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Germany Eyes Nuke Industry Phase Out

Filed at 4:57 p.m. EST November 13, 1999 By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Germany-Nuclear-Power.html

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's coalition government is working on legislation that would phase out the country's nuclear power industry, even if consensus talks with operators of the nation's 19 nuclear power plants fails, a newspaper said Saturday.

According to an early release of a report in the weekly Bild am Sonntag's Sunday editions, Economics Minister Werner Mueller has made it known that legal experts are preparing the draft of a law that would stand up even if nuclear power operators appeal against it in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, several thousands anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated in Berlin Saturday, demanding immediate shutdown of all of the country's nuclear power stations.

The protesters carried signs complaining that the year-old government coalition of centrist Social Democrats and environmentalist Greens had broken its promise to get out of nuclear power.

More than 100 demonstrators drove tractors in the column that passed through the Brandenburg Gate on its way to city hall after arriving from Dannerberg, a farm community 100 miles west of Berlin. The town lies near the site of old salt mines used to store nuclear waste and has been the scene of sometimes violent anti-nuclear demonstrations in past years.

According to Bild am Sonntag, Mueller said that the government, which has been trying to reach a consensus with nuclear operators since March, ``will pass a law contrary to the desires'' of the industry if an agreement isn't reached.

Even so, the first government-forced closure of a nuclear power plant would not come before elections in 2002, Mueller was quoted as telling the newspaper.

``There's not going to be a fall guy,'' he said.

Still, Mueller told the newspaper he sees a 50 percent chance of reaching a consensus.

Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, a Green, would like to see up to six of the 19 plants shut down by 2002. While both parties in the coalition agree on phasing out nuclear power, differences over the timing remain.

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There's no honor found in U.S. or Russian approach to treaties

By Richard Foster of the Journal Sentinel
Last Updated: Nov. 13, 1999
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/nov99/foster14111399.asp

During the Cold War and the years that immediately followed, it was generally assumed that the United States and Russia would honor the arms control treaties they had spent so much time and energy agreeing on. Although some conservatives thought the Russians would cheat, the big danger was thought to emanate from the Third World - countries not part of the arms control regime might get involved in the weapons programs the agreements were designed to prevent.

Like a lot of other Cold War beliefs, this one has proved to be false. While some Third World countries, notably India and Pakistan, have lately tested nuclear weapons, fired ballistic missiles or flexed their muscles in other ways, the legal architecture of arms control has also come under siege by the two superpowers - the very nations whose leadership was supposed be a shining beacon of maturity and restraint.

Some beacon. In early November, the Clinton administration made explicit what it had broadly and repeatedly hinted at earlier: that it might begin work on a national missile defense system, even though doing so is clearly prohibited by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a 1972 agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Indeed, preventing the emergence of missile defense is the precise purpose of the treaty.

The Russians have not just talked about breaking their obligations; they have actually broken the law, according to U.S. monitors. The treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, negotiated in 1990, limits the number of troops and conventional weapons that may be deployed in parts of the former Soviet Union. Moscow's military buildup in and near Chechnya has put the Russians over that limit, the U.S. says.

These threatened or actual treaty breaches may seem overly legalistic and trivial, but they are much more - and much more dangerous - than that. President Clinton and his predecessors have urged nations in the Third World to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which is designed to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of countries that don't possess them now.

The importance of this treaty is obvious; the use of nuclear weapons becomes more likely as ever more countries acquire them. The danger is worsened when such countries ruled by crackpots or terrorists get their hands on them.

But Clinton isn't going to convince reluctant governments to sign treaties like the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty if Clinton himself begins to ignore solemn, binding obligations that he suddenly finds not so solemn or binding. The U.S. cannot, on the one hand, say arms control agreements are essential to the safety of the world and, on the other, belittle or ignore them.

For its part, Russia cannot violate treaties, even modest ones like the one limiting conventional arms, and then turn around and, citing the sanctity of such pacts, complain when the U.S. threatens to violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

In fact, violating arms control treaties and making such breaches more commonplace and acceptable unravels the whole fabric of international law - not only the law on weapons proliferation, but the law on such other things as trade, environmental pollution and human rights. The world, in short, becomes more lawless and chaotic.

This country's threat to break out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is generating friction not only with the Russians, but with U.S. allies generally. At a U.N. committee recently, 47 countries (including most European nations) voted for a Russian-backed measure that opposed any new measure that "attempts to undermine or circumvent the ABM treaty."

It is not an accident that nuclear weapons have not been used in war since the end of World War II, not an accident that only a relatively few countries possess them. If the world is a safer place than it used to be, it is partly because arms control treaties have made it that way. They need to be honored, not scoffed at, and certainly not deliberately violated.

That the U.S. needs to be reminded of that is both demoralizing and appalling.

Richard Foster is a Journal Sentinel editorial writer and columnist. He can reached at rfoster@onwis.com

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Air Force Tests Minuteman III Rocket

By The Associated Press
November 13, 1999 Filed at 4:52 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Rocket-Launch.html

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) -- The Air Force announced a successful booster test of a Minuteman III missile, firing the device far out into the Pacific early Saturday.

The missile, which used solid rocket fuel, lifted off at 12:19 a.m. with three dummy warheads aboard. It reached its target at the Kwajalein Missile Range about 30 minutes later, Lt. John J. Murphy said.

The range is located in the western Marshall Islands, about 4,200 miles from Vandenberg.

The launch is part of a test to extend the life of the missile's booster system, the Air Force said.

Vandenberg's 576th Flight Test Squadron oversaw maintenance of the missile, which came from the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.

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Today In History

By The Associated Press
November 12, 1999 Filed at 7:01 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-History.html

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., was killed in a car crash.

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Forbes noted a report earlier this year by a congressional panel that alleged Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear weapons secrets.

``You don't steal secrets unless you intend to use them,'' Forbes said after his speech.

``Our failure to properly handle the rise of Germany and Japan earlier in the 20th century cost the world and us dearly,'' he said in his remarks. ``We dare not make the same mistake with China.''

At the same time, Forbes said he rejected the view that China and the United States are destined to clash.

``Nothing is foreordained in the course of human events,'' he said. ``The only thing we can be sure of is that China is as unpredictable as ever.''

Forbes issued a blistering critique of the Clinton administration's approach to China, calling it ``weak,'' ``rudderless,'' and ``amateur,'' and saying it had ``all the predictability of a drunk driving on the road.''

While Clinton has argued that trade with China can improve U.S.-Sino relations and conditions within that country, Forbes pledged tough economic sanctions ``to effect real change'' there.

Asked after the speech what specific sanctions he envisioned, Forbes said he might bar Chinese companies that use slave labor or trade weapons of mass destruction from selling products in the United States.

While the Clinton administration supports China's entry into the World Trade Organization and currently is negotiating its admission, Forbes said he would bar China from membership but admit Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.

He also pledged that under his administration the United States would defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, and said he supported selling more defensive arms to Taiwan.

Forbes said the ``most-favored-nation'' treatment that China now enjoys -- the standard for U.S. trading partners -- might have to be revoked if the country continues to ``head down the path towards confrontation.''

Questioned about whom China might confront, Forbes said, ``The rest of the world, you bet.''

``I will never sacrifice American security or values on the altar of trade,'' he said.

To bolster human rights in China, Forbes said he supports banning any Chinese product manufactured under slave-labor conditions.

Forbes acknowledged that his stance toward China, which he described as confrontational, would alarm some inside and outside China. But he said his position ``is less confrontational and less dangerous than hiding our convictions and commitments behind a fog of appeasing rhetoric.''

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In Expanding Platform, Forbes Attacks China

By JAMES STERNGOLD November 13, 1999 New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/111399wh-gop-forbes.html

YORBA LINDA, Calif. -- Steve Forbes, the wealthy magazine publisher and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, came to the shrine dedicated to the president who opened modern diplomatic relations with China on Friday and launched a bitter attack on the Chinese government, saying he would militarily contain the country and deny it trade relations if it did not moderate its behavior.

A day after delivering a speech on domestic issues at the Reagan Library north of Los Angeles, Forbes went to the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in this suburb of strip malls and tract homes 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles to offer what his staff had described as a major foreign policy address. But the speech included almost no mention of Europe or the rest of the globe and instead involved a series of angry denunciations of China, which he described as militarily and politically aggressive.

The speech appeared to be part of Forbes's effort to transform himself from a candidate focused largely on one issue, tax reform, as had been the case in 1996, to the most conservative candidate in the presidential race on a range of issues, such as abortion, which he vigorously opposes, and military expansion, which he supports. Many conservatives criticize the Communist government of China as a major peril, and Friday Forbes embraced that position enthusiastically.

Forbes declared, in stark cold-war terms, "The rise of China as a new power is one of the greatest challenges we face as a nation as we enter the 21st century," and he compared the country to Germany and Japan in the years leading to World War II.

He insisted that if he were elected, there would be "no more leaving our children and our allies vulnerable to Chinese nuclear missiles."

"And no more sweetheart trade deals," he continued. He said he is opposed to China's entry into the World Trade Organization and said he would revoke China's most-favored-nation trade status if it did not open up politically and end its military threat to its neighbors, especially Taiwan.

In comments after his speech here, Forbes also attacked the International Monetary Fund, the body formed after World War II to foster financial stability, and another target of conservative ire.

"They have done enormous harm around the globe," he said of the fund, promising to close it down if elected. The speech today was in keeping with the overall tone of Forbes's campaign, in which he has generally described imminent threats he says America faces and the ways in which he would confront those threats. Forbes characterized China as America's greatest rival, and he suggested that even while the country was on the verge of what he described as a political implosion it was pursuing expansionist designs.

"In short, China is an immensely important yet intensely unstable country," Forbes said, and he quoted a Chinese dissident predicting that the Communist government would fall within 10 years.

He also said that he wanted to strengthen America's military involvement in Asia, where the country already maintains huge bases in Japan and South Korea. "America must be absolutely committed to remain the premier military power in the Pacific," he said.

Forbes was scornful of the Clinton administration's China policy, saying that in the president's first term it "had all the predictability of a drunk driving on the road." He added, "I call it a study in confusion and mixed signals, often degenerating into appeasement."

He said that he would put in place tough sanctions against any company owned by the Chinese military, companies that use prison labor and companies that traffic in weapons of mass destruction. If their behavior does not change, and if China does not halt its pattern of human rights abuses, particularly what he said is religious persecution, Forbes promised to cut back on China's access to American markets.

Forbes described the decade since the protests and killings at Tiananmen Square as a time "of drift, indecision and plain bad judgment" in which the country has been suffering increasing instability and a spiritual malaise.

But economists describe it as a time of unparalleled growth and increasing openness. Nicholas Lardy, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said that while China has made clear threats to Taiwan, "the economic reforms have continued after Tiananmen."

China's total trade with other countries has nearly tripled, to about $325 billion last year from $112 billion in 1989. In fact, China's trade surplus with the United States has ballooned to more than $50 billion this year, as American consumers have become increasingly dependent on the inexpensive products shipped here from China.

In addition, foreign investment in China, welcomed by the Chinese government, has shot up from about $3 billion a year in the late 1980's to close to $45 billion a year now. And the country's economic growth rate has averaged 8 percent to 10 percent over the past decade, Lardy said, bringing prosperity to millions of people in China.

Forbes said there was "a great spiritual awakening going on behind the Great Wall today," and that he would support those movements and battle the government's religious persecution by beefing up Radio Free Asia and attempting to create a Web site focused on China.

"Now is the time to intensify our efforts to communicate the good news of freedom and faith in God to a people living in great darkness," said Forbes.

Related Articles

In His Own Words: Steve Forbes
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/111399wh-gop-forbes-text.html

Campaigns: White House 2000 -- Steve Forbes (R)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/whouse/gop-forbes.html

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NRC Reversed On Nuclear Plant
Court Delays Calvert Cliffs Relicensing

By Steve Vogel Washington Post Staff Writer, November 13, 1999; Page B01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/13/108l-111399-idx.html

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unfairly ignored opponents of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant as it rushed to renew the license for the facility, which generates enough power to supply 450,000 homes.

The 2 to 1 ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit represents a rare reversal for the NRC and may have far-reaching implications for the nuclear power industry, which is closely following the case. Calvert Cliffs is the first nuclear plant in the country to seek a 20-year renewal of its license, but five others have started the process and about 20 others have expressed interest.

The NRC, under pressure from the industry and Congress, has established a fast-track process for renewing nuclear licenses, and Calvert Cliffs is viewed as a test case.

"It's going to have a massive impact," said Stephen Kohn, attorney for the National Whistleblowers Center, the group that successfully challenged the new NRC process, claiming that the streamlining comes at the expense of public safety. "It's party time. . . . The commission is getting the message that they can't just change the rules."

The relicensing of Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland, which generates about half of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s electricity and is the largest private employer in Calvert County, was to have been approved this spring. But the court's decision could delay the process by three years, Kohn said, citing the NRC's own estimates.

Should the NRC determine that it improperly denied the group a time extension--as the judges in the majority strongly implied it did--"the Commission must allow it an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the remainder of the proceeding," the court said in an opinion written by Judge Patricia M. Wald, who was joined by Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards.

A dissenting opinion by Judge Stephen F. Williams had not been filed as of yesterday.

"We feel the NRC acted properly," said Karl Neddenien, a spokesman for BGE. "We need to take a look at the decision and determine what the course of action will be."

Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the NRC, said that "it's too soon to tell" what impact the court's ruling will have on the relicensing process.

"The court has asked us to reevaluate whether we improperly denied the time extension, and certainly we'll do that," Screnci said.

Kohn, however, did not hesitate to assess the ruling's impact.

"What makes this so sweeping is its potential impact on . . . other plants that want relicensing," he said. "It's important because now, citizens groups across the country which want to intervene can do so, and now have strong procedural rules."

The majority opinion noted that "the NRC for the first time . . . adopted a stringent interpretation" of the rules governing involvement by groups seeking to review the safety of the plant.

In August 1998, a licensing board rejected the Whistleblowers' motion for an extension of time for reviewing the plans, stating that the group failed to meet its burden of establishing "unavoidable and extreme circumstances" justifying an extension. The NRC turned down the group's appeal.

"At the very least, it is strongly possible that Whistleblower would have received the extension because it had asserted factors which had been approved by the commission in the past as sufficient to justify good cause for an extension," the court wrote.

Last month, the NRC issued a report recommending relicensing for Calvert Cliffs, declaring that the risks of any adverse environmental impact are too small to justify closing the plant on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

The group wants its experts to be given the opportunity to examine the plant for potential safety hazards, inspecting pipes and ventilation systems, for example.

"We need our experts to review their records, and that's exactly what NRC and BGE didn't want," Kohn said. "The public is the absolute biggest winner on this, because now the commission cannot undermine meaningful public participation."

The NRC established a streamlined process in an attempt to remove some of the uncertainty faced by utility officials who want to know whether they will be able to continue to operate nuclear plants after the initial 40-year licenses expire. The operators of many of the country's more than 100 nuclear plants are "without question" watching the Calvert Cliffs case, said Steven Kerekes, of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group for the industry.

The licenses for the two reactors at Calvert Cliffs do not expire until 2014 and 2016, but BGE applied for early renewal in order to plan for alternatives in the event the applications are turned down.

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Critics Questioning NSA Reading Habits
Politicians Ask if Agency Sweeps In Private Data

By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer, November 13, 1999; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/13/066l-111399-idx.html

Members of Congress, the European Parliament and civil liberties groups have begun to ask tough questions about the National Security Agency's interception of foreign telephone calls, faxes and electronic mail, the most intense scrutiny of NSA operations since the so-called Church committee probed the spy agency 24 years ago.

Beginning with a report written for the 15-nation European Parliament last year, public concern has been building in many countries around Echelon, the code name for a worldwide surveillance network run by the NSA and its partners in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The paranoia may have peaked on Oct. 21, known on the Internet as "Jam Echelon Day," when organizers urged e-mail users around the world to send as many messages as possible containing words such as "bomb" and "assassinate" in an attempt to overload NSA supercomputers that sort through millions of intercepted communications looking for threats to national security.

Yet serious questions remain. Does the NSA listen in on U.S. citizens, either on purpose or by accident? Does it trade information with other countries? What does it do when it comes across commercial secrets or evidence of high-level corruption?

"Right now Echelon is a black box, and we really don't know what is inside it," said Barry S. Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It is more than reasonable, given the past excesses of the NSA, that it may be being misused."

Even basic facts about Echelon are so hard to verify that the ACLU this month put up a Web site, www.echelonwatch.org, to serve as a repository of information about the global spy network, whose existence the NSA has never publicly acknowledged.

Civil libertarians first became alarmed about Echelon in January 1998 after the European Parliament's report claimed that "within Europe, all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency."

The report unleashed a roiling controversy throughout Europe that continues to this day. Beyond obvious privacy concerns, officials across the continent wondered whether the NSA was stealing trade secrets from European companies and handing them to American competitors, a charge U.S. officials strenuously deny.

Congress, meanwhile, has added a provision to the fiscal 2000 intelligence budget that requires the NSA to report within 60 days on its legal standards for intercepting communications in the United States and abroad. House and Senate conferees approved the language Nov. 5.

"Echelon gives every appearance of a program that is far broader than it ought to be and poses serious questions about constitutionality," said Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-Ga.), who sponsored the reporting requirement.

Barr, a former CIA analyst, said no one in Congress has asked the NSA hard questions about electronic surveillance since 1975, when a committee headed by then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that the government had improperly intercepted Americans' telegrams for 30 years and had unlawfully eavesdropped on domestic dissidents in the 1960s.

"What we have here is an operation that has been ongoing for many years that nobody really seems to have a handle on," said Barr, adding that the House Government Reform Committee, of which he is a member, plans to hold hearings on Echelon early next year.

Although the NSA is Maryland's largest employer, with well over 30,000 employees, it keeps a very low profile. It was only in recent years that the agency even put up signs along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to its headquarters at Fort Meade, which reportedly has five acres of supercomputers underground.

Without confirming or denying Echelon's existence, senior U.S. officials familiar with the NSA's operations deny that the agency violates the civil rights of U.S. citizens. They say the NSA strictly adheres to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which resulted from the Church committee's revelations.

FISA prohibits the NSA from deliberately eavesdropping on Americans either in the United States or overseas, unless the agency can establish probable cause to believe that they are agents of a foreign government committing espionage or other crimes.

When any communication to, from or about an American is incidentally intercepted by the NSA in the course of intelligence gathering abroad, the law says, such information cannot be disseminated within the government and must be destroyed within 24 hours unless it contains "a threat of death or serious bodily harm" to some person.

Unlike foreign operations, all domestic NSA surveillance requires prior court approval. But even in such cases, the law calls for "minimization procedures"--such as deleting the names of third parties--to limit the infringement on privacy.

Defense officials also deny that the NSA and its foreign partners evade prohibitions on domestic spying by trading information with each other.

"I can say categorically that NSA is as careful as any civil libertarian would want it to be in adhering to the rules," said Stewart A. Baker, the NSA's former general counsel, now a private communications lawyer in Washington. "There is an ingrained discipline about that, right down to the lowest levels of the agency."

Indeed, the NSA's troubles in Congress began this spring when Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, asked the agency for internal documents about its compliance with FISA because he thought NSA lawyers were too cautious in approving new surveillance programs.

When the agency declined his request on grounds of attorney-client privilege, Goss erupted, saying the committee had never been stonewalled in such fashion. Barr immediately joined the dispute from the opposite flank, suggesting that the NSA had refused Goss's request because it was violating Americans' privacy by indiscriminately vacuuming up communications.

Barr's concerns were echoed in Europe by a second, even more detailed report on electronic surveillance, this time for the European Union. Not only the United States, but dozens of countries now have the ability to intercept "every modern type of high capacity communications" including pager messages, cellular phone calls and Internet e-mail, wrote the author, British journalist and physicist Duncan Campbell.

Campbell claimed that "major governments are routinely utilising communications intelligence to provide commercial advantage to companies and trade." But he also noted in the report that the NSA and other spy agencies are struggling to deal with the spread of encryption, fiber optic cables and other new technologies.

Contrary to the claims made on Jam Echelon Day, U.S. defense officials said, the NSA has neither the computer power nor the huge number of linguists and analysts necessary to snatch every e-mail, fax and telephone conversation around the world.

"This argument that NSA is out there sucking in all your e-mails into its basement and reading everything--that's just crazy," said one official.

Steven Aftergood, director of a research project on government secrecy at the independent Federation of American Scientists, said the controversy is a case study of the public's willingness to believe almost anything about the NSA, and the NSA's unwillingness to explain what it's really doing.

"The Echelon story satisfies some widespread need to believe in a government that's out of control," Aftergood said. "But underneath all of this is an important policy issue, and that is, when enough American citizens become concerned about an intelligence policy issue, they are entitled to get an answer--and so far they haven't gotten one."

The 'Echelon' Collector

Echelon reportedly is the code name for an automated global interception and relay system operated by intelligence agencies in five nations, led by the U.S. National Security Agency.

Nations reportedly involved

United States Britain Canada Australia New Zealand

Some reports say the system may intercept as many as 3 billion communications each day, including phone calls, e-mail messages and satellite transmissions. This is how Echelon works, according to the American Civil Liberties Union:

Data collection

Satellites: Numerous satellites catch "spillover" data from transmissions between cities. The satellites then beam information to processing centers on the ground. The main centers are in the United States, Britain, Australia and Germany.

Internet: "Sniffer" devices collect information from data packets at several key junctions as they travel the Web. Echelon also uses search software to scan for Web sites that may be of interest.

Radio antennas: Massive ground-based antennas intercept radio transmissions. The antennas reportedly are located in the United States, Turkey, Italy, Britain, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia, among other locations.

After capturing raw data, a system of computers pares the information by searching for addresses, names, organizations and other key words specified by the participating countries. The information is tagged and sent to the country that requested it.

Underwater cable: U.S. divers install surveillance devices on underwater cables carrying phone calls overseas. Some reports suggest Echelon has used these devices, which may be functioning undetected.

SOURCES: American Civil Liberties Union, Federation of American Scientists, Scientific and Technical Options Assessment program office.

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8] Big Expectations For Micromachines
Uses Now Include Air Bags, Ink Jets

By Guy Gugliotta Washington Post Staff Writer, November 13, 1999; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/13/073l-111399-idx.html

ALBUQUERQUE-At first glance, it looks like a 1930s' documentary: Sturdy cogwheels, large-toothed gears and piston-like rods mesh in a proletarian symphony in grainy black and white.

But there are no people in the movie, and no sound in the room. What visitors are watching on the screen above their heads is not the industrial might of yesteryear, but the technological promise of tomorrow.

In fact, the gear in the film is about the size of a pollen grain. It can rotate at speeds up to 350,000 rpm, and is the principal moving part in the world's smallest engine.

The gear turns under the eye of a microscope in a small "design room" at Sandia National Laboratories here, and its image is projected where scientists can watch it as they plot what they say could be the world's next technological revolution.

Micromachines--mechanical devices so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye--have undeniable potential to inspire radical change in almost any aspect of human endeavor.

Among the anticipated innovations are tiny switches that could dramatically increase the capacity of fiber-optic telecommunications systems to deliver signals to computers and telephones.

Microgyroscopes could also keep cars from skidding and trekkers from straying in the woods. Soldiers in the field might carry a wristwatch-sized radio--beginning a new era in walkie-talkies--decades after Dick Tracy pioneered it.

There are an estimated 600 government, university and private labs doing microtechnology research worldwide. Eighty U.S. companies are working toward commercial applications.

Unlike "nanotechnology," which seeks to build devices on the atomic or molecular scale, microtechnology, which works in microns (millionths of a meter), graduated from theory long ago and has already made itself felt in a number of commercial applications.

Microscopic accelerometers trigger most of today's automobile air bags; micromachines spit the ink in ink-jet printers; microsensors monitor blood pressure in heart attack patients and regulate the fuel-air mix in automobile engines.

And enthusiasts say this is just the beginning. "We have developed some new technologies that we think are just going to revitalize the world," said Samuel L. Miller, supervisor of advanced concepts for Sandia's Microsystems Center. "It is a second silicon revolution, adding to microcircuitry complete systems that can sense, think, act and communicate."

Microdevices are small. The gear teeth in the world's smallest machine are a mere 7 to 8 microns across, about the size of a red blood cell, and at that size, gravity and inertia have little meaning. Miller tweaks a joystick at his elbow, and in an instant the cogwheel is spinning at 350,000 rpm in the opposite direction.

And microdevices are strong. Miller shows a videotape of the day a dust mite--a phenomenally ugly creature about half the size of a dandruff fleck--wandered into the micromachine.

The mite weighed about 100 times as much as the gear, but with another touch of the joystick, both gear and mite were spinning at several thousand rpm. When the gear stopped, the mite stepped down and wandered away.

And the machines are relatively easy to make, with the same procedures that engineers use to manufacture microchips. Layers of silicon are photo-engraved with the micromachine's design, then etched with acid to free the moving parts.

Scientists can make hundreds of thousands of microdevices on the surface of a silicon wafer the size of a grapefruit slice, and once the design is completed, manufacturing is easy. Like microcircuitry, everything is made in place--no assembly required.

Despite these advantages, however, the industry has been slow to develop, said San Francisco-based consultant Roger Grace, who has been tracking the progress of microtechnology for years.

"I'm a market analyst, and what it comes down to is, 'When are people going to make money from all this?' " Grace said. "When you look at the 'killer applications,' they are very limited."

Grace estimates that the industry sold $4 billion to $6 billion in microdevices in 1998, largely on the strength of a half-dozen proven technologies such as the ink jets and the air bag triggers.

But this is changing, Grace says, and he expects revenue to rise within five years to between $18 billion and $20 billion, as more firms build new devices to feed high-volume markets: "These are 'disruptive' technologies," he said. "We're not talking about a continuum. We're talking about a quantum leap."

Grace said the difficulty, in the past, has been that scientists have been too enamored of the "gee whiz" aspects of microtechnology and less focused on "consumer kinds of things."

But now, says Paul McWhorter, Sandia deputy director for microsystems, researchers are getting "past that." Without microtechnology, companies today can make dolls "that can tell when a child is holding its hand, or can follow the child around," he noted. But a microsensor could do the same thing for a tiny fraction of the cost, and a consumer "would never know it was there."

It was this combination of cheapness and compactness in 1995 that prompted Analog Devices Inc. of Norwood, Mass., to begin mass producing a fingernail-size device whose critical component is a lacy, spring-mounted microstructure that looks like a comb.

Put the device in an automobile, and fingers in the comb will vibrate gently within the fingers of a second stationary comb. But when the car is jolted, the space change between the sets of fingers sends out signals of varying strength. Jolt the combs hard enough and the car's air bag will deploy.

Before Analog, air bag triggers cost about $18 apiece, and cars needed at least three to ensure that one would fire. Analog's device costs less than $5, one to a car.

"We built an accelerometer and looked around to see where it could be used," said Analog spokesman James Fishbeck. "We were like Willie Sutton, we decided to go where the money is."

Still, even if the goal is to focus on everyday problems, micro-solutions are anything but mundane, particularly at Sandia, a Department of Energy lab that specializes in defense and nuclear weapons.

For instance, Patrick J. Eicker, Sandia's director of robotics, is overseeing a project to create armies of tiny robots capable of mapping a contaminated room: "If you have a bio-bomb, you'd rather have robots in there than humans."

Eicker calls his devices MARVs, "micro-autonomous robotic vehicles." They are about 1 1/2 inches long today and probably will be less than a quarter-inch long when they finally debut--"about the size of a pebble," Eicker says.

He has a "herd" of 35 MARVs and researchers have already developed software that gives them what he calls "a collective consciousness."

Send them on a job, Eicker explains, and they will organize themselves to map the contamination, share the data among themselves and figure out a way to transmit it. Like the Borg collective of "Star Trek," what one MARV knows, all know.

"The really cool part is that if you have a hundred cockroaches running around the room, and you stomp on a bunch of them, you still have a map," Eicker said. "The collective owns it."

MARVs, strictly speaking, are not microdevices--at least not yet--but everything they carry will be a microdevice. Sandia is developing a microscopic device known as a gas chromatograph that will sample and test for chemical and biological agents.

And while MARVs might sneak into an Iraqi factory, or eavesdrop on terrorists, they could also be just as useful mapping a nuclear accident like Chernobyl or searching a collapsed building for earthquake survivors.

Supposedly "nobody can develop a robot vacuum cleaner, because there's too much stuff on the floor, but when I saw we were going to map Chernobyl, it's the same thing," Eicker said. "People like Maytag come and visit us."


-------- y2k

Senate Panel Seeks Y2K Nuke Plant Contingency Plans

By Reuters / New York Times November 13, 1999 Filed at 4:40 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-nuclear-utilitie.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A special Senate committee overseeing Year 2000 preparedness released a letter on Friday which asks nuclear regulators to provide better information on reactor safety and contingency plans before the new year.

The letter, provided to Reuters by staff of Utah Republican Sen. Robert Bennett, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, says the panel was encouraged by statements from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on plant safety, but still had unanswered questions.

``The committee continues to believe that the electrical grid will be stable and that disruptions from Y2K will be minimal, We are concerned, however, about the lack of public confidence in the nuclear industry's efforts and specific post Dec. 31, 1999, operating regimes,'' said the letter, from Bennett to NRC Chairman Greta Joy Dicus.

Y2K refers to the potential problem associated with computers reading the year 2000 as 1900, caused by systems built to read only the last two digits of a given year.

Governments and industry worldwide have worked to correct date sensitive computers to avoid possible malfunctions and system shutdowns when the new year kicks in on Jan. 1, 2000.

The committee letter, which is dated Nov. 1, asked that the NRC answer the following questions by Monday:

+ Provide a list of nuclear power plants and how their mission-critical systems were validated as Y2K-ready.

+ Provide detailed information about voluntary pledges by industry representatives to maintain a 30-45 day supply of emergency diesel generator fuel, and other measures to reduce the risk of plant failure.

+ Give a description of the process by which NRC will make a final determination as to which plants, if any, will be shut down over safety concerns during the year 2000 rollover.

+ List the minimal safety standards that will be acceptable under the proposed suspension of technical regulations.

Earlier this week, the NRC and the nuclear industry announced that all 103 operating U.S. nuclear power plants were fully ready for the Y2K rollover, and pose no safety threat from possible computer glitches.

In July, NRC said all commercial reactors were cleared for safety-related Y2K problems.

A spokesman for the industry trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, said nuclear plants were ready for Y2K.

``The plants have been fully remediated (for any safety related problems) for many months,'' the NEI spokesman said.

Anti-nuclear advocates have scoffed at the 100 percent safe pronouncements, noting a General Accounting Office report in October which doubted the independence of Y2K verification programs for nuclear power plants.

``With only seven weeks until the Y2K rollover the nuclear industry has yet to satisfy the Senate's, the GAO's and the public's fundamental concerns regarding potential devastating mishaps which could even lead to multiple meltdowns after New Year's,'' according to the World Atomic Safe Holiday organization in Bolinas, Calif.

Bennett's letter, co-signed by the vice-chairman of the special panel, Connecticut Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd, said the committee simply wants ``lingering questions'' answered.

---

US Natgas Industry Sees No Major Y2K Disruptions

By Reuters/New York TimesNovember 4, 1999 Filed at 12:28 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-natgas-usa.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With just under two months to go, U.S. natural gas pipeline operators and distributors said they are confident they can keep gas flowing when the clock ticks over to the year 2000.

According to a recently released survey by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Natural Gas Council (NGC), more than 90 percent of the oil and gas industry, including producers, pipelines and distributors, said they were Y2K ready.

And all of them said they would be ready before year end.

Natural gas, a $120 billion a year industry, is piped into millions of homes to fuel stoves, furnaces, and water heaters.

It is also used to generate about 15 percent of the country's electricity, topped only by coal (52 percent) and nuclear (20 percent) fuels.

``We're ready for the year 2000. We've tested all our systems, we have contingency plans in place for the worst scenarios, and we're going to have extra people on duty that night,'' said Dan Donovan, manager corporate information at Consolidated Natural Gas Co., operator of the largest gas storage system in North America.

MANUAL BACKUP

``Even with a power failure, we've found we can manually operate the system,'' Donovan said, adding CNG will have backup power at 40 key sites, mostly compressor stations.

The so-called ``Y2K'' problem, or millennium bug, refers to fears that older computers programmed to read only the last two digits of a date to save space will on January 1 read 2000 as 1900, triggering a series of computer system failures.

The API/NGC report, the fourth and final survey of Y2K readiness, included 19 interstate pipeline companies representing 99 percent of total interstate natural gas pipeline throughput, the Interstate Natural Gas Pipeline Association of America (INGAA), a trade group, said in a recent statement.

Industry surveys have been conducted since mid-1998 in conjunction with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The latest showed pipelines found no major challenges in completing Y2K work and will have all contingency plans tested and in place by the end of the year.

EXTRA STAFF NEW YEARS EVE

Most companies surveyed also said they will have staff on duty during the year 2000 rollover to monitor operations.

Many organized special teams as far back as 1996 and 1997 to coordinate Y2K readiness programs including testing communications, internal hardware and software systems and data links between customers and suppliers.

And many, like CNG, will have several ways to communicate when the date changeover occurs, including a microwave telecommunications system as well as radios, cellular and satellite communication systems.

``By and large, the big companies are going to be ready. There may be some pockets of unreadiness, but it probably won't affect the big deliverability picture,'' said Susan Bertsch, analyst at Houston-based consultants Bonner and Moore, a division of Honeywell Hi-Spec Solutions.

The oil and gas industries also will maintain a command center at the Department of Energy to collect and analyze data from companies during the rollover transition.

This data will be passed on to the President's Council's Y2K Information Coordination Center, which will collect data nationally and internationally and report to the President and the public about the transition.

NO ABSOLUTE GUARANTEES

But while industry members said they were ready for the rollover, some said potential problems in key industries like electric power or telecommunications could cause disruptions.

BP Amoco spokesman Howard Miller said BP and Amoco together will spend some $300 million for Y2K readiness, but added that no company can guarantee a trouble-free transition to the new year.

``Early on we recognized the potential for significant interruptions and both companies were involved quite early with the Y2K issue. We don't believe it should be a problem, but we're only as strong as our weakest link,'' Miller said.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Ruler Denounces Terrorism

November 12, 1999 Filed at 4:50 p.m. EST New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Pakistan-Musharraf.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's military ruler said Friday he wants to help fight terrorism in the region and promised to keep his country's nuclear deterrent against rival India at a ``minimum.''

Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, whose troops swept out the elected government a month ago, made the comments only hours after rocket attacks that targeted U.S. and U.N. missions in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

``We are against all forms of terrorism, especially against the use of religion for promoting terrorism,'' Musharraf told The Associated Press in the exclusive interview.

``Surely I will like to contribute toward curbing terrorism in whatever form,'' he said.

The general offered to mediate between the Taliban army and the United States over Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile living under the protection of Afghanistan's rulers and accused by Washington of masterminding U.S. embassy bombings in Africa last year.

Musharraf said he was investigating reports that violence between feuding Muslim sects in Pakistan was being fueled from neighboring Afghanistan.

He promised to probe ``whether this terrorism is emanating from Afghanistan, and whether the terrorist groups have their basis there.''

Musharraf is seen by many as backing down from Islamabad's total support for the Taliban, who control 90 percent of Afghanistan and have imposed a strict brand of Islamic law there.

The general is also considered a hawk toward India, Pakistan's historic rival. He is accused by New Delhi of orchestrating an incursion this year by fighters into the Indian-held part of Kashmir, sparking fierce combat that nearly led to full-fledged war.

Musharraf told the AP that he wanted to maintain a ``minimum deterrence'' with India, including with regard nuclear weapons. The two countries tested nuclear weapons last year, adding a new level of concern over their longtime mutual hatred.

``I feel that minimum deterrence has been achieved and there is no cause to worry,'' Musharraf said.

He promised changes in Pakistan's hefty defense spending, which devours about one-third of the $14 billion annual budget -- but offered no specifics.

``We need to economize the defense expenses, but that will not be at the cost of the security of Pakistan,'' he said.

Since his troops swept out the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Oct. 12, Musharraf has mostly emphasized rebuilding Pakistan's ailing economy and reforming its notoriously corrupt politics.

He sought to ease fears over the treatment of the ousted premier after the military accused Sharif and seven lower-level officials of treason and hijacking, charges that carry either the death penalty or life in prison.

``I would like to assure the world that the trial will be open and very fair,'' Musharraf said.

The general -- dressed in his khaki-colored military uniform but sitting in the civilian prime minister's palatial residence overlooking the federal capital -- said his major aim was to pursue the corrupt and recover illicit wealth.

``A lot of people in Pakistan are telling me that this is our last chance. Only the army can deliver. People are pinning all their hopes on the army,'' he said.

Despite coming to power in 1997 by capturing two-thirds of the vote, Sharif had dropped out of favor and many Pakistanis celebrated the coup. Pakistanis and the army accused Sharif of destroying democratic institutions, wrecking the economy and allowing runaway corruption

-------- russia

Russia could fly strategic bombers to Cuba, Vietnam in 2000

By Robert Eksuzyan, Reuters, 11/13/99, Boston Globe 11/13/99 A20
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/317/nation/Russia_could_fly_strategic_bombers_to_Cuba_Vietnam_in_2000+.shtml

MOSCOW - Russia may fly nuclear-capable strategic bombers to Cuba and Vietnam next year, a Russian air force spokesman said yesterday.

The latest edition of the weekly military newspaper Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye quoted the head of long-range aviation forces, Mikhail Oparin, as saying such missions were planned and would greatly surprise NATO.

Asked to comment, air force spokesman Colonel Nikolai Baranov said: ''If the government considers it essential to do this, the military will do it.''

''If they give us the money we will fly, if not we won't fly,'' he said. ''Such a possibility does not exist yet because the money is not there.''

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed yesterday to boost funding for Russia's armed forces despite an economic crisis that, for example, has kept flying hours to a minimum.

Putin spoke after Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev told military commanders the United States was bent on weakening Russia. Earlier this year Russia sent strategic bombers on long-range exercises to Alaska and Norway for the first time since the Cold War ended.

The defense weekly said those flights had made a big impression on NATO. ''It looks like the 37th air division will surprise the alliance's strategists even more next year,'' the newspaper said, referring to the unit that operates Tupolev-160 swing-wing supersonic bombers that can carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

''According to the chief of long-range aviation, in 2000 it is planned to carry out a flight to the air base at Cam Ranh in Vietnam and also to fly to Cuba,'' it said.

There was no suggestion that the planes would be based in Cuba or Vietnam, two Communist countries where Russia still has intelligence bases and military personnel.

Even bomber flights to and from those countries could evoke memories of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, when Moscow recalled Soviet missiles from the Caribbean island after a tense standoff with the United States.

The article in the military newspaper was about Russia's deal with Ukraine to swap Ukrainian gas debt for strategic bombers. Russia took delivery of the first three of 11 bombers from Ukraine last week. It said the deal also included 575 cruise missiles.

---

13] Russia Rebukes West for Criticism

New York Times November 12, 1999 Filed at 2:17 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Blasting-the-West.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- In a blast of Cold War invective, the Russian military accused the United States on Friday of stirring up the war in Chechnya as part of a plot to weaken Russia.

The rebuke comes as already-strained relations worsen over the Chechen war, which the West wants Moscow to halt to prevent further civilian casualties. Russian-Western ties have frayed over a series of disputes in recent years, cooling the warm relationship that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

``U.S. national interests require that the military conflict in the North Caucasus, fanned from the outside, keeps constantly smoldering,'' Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said.

Washington wants to ``weaken Russia and take full control over the North Caucasus,'' said Sergeyev, in an unusually harsh attack.

In a sign the speech reflected government thinking, Sergeyev spoke at a meeting of generals with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the audience. Sergeyev is a loyalist of President Boris Yeltsin, who has favored close ties with the West.

In Washington, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart called Sergeyev's attack ``a misguided characterization of this administration's policy on Chechnya.''

``The president has spoken to Prime Minister Putin, President Yeltsin,'' Lockhart said, referring to previous conversations Clinton has had with the leaders about Chechnya. ``We'll continue those conversations. They know quite well what our position is and what our interest in this case is.''

Moscow's relations with the United States have been deteriorating for more than a year. Russia accuses the United States of seeking world domination and strongly criticized the NATO action in Kosovo and U.S. attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Relations have been further strained by Washington's call to amend a key 1972 treaty banning anti-ballistic missile defenses. Moscow says any such move could undo all nuclear arms-control agreements and force a major new arms race.

The Russian government is presenting a unified front in rebuffing the Western criticism. Even the Foreign Ministry, traditionally moderate, says the fighting can end only if the Chechens surrender. And the war has broad political support, with just one major opposition party calling for peace talks.

While the West has been horrified by the growing number of civilian casualties in Chechnya, most Russians strongly support the war -- especially as the Russian army has the upper hand.

``Russian public opinion will not change because the overwhelming majority of the population wishes to resolve the Chechen problem once and for all,'' said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for Political Studies.

The United States and other Western nations say their only concern is peace and ending civilian casualties. But President Clinton, in calling for international pressure, recognized that Moscow can't be pushed too hard.

``No country wants to be seen as giving in to pressure from another country,'' he said this week.

Many Russians believe the West does not care about the Chechens and that the calls for an end to the war are an attempt to weaken Russia, analysts said.

``International opposition is likely to have a very limited impact on Russia's offensive in Chechnya. The Russians tend to think that different international forces are pursuing their specific goals,'' said Alexander Mukomolov, a parliamentary aide who helped end the 1994-96 Chechen war.

Russians accuse the West of hypocrisy for opposing the war in Chechnya after NATO intervened in Kosovo. Russia says it was forced to send troops into Chechnya after Islamic militants attacked Russian territory and were blamed for a series of bombings of apartment buildings that killed about 300 people.

``The West has lost its moral superiority for Russians after bombing Yugoslavia,'' said Alexander Pikayev, a military analyst at the Carnegie Foundation's Moscow office. ``Whatever the West says, ordinary Russians will immediately accuse it of hypocrisy and double standards.''

The West could apply sanctions against Moscow, although nobody is talking about that. Russia, with its economy in tatters, is a major recipient of Western financial aid.

But the West is reluctant to take a strong line with Moscow because it does not want to damage relations irreparably, analysts said. And Western governments don't want to do anything that might strengthen Russia's still powerful Communist and nationalist groups, they said.

``There is a sense they have to keep the door open to Russia,'' said Margo Light, a Russian specialist at the London School of Economics.

The West faced the same dilemma during the 1994-96 Chechen war, when the insurgents fought the Russian military to a standstill and gained de facto independence. Some 100,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed, but Western criticism was muted because of support for Yeltsin's government.

Chinese boast anti-missile lasers
Deseret News Saturday, November 13, 1999
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1,1249,130007382,00.html?