* Gulf sickness was 'largest ever nuclear accident'
* Regulation Runaround - Calvert Cliffs
* U.S. Court Throws Out Its Ruling On Plant Hearing Ordered On Calvert Cliffs
* USEC Board Defers Resignation Decision
* China Spy Probe Turns To US Nuclear Weapons Assemblers
* Report: Laser project plagued by bad management, poor planning
* Clinton: Puerto Rico Decision Soon
* We don't have a nuclear button, says Musharraf
* India's nuke policy 'a thorn': Japan
* Israeli Nuke Case Report Released
* Report Released on Israel's Vanunu
Vanunu Said Exposed Israeli Secrets
* By Word Only, Israeli Spy Resurfaces
* Nuclear secrets revealed to force truth
* COLUMN: Israel's betrayal
* Inflammatory words
* China Attack on U.S. Said Possible
* China Warns Against U.S. Anti-Missile Defense Plans
* China Condemns U.S. Missile Plans
* Taiwan: Chinese Missile Base Found
* Taiwan Accuses China of Threat
* Are missiles targeting Taiwan?
* U.S. might sell missile shields to aid Taiwan
* Taiwan says it has detected new Chinese missile base
* China Argues Against Planned U.S. Missile Defense
* TILTING AT WINDMILLS (Gore - Nuclear Power)
* Federal Emergency Agency Ignores An Easy Way To Prevent One Danger
* N. Korea Warns South Over Missiles
* Swiss Defense Minister Wants 'Armed Neutrality'
* Tehran opposes visits by U.S. envoys
* Yeltsin Wants Test Ban Ratified As Priority
* Russia Says U.S. Concerns May Be Met Without Amending ABM Pact
* Gore to Meet Kazakh Leader After MiG Case
* Gorbachev Faults US on Weaker Ties
* Y2K poll shows drop in public concern
* DOs and DON'Ts of Y2K
* Romania Nuclear Plant Restarts Production
* Transport of nuclear waste suspected through Sydney
--------du
Gulf sickness was 'largest ever nuclear accident'
Express News November 24, 1999 BY JOHN COLES - Express News
http://www.lineone.net/express/99/11/24/news/n2620gulfwarsick-d.html
BRITISH soldiers were poisoned by radioactive and highly-toxic dust from shells fired by the Allies during the Gulf War, a world authority has claimed. The expert, Professor Asaf Durakovic, says they fell victim to what could prove to be one of the largest nuclear accidents in history, with hundreds of thousands at risk.
The professor, the former chief of nuclear medicine at the Veterans' Affairs medical facility in Delaware, US, says his findings would explain many of the cases of so-called Gulf War syndrome. He claims he was forced to quit his post for refusing to end his research into depleted uranium - the radioactive material used in over 700,000 missiles and bullets during the 1991 conflict. He confirms that sick ex-servicemen could have been helped by specialist treatment if governments had admitted years ago that they were at risk from exposure to DU while they were on the battlefield unprotected and unaware of the danger.
But, speaking on ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald, he will say that eight years on it is "too late" for them. Professor Durakovic says: "It is amazing that we see the levels of DU in the urine of veterans nine years after the war. I am not implying that all the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome are due to DU, but a large part of the sickness of the patients that I have been following is due to the contamination with radioactive isotopes."
The professor claims that hundreds of thousands were put at risk through inhaling radioactive dust from the "superior weapons" in which DU was used because of its armour-piercing capabilities. Asked why the military has not supported his previous warnings about DU, he adds: "We are talking about the embarrassment of the governments of Britain, Canada and the US, and the other reason is it's a multi-billion-dollar industry which has to be cautious about litigation and compensation claims."
He says that other doctors and scientists who have voiced concern about DU have also lost their jobs in North America. Durakovic, now clinical professor of radiology and nuclear medicine at Georgetown University in Washington DC, says that seven British veterans have tested positive for DU with Canadian and US troops. British victims include Paul Connolly, a civilian worker from Woking, Surrey, who was responsible for keeping ducts on vehicle cooling systems free from dust. Mr Connolly, 37, who is now undergoing dialysis treatment three times a week, said: "How can the government still say that DU was safe?" The Tonight investigation will highlight an admission from the US military that "mistakes were made" in allowing soldiers to wander in battle areas where Allied tanks and aircraft had fired DU rounds.
-------- us nuc power plants
Regulation Runaround
Thursday, November 25, 1999; Page A42 ashington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/25/037r-112599-idx.html
The appeals court ruling further delaying the relicensing of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant will result in no safety improvements, yet it may cost us a lot in both dollars and pollution [Metro, Nov. 13].
When anti-nuclear power groups barrage the regulatory system to delay projects and force increased costs, their actions generally do not improve public safety. The time and effort spent dealing with their (usually frivolous) claims keep regulators from focusing on real issues.
Calvert Cliffs has operated safely for years and will continue to be closely inspected throughout its extended life. While we wait for the courts to make decisions -- or for the anti-nuclear groups to exhaust their delaying tactics -- we can lose the use of our nuclear plants. The result would be burning more fossil fuels with the attendant air pollution and global-warming gas emissions.
We need to regain some sense of balance about responding to every regulatory opponent's demands and not allow already-examined issues to be revisited ad nauseam.
MARVIN L. ROUSH
Takoma Park
---
U.S. Court Throws Out Its Ruling On Plant Hearing Ordered On Calvert Cliffs By Steve Vogel Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post , Wesday, November 24, 1999; Page B01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/24/143l-112499-idx.html
A federal appeals court yesterday tossed out its own judgment supporting a watchdog group's efforts for a wider review of safety issues in the proposed relicensing of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant.
Yesterday's ruling, which attorneys and legal experts described as highly unusual, threw more uncertainty into the contentious battle surrounding Calvert Cliffs, the Southern Maryland facility that is seeking to become the first U.S. nuclear plant to gain relicensing.
On Nov. 12, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the NRC's interpretation of rules governing relicensing may have prevented opponents of the plant from having a say in the process. The order filed yesterday vacated the earlier judgment and accompanying majority opinion and directed that a new hearing be scheduled.
However, that cannot occur until another judge is named to replace Judge Patricia Wald on the three-judge panel that heard the Calvert Cliffs case. Wald wrote the now-vacated majority opinion, but she has since departed the court to join the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, where she will hear war crimes cases involving the former Yugoslavia.
Critical issues defining the case "were lost in our haste to issue an opinion before our colleague, Judge Wald, departed from the court," Chief Judge Harry Edwards said in a statement accompanying the ruling. "However, in my view, the issues are too important to ignore once uncovered."
Representatives for both sides were stunned at the development.
"Reheard? That's weird," said Stephen Kohn, an attorney for the National Whistleblowers Center, who was out of town when he learned the news yesterday. The nonprofit group is challenging a fast-track process the NRC has established to deal with nuclear plant relicensings.
The news was welcomed at Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., the operator of Calvert Cliffs. "A lot of people will have a happier Thanksgiving," said Karl Neddenien, a spokesman for the utility.
"It reinforces what we've been saying all along, that the NRC process is a thorough process that adequately meets the need for public participation and public involvement," Neddenien added.
Attorneys for the NRC had not seen the ruling yesterday, according to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the agency. "In the meantime, we continue to adhere to our position that the commission acted correctly," he said.
The court's ruling hinges on the question of whether changes to the policy governing hearings were made to substantive rules or to procedural rules.
"After considering this matter further, I find that there is good reason to believe that we were mistaken in assuming that the commission acted pursuant to a substantive, as opposed to a procedural, rule," Edwards wrote.
"It's a little mysterious how this escaped the court's attention," said William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University who follows the appellate court.
"It is certainly uncommon for a court to reverse itself so quickly," Kovacic added. "But there are cases where they'll do it when it becomes obvious they made a serious mistake."
The NRC would have more legal flexibility in making changes to procedural rules, which are the limits an agency puts on its behavior, Kovacic said.
Kohn said the Whistleblowers will be able to show that the commission's actions were improper and that the question of substantive versus procedural rules "will be a distinction without meaning."
---
USEC Board Defers Resignation Decision
Washington Post Thursday, November 25, 1999; Page E02 By Martha M. Hamilton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/25/101r-112599-idx.html
USEC Inc.'s board of directors met yesterday but stopped short of resigning as the federal government's executive agent in a nuclear nonproliferation deal with Russia.
The Bethesda-based uranium-processing company--which the federal government sold to shareholders in 1998--has told the Clinton administration and members of Congress that it may resign by Wednesday unless it gets assurances of federal financial assistance. But yesterday the board deferred a final decision until next week.
After conferring by telephone, "the board has taken the matter under advisement and will make the appropriate decision by Dec. 1," the company said in a statement issued after the meeting.
The issue arose as a result of USEC's attempts to lobby Congress and the administration for as much as $200 million in federal aid, blaming its financial difficulties in large part on its role as agent of an agreement between the United States and Russia designed to help rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Under an accord created in 1993, USEC pays Russia for converting highly enriched uranium from dismantled Soviet nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium, which is then used as fuel in nuclear power plants.
USEC has been arguing that it loses money because the price it pays Russia for processing what was formerly weapons-grade uranium is higher than its own cost of processing. But the Clinton administration and Congress haven't stepped up with any financial aid.
On the contrary, as of last week the administration was negotiating with potential USEC competitors to take over the job, and both the administration and lawmakers from both parties were considering whether to rewrite legislation that protects USEC from a takeover until mid-2001.
-------- us nuc weapons facilities
China Spy Probe Turns To US Nuclear Weapons Assemblers
Inside China Today Thursday, Nov 25 at Prague 12:45 pm, N.Y. 06:45 am
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=111414
WASHINGTON, Nov 19, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The ongoing investigation into China's alleged spying on US nuclear weapons secrets has turned from the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory to US weapons assemblers, The Washington Post said Friday.
Errors found in the description of the miniaturized W-88 nuclear warhead found in secret Chinese documents that sparked the probe earlier this year were traced to one of the weapons "integrators" in the United States, government sources told the daily.
The evidence does not completely clear the Los Alamos laboratory, the sources said, but it does indicate that the most likely source of the information is one of the weapons assemblers.
The "integrators" include Sandia National Laboratories, Lockheed Martin Corp. and the US Navy.
The analysis, one source said, "widened the circle and gave convincing evidence" to the belief held by scientists at Los Alamos and Energy Department officials that China could have obtained the classified information any of dozens of facilities.
China has consistently denied stealing any US nuclear design information.
The finding came after investigators reassessed their work in light of mistakes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Energy Department made by focusing almost exclusively on a Chinese-American physicist at Los Alamos, Wen Ho Lee.
Lee, who was fired from the laboratory but has not been charged with any major wrongdoing, became the lynchpin of criticism directed against the FBI and Energy Department for focusing on him only because of his Chinese birth (he was born in Taiwan).
Lee's attorney, Mark Holscher, said the latest development in the probe was "further proof that the focus of the investigation on Doctor Lee was inappropriate and ... unfair." ((c) 1999 Agence France Presse)
---
Report: Laser project plagued by bad management, poor planning
By Michelle Locke, Associated Press Fox News 5.38 a.m. ET (1049 GMT) November 24, 1999
http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/news/national/1124/d_ap_1124_54.sml
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - A report on the troubled super laser at Lawrence Livermore national lab recommends changing the management structure to establish a "surprise-free'' environment.
Trouble surfaced with the laser, known as the National Ignition Facility, this fall when officials announced the project could be $300 million over budget and 18 months late.
The laser is designed to test nuclear weapons by using simulations instead of underground tests. It is a cornerstone of the nuclear stockpile stewardship program and was initially scheduled to be finished by 2003 at a cost of $1.2 billion.
The report was commissioned by the University of California, which is under contract with the Energy Department to run the laser. It blamed the cost and schedule overruns on management deficiencies at the laboratory, the university and the Energy Department.
It also found that the project's contingency budget was too low, cost and schedule projections were set too early and the lab was hampered by a "do-it-yourself'' mentality that discouraged getting outside help.
On a positive note, the report praised the Lawrence Livermore national lab's scientific achievements and predicted it will be able to resolve the technical problems of assembly and cleanliness that have plagued the project.
The report urged establishing a "surprise-free'' environment by, among other things, improving communications.
It recommended a number of management changes, including clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of people involved in the project and making sure the lab's director takes personal responsibility for the laser.
The UC report was the latest in a series of probes. The General Accounting Office and the Energy Department also are investigating the laser problems. Livermore and the other nuclear weapons lab run by UC, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, are also under fire for alleged security lapses.
Livermore spokesman Jeff Richardson said lab officials were pleased that the laser report found their technical approach sound.
"However, we recognize that there were weaknesses in the project's management structure and we have taken significant steps to change the structure of management,'' he said.
---
Report: Calif. Laser Planning Poor
New York Times November 24, 1999 Filed at 6:43 a.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Laser-Probe.html
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- A report on the troubled super laser at Lawrence Livermore national lab recommends changing the management structure to establish a ``surprise-free'' environment.
Trouble surfaced with the laser, known as the National Ignition Facility, this fall when officials announced the project could be $300 million over budget and 18 months late.
The laser is designed to test nuclear weapons by using simulations instead of underground tests. It is a cornerstone of the nuclear stockpile stewardship program and was initially scheduled to be finished by 2003 at a cost of $1.2 billion.
The report was commissioned by the University of California, which is under contract with the Energy Department to run the laser. It blamed the cost and schedule overruns on management deficiencies at the laboratory, the university and the Energy Department.
It also found that the project's contingency budget was too low, cost and schedule projections were set too early and the lab was hampered by a ``do-it-yourself'' mentality that discouraged getting outside help.
On a positive note, the report praised the Lawrence Livermore national lab's scientific achievements and predicted it will be able to resolve the technical problems of assembly and cleanliness that have plagued the project.
The report urged establishing a ``surprise-free'' environment by, among other things, improving communications.
It recommended a number of management changes, including clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of people involved in the project and making sure the lab's director takes personal responsibility for the laser.
The UC report was the latest in a series of probes. The General Accounting Office and the Energy Department also are investigating the laser problems. Livermore and the other nuclear weapons lab run by UC, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, are also under fire for alleged security lapses.
Livermore spokesman Jeff Richardson said lab officials were pleased that the laser report found their technical approach sound.
``However, we recognize that there were weaknesses in the project's management structure and we have taken significant steps to change the structure of management,'' he said.
-------- vieques
Clinton: Puerto Rico Decision Soon
New York Times November 24, 1999 Filed at 4:16 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Clinton-Puerto-Rico.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton cited ``real headway'' Wednesday in negotiations with Puerto Rico over the fate of a hotly disputed Navy bombing range.
He told reporters at the White House he should have a decision in a few days on the range on the outlying Puerto Rican island of Vieques. ``We're getting there,'' he said.
Puerto Rico is demanding the U.S. Navy leave the island after a bomb was dropped off-target April 19 and killed a security guard on the range. The Pentagon has asked Clinton that it be allowed to continue bombing for five more years.
``There are two legitimate issues here. There's the legitimate concerns of the people of Puerto Rico, which I think are quite real, particularly the people on the island. And then there's the absolutely legitimate concern of sending all of our units out combat-ready,'' Clinton said.
The USS Eisenhower battle group is scheduled to hold live-fire exercises on Vieques in early December in preparation for a February deployment.
Navy bombing has been halted since the bombing accident. Under an agreement with Puerto Rico, the Pentagon is supposed to give a 15-day notice before resumption of bombing.
Defense Secretary William Cohen has yet to make a recommendation to Clinton on whether the bombing should resume over Puerto Rico's objections, although he told reporters on Tuesday that one was close.
Pentagon spokesman P.J. Crowley said Cohen had not made such a recommendation as of Wednesday but that work on the decision was progressing.
Adminstration officials said that substituting dummy munitions for live-fire exercises was one possibility that was being discussed in negotiations with Puerto Rico.
``I have spent a lot of time on it myself, and I hope that in the next few days we'll have something to say about it,'' Clinton said. ``We're getting there.''
The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques and uses it for weapons storage and military maneuvers. About 9,400 people live on the other third.
-------- india/pakistan
We don't have a nuclear button, says Musharraf
The Hindu 11/23/99 By Amit Baruah
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/11/24/stories/03240001.htm
ISLAMABAD, NOV. 23. The Pakistani Army Chief, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has said that as of now the country does not have a `nuclear button', but when the time for the `button' comes, it would be under his control.
In an interview to a magazine, the Chief Executive said: ``One should understand that there is no nuclear button here. A policy of restraint is being followed, which is being dictated by the world...one of the main issues is geographical separation of the warheads and the delivery system. When that is so, there is no button.
``It is only when you couple them that you are ready, the button is on. But that is not the case. When the time comes, Yes, there will be a button. And that button will be with me, of course. But we have not got to that as yet,'' the General told the monthly journal.
``As far as the control of the nuclear system goes, let me tell you that that I had prepared a nuclear strategy that I had handed to the previous Government in December last year. We had a command and control system for all our nuclear and missile assets.''
On India, the General said there was, perhaps, a perception across the border that he was a warmonger with a pistol in hand - a reference to the television images showing him playing with a pistol.
``I would like to have peace in the region....but there are certain issues which have to be addressed and I do not believe in diplomacy in this regard. Maybe, they (the Indian Government) believe in saying things that they do not mean. They are not too happy with my comment that threat will be met with threat and peace with peace. What is wrong with that?'' the General wanted to know.
``We want peaceful co-existence with India, on equal terms. Our honour and dignity will not be compromised and the core issue of Kashmir has to be addressed,'' he said.
On sectarian killings in Pakistan, the Chief Executive said he seriously believed that killings in mosques were being carried out by `some other quarters.'
``I do not think a Muslim could kill a Muslim in a mosque...Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace. We cannot use it to kill each other. I am a Muslim and there should be no doubt (on that score) whatever my habits may be, whether I keep a dog or not,'' he said.
On the high expectations from the people, the General said: ``I presume that if you deliver, you keep doing well, peform as a team, the honeymoon period will continue.''
Asked about his role models, especially Kemal Ataturk, the General tried to put some distance between him and his role model. ``He did a great job for Turkey and, Yes, I admire him. Now everyone thinks that I am going to follow everything that he did. Obviously not. He did something in Turkey in a different environment. I am not going to follow his example for Pakistan...''
Referendum in Jan.
Meanwhule, a leading Urdu daily, Jung, quoting official sources, said ,Gen. Musharraf is likely to hold a referendum sometime in January this year to legitimise his rule.
---
India's nuke policy 'a thorn': Japan
Reuters 11/24/99
http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/nov/24jap.htm
Japan today said it wants India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty before it resumes aid, which it froze after India carried out nuclear tests last year.
Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi told External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh that India's nuclear policy was ''a thorn'' in otherwise friendly ties between the two countries, a Japanese official told reporters.
In particular, Tokyo wants New Delhi to sign the CTBT. ''If India signs the CTBT, the thorn will be removed,'' the foreign ministry official quoted Obuchi as telling Jaswant Singh.
He said Obuchi had implied in his remarks a possibility of lifting Japan's freeze on new loans and grants to India.
Jaswant Singh told Obuchi that India was committed to its self-imposed moratorium on further nuclear testing and that it was working to build a domestic consensus on signing the treaty, according to the official.
Jaswant Singh said the Indian Parliament was set to debate the issue during its winter session, which starts later this month. ''It will be the first step in consensus-building,'' the official quoted him as saying.
Jaswant Singh arrived in Tokyo yesterday for a four-day visit during which he will meet political and business leaders. He was scheduled to hold talks later today with Foreign Minister Yohei Kono.
-------- israel/palestine
Israeli Nuke Case Report Released
Israel finally hears the full story of nuclear whistleblower Vanunu
Calgary Herald 11/24/99
Newsday 11/24/99 By RON KAMPEAS Associated Press
Writerhttp://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/newsnow/cpfs/world/991124/w1124108.html
http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpin13.htm
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Mordechai Vanunu exposed Israel's nuclear arms program in 1986 because he wanted his country held accountable.
More than two-thirds into his 18-year jail sentence for espionage, his wish verged on reality Wednesday when a transcript of his closed-door trial was published in a leading Israeli newspaper, prompting a frank debate about the arsenal in the desert once euphemistically called ``the textile factory.''
There were few surprises in the excerpts from the 1,200-page protocol published in Yediot Ahronot, with the consent of prosecutors: much of the material has been published overseas.
What was remarkable were the questions raised on a slew of talk-back shows -- and that they were asked at all.
``We are progressing from the society of the '50s, '60s to an open society that discusses everything, to an era of normalization,'' Avigdor Feldman, Vanunu's attorney, told Israel television.
It was what Vanunu, a technician at the Dimona plant until 1983, wanted when he told the Sunday Times of London all he knew.
``I wanted to confirm what everyone knows,'' he told the court. ``I wanted to put the matter under proper supervision.''
Israeli agents kidnapped Vanunu in Rome in 1986 and brought him to Israel, where he faced trial in a country that, still feeling immensely threatened by its Arab neighbors, was unsympathetic to his cause.
The nuclear arsenal -- Dimona's ``textile factory'' -- seemed to guarantee the existence of the Jewish state.
Vanunu's sentence, which he began serving in 1986, caused hardly a ripple locally, although his support abroad increased and now includes the Clinton administration. Even his solitary confinement evinced no sympathy.
``The main idea was to warn people coming out of the system not to write books, to pass on information,'' said Amnon Zichroni, who served for a time as Vanunu's lawyer.
That began to change as barriers broke down and peace treaties were signed with the Palestinians and Jordanians. A peace treaty with Syria and Lebanon now also seems attainable.
Now, Israelis are able to see that Vanunu exposed ``the danger of nuclear weaponry, the danger if a disaster happens,'' said Gideon Spiro, who heads a group demanding Vanunu's release. ``In another few years, he will be a giant.''
The transcript paints Vanunu as all-too-human: a loner who resented the Jewish religious upbringing his Moroccan immigrant parents foisted upon him. He converted to Christianity before telling the Sunday Times his story.
Yet his stoic resolve to stand by his commitment to reveal Israel's nuclear capability impressed even his interrogators.
``I think that a bond developed with whomever took care of him, including the jailers,'' one agent identified only as `Alon' testifies.
The publication also offers Israelis confirmation of what was known from other sources: a chemical engineer testifies that the Sunday Times account was accurate; security agents testify that Vanunu was abducted in a foreign country; Israeli leaders testify that the revelations made suppliers for the reactor nervous -- especially in Norway.
Pages marked ``top secret'' were not published, however.
``All political parties have agreed on what, let's say, is the `policy of ambiguity,''' said Shimon Peres, who ordered Vanunu's abduction when he was prime minister. ``Why raise this topic again when Israel is still surrounded by enemies and rivals on all sides?''
He called suspicion of Israel's capability ``healthy.'' ``If this suspicion is enough to deter, that's fine.''
Vanunu's brother, Asher, said the revelations helped show the world that Israel was invincible -- a perception that led to the Oslo peace process that Peres considers his crowning achievement.
``The knowledge that Israel held nuclear weapons did not end with a Hiroshima, but with an Oslo,'' he told Israel television.
Now that they are discussing his revelations, it remains to be seen whether Israelis are ready for Vanunu's freedom.
Since his emergence from solitary confinement, he has appeared in court several times to appeal for early release. He seems relaxed, he is tanned, and he bears his trademark slight smile -- a smile that ``Alon,'' the interrogator, confesses charmed him.
Forget it, said Uzi Landau, a lawmaker who called Vanunu ``one of the greatest traitors ... a lawbreaker who deserves the fullness of his punishment.''
Feldman, his lawyer, hopes otherwise.
``The man has emerged from behind an iron mask to the public, with his sensitivity, his personality,'' he told Israel television
---
Report Released on Israel's Vanunu
Associated Press Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999; 9:02 a.m. EST By Mark Lavie
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline090211_000.htm
JERUSALEM -- In his closed-door treason trial, a former nuclear technician told judges he exposed Israel's nuclear arms program to force the government to tell the truth and bring the bombs under supervision, according to court records released for the first time today, 11 years after his conviction.
Mordechai Vanunu has been kept away from the public since his 1986 arrest by Israeli security forces. The partial transcript of his trial, published in the Yediot Ahronot daily, provided the most detailed glimpse yet of the case.
The more than 1,200 pages of testimony, released by the state attorney at the request of Yediot Ahronot, included statements by Vanunu and his Shin Bet secret service interrogators. Government censors decided what sections could be released.
Vanunu was convicted in March 1988 and sentenced to 18 years in prison after telling what he knew about Israel's nuclear weapons to The Sunday Times newspaper, which printed its story on Oct. 6, 1986, saying that Israel had stockpiled roughly 100 nuclear weapons.
After talking to the paper, Vanunu was kidnapped by Israel's Mossad secret service and brought back to Israel for trial.
Shimon Peres, prime minister at the time, said today that publication of the trial transcript would only invite new international pressure on Israel.
"The whole Vanunu affair makes my blood boil. One day a man gets up in the morning and he decides what is good for the country. Does he carry the responsibility?" Peres told Israel radio.
Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons. However, Peres, who helped set up the Dimona nuclear reactor in the 1960s, has come close, saying Israel needed a strong deterrent to prod Arab countries into peace talks.
"Israel did not get into the nuclear field to get to Hiroshima, but to get to Oslo," he said, referring to the Norwegian capital where Israeli-Palestinian peace talks began in 1993.
Yediot Ahronot today devoted half its front page and nine inside pages to the court records. The transcript tells Vanunu's personal story, following him from an Orthodox Jewish upbringing through his conversion to Christianity, his political activism as a student and his decision to go public with Israel's nuclear secrets.
"I wanted to confirm what everyone knows," he said during his trial. "I wanted to put the matter under proper supervision.
"Now Peres cannot keep lying to (then-President) Reagan and tell him that we do not have nuclear weapons."
Vanunu's attorney, Avigdor Feldman, said he hoped the transcript would help win early release for his client, who became eligible for parole last year after serving two-thirds of his sentence. Vanunu's initial request for parole was rejected. Feldman also demanded that the entire transcript be released to provide a full picture.
In recent months, there has been a debate in the Israeli media over whether Israel should end its decades-long policy of nuclear ambiguity.
After Vanunu's claims were printed, he was called the most dangerous spy in Israel's history. He was convicted of treason and held in solitary confinement for more than a decade.
His trial was held behind closed doors, as were his frequent court appearances and requests for improvements in his incarceration conditions. The government maintains he still has secrets that could harm security if revealed.
--
Vanunu Said Exposed Israeli Secrets
Associated Press Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999; 6:55 a.m. EST By Mark Lavie Associated Press Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline065522_000.htm
---
By Word Only, Israeli Spy Resurfaces
Published Testimony Recalls Furor Over 1986 Nuclear Case
Washington Post Thursday, November 25, 1999; Page A30 By Lee Hockstader
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/25/102r-112599-idx.html
JERUSALEM, Nov. 24-Since 1986, when he gave the details of Israel's secretive nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper, Mordechai Vanunu has been a household name here--and a strangely spectral presence.
He has been demonized by the government as an enemy of Israeli security and lionized by some on the left as a brave whistle-blower and a man of principle. Practically everyone here knows the sensational story of how he was lured from England by a female Mossad agent, kidnapped and drugged by Israeli operatives in Rome and tried and convicted in Israel of espionage.
Despite his celebrity, Vanunu has been all but invisible. Having been tried in secret and sentenced to 18 years in prison, he has long been kept in solitary confinement and barred from giving interviews and making phone calls. His muffled words are heard only occasionally when his letters clear the prison censors.
So when the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published 11 pages of previously undisclosed court testimony and articles based on Vanunu's 1987 trial today, the impact here was sensational, even if the material itself was somewhat threadbare.
Yedioth, Israel's best-selling daily, published extracts of 1,200 pages of court documents with the state prosecutor's approval and the security establishment's acquiescence. Heavily edited by censors, the material contained few revelations and virtually nothing about Israel's nuclear arsenal that Vanunu had not already described for the Sunday Times of London 13 years ago. The published extracts deal mostly with the feelings and personal observations of Vanunu and the other main characters in the drama, including then-prime minister Shimon Peres.
But the fact that Israeli authorities, perhaps wishing to avoid a court battle, were willing to release so much material on Vanunu suggested a slight mellowing in their attitude toward what many consider the most serious security breach, by the most notorious spy, in the Jewish state's history.
"This by itself is a step forward toward lifting the policy of hush-hush" regarding Vanunu's case and Israel's nuclear arsenal, said Gideon Spiro, an Israeli anti-nuclear activist who has long been a champion of Vanunu's unpopular cause.
Although Israel's possession of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them have been an open secret, particularly since Vanunu's revelations, the country has never acknowledged it openly. Successive governments have steadfastly maintained a policy of studied ambiguity, saying only that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.
Born to a Jewish family in Morocco, Vanunu immigrated to Israel at age 8 with his parents in 1962. He served in the army, attended university in Tel Aviv and in 1976 answered a newspaper advertisement seeking workers for the country's nuclear plant. While working there, he continued his studies and gradually developed friendships with Israeli Arab students.
In the excerpts from his court testimony, Vanunu, now 45, recounts the details of his youth and early career, tracing the path that led him in 1976 to a sensitive job as a technician in the nuclear facility, at Dimona in southern Israel's Negev Desert. He worked at Dimona for nearly 10 years until he was laid off in a budget cutback in 1985.
By that time, security agents were watching Vanunu carefully, wary of his contacts with Arabs, sympathy with Arab causes and left-wing political activities.
Vanunu left Israel and wound up in Sydney, where he converted to Christianity in the Anglican Church and met a journalist who persuaded him to sell his information on Dimona, as well as photographs he had taken in his workplace, to the Sunday Times. The paper flew Vanunu to London, checked his information and photos with experts and splashed the story across its pages on Oct. 5, 1986.
"I wanted to confirm what everyone knows," Vanunu testified in court that he told his mother, according to the materials published in Yedioth today. "I wanted [Israel's nuclear capacity] to be monitored in an orderly fashion . . . Now Peres can no longer lie to [President] Reagan and tell him that we have no nuclear weapons. Now everyone knows."
In the Sunday Times, Vanunu described a secret six-level, underground facility at Dimona known as "the Tunnel," a chemical reprocessing plant handling highly radioactive materials. Among nuclear experts, including those at the CIA, the account was explosive. It revealed that Israel's ability to manufacture thermonuclear weapons was far more extensive and sophisticated than had been supposed, and laid bare the lengths to which the country had gone to conceal this from allies and foes alike.
Israeli officials, stunned and infuriated, discussed having Vanunu assassinated but settled on making an example of him. The damage he had done, Israeli officials believed, had altered Israel's Arab enemies to the Jewish state's capabilities, leading those countries to intensify their own nuclear programs.
"The publication spurred some Arab countries to adopt difficult policies, undesirable for the state of Israel," Peres testified in Vanunu's trial.
Peres, minister without portfolio in the current government, and some other figures denounced the publication of Vanunu's testimony, but other officials saw it as essentially harmless.
"The fact that he claims that Israel has nuclear power is not new," said Dan Meridor, chairman of the defense and foreign affairs committee of the Knesset, Israel's parliament. "This is why he was put to trial and convicted to a long sentence."
---
Nuclear secrets revealed to force truth
USA Today 11/24/99
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
JERUSALEM - In his closed-door treason trial, a former nuclear technician told judges he exposed Israel's nuclear arms program to force the government to tell the truth and bring the bombs under supervision, according to court records released for the first time Wednesday. Mordechai Vanunu has been kept away from the public since his 1986 arrest by Israeli security forces. The partial transcript of his trial, published in the Yediot Ahronot daily, provided the most detailed glimpse yet of the case. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison after telling what he knew about Israel's nuclear weapons to The Sunday Times newspaper, which printed its story on Oct. 6, 1986, saying that Israel had stockpiled roughly 100 nuclear weapons.
---
COLUMN: Israel's betrayal
By Vijay Bangaru The Student Life Washington U.-St. Louis
Updated 12:00 PM ET November 23, 1999
http://news.excite.com/news/uw/991123/university-101
(U-WIRE) ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Last week, NBC reported that the Israeli government is currently building advanced airborne radar system aboard Russian planes for China. According to their sources this radar deal is only the "tip of the iceberg" of Israeli transfers of U.S. technology to China. In addition to this PHALCON radar system, Israel has sold fighter jet and anti-ballistic missile technology to the Chinese. In addition to all this weaponry, they are also giving away the knowledge to reverse engineer any of these weapons.
The Israeli government is the recipient of $3.5 billion annually of U.S. taxpayