."
His views were endorsed by Mr Connolly's local MP. Humfrey Malins, who represents Woking in Surrey, said yesterday: "I am beginning to wonder whether there is some form of delaying tactic going on here and or a cover-up."
The MoD admitted last night that in the wake of fears raised about Imperial College's testing process, it was considering using other laboratories with more sophisticated equipment. A spokesman said: "We believe there are better techniques available elsewhere that can detect historical exposure to DU. The equipment and system used at Imperial College was entirely suitable for determining a patient's current uranium level and to say whether that was not abnormally high or a threat to health. But the veterans are concerned about whether they have uranium in their system from the past.
"Our latest initiative is based on the draft protocol for future testing that has been sent to the veterans and we are waiting for their response."
In August, The Express revealed that tests 500,000-times more sensitive than any previously conducted proved beyond doubt that British troops had been poisoned by DU in the Gulf.
Less than two weeks later, Mr Spellar announced that he had met with veterans' groups and offered them testing at Imperial College. Those tests have now been shown to be futile.
The latest embarrassment for the MoD centres on MAP's questionable handling of the tests for Mr Connolly, who worked in the Gulf keeping filtration and cooling systems free of dust.
He was told that the tests he underwent at Imperial College were for DU and his results came back as negative. But after persistent questioning by his brothers Ivor and Kevin Connolly, it is now clear he was misinformed as Imperial College revealed its testing procedure was not sensitive enough.
That was followed by Prof Lee's admission that he had only asked Imperial College to test for total uranium. In a letter to Paul Connolly, he justified this by stating: "I did ask for the measure of total uranium, for as I explained to you, measurement of depleted uranium in terms of health matters gives a no better indication of potential health hazards than measuring total uranium."
He concludes: "I feel last week's meeting was valuable and certain areas were re-explored where clearly there were some misunderstandings, but certainly no deceit."
Richard Birch, at AEA Technology, a radiation research and monitoring centre in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, said: "The only way to tell whether uranium in a body is naturally occurring or from a depleted source is to measure the ratio of specific isotopes.
"To look just at total uranium would not tell you whether the uranium came from natural sources or whether it was due to DU."
-----------
Russia Fires Warning Shot Over ABM Treaty
Filed at 10:12 a.m. EDT Reuters, November 3, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-russia-.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has test-fired one of its short-range anti-missile rockets for the first time in six years and a general linked the test to an arms control dispute with the United States, Interfax news agency said Wednesday.
Interfax quoted Russia's Strategic Missile Forces as saying they launched the missile from a base in Kazakhstan Tuesday.
The forces' commander, Vladimir Yakovlev, said the launch could be seen in the context of possible Russian responses if the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) arms treaty.
The launch came amid mounting invective over ABM, which Moscow calls the bedrock of the entire arms control process but which Washington wants changed to allow deployment of a new anti-missile defense system.
Tuesday, Russian President Boris Yeltsin sent President Clinton a warning of ``extremely dangerous consequences'' if the United States proceeded with its anti-missile plans.
That followed statements last month by a Russian general that Moscow might deploy more nuclear missiles if Washington broke the ABM treaty, remarks that prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to say she was ``troubled.''
The Cold War-era ABM treaty banned defense systems designed to shoot down enemy missiles, under the logic that such shields would only have tempted the United States and the Soviet Union to build ever bigger arsenals of nuclear warheads.
Washington says it wants to amend the treaty to allow it to deploy a system to protect itself and its allies from an attack by ``rogue states,'' such as Iran and North Korea, believed to be developing missile technology.
Some U.S. hawks, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, want ABM scrapped altogether.
But Russia says any weakening of ABM would undermine the entire arms control system, including subsequent historic pacts, such as the START Strategic Arms Reduction deals that have already led to thousands of warheads being scrapped.
Yakovlev was quoted by Interfax as saying the latest test was a check of the anti-missile rocket's military readiness and meant its working life could be extended. Russia regularly conducts such tests with aging armaments.
But he also said the test could be seen as one of the possible ``symmetrical and asymmetrical response measures,'' if the United States quit the ABM treaty.
``It is not clear who it would be worse for, if someone were to pull out of the 1972 ABM treaty,'' he said.
---
Russia Tests Anti-Missile Rocket
Filed at 7:30 p.m. EST November 3, 1999 Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Missiles.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia test-fired a short-range interceptor missile that is to be used in the country's anti-missile defense system, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.
The test from a Kazakstan site on Tuesday should be seen in the context of possible ``response measures'' if the United States withdraws from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, said Col. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces.
It was the first successful launch of the missile since 1993, and it showed that the missile was combat-ready, Yakovlev said. He added that the new missile is superior than earlier models.
The United States wants to amend the 1972 treaty in order to build a missile-defense system to fend off missiles from small, rogue states. It is seeking Russia's support to make this deployment comply with the treaty, but Russia has bitterly opposed any changes to the ABM agreement.
Yakovlev warned that a U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty could spark both countries' renunciation of the START-I and START-II nuclear arms reduction treaties.
``It is not known yet who will suffer worse if any of the parties withdraws from the 1972 ABM treaty,'' Interfax quoted him as saying.
He said that a second batch of intercontinental Topol-M ballistic missiles would be deployed by Dec. 17. The Topol-Ms are to replace six other kinds of strategic rockets before 2010, he said, according to Interfax.
The Russian government has said that the Topol-M will form the backbone of its nuclear forces for years to come. The small, rugged missile can be fired from a mobile launch pad, which means it would be hard to detect and therefore more likely to survive a first strike in a nuclear confrontation.
Russia already has 10 Topol-M missiles in service. Those were deployed last December.
---
Russians Balk at Opening Nuclear Sites to U.S. Eyes
Map Krasnoyarsk-26
http://graphics.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/110399russia-us-nuke.1.GIF
Issue in Depth: Russia's Turmoil
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/russia-crisis-index.html
By MICHAEL R. GORDON November 3, 1999
MOSCOW -- Tuesday was supposed to be a banner day for U.S.-Russian cooperation. The U.S. ambassador was scheduled to cut the ribbon at a gala opening of a U.S.-financed business center in one of Russia's closed nuclear cities.
But after Russian authorities barred him last week from bringing his top science adviser or inspecting other U.S.-Russian projects at the site, known as Krasnoyarsk-26, Ambassador James Collins angrily canceled his visit.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson protested the Russian restrictions in terms so strong last weekend that Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov stormed out of the room in Denver, Colo., where both were attending a conference.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has worked hard to protect nuclear materials in Russia and to prevent them from falling into the hands of Iran, Iraq or other aspiring nuclear powers. But the question of access to Russian nuclear sites, always a sensitive issue, has become increasingly troublesome of late.
There are a variety of reasons, including the frustration of the Russians over restrictions placed on their visits to the U.S. Energy Department's headquarters and laboratories, the sheer number of American visitors to the Russian weapons complex, and a residual distrust within Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy of U.S. intentions.
Another key factor is the influence of Russia's internal security service, the FSB no friend of expanded cooperation with the West.
"At the same time that we are making significant progress on the nuclear cities initiative we are starting to experience more access problems," Richardson said in a telephone interview. "We have set up a task force to examine access questions and resolve what is becoming a problem: the continued interference by the FSB with our joint operations."
None of this means that nuclear cooperation is on the verge of breaking down. Experts from U.S. nuclear laboratories and the Pentagon work with their Russian counterparts in ways that were unthinkable during the Cold War.
But Russia's uneven policy on access is threatening to erode support in the U.S. Congress for the Clinton administration's program to create civilian jobs within Russia's closed nuclear cities -- nuclear-weapons complexes where 750,000 Russians live, but which remain off-limits to foreigners and Russians lacking special permits.
Even before the latest dispute over access, Congress slashed the administration's primary program of assistance to the closed cities to $7.5 million from the $30 million proposed for fiscal year 2000.
Certainly, the access problems at Krasnoyarsk-26 came as an unpleasant surprise to Collins.
The aim of the center he was to inaugurate is to help develop new businesses, an important step toward creating employment for former weapon scientists and reducing their temptation to sell bomb-designing skills abroad.
Russian authorities approved a two-day visit by Collins to Krasnoyarsk-26 and, after some importuning, allowed him to bring his interpreter. But they would not allow his main science adviser, Thomas Maertens, to go. Maertens had been in Krasnoyarsk-26 earlier this year, and Russian authorities sometimes like to limit the frequency of such visits.
Collins insisted that he, not the Russians, should be able to determine the composition of his team.
In canceling his visit, the U.S. Embassy sent Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry a blunt letter noting that the restrictions were hampering the ambassador's ability to monitor United States assistance to Krasnoyarsk-26. Still, the business center was inaugurated as scheduled by mid-level U.S. Energy Department officials
Russia's atomic energy minister declined comment. But Andrey Katargin, the mayor of Zheleznogorsk, the civilian area within the Krasnoyarsk-26 complex, complained that that some of the restrictions Russian authorities have imposed on access to his city are excessive.
"The U.S. ambassador is an important person," Katargin said in a telephone interview. "His presence would have increased the status of the opening."
Krasnoyarsk-26 is not the only place where U.S. officials have run into problems. Richardson has pressed unsuccessful to visit Avangard, a factory for assembling and disassembling nuclear warheads, which is located in the closed city of Arzamas-16.
The United States has offered to provide funds to convert the plant to civilian production if the Russians agree to shut it down ahead of schedule.
There have also been problems at Mayak, where the United States is funding the construction of a warehouse to protect bomb-grade plutonium extracted from nuclear warheads.
Thomas Kuenning, a retired U.S. Air Force general who directs a Pentagon program to help the Russians reduce their strategic arsenal, said the Russians still have not provided the necessary access for the new American project manager at Mayak. Russia's Defense Ministry, he said, tends to be more cooperative than its Atomic Energy Ministry.
"Access needs to be answered on a ministry by ministry basis," Kuenning said. "We try to develop trust and chip away at it.
Some former U.S. officials said the Russians are not the only ones at fault.
"This is a problem that exists on both sites," said Kenneth Luongo, a former Energy Department official and the head of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, a private group that focuses on the problems of Russia's closed cities.
Luongo said that the U.S. Energy Department headquarters has imposed a new series of background checks for Russians. And while foreign reporters have been allowed to visit Pantex, the U.S. warhead disassembly plant, Russian visitors are not allowed.
"The Russians are slowly tightening the noose, but the United States is doing the same thing," Luongo said.
---
Putin, Clinton Wrangle On Chechnya, Arms
OSLO, Nov 3, 1999 -- (Reuters)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=106553
U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wrangled over the Russian offensive in Chechnya and U.S. plans for a missile defense system in a meeting on Tuesday described as "serious" in tone.
In the 50-minute meeting, the second between the two leaders, Clinton warned Putin that Russia's military offensive in Chechnya threatened to cause increasing civilian casualties, undermine world opinion of Russia and turn the opinion of Chechens against it, a senior U.S. official said.
The official said Clinton urged Putin to seek a political solution to the conflict, possibly through a mediator. Washington also viewed as an "important step" Russia's agreement on Tuesday to allow observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) into the Chechnya region, the official said.
Putin in turn passed on a letter from Russian President Boris Yeltsin warning that U.S. plans for a missile defense system would be "extremely dangerous" for the arms control process, and inviting U.S. input on a Russian-sponsored U.N. resolution on the issue.
"It was a serious meeting and it was a frank meeting. It was a useful discussion," a senior U.S. official said. "There are some difficult issues in the relationship now."
PUTIN SEEN "VERY MUCH IN COMMAND"
Sizing up Putin, who was appointed in August, the official said: "He is extremely serious...He is extremely involved in the situation in Chechnya and has been looking at all aspects of the strategy...and he suggests that he is very much in command of that situation."
Clinton and Putin also discussed efforts to update the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, which governs troop and conventional weapons deployment in NATO and parts of the former Soviet Union.
Clinton and Putin met following a ceremony commemorating the fourth anniversary this week of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
At the ceremony, Putin called for the international community to help Russia fight rebels using "terror" in the North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya.
Moscow's forces have shelled and bombed Chechen rebels, and occupied villages, forcing thousands of civilians to flee to the border with the neighboring province of Ingushetia.
Putin said the eradication of terrorism had become "one of the most serious challenges to the world community."
"Russia faces this problem as well. Extremists took the terror way and in their action in the North Caucasus they are trying to cover their activities with religious slogans," he said.
The U.S. official said Clinton warned Putin of "significant humanitarian casualties" if attacks against rebels intermingled with civilians continued.
But the U.S. president made no threats of political or diplomatic retaliation, the official said. "There was not an 'or-else-we-might'," he said.
The United States recognizes Russia's territorial integrity and that the conflict was set off by "significant attacks against lawful authorities," carried out by rebels in Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya, the official said.
He said the Russian offensive could be discussed at an OSCE summit in Istanbul on November 18 and 19 if it was not resolved by then.
YELTSIN'S WARNING: "DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES"
On the missile defense issue, Washington wants to alter the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty to allow it to build a new missile defense system to protect itself or its allies from missiles launched by countries they consider "rogue states," such as North Korea.
Russia says this would undermine nuclear arms reduction deals that followed the ABM treaty, and weaken Moscow's nuclear deterrent.
"The message to Bill Clinton notes, in part, that a collapse of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty resulting from the deployment in the United States of systems of territorial anti-missile defense would have extremely dangerous consequences for the entire arms control process," a Kremlin spokeswoman said.
The U.S. official said Yeltsin proposed that the United States work with Russia on a U.N. resolution on the topic, and said Washington would be willing to do so as long as any resolution embodied principles already agreed to by the two countries.
Russia and the United States agreed earlier this year that work on further reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles and on amending the ABM treaty would continue simultaneously.
---
In Ukraine, hard times make leftist candidates look good
By Dave Montgomery KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Oct/29/national/UKRAINE29.htm
KIEV, Ukraine - Boris Ivanik drives a two-decade-old Russian sedan he can't afford to repair, hasn't bought new clothes since the Soviet Union collapsed, and struggles to feed his family on $40 a month. For the graying 48-year-old railroad worker, eight years of post-Soviet democracy is a promise unfulfilled.
"We've got freedom of speech and freedom of movement, but I can't afford to go anywhere," said Ivanik, who, for the first time, plans to vote for a Communist candidate in the first-round presidential election Sunday. "We are simple people and we're going down, down, down."
Here in Ukraine, economic conditions are so harsh that even Russia, its giant next-door neighbor, seems flush by comparison. And, to no one's surprise, the resulting discontent is threatening centrist President Leonid Kuchma's fragile hold on power, presenting him with 14 challengers in Ukraine's third presidential election since it declared independence in 1991.
Ukraine's next president likely will be decided upon in a Nov. 14 runoff. The United States and other Western governments are intensely interested in the outcome.
Tucked between Russia and Eastern Europe, Ukraine is an important strategic and economic buffer offering untapped markets for Western investors. It is one of the four largest recipients of U.S. aid, underscoring the Clinton administration's commitment to getting moribund reforms moving again and tugging Ukraine into the Western orbit.
And since 1997, the former Soviet state has been free of nuclear weapons after transferring its missiles to Russia. It is now working with the United States to dismantle its nuclear delivery system - bombers and rockets.
But with only days left until the first round of elections, a strong showing by leftist challengers is sending jitters through the West, raising fears that this country of more than 50 million people may turn the clock back.
"I don't see much signs of hope, unfortunately," said David Kramer, an analyst with the Carnegie Institution in Washington.
The United States is not taking a position in the race, but in an interview published last week in a prestigious Ukrainian newspaper, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott blamed corruption for stifling reforms and said Ukraine "has to move further" in invigorating its economy. Talbott also raised concern about reports that Kuchma's campaign was pressuring the Ukrainian media to slant its coverage in favor of the president.
Kuchma seems virtually guaranteed to make the runoff, even though his support has dwindled to only 20 percent of the electorate.
Aside from leading Ukraine past an agonizing period of hyperinflation, Kuchma has not succeeded in tackling Ukraine's economic stagnation. Workers struggle on monthly incomes averaging less than $50, and they frequently are not paid for months. The country's gross domestic product has fallen by 60 percent in less than a decade, the government owes $1.1 billion in interest, corruption is rampant, and foreign investors have largely stayed away.
Kuchma's critics portray him as remote and inconsistent, manipulated by oligarchs who - like those in Russia - have used their presidential access to gain power and prosperity.
The most strident leftist candidate is Natalia Vitrenko of the Progressive Socialist Party, who has unearthed a strong protest vote. She frequently assails NATO and has promised to arrest her opponents and send them to the uranium mines.
Her flamboyant style and nationalistic rhetoric have earned her the nickname "Zhirinovsky in a skirt," a comparison to Russia's ultranationalistic politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
But, while analysts say Vitrenko has a good chance of getting in a runoff against the president, most believe that her extremist rhetoric would be unacceptable to mainstream voters.
Many here see Socialist Party chairman Oleksandr Moroz, who presents himself as an intelligent and credible Scandinavian-style Social Democrat, as Kuchma's greatest threat.
---
NATO Concerned Over Chechnya, Russian Army Doctrine
MOSCOW, Nov 3, 1999 -- (Reuters)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=106770
NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson said in an article for a Russian newspaper on Wednesday that the military alliance was concerned over Russia's campaign in Chechnya and Moscow's new military doctrine.
But he said the alliance wanted to thaw ties with Russia, which Moscow largely froze after NATO's air strikes against Yugoslavia this year, and which have also been hurt by the alliance's expansion to include former communist states.
"Chechnya, too, is a point of common concern," Robertson said in the article written for the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
"Clearly every state has a right - and a duty - to combat terrorism. But we should never stop asking: does the end really justify the means being applied?"
Russia has aggressively bombed Chechnya during its campaign against Moslem rebels it calls terrorists. Almost 200,000 people have fled the fighting to neighboring areas.
Robertson said there were "serious humanitarian concerns" and Russia's deployments in the North Caucasus went beyond the numbers allowed under arms control treaties.
The conflict could also undermine a conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Istanbul later this month, he said.
Robertson said NATO was worried about the tone of Russia's new draft military doctrine, which many experts have said has a highly anti-Western slant.
"We are concerned that the draft moves away from the principle of cooperative security, as it paints a darker, more confrontational picture of international relations," he said.
The doctrine retained Russia's right to use nuclear weapons first, rather than only in response to a nuclear attack. It listed attempts to marginalize Russia in world affairs and station troops near Russia as the main external threats.
Russia froze relations with NATO, based on a key 1997 treaty, after NATO began the strikes against Yugoslavia. Moscow is cooperating with the alliance in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo but most other spheres of cooperation remain stalled.
"But why limit our discussions to Kosovo only? Didn't Kosovo reveal that our relationship suffers from too little, not too much dialogue?" Robertson wrote.
"All this leads me to one clear-cut conclusion. We must get the NATO-Russia relationship out of its artificial straitjacket. We must release our dialogue from its self-imposed limitations. Disagreements are a reason to talk more, not less."
-----------
Three Mile Island Suits Reinstated
Filed at 3:37 a.m. EST Associated Press November 3, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Three-Mile-Island-Lawsuits.html http://www.sddt.com/files/librarywire/99/11/03/fy.html
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A federal appeals court has allowed nearly 2,000 people to revive lawsuits over health problems they blame on the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a lower court judge erred three years ago when she threw out the cases stemming from the worst nuclear accident in the nation's history.
That's little consolation for Amelia Beck, who says she has no plans to revive her late husband's lawsuit.
Earl Beck was one of plaintiffs who said their illnesses stemmed from the meltdown at the plant in central Pennsylvania. He was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1983 and died in December.
``I don't plan to sue anyone for anything,'' she said. ``Now he's gone. We could have used (the money) but I'm not going to worry about that now.''
The 3-month-old Unit 2 reactor was generating electricity at 97 percent of its capacity in the early hours of March 28, 1979, when the control boards flashed the first warnings of the only general emergency ever declared at a U.S. nuclear plant.
Between one third and one half of the reactor's uranium-filled core melted in the first hours of the accident. The ensuing cleanup took nearly 12 years and cost $973 million.
Beck was 72 when U.S. District Chief Judge Sylvia Rambo ruled in 1996 that there was insufficient evidence to link the plaintiffs' various claims of cancer and birth defects to exposure to the radiation leak at the plant.
She threw out the cases of 2,000 plaintiffs based on testimony during a ``mini-trial'' or a test hearing of a group of 10 ``typical'' plaintiffs.
In Tuesday's ruling, Circuit Court Judge Theodore McKee said the remaining plaintiffs should have been given a chance to object to Rambo's decision. The ruling allowed all but the 10 plaintiffs involved in the test hearing to revive their cases.
``It is a victory and defeat for both sides,'' said plaintiffs' attorney Arnold Levin. ``But for the 10 people whose case was thrown out, I feel sorry for them. As for the others, we will get back to their cases and pursue them.''
Tom Kauffman, a spokesman for TMI, declined to comment, saying that officials there had not yet seen the decision.
-----------
Other nuke sites worse than Paducah LOUISVILLE, Ky.
By The Associated Press November 2, 1999
http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?199911/02+paducah110299_news.html+19991102+news
Although the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site contains more radioactive waste than was once believed, federal officials say this country has other, more serious radioactive-contamination hazards to worry about.
The U.S. Department of Energy plans to spend three-quarters of its environmental-cleanup budget for fiscal 2000 on projects at the 10 worst nuclear cleanup sites in the nation.
Of the $5.7 billion that the department will spend on waste detection, cleanup, treatment and disposal, $4.3 billion will go to those 10 sites. Fifty-five other cleanup projects, including Paducah, must compete for the rest of the money.
The DOE does consider the Paducah site to be a major environmental problem: It is ranked 15th in spending among the agency's top 20 projects. The agency also is giving more attention and a bit more money toward cleanup of the plant this year.
Comparing Paducah with two of the largest cleanup projects provides some context.
While Kentucky officials estimate that cleanup at Paducah will cost as much as $2 billion by 2010 the DOE estimates it will take $100 billion and nearly 50 years to repair the environment at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Wash.
The 560-square-mile Hanford site, home to a closed nuclear reactor, is considered one of the world's worst environmental hazards and costliest cleanup projects.
Hanford has more than 2,000 metric tons of spent reactor fuel, 177 aging underground tanks - 70 of which are leaking - containing 55 million gallons of highly radioactive waste and severe groundwater contamination near the Columbia River.
The site will receive about $1 billion from the DOE in fiscal 2000, almost one-fifth of the agency's total environmental-cleanup budget. Paducah will receive $44 million.
In Aiken County, S.C., the 310-square-mile Savannah River site is looking at 40 years' worth of cleanup at a cost of about $30 billion. The site once produced plutonium and tritium for nuclear warheads.
Savannah River is dealing with 31 million gallons of radioactive waste in underground tanks. It also plans to reprocess 55 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, primarily into reactor fuel.
Spending on Savannah River will come to about $1.2 billion this year.
--
Nuke Site Workers Report Ailments
Filed at 3:40 a.m. EST, By The Associated Press, November 3, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Hanford-Health.html
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) -- Hundreds of former Hanford nuclear reservation workers are reporting a number of work-related ailments, mostly diseased lungs and hearing loss, researchers said.
In one of two national medical screening projects, 98 percent of 900 construction workers surveyed believed they had been exposed to hazards at Hanford, and 86 percent believed their health had been affected.
``These perceptions of workers about concerns for their health (are) largely borne out in results we're getting from (subsequent) medical examinations,'' said Knut Ringen, project director for The Center to Protect Workers Rights.
A summary of early findings from Ringen's project -- the Hanford Building Trades Medical Screening Program -- and the University of Washington Former Hanford Worker Medical Program were presented at a news conference here Tuesday.
The screenings are the first independent, science-based evaluations of health risks to former production and construction workers who worked at Hanford anytime in its 56-year history.
Hanford was established as part of the secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Today, the mission at the 560-square-mile site in southeast Washington state is cleaning up the radioactive and hazardous waste created during 40 years of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear arsenal.
The screening programs, paid for by the Energy Department, were ordered by Congress and started three years ago to determine whether workers experienced significant health risks as a result of their jobs at DOE sites.
Roger Briggs, Hanford health studies coordinator for the DOE in Richland, said the findings will help the agency find better ways to protect current worker health and safety.
The projects also found:
--Nearly half of former Hanford production workers had initial chest X-rays showing abnormalities. Eighteen percent had diminished lung function, when the comparable average for the same age range would be about 5 percent.
--Seventy percent of workers had hearing loss, compared with about 50 percent for a comparable industrial population. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed reported hearing impairment, compared with 22 percent in the general population.
--More than 5 percent of those tested were positive for beryllium sensitization. Beryllium is a metal that was used at Hanford and can cause lung disease. Between one-third and one-half of those workers can expect to develop lung disease within five years, researchers said.
---
Yeltsin Warns U.S. Over Missile Defense Plan
MOSCOW, Nov 3, 1999 -- (Reuters)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=106638
Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned President Bill Clinton on Tuesday that U.S. plans to build a missile defense system could have "extremely dangerous" consequences for three decades of arms control accords.
In a letter, Yeltsin criticized Washington's plans to change the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), a pact which Moscow considers the bedrock for world arms control.
The Cold-War-era treaty bans systems designed to shoot enemy missiles out of the sky, under the logic that such defenses would have encouraged Washington and Moscow to build ever larger arsenals of nuclear missiles to pierce the enemy's shields.
Washington wants to alter the ABM treaty to create a new missile defense system to protect itself and its allies from any missile launch by what it calls "rogue" states, including North Korea and Iran. Russia opposes such changes.
"The message to Bill Clinton notes, in part, that a collapse of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty resulting from the deployment in the United States of systems of territorial anti-missile defense would have extremely dangerous consequences for the entire arms control process," a Kremlin statement said.
Yeltsin, on holiday in the Black Sea Resort of Sochi, sent Clinton the message with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Oslo, where the Russian premier met the U.S. president for talks.
Yeltsin, who is due to meet Putin this week, called on the United Nations and national governments to focus their attention on what he called a worrying situation created by Washington.
"The message notes that although only a few countries have taken part in the ABM treaty, it in effect concerns the security interests of every state," the Kremlin statement said.
OTHER ARMS TREATIES JEOPARDIZED
The statement did not say what the "extremely dangerous" consequences would be, but Russian officials have maintained that agreements which followed the ABM treaty, such as the START Strategic Arms Reduction pacts, could be jeopardized.
Those pacts have led Russia and the United States to scrap thousands of nuclear missiles.
A Russian general was quoted as saying last month Moscow might deploy more nuclear warheads in response to Washington's anti-missile defense plans.
Earlier on Tuesday, a foreign ministry spokesman said Moscow was becoming increasingly frustrated by a series of negative signals from Washington over its commitment to reducing the number of nuclear weapons across the world.
"The United States is attempting to violate the ABM treaty," he told a news conference. "We believe the treaty of 1972 is necessary for world security."
He also criticized the U.S. Senate's rejection last month of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans nuclear test explosions, and expressed concern about Hungary's plans to consider the stationing of U.S. nuclear weapons on its soil.
"These are very serious signals, very negative ones...we should be moving away from a bi-polar world and should move towards a multi-polar world," he said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been quoted as saying his ex-Communist country might consider stationing NATO nuclear weapons on its soil in a crisis.
---
Georgia May Seek Shelter in NATO
Filed at 10:55 a.m. EST Associated Press, November 3, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Georgia-Russia-NATO.html
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Georgia might speed up efforts to join NATO if Russia continues to build up military forces in the Caucasus Mountains region, an adviser to President Eduard Shevardnadze said Wednesday.
Georgians feared Russia was using the recent war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya as an excuse to increase its military presence throughout the region, foreign affairs adviser Shalva Pichkhadze said.
If Russia continues the weapons buildup, Georgia might ``actively knock on NATO doors,'' Pichkhadze told the Associated Press. Shevardnadze already has expressed strong interest in joining the alliance.
The United States accused Russia last month of violating the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty by deploying weapons in and around the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The treaty limits the number of tanks, artillery pieces, aircraft and other non-nuclear arms in Europe and other regions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said, though, that Russia had notified the West about the deployment, and that the treaty allowed a temporary buildup.
Pichkhadze said ``the question of stationing Russian military bases on Georgian territory might arise.'' Georgia, located on the Black Sea, became independent with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
-----------
[Are there uranium mines in the area? Or nuclear tests?]
Rescued Girl Has Acute Leukemia
By The Associated Press November 3, 1999 Filed at 9:45 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-South-Africa-Rescue.html
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- Doctors on Wednesday diagnosed 6-year-old Danni Clifford with acute leukemia, finally establishing the illness that required her rescue from a remote island in the South Atlantic.
Danni was brought to the private Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic for emergency treatment. The diagnosis was made after tests on the child's blood and bone marrow, hospital spokeswoman Gail Ross said Wednesday.
Ross said the girl's condition was stable.
She collapsed in her home on St. Helena, which lies 2,170-mile northwest of Cape Town and has no airport, on Oct. 23. A cargo ship, the Nomzi, managed by the South African company Safmarine, went on a 360-nautical-mile detour to pick her up Oct. 26 and arrived in Cape Town early Saturday morning.
Danni will undergo chemotherapy, and once she has started responding to treatment, the hospital would try to find a bone marrow donor to give her a transplant.
Ross said initial testing for a donor would be done on the girl's immediate family.
``Danni's parents John and Cheri Clifford have been made aware of the diagnosis and what can be expected with regard to the treatment she shall receive and the duration of this treatment,'' Ross said.
Acute leukemia occurs when the normal bone marrow is overgrown by cancerous cells, known as blasts. The marrow becomes unable to produce enough red or white blood cells or platelets. Treatment can take several months.
She was initially diagnosed with a rare condition known as aplastic anemia, or bone marrow failure, which could not be treated on the island.
-----------
N.M. issues permit so dump can receive plutonium waste
The bulk of Idaho lab's N-trash can now leave state
Associated Press, October 28, 1999
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,125012000,00.html?
SANTA FE, N.M. - The state Environment Department has issued the long-awaited permit for the federal government's underground dump to begin receiving shipments of plutonium-contaminated waste tainted by other hazardous material.
The permit, effective in 30 days if not undermined by a legal challenge, clears the way for the bulk of waste now stored at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to be moved to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for permanent disposal. Most of that waste has to be processed first.
But under Idaho's nuclear waste deal with the federal government, all of it must be out of the state by 2019.
Without the state hazardous waste permit the Energy Department has only been able to ship purely radioactive waste to the $2 billion facility near Carlsbad since it opened last March. Three have been from Idaho, but that kind of waste comprises just a fraction of the material left over from atom bomb production.
"We are confident that this permit imposes enough safeguards to protect human health and the environment," Environment Department Secretary Peter Maggiore said in a statement.
Maggiore's action this week came over objections from activist Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center, who threatened a court challenge.
"What's happened here is the DOE is pressuring the Environment Department to give them a permit - a weak permit - so the DOE can operate as if there is no permit," Hancock charged. "That's not the way the law works. That's not the way to protect public health and the environment."
Hancock said his group will decide within a month whether to contest the permit in court. He said it was unclear whether the state will enforce its provisions or the federal government will comply.
Energy Department spokeswoman Anne Elliott said the government is reviewing the state permit and declined to speculate on what the next step will be.
Much of the waste is plutonium-contaminated trash, such as clothing, gloves, booties, filters, plastic covers and metal cans that is also tainted by substances like solvents or heavy metals, which the state has regulatory authority over.
The state permit imposes environmental controls on operation of the site, including requirements for monitoring air and groundwater for potential contamination.
There is also a requirement that wastes bound for the facility be analyzed. The permit also requires the government to ensure that there are the financial resources necessary to close the dump.
-----------
Editorial: The Korean conundrum
October 29, 1999
http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/edit/9j29ed3.htm
The Clinton administration's continuing conciliatory stance on North Korea is foolhardy and potentially dangerous. Even as a new report shows that aid to the communist relic cannot be adequately monitored - giving rise to reasonable speculation that it is not being distributed to people in need - the administration is recommending phasing out sanctions.
William Perry, special adviser on North Korea, says trying to bring down the North Korean regime would take too long and could lead to a second Korean War. He also wants to continue a 1994 agreement that basically provides U.S. help in North Korea's nuclear energy program in return for that country not toying with nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile the General Accounting Office is reporting that the United Nations' World Food Program cannot monitor what happens to U.S. food aid there. Why not? Because the North Koreans will not let U.N. personnel go to the sites to which aid is allegedly being sent, such as schools and hospitals.
This arrogant and high-handed attitude fuels suspicions that food aid is not being delivered to those who truly need it, the poor who have suffered dreadfully during the last several years of poor harvests and famine. Estimates put the number of deaths due to the famine as high as 2 million or more.
Dealing with North Korea is not a cut-and-dried proposition. The administration's concern that failure to offer aid will spur the North Koreans to advance their nuclear program and threaten both South Korea and other neighboring states is real enough. The missile test over Japan last year was clearly a warning shot.
But what if aid is continued in the face of very real concerns that it isn't going to the poor and hungry? What if sanctions are lifted on all but military materiel? Doesn't that send the message that the United States can be intimidated into an accommodation with a brutally repressive regime?
It's blackmail in any language. And other nations or groups, even if they do not have their own nuclear capability, will be looking and learning.
No indication is evident so far that continuation and expansion of aid and commerce with North Korea will bring improvements in the conditions of ordinary people there. There is no indication to this point that the regime will loosen its totalitarian stranglehold on the country. So what will the aid get us?
So far, it seems it will simply gain assurances that the North Koreans won't proceed further with a nuclear weapons program.
Is that assurance - for what it is worth - reason enough to have this country appear in the eyes of the world to lack resolve in dealing with those who threaten regional stability and peace?
-----------
Records: U.S. saw region as a pushover
Friday, October 29, 1999
http://www.dispatch.com/pan/localarchive/pickmenws.html
Piketon wasn't chosen as the site for a new uranium enrichment plant out of respect for the region's work force.
Southern Ohio, records show, was picked because it was in an isolated area where poor residents and struggling unions wouldn't fight the siting or demand too much money.
In fact, Piketon originally was a "weak third choice'' as a plant location, according to a 1987 review, commissioned by the U.S. Energy Department, of how nuclear sites were selected.
The Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy, built the first uranium-enrichment plants in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Paducah, Ky., in the 1940s and early 1950s. The agency wanted a third facility to help keep up with the demands of producing the enriched uranium that is the raw fuel of both nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors and to produce "security through dispersion.''
The top two choices for the new site were near Louisville, Ky., and outside Cincinnati. But the Louisville site, 2 miles from a residential area and "three miles from the Standard Golf and Country Club,'' was eliminated from consideration after "widespread protests from area business and civic groups.''
Cincinnati was eliminated because the government feared unions would demand wages that were too high.
"Unions in the depressed Portsmouth area, however, were eager for the additional jobs that the new project would provide,'' the Energy Department history said. "They did not demand as high premiums for second- shift work as the Cincinnati unions and agreed that they would resolve any future demands, except for general wage increases, without striking. Moreover, public sentiment at Portsmouth was strongly in favor of an AEC facility.''
Today, workers say they were proud to be part of the nation's atomic- defense program and took extremely seriously their responsibility not to talk about the work they were doing.
And, they admit, the region was desperate enough to accept the kind of work other places rejected.
"This was Appalachia. . . . We needed employment,'' said Bob Whitt, 68, of Jackson, who worked at the plant from 1954 until 1991. "We were extremely loyal in the early days.''
But the workers' allegiance has faded as new revelations about how they were kept in the dark about materials in the plant that might have been hazardous to their health.
---
Safety issues within plant being fixed, officials say
A former employee and the wife of a worker who died think contamination issues are not being addressed.
Friday, October 29, 1999, By Bob Dreitzler Dispatch Staff Reporter
http://www.dispatch.com/pan/localarchive/nukeynws.html
PIKETON, Ohio -- Minor problems that a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection team found at a nuclear-enrichment plant were in the process of being corrected, said Morris Brown, general manager of the plant, at a meeting with NRC officials yesterday.
"This inspection provides additional assurance that we have a sound radiation-protection program,'' he said.
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, 70 miles south of Columbus, was given a generally good evaluation by inspectors who visited the plant last month.
But a former plant worker and the wife of another worker who died of brain cancer last year raised questions at the end of yesterday's meeting about the contamination, which they think remains in parts of the plant.
They came away from the discussion unsatisfied with the inspection team's response that the U.S. Department of Energy, not the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is dealing with issues involving the plant's past practices and past contamination.
Vina Colley, a former plant worker and activist who studies health and safety issues at the plant, questioned how the team could conclude that the Piketon plant is a "low-dose'' facility that has little risk of radiation hazard when it is now known that parts of the plant were contaminated with plutonium.
"I don't think they know how serious the problem really is,'' she said. "I think they came out a little too fast.''
Colley said the agency should not have concluded its study before David Michaels, assistant secretary of energy, holds a public meeting Saturday in Piketon to hear concerns of workers and area residents. The meeting will be held 9 a.m.-noon at the Comfort Inn on Rt. 23.
"There's too many people over these facilities,'' said Susan Thompson of Rarden, Ohio. "You've got this agency and that agency, and you've got one saying it's not our responsibility. . . . Whose responsibility is it?''
Thompson's husband, Owen, worked at the plant before he died of brain cancer last year at 46. He worked in areas where materials contaminated with plutonium were handled, Mrs. Thompson said.
During a post-inspection meeting with company officials from United States Enrichment Corp., the inspection team said they had found a few deficiencies in safety training but that some were corrected the same day they were found and that all were being worked on.
Some training materials understated the potential dangers of exposure to radiation, and some workers had a problem with not retaining what they had been taught, inspection-team leader Pat Hiland said.
Inspectors found that some workers also were improperly using a radiation-detecting wand that is supposed to alert workers to radioactive contamination on their clothing.
They also said more cleanup needs to be done outside a uranium fuel-processing building that was heavily damaged by fire last year. Contaminated oil and water escaped from the building during the fire, Hiland said. Barricades have been set up around the site, but more needs to be done to clean it up, he said.
The special inspection was done as a result of recent publicity about past contamination problems at the Piketon plant and a sister plant in Paducah, Ky. The Paducah plant underwent a similar inspection that revealed no major problems.
The inspectors looked at radiation-protection practices and procedures that are being used at the plants now, not at past practices that might have caused contamination.
Both plants handled depleted uranium fuel that was being reprocessed during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The fuel contained small amounts of plutonium and other radioactive, cancer-causing materials. Workers unknowingly handled the contaminated material without proper protective gear.
---
Compensate workers, Ohio legislators say
Friday, October 29, 1999
http://www.dispatch.com/pan/localarchive/nukpolnws.html
Revelations that Piketon workers were exposed to more dangerous materials than originally suspected has some Ohio members of Congress demanding that those workers be compensated.
"There's no question there is a serious problem (at Piketon) . . . and they for sure, in my opinion, should be included in any kind program forthcoming to deal with the needs of workers,'' said Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio.
The Clinton administration has proposed a "pilot project'' to compensate workers at Piketon's sister plant in Paducah, Ky., who might have suffered cancers or other illnesses because of their exposure to plutonium and related radioactive elements that are more dangerous than uranium.
The fact that Piketon workers so far are not included in the initiative has legislators such as Voinovich outraged.
The former governor said what might have happened at Piketon isn't unique; from the Fernald, Ohio, nuclear site to the one in Los Alamos, N.M., the government's Cold War actions sacrificed health at the altar of national security.
In a program unrelated to Piketon, the government has paid almost $100 million to settle claims by workers and community members stemming from problems at the Fernald nuclear plant near Cincinnati.
But Piketon has been excluded from the compensation proposal because of Clinton administration concerns that it could spark similar demands from former nuclear workers, said Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville.
"The Department (of Energy) has got to accept responsibility for this,'' Strickland said. "There shouldn't be any attempt to be coy or to be careful. People who may have been injured in any way need to be evaluated and cared for.''
Strickland and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., are co-sponsoring a bill to redistribute about $1.6 billion in a special federal fund for cleanup efforts at the plants.
The two also said they want a new Department of Energy operations office in place by March 30. The office would focus solely on cleanup of the nation's only two gaseous- diffusion plants, located in Paducah and Piketon.
Carolyn Huntoon, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for environmental management, told a Senate subcommittee that a separate office would only increase overhead costs for cleanup.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
---
Advances don't end need for radioactive waste site, report says
WASHINGTON (November 3, 1999 9:30 a.m. EST
http://www.nando.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500052708-500086513-500293411-0,00.html
(AP) According to an Energy Department report to Congress, developing and using a new high-tech process to make some of the nation's radioactive waste less dangerous would not eliminate the need for a national waste storage facility.
Furthermore, it would take 117 years and $280 billion to complete the waste processing, the agency estimated.
Known as accelerator transmutation of waste, or ATW, the high-tech process "could reduce the potential long-term radiation doses from repository wastes by a factor of about 10; however, a repository is still required," the report issued on Monday said.
There has been some hope that ATW could provide an alternative to storing large quantities of radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power plants in a controversial underground storage facility. One is planned for a site deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
ATW would use molecular particle accelerators to change radioactive materials - that normally would take thousands of years to stabilize under normal circumstances - into substances that stabilize more quickly.
The report said it would take eight years and $2 billion for research and development to perfect the technique. After that, it would cost $9 billion and take 27 years for a demonstration project and another 90 years and $270 billion to use it on an anticipated 87,000 tons of spent commercial nuclear fuel, the report said.
The process could probably not be used on radioactive waste from making nuclear weapons, the report said, and also would generate its own highly unstable waste byproducts.
---
Report: October 20, 1999
Investigation Team Issues its Final Report on Paducah
Additional Corrective Actions Taken In Response
http://www.doe.gov/news/releases99/octpr/pr99283.htm
The report is available on the Internet at http://tis.eh.doe.gov/portal or by calling DOE's Paducah site office at 270/441-6830.
---
Piketon's heavy toll
Nuclear plant kept risks of contamination from rank and file
Friday, October 29, 1999
By Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau
http://www.dispatch.com/pan/localarchive/uspillnws.html
Managers at southern Ohio's uranium-enrichment plant refused Ken Estep's request for an early-retirement buyout in 1985, when the 42-year-old Piketon man was battling a rare form of liver cancer.
When Estep died that Nov. 14 -- his body a gaunt, blackened shell -- managers declined to pay his family a pension, said his widow, Barbara Barker. She said the pension was denied because Estep was about six weeks shy of his 10th anniversary as a truck driver for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Aside from $6,000 in life insurance -- money that barely covered funeral expenses -- "I got nothing,'' Barker said.
Goodyear Atomic, the now-defunct contractor that ran the Piketon plant for the U.S. Department of Energy until 1986, did send a representative to her house after Estep's death -- to go through his billfold and claim items the company regarded awho recalls being told to repair pipes oozing green and yellow liquid. His gloves set off radiation alarms afterward. Medical tests now show many cells in his body are predisposed to cancer.
Another former plant worker who -- without protective gear -- helped clean up a major spill of uranium hexafluoride in 1978. Earlier this year, at age 71, he lost a kidney to cancer and had cancerous tumors removed from his bladder.
An ex-janitor who witnessed hundreds of leaks of uranium hexafluoride from pipes throughout the plant, some of which were plugged with pencils.
All the while, documents show, crucial workplace-safety information was withheld by plant managers.
Workers not told
Conditions have improved in recent years, but current and former Piketon employees want the federal investigation to determine whether the cancers and other health problems many of them have experienced relate to the plant.
A definitive link may be difficult or impossible to prove, experts say.
Only in recent months has the federal government openly acknowledged that the material to which Piketon workers were exposed was much more radioactive -- and deadly -- than previously revealed.
However, reports written in the early 1970s detailed potential health hazards -- including material contaminated with plutonium, newly unearthed documents obtained by The Dispatch indicate. It remains unclear what safety measures were taken to protect workers.
Piketon received enough tainted material in 1976 to warrant a warning from a Goodyear Atomic health physicist about the level of highly radioactive "transuranics,'' such as plutonium and neptunium, being brought into the plant in used reactor fuel. The material also contained fission byproducts such as technetium-99, which also is considerably more radioactive than uranium.
"It is imperative that GAT (Goodyear Atomic) develop procedures for protecting the health of employees who are exposed to these highly toxic and radioactive substances,'' the July 29, 1976, memo said.
The memo indicates that the material was being handled at Piketon's oxide-conversion plant -- where the spent reactor fuel was turned back into uranium hexafluoride that could be enriched again for use as nuclear fuel -- even before appropriate safety measures were in place.
The plant had been handling spent fuel from the government's Savannah River reactor in South Carolina, the memo said, adding: "It is necessary that we develop procedures to protect the health of employees who are handling this material or equipment which is contaminated with this radioactive material. Before we can evaluate employee exposures, we must positively identify the radioactive isotopes to which they are exposed.''
The oxide-conversion facility, opened in 1955, was shut down in 1978 after officials determined that they couldn't contain radioactive releases. Spentfuel arrived sporadically between 1955 and the facility's closing; little is known about shipments before the mid-1970s.
A 1962 Goodyear Atomic memo obtained by The Dispatch told managers not to reveal information about "housekeeping problems'' -- a euphemism for contaminated areas -- to nonsupervisory workers.
"The general philosophy should be passed down to the foremen for their use as a guide in handling housekeeping problems involving contamination considerations,'' said the Aug. 27 memo, written by a plant superintendent.
"We don't expect or desire that the philosophy will be openly discussed with bargaining-unit employees.''
As recently as 1989, a Department of Energy safety-oversight team found that "contamination control is a major concern'' at Piketon.
"A breakdown in standard work place controls'' led to "widespread evidence of eating, drinking and smoking in contaminated areas; a lack of routine contamination surveys being conducted; and little follow-up and accountability to contamination surveys and tagging,'' the team reported in 1990.
Dan Minter, president of the Piketon workers' union, said the new information is the clearest indication to date that worker safety was given short shrift in the Cold War years.
"They didn't take any measures to protect employees,'' he said. "Their internal correspondence says, 'We've got a problem with these transuranics (highly radioactive materials) but it's at a low level so, what the heck, go ahead and expose them.' ''
The documents show a long-term disregard for worker safety, said Minter of the Paper Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers International Union.
"The government couldn't be held accountable. . . . It didn't care if a person in Portsmouth got a little exposure if that kept weapons being produced,'' he said.
Routine contact
While fears about plutonium have taken center stage in recent weeks, former workers and the widows of other employees say work at the plant in earlier years involved routine exposure to a variety of radioactive and highly toxic chemicals.
Even before the revelations about plutonium, activists had long said that the plant was dangerous. The claims largely fell on deaf ears.
Charles Gary Meade, one of the plant's first enrichment-process operators, was 32 when he died in 1965 of leukemia, five weeks after it was diagnosed.
His widow, Dorothy Hardin, still keeps his boots in the attic -- the same pair he regularly wore home but kept from his children because he feared they were radioactive.
Hardin said she thinks that workers never knew the full dangers of their jobs.
"It was a great cover-up,'' she said. "They told them the stuff was safe enough to eat.''
Robert Woosley of Jackson remembers being told as much when he worked as a welder at the plant from 1974 to '77. He also remembers being instructed to fix equipment dripping with green, yellow and "psychedelic'' colored material -- and how his gloved hands would set off radiation monitors afterward.
"I would say, 'Before I weld on this, why don't you wash it off?' '' Woosely recalled. "The boss told me, 'Don't worry about it; you can eat this stuff.' ''
Woosley, 58, said medical tests about four years ago showed large numbers of cells throughout his body predisposed to developing cancer. He left his job at the plant after becoming convinced that the safety claims made by supervisors were "ridiculous.''
Woosley said many workers were bullied and coaxed by plant supervisors into turning a blind eye to possible dangers.
"They didn't encourage going and getting (medical) tests and stuff like that,'' he said. "They were the old- school bosses. You could swim the ocean; if you didn't, you were a sissy.''
Estep was one of a number of workers who cleaned up in March 1978 after a 14-ton canister of uranium hexafluoride was dropped and ruptured. Working in only his plant coveralls and regular boots, Estep helped pile snow on the mixture of natural uranium and fluoride as it gushed out in its liquid form.
The next day, the plant locker containing his clothes was gone. About 10 days later, he broke out in a prickly body rash, his widow said, but managers dismissed his concerns.
Charles Stapleton, another former worker, also helped clean up the '78 spill. This year, at age 71, he lost a kidney to cancer and had cancerous tumors taken out of his bladder.
"The boss said, 'You have go down there; we've got a spill down there,' '' recalled Stapleton, who drove a truck for the plant from 1977 to '90. "I said, 'I ain't supposed to clean up spills, I'm a truck diver.' He said, 'This is an emergency. Do what I tell you.' ''
Stapleton said a trained chemical cleanup crew donned protective gear and gas masks to work on the spill. Other workers toiled without protection.
"My throat hurt liked I had breathed battery acid the next day,'' he said. "We had a meeting (with plant managers) in the conference room about it. They all laughed and made fun about it. I told them how felt and they said ain't no way could feel that way . . . said I was crazy.''
Retired janitor Stanley McNelly, 79, was in the bathroom when he heard sirens after the spill. Running outside, he was enveloped by a toxic cloud, he said. For months afterward, McNelly, who survived a bout of colon cancer in 1982, coughed up a clear, rubbery substance.
"There was nothing but fog, and I couldn't see,'' McNelly said. "They took me to the hospital and said there was nothing wrong with me. But for a year I coughed and coughed. It was like a butter bean, clear as crystal, and I could not spit it out of my mouth. I had to take it out with my thumb and finger.''
The 1978 spill is the largest in the Piketon plant's history. Nearly 22,000 pounds of uranium hexafluoride ran in all directions from the ruptured canister, sending a plume of toxic fog into the air.
The plant managers' report about the incident -- which stated that no one was injured -- described such releases of uranium hexafluoride as routine.
'Bad stuff' Uranium hexafluoride is heated into a gaseous form as part of the enrichment process to convert natural uranium to the higher levels of radioactivity necessary for efficient use as nuclear fuel or as the basic building block of a nuclear weapon.
The radiation emitted by raw uranium is of minimal concern, experts say. But the fluoride can cause severe harm after it hits the air and turns into uranyl oxyfluoride and hydrofluoric acid, both highly toxic chemical agents.
Uranium hexafluoride is "bad stuff'' that, depending on the level of exposure, can cause severe respiratory damage or death when inhaled, said Ronald Kathren, former director of a federally funded study of people exposed to radioactive materials. Kathren also is a professor emeritus at Washington State University.
The material spilled in 1978 had not yet been enriched.
Former and current workers say highly enriched -- and thus much more radioactive -- uranium hexafluoride routinely burst from pipes during the enrichment process.
In a pinch, pencils were used to plug such leaks, said Roy Carrier, 57, who worked there from 1976 to '98, first as a plant firefighter and later as a janitor.
Carrier said he witnessed hundreds of releases.
Sam Ray, 67, worked at the plant from 1954 to '95, retiring after contracting a rare bone cancer that cost him his larynx. During his career at the plant, Ray said, he saw thousands of releases -- many of them undocumented until recent years.
Workers also were exposed to a variety of toxic chemicals.
A 1994 report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health documented arsenic contamination, although the agency said employees were not in danger. The arsenic apparently came into the plant in the 1980s via shipments of uranium hexafluoride that -- unbeknown to workers -- contained contaminated fluorine.
Workers also may have been exposed to oil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, toxic chemicals considered to be carcinogens that are no longer used in industrial operations. A 1983 notice put out by Goodyear Atomic and the union representing plant workers said PCB-contaminated oil seeped into processing buildings from exhaust ducts. A number of workers suffered moderate to heavy exposures.
A co-worker said he remembers when Ken Estep spent a day plowing a field of contaminated oil. The next day, the relatively new plow looked 15 years old, eaten-through and rusty, said Bob Whitt, 68 of Jackson, a plant employee from 1954 to '91.
Whitt has stomach problems and an inflamed esophagus -- problems he said might be related to years of exposures to chemicals and radioactivity. He said that when he was in his 30s, he had to have cataracts removed from both eyes -- an unusual problem for a young person.
Improved safety
Workers interviewed by The Dispatch uniformly said that in the 1990s, especially after the now-privatized United States Enrichment Corp. took control of the plant in 1993, conditions improved and safety became paramount.
And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, regarded as much more strict and safety-conscious than the Energy Department, now regulates the plant.
An ongoing study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health so far hasn't found an abnormal incidence of deaths by cancer among Piketon workers. Although initial findings released in 1987 showed excess stomach cancer and blood-related cancers such as leukemia, a 1996 update said that rate had dropped back into the normal range.
However, several factors -- including the relative youth of the people being studied, the fact that the study looked only at deaths and not the overall incidence of cancer, and a lack of data from plant records about worker exposures -- limits the study's accuracy, says a disclaimer attached to the 1996 update.
There is much that remains unknown about long-term, chronic exposures to uranium hexafluoride, said Dr. Michael McCalley, professor of community and preventive medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and an expert in radiation and health effects. But workers were subjected to risks that are considered unacceptable today, he said.
"We had very different social and professional attitudes toward radiation in times past. It wasn't a big deal,'' McCalley said. "The rules have changed. You couldn't operate a facility like any of those today.''
Bob Schaeffer of the Washington- based Alliance for Nuclear Accountability said expedience and the willingness to sacrifice health for national security played a role, along with ignorance.
"I don't know whether people lied consciously or just did not know what they were dealing with,'' Schaeffer said. "But there are people sick or otherwise damaged because of what was done in the government's name and the task of the nation ought to be to help them.''
-----------
Panel to re-examine n-plants for safety
The Hindu, October 30, 1999
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/10/30/stories/0230000i.htm
MUMBAI, OCT. 29. India is thoroughly re-examining its own facilities following a recent accident in a private uranium conversion plant in Japan, due to violation of regulatory directives and safety imperatives.
The Safety Review Committee of Operating Plants (SARCOP) of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), has ruled after examining the details that such an accident is unlikely in India. But it has called for a re-examination of relevant plants as ``a measure of abundant caution and this is being done,'' said Dr. R. Chidambaram, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission.
He was addressing leading scientists and technologists of The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre here today on the occasion of its Founder's Day, the birth anniversary of the late Dr. Homi Bhabha, the father of Indian nuclear programme.The safety record of the Indian plants has been recognised to be very good all over the world, Dr. Chidambaram said and scoffed at prophets of doomsday who doubt the safety of the Indian nuclear facilities, ``this is because no directive of the AERB has ever been violated''.
Referring to a media report, `there may be a nuclear accident in India in the not-too-distant future,' the AEC chairman said, ``such a statement made without any scientific basis is a symptom of the technological diffidence in some persons who consider that, as a nation, India is not capable of dealing with high technology.
``Homi Bhabha did not think so. I do not think so. And there is no doubt that all of you, who have a spectacular record of achievements, do not think so,'' Dr. Chidambaram said observing, ``technological diffidence is an invitation to technological colonialism''.
He said, ``safety is a matter of culture and our continuous and strong emphasis on it, both in design and operation, has paid rich dividends. The AERB stringently monitors the safety record of India's nuclear facilities and it has set up this year an independent Safety Research Institute for safety-related research and analysis, he said. Nuclear Power Corporation of India that establishes and operates nuclear power plants in the country, ``has the track record of 150 reactor years of safe operation''.Dr. Chidambaram had similar scorn for ``sporadic attempts by one small group of so-called `experts' to question the yields of our tests'' despite publication of a good deal of the data.
---
Second Pak. n-plant soon
October 29, 1999, The Hindu
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/10/29/stories/03290003.htm
ISLAMABAD, OCT. 28. Pakistan's second nuclear power plant which is being constructed with the active support of its longtime defence ally China, is expected to be operational in the next few months, NNI news agency quoted an official of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as saying.
The Chashma nuclear power plant (Chasmanupp), situated on the Chashma Barrage on the banks of the Indus about 280 km south west of Islamabad, would be operational in the next few months, the official was quoted as saying. The Rs. 26 billion plant has been designed by China's Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute and has been built by the China National Nuclear Corporation for a life span of 40 years.
Work on this 300 mw nuclear power plant began in 1992, more than two decades after Pakistan's first nuclear power plant at Karachi had gone operational, the report said.
The Karachi plant, with a capacity of 100 mw, which started generating electricity in 1971 using locally produced uranium would expire in 2002. However, PAEC engineers are working for the extension of its life, the report said. Pakistan had set up its first nuclear power plant in the early 1970s along with its nuclear programme.
-----------
A pointed Arrow
Jerusalem Post, November 3 1999
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/03.Nov.1999/Opinion/Article-0.html
As world leaders gathered in Oslo to remember Yitzhak Rabin, another important boost to world peace occurred in Israel: the success of the first full operational test of the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system.
Unlike other shots heard 'round the world, such as those that launched World War I or that felled Yitzhak Rabin, the Arrow missile shot is a harbinger of hope rather than tragedy; the beginning of a new era in which democratic states make it clear they intend to defend themselves.
Monday's test was the last and most crucial of seven since the Arrow's development began in 1986. For the first time, the Arrow was deployed against a simulated Scud missile, and successfully found and destroyed the target missile in mid-flight. Though each of the components had been tested separately, this week's test demonstrated that the Green Pine radar could track an incoming missile in the upper atmosphere, while the Citron Tree fire-control system guides the Arrow missile to its target.
This feat has been likened to shooting a bullet with a bullet. Its significance, however, goes considerably beyond a demonstration of technological prowess. The Arrow's significance is that it is a first step toward not only defending against ballistic missiles, but making them obsolete.
As things stand now, such a vision may seem hopelessly utopian. The world is already getting used to the idea that, from time to time, another rogue nation will proudly unveil more powerful and more sophisticated missiles.
There is a sense that it is inevitable that the Cold War balance of terror will be replaced by miniature versions of that balance in each region. The feeling that the Cold War balance of terror "worked," combined with the seeming lack of an alternative, has produced a remarkable degree of apathy in democratic countries toward the spread of long-range missile systems and weapons of mass destruction.
The significance of the Arrow is that it says to the world that the race by rogue regimes to equip themselves with ever more fearsome weapons has been joined. It is a race that the democracies can and must win, despite the skeptics advocating a forfeit.
So far, the democracies' ability to compete in this race has been stymied by those who say that not competing is preferable to succumbing to the illusion that the race can be won. In this view, anything less than a perfect defense is worse than useless in the nuclear age, because it produces a false sense of security, or makes nuclear war more "thinkable." In Israel, too, some have embraced this "less is more" theory of security, and dubbed the Arrow a waste of money.
Yet following Israel's deployment of the world's first operational missile defense system, and perhaps its export to other countries who are quickly lining up to acquire it, the perverse logic of "mutual assured destruction" could well collapse. What is obvious to most people - that an 80 or 90 percent effective defense is better than no defense at all - will become an irresistible imperative for democratic governments.
As defense advocates note, the arguments for missile defenses have become much more compelling as the threat shifts to rogue states. First of all, leaders such as Saddam Hussein have shown that they are not always deterred by the threat of retaliation. During the Gulf War, Saddam lobbed missiles at Tel Aviv despite such a threat, and in fact, Israel did not retaliate.
Second, while the offensive systems of a superpower such as the former Soviet Union might arguably have overwhelmed defenses, the arsenals of rogue states are not necessarily so massive.
Most significantly, technological advances have spawned an incredible array of possible defensive systems, including ground and sea-based missiles, lasers mounted on airplanes or pilotless drones, and satellite-based systems employing lasers or kinetic interceptors. In a race pitting democratic nations that are richer, more technologically advanced, and that can cooperate with each other against rogue states that have none of these advantages, there is no reason to assume defeat, and every reason to strive for victory.
Missile defense opponents who reject the possibility of a perfect defense miss an essential point: The spread of even partially effective defense systems will deter some countries from embarking on expensive missile-development programs.
Missile defense does not conflict with the current reliance upon massive retaliation or with current non-proliferation regimes. On the contrary, missile defenses are potentially very potent form of arms control - and the only protection should non-proliferation and deterrence efforts fail. As the country most threatened by the new dangers of the post-Cold War era, it is fitting that Israel is pioneering it what should become a worldwide effort to defend against them.
---
Israel's Missile Killer Declared Operational
By Bradley Burston Nov 01 1999 15:59:05 ET
http://www.space.com/news/israel_missile_991101_wg.html
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The U.S.-funded Arrow missile was declared operational by its Israeli manufacturer on Monday after a successful test in which it struck a target missile over the Mediterranean.
Israeli officials said the system would not be deployed until next year, but was already capable of intercepting and destroying an incoming ballistic missile.
"The system is complete, and is therefore operationally ready,'' said Ori Orr, board chairman of state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), main contractor of the Arrow.
Evening television newscasts in Israel led with footage of the Arrow blasting off from the deck of an Israeli naval vessel, streaking toward and striking a target missile within seconds.
Orr said that after tests spanning nine years, "today's was the first test of the entire system, truly in a real exercise, with radar that acquired the target, a system that calculated intercept data, and a missile that went out and hit the target.''
It was the seventh test firing of an Arrow since the U.S.-Israeli project was launched in 1988 as part of the Reagan Administration's now-defunct Star Wars program.
Designed to intercept missiles at altitudes between 10 and 40 kilometers (six and 25 miles), the Arrow project was kicked into high gear by the failure of U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles to combat Iraqi Scuds that slammed into Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
The project's price tag is expected to exceed $2 billion by 2010, with direct U.S. funding accounting for some $700 million.
"The Americans are aware of the results of the test and are themselves certainly happy over the great success,'' Orr said.
Foreign governments, notably Israel's regional strategic ally Turkey, have shown interest in purchasing the Arrow.
But Orr turned aside questions over possible sales.
Not for sale yet
"At the moment no one is dealing with selling the Arrow. At the moment we must produce the quantities that we need for our own defense,'' he said in an interview with Israel's army radio.
Officials expect the first of three projected Arrow batteries to be deployed next year in the Tel Aviv area, Israel's main population center and the primary target of the 39 Iraqi Scuds missiles that struck the nation in 1991.
As a next step, Israel is expected to ask its patron ally Washington for aid in funding an allied project, a sophisticated drone designed to fly into and destroy enemy missile sites.
Israel rejects criticism that an operational Arrow will fuel an accelerated Middle East missile race, arguing that Syria, Iraq, and Iran, all formally at war with the Jewish state, will arm themselves at full speed regardless.
Israeli intelligence assessments have said Syria has an arsenal of hundreds of missiles easily capable of reaching the Jewish state, and that Iran is building nuclear warheads to fit on missiles with enough range to reach Israel.
David Ivry, Israel's new ambassador to Washington, a driving force behind the Arrow as a former air force chief and senior defense ministry figure, was asked after the Monday test if the Middle East missile race might soon render the Arrow obsolete.
"The race will continue,'' Ivry told Israel Channel Two Television.
"It's always better to be the one who is one step ahead, and at this point we are in a situation that is not bad.''
---
Russia, Israel In Standoff On Arms To Iran
OSLO, Nov 2, 1999 -- (Reuters)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=106433
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin shrugged off Israeli pressure to halt the passing of nuclear technology to Iran on Tuesday, saying Moscow wanted to ensure its defense contractors a place in the lucrative arms market.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak after they met in Oslo, Putin offered to ease Israeli concerns by forging a joint committee to deal with the issue but said Israel had yet to respond.
"It would be stupid to allow under this pretext our defense contractors, our defense companies, being forced out of the very attractive and lucrative market being replaced by other suppliers, mostly from the West," Putin told reporters.
A former army chief elected prime minister in May, Barak voiced concern at the spread of nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Israel's Middle East arch-foe.
"I have raised with Prime Minister Putin our worry in regard to the developments in the activities of Iran toward acquiring of nuclear capability and missile technology and our expectation that whatever could be done to stop this activity we believe should be done," Barak told the joint news conference.
Speaking through a translator, Putin said: "I made a practical proposal to my Israeli colleague during our negotiations.
"We suggest to make our relations more transparent and to this end we propose establishment of a joint commission within the framework of which we are prepared to involve in frank exchanges of information in the areas of concern to both countries.
"So now to use the sporting terminology: the ball is in the court of our colleagues now," Putin said.
The Russian prime minister, asked about Israeli concern about the transfer of technology to Iran, said: "We have no interest in expanding the club of nuclear powers...Russia has always abided by and will always abide by its commitment in the area of nuclear non-proliferation.
"And all our actions, be it in the political area or in the area of defense, are not guided or aimed at creating any concerns or apprehensions on the part of Israel."
-----------
More Westerners Harmed by Nuclear Programs May Receive Compensation
Wednesday, November 3, 1999
BY MATT KELLEY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/1999/nov/11031999/utah/43718.htm
WASHINGTON -- More people harmed by radiation from above-ground nuclear tests or uranium mining could get compensation from the federal government under a measure approved Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The measure would make changes sought by critics of a law that provides government payments to Westerners who became ill because of their involvement with Cold War nuclear-weapons programs.
"We should not add a bureaucratic nightmare to the burden of disease and ill health that these citizens are carrying," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the sponsor of the measure now sent to the full Senate for consideration.
The bill would expand the list of cancers and other diseases that make the workers eligible for $100,000 government payments. It also would include people who worked in open-pit uranium mines, uranium mills and in transporting uranium from 1941-71. Underground uranium miners already are getting compensation.
Since the first payments began in 1992, the Justice Department has approved 3,135 claims worth nearly $232 billion, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who co-sponsored the bill. He said the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposed changes to the compensation program would cost $1 billion during the next 21 years.
Specific changes in the bill include:
-- Adding leukemia and cancers of the lung, thyroid, brain, kidney, esophagus and stomach to the list of maladies that make miners eligible for compensation. Kidney disease and two lung ailments also would be added to the list. For downwinders -- people who lived in areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona most affected by nuclear fallout from tests -- the added cancers include leukemia and those of the brain, bladder, colon, ovaries and salivary glands.
-- Extending eligibility to uranium workers from South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon and Texas. The current law covers Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington state.
-- Eliminating provisions that give less money to downwinders or miners who smoked.
-- Cutting the amount of time an eligible miner had to work in uranium mines from an average of just under 20 years to less than four years.
-- Requiring the Justice Department to take American Indian law and custom into account when processing applications. Navajo officials have complained that widows of dead miners have been denied compensation because they were married in traditional Indian ceremonies and do not have marriage certificates.
-----------
Hanford workers' health may have been damaged, surveys say
Wednesday, November 3, 1999
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - Seattle Post-Intelligence, Novemberr, 1999
http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/hanf03.shtml
RICHLAND -- Working at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation may have hurt the health of former production and construction workers, who report a variety of ailments in two separate health-screening programs.
"These surveys found more work-related diseases among Hanford workers than we had anticipated," said Dr. Timothy Takaro, a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
"Together, we've examined 600 workers so far, and we're finding a high degree of pathology."
The early findings were released yesterday at a "Health of the Hanford Site" conference here, sponsored by the university.
The two studies are the first independent, science-based evaluations of health risks to former workers from Hanford, the university said. Former workers are anyone ever employed at Hanford, from 1943 on.
The studies were ordered by Congress and are funded by the Department of Energy to determine whether workers experienced significant health risks as a result of their jobs at DOE sites.
The findings so far include:
Initial chest X-rays showed abnormal findings for nearly half of former Hanford production workers.
Eighteen percent had diminished lung function, when the comparable average for the same age range would be about 5 percent.
Seventy percent of workers had hearing loss, compared with about 50 percent for a comparable industrial population.
Eighty-five percent of those surveyed reported hearing impairment, compared with 22 percent in the general population.
More than 5 percent of those tested showed positive for beryllium sensitization.
Beryllium is a metal that was used at Hanford and can cause lung disease.
Between one-third and one-half of the 33 sensitized workers can expect to develop lung disease within five years, Takaro said.
Forty-five percent of former workers reported skin lesions, high blood pressure, hearing loss and respiratory disease.
"The medical findings are confirming the perceptions of workers about health risks on the job at Hanford," said Richard Berglund, president of the Central Washington Building and Trades Council.
"These surveys are breaking new ground.
"In addition to finding an alarming rate of work-related health problems, they are also the first studies to document beryllium risk among workers at Hanford."
The two projects ultimately expect to screen as many as 20,000 former workers, based on current funding, although many more workers are likely to have been exposed to hazards and be eligible for medical surveillance.
The two studies are formally known as the University of Washington Former Hanford Worker Medical Program and the Hanford Building Trades Medical Screening Program.
The program is being conducted by the Center to Protect Workers' Rights, the Washington, D.C., Hospital Center, Duke University, the University of Cincinnati and Zenith Administrators.
"The findings of this screening program indicate the importance of having an occupational-health medical program for current workers capable of evaluating a worker's exposure to hazards on the job," said Roger Briggs, Hanford health studies coordinator with the DOE office in Richland.
Hanford was established as part of the World War II secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. Today, the mission at the 560-square-mile DOE site is cleaning up the radioactive waste created during 40 years of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Related:
Hanford seeks $1.65 billion in cleanup budget
Tuesday, February 2, 1999
http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/hanf02.shtml
New review of restarting Hanford reactor in the works
Tuesday, May 4, 1999
By MICHAEL PAULSON SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/hanf04.shtml
-----------
Greenland Says Russia Must Back U.S. Missile Plan
COPENHAGEN, Nov 3, 1999 -- (Reuters)
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=106769
Greenland set tough terms on Wednesday for letting the U.S. use its northwestern Thule air base for a planned missile defense system, risking conflict with Denmark which oversees the Arctic island's security.
Jonathan Motzfeldt, prime minister of Greenland's home rule government, was quoted as saying the U.S. could upgrade its radar installation at Thule only with the approval of Russia, which opposes the plan.
He also demanded that representatives of Greenland be allowed to take part in any negotiations between Denmark and the United States on the issue.
Greenland has limited home rule under Danish administration. NATO-member Denmark is responsible for foreign, security and defense policy.
"The U.S. plans regarding Thule must be approved by Russia," Motzfeldt was quoted as saying by the Danish daily Berlingske Tidende.
"If only one side, the United States, begins to step up (defense capabilities) a Cold War atmosphere will be created," Motzfeldt said. "We don't want Greenland to become the focal point in a Cold War.
Built by the U.S. under a treaty between Copenhagen and Washington, a ballistic missile early-warning system (BMEWS) radar at Thule air base sits at the strategically crucial geographical midpoint of a radar network stretching from the British Isles to Alaska.
The Danish government, while letting Greenland raise its foreign policy profile in softer areas such as fishing and cooperation between indigenous people in the Arctic, has consistently refused to include the home-rule administration in security and defense issues.
On Tuesday, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said the U.S. plans for a missile defense system could have "extremely dangerous" consequences for arms control accords.
In a letter, Yeltsin said the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, which Russia regards as the bedrock for arms control, could collapse if the U.S. deployed such defenses.
The Cold War era ABM treaty prohibits systems designed to destroy inbound enemy missiles in the air.
Washington has argued that changes are necessary to counter potential nuclear missile threats from so-called "rogue" states like Iran and North Korea.
Motzfeldt said it was a prerequisite for global stability that the world's two major powers engaged in talks to find reasonable agreements.
-----------
Hotter Radioactive Waste for Utah?
Wednesday, November 3, 1999
BY JIM WOOLF THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/11031999/utah/43717.htm
Envirocare of Utah announced Tuesday it wants to accept low-level radioactive wastes that are far hotter than the material it currently handles.
The company submitted a license application to the Utah Division of Radiation Control seeking permission to accept Class B and C wastes. It already has approval to dispose of Class A wastes -- the least radioactive but most abundant of the low-level wastes.
The new wastes Envirocare wants to handle are so radioactive they would be shipped to Utah inside concrete blocks or steel-reinforced containers to minimize exposure to workers and people along the transportation route. They would be buried in a new disposal cell the company would build at its site about 60 miles west of Salt Lake City.
Although some of the material could be thousands of times more radioactive than currently allowed, Envirocare president Charles Judd said the risk of handling and disposing of it would be no greater because of the protective packaging.
"I guess if you took this out and ate it, it could be lethal," he said. "But there is limited exposure because it is handled differently."
Most of the nation's low-level radioactive waste is produced at nuclear power plants. It also comes from hospitals, research laboratories, manufacturers and the cleanup of old nuclear weapons production facilities.
Utah law requires Envirocare to first submit its application to the Division of Radiation Control for a technical evaluation. If regulators decide the proposal meets all appropriate state laws and can be operated safely, it then would be sent to Tooele County, the Utah Legislature and the governor's office for a political review.
Tooele County commissioners already have submitted a letter supporting the application, said Judd, and legislative leaders and the governor have been briefed on the proposal. "We haven't asked for their support yet. Their decisions will need to be made later on," he said.
In February, Envirocare quietly lobbied the Utah Legislature to change this law and allow the political decisions to be made prior to the technical analysis. Company officials claimed at the time they had no plans to request Class B and C wastes, and the effort was dropped when information about the proposed wording change became public.
Judd said Monday the company has no plans to try changing the law again. "But I won't say that will never happen," he added.
Allowing Envirocare to handle more-radioactive wastes would be a "very bad step," warned Preston Truman, an activist on nuclear issues and a former member of the Utah Board of Radiation Control -- a citizen group that sets policy for the Division of Radiation Control.
"Utahns have already done our share," he said. "We were downwind during the A-bomb tests in Nevada, there was the uranium boom in southeastern Utah, the nerve gas and chemical weapons testing at Dugway Proving Ground, and Envirocare already is getting the bulk of the low-level wastes. It's time for someone else to share the burden. There's a difference between already having done your share and saying not in my backyard -- a big difference."
There are only two sites in the nation that currently accept Class B and C wastes. One is at Hanford, Wash., which handles wastes from 11 Western states. The second site is in Barnwell, S.C. It accepts wastes from the rest of the nation, but South Carolina's governor wants to either shut down or severely restrict the amount of waste coming into that facility.
Judd said the anticipated restrictions at Barnwell create an opportunity for Envirocare to move into this lucrative market.
Bill Sinclair, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control, said officials in Washington state "aren't thrilled" with the Hanford site either, and it is conceivable it could close, too.
"The worst-case scenario is that Envirocare would end up being the one and only disposal site in the nation for low-level radioactive wastes," said Sinclair. Utah political leaders will need to decide if they are willing to shoulder that responsibility, he added.
Money almost certainly will influence the decision. Envirocare would pay hefty disposal fees to the state and Tooele County if it received the waste. It is too early to know how much that could be, said Judd, but he agreed it would be a "significant number."
Tooele County Commissioner Teryl Hunsaker said money indeed was a factor in the county's decision to support Envirocare. "It gives them a chance to increase their gross revenues and, therefore, my gross revenue," said the commissioner, noting that about a quarter of the county's budget comes from the company.
The prospect of additional tax revenues was one of the factors that convinced South Carolina officials to open the Barnwell site to the rest of the nation.
However, growing environmental concerns and a feeling of unease about being America's dumping ground prompted the state to reconsider the decision.
-----------
Military: Chinese cyber attacks could threaten Taiwan
Philadelphia Tribune, November 3, 1999
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - In five years, China could be able to use computer viruses, hackers and other types of cyber warfare to break down Taiwan's defenses and prepare for an invasion, the Taiwanese military said Tuesday.
Taiwan's economy, government and military are highly dependent on computers and could be vulnerable to a high-tech assault, the official Central News Agency quoted Chang Jia-sheng of the Defense Ministry as saying.
Chang said Taiwan should form a team of experts to prepare the island for possible cyber warfare, the agency reported.
China's cyber arsenal could include computer viruses, hackers and electromagnetic pulses that would disrupt communication networks and create chaos, he said.
The high-tech weapons could quickly take out their targets without much expense or loss of life, Chang said. They could destroy public morale, spread disinformation and cause instability, giving China an excuse to move in and take over the island, he said.
Chang said that although China is technologically backward, it has been able to "leap frog" in the past and quickly acquire technology for nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles and satellites.
Acquiring the ability to use cyber warfare against Taiwan by 2005 is within China's reach, he said.
China and Taiwan have been ruled by separate governments since they split during a civil war in 1949. Beijing considers the island to be a breakaway province and has repeatedly threatened to use force to reunify the two sides if Taipei seeks formal independence.
Taipei has said it will gradually reunify with China once the mainland becomes democratic and more economically developed.
-----------
Radioactive Waste Site Still Needed
Washington Post Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999; 6:49 p.m. EST The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991102/aponline184907_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- An Energy Department report to Congress says developing and using a new high-tech process to make some of the nation's radioactive waste less dangerous would not eliminate the need for a national waste storage facility.
Furthermore, it would take 117 years and $280 billion to complete the waste processing, the agency estimated.
Known as accelerator transmutation of waste, or ATW, the high-tech process "could reduce the potential long-term radiation doses from repository wastes by a factor of about 10; however, a repository is still required," the report issued on Monday said.
There has been some hope that ATW could provide an alternative to storing large quantities of radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power plants in a controversial underground storage facility. One is planned for a site deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
ATW would use molecular particle accelerators to change radioactive materials - that normally would take thousands of years to stabilize under normal circumstances - into substances that stabilize more quickly.
The report said it would take eight years and $2 billion for research and development to perfect the technique. After that, it would cost $9 billion and take 27 years for a demonstration project and another 90 years and $270 billion to use it on an anticipated 87,000 tons of spent commercial nuclear fuel, the report said.
The process could probably not be used on radioactive waste from making nuclear weapons, the report said, and also would generate its own highly unstable waste byproducts.
-----------
Nuke Site Workers Report Ailments By Linda Ashton Associated Press Writer
Washington Post Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999; 8:45 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991102/aponline204542_000.htm
RICHLAND, Wash. -- Hundreds of former Hanford nuclear reservation workers in two national medical-screening programs report a number of work-related ailments, mostly diseased lungs and hearing loss, researchers said Tuesday.
In one of the two projects, 98 percent of 900 construction workers surveyed believed they had been exposed to hazards at Hanford, and 86 percent believed their health had been affected, said researcher Knut Ringen.
"These perceptions of workers about concerns for their health (are) largely borne out in results we're getting from (subsequent) medical examinations," said Ringen, project director for The Center to Protect Workers Rights.
A summary of early findings from Ringen's project - the Hanford Building Trades Medical Screening Program - and the University of Washington Former Hanford Worker Medical Program were presented at a news conference here Tuesday.
The screenings are the first independent, science-based evaluations of health risks to former production and construction workers who worked at Hanford anytime in its 56-year history.
The programs, paid for by the Department of Energy, were ordered by Congress and started three years ago to determine whether workers experienced significant health risks as a result of their jobs at DOE sites.
Roger Briggs, Hanford health studies coordinator for the DOE in Richland, said the findings will help the agency find better ways to protect current worker health and safety.
Hanford was established as part of the secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb during World War II. Today, the mission at the 560-square-mile DOE site in southeast Washington state is cleaning up the radioactive and hazardous waste created during 40 years of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear arsenal
-----------
Report: Weapons Lab Lacked Safety
Washington Post Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999; 8:57 p.m. EST The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991102/aponline205719_001.htm
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Managers at the weapons labs run by the University of California did not put enough emphasis on security, according to a review commissioned in the wake of espionage allegations.
The report released Tuesday and written by a special committee of the UC President's Council on the National Laboratories said management took lab security "for granted."
Trouble at the labs surfaced earlier this year with reports that China had obtained classified information about a weapon designed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
There were some suggestions that UC, which has managed Los Alamos and the Lawrence Livermore nuclear labs since their inception, should lose its contracts with the Energy Department.
The new report found that the labs had been emphasizing the scientific and engineering challenges of nuclear weapons over security, adding that the end of the Cold War and the department's emphasis on declassifying documents may have contributed to that.
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who recommended reviewing UC's management role, called the report "an important first step" and said UC must follow the recommendations to enhance security.
-----------
Panel OKs Radiation Compensation
By Matt Kelley Associated Press Writer
Washington Post Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999; 5:05 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON - More people harmed by radiation from aboveground nuclear tests or uranium mining could get compensation from the federal government under a measure approved Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The measure would make changes sought by critics of a law that provides government payments to Westerners who became ill because of their involvement with Cold War nuclear weapons programs.
"We should not add a bureaucratic nightmare to the burden of disease and ill health that these citizens are carrying," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the sponsor of the measure now sent to the full Senate for consideration.
Many nuclear tests were conducted in Nevada. Much of the uranium used in the nuclear weapons was mined in the Four Corners region of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.
The bill would expand the list of cancers and other diseases that make the workers eligible for $100,000 government payments. It also would include people who worked in open-pit uranium mines, uranium mills and in transporting uranium from 1941 to 1971. Underground uranium miners already are getting compensation for their ailments.
Since the first payments began in 1992, the Justice Department has approved 3,135 claims worth nearly $232 billion, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who cosponsored the bill. He said the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposed changes to the compensation program would cost $1 billion during the next 21 years.
Specific changes in the bill include:
- Adding leukemia and cancers of the lung, thyroid, brain, kidney, esophagus and stomach to the list of cancers that make miners eligible for compensation. Kidney disease and two lung ailments also would be added to the list. For downwinders - people who lived in areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona most affected by nuclear fallout from tests - the added cancers include leukemia and those of the brain, bladder, colon, ovaries and salivary glands.
- Extending eligibility to uranium workers from South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon and Texas. The current law covers Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington state.
- Eliminating provisions that give less money to downwinders or miners who smoked.
- Cutting the amount of time an eligible miner had to work in uranium mines from an average of just under 20 years to less than four years.
- Requiring the Justice Department to take American Indian law and custom into account when processing applications. Navajo officials have complained that widows of dead miners have been denied compensation because they were married in traditional Indian ceremonies and do not have marriage certificates.
-----------
Clinton Appeals to Russian Premier By Barry Schweid AP Diplomatic Writer
Washington Post Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999; 10:44 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991102/aponline104458_000.htm
OSLO, Norway -- President Clinton is taking Russia to task today for its military offensive in Chechnya, telling Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that there can be no military solution to the unrest in the rebellious Russian region.
Meeting at City Hall, Clinton was trying to succeed where his senior advisers had not in altering Russia's course. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said today the president "would repeat U.S. concerns about the escalation of violence" and encourage Russia to seek a political, not a military, solution in Chechnya.
But Putin already has denounced "bandits" in Chechnya who he blames for the turmoil, and affirmed Russia's determination to restore order.
Clinton and Putin shook hands for photographers and made no statements as they began their meeting. On the agenda also were two arms control issues - Clinton's weighing of a limited defense against missiles and Russia's exceeding limits on conventional weapons in the Caucasus region.
Despite U.S. concerns, Russian jets and howitzers have pressed their assault on the Chechnyan capital, Grozny. Russia opened several border crossings Monday, allowing terrified refugees to flee air and rocket attacks.
But thousands of refugees who have waited as long as a week to flee Chechnya remained blocked as Russian artillery blasted a town a few miles away.
Lockhart said 200,000 civilians had been trapped. He welcomed the openings and said it was important to give civilians "free access" to safety.
The U.S. spokesman declined to speculate on whether Putin would reject Clinton's arguments at their meeting today. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; her deputy, Strobe Talbott; and Sandy Berger, the national security adviser; all failed to persuade Russian counterparts.
"The president will make his point to the prime minister," Lockhart said. "I don't want to prejudge the outcome."
Putin, meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, agreed that people were suffering.
But, he asked reporters: "Who is to blame?"
Answering his own question, the prime minister said, "It is not Russia. It is chiefly the bandit groups that are responsible for such developments."
Putin said the "terrorists" were armed and trained by other countries, and "our task is to free the Chechen people from those unwanted guests."
A related issue is Russia's exceeding limits on military equipment in the area that were set in the Conventional Forces in Europe pact that has already been eased to give Russia more flexibility in the Caucasus.
Changes in the treaty are due to be taken up later in the month at a summit conference of European nations, the United States and Canada in Istanbul, Turkey, that Clinton plans to attend.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright drew a pledge from Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov a pledge on Monday to get in compliance with the ceilings set by the agreement and to submit to inspection where forces are deployed, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
"He gave us much of what we are looking for," the official siad.
Administration officials have not said what options the administration might have if Putin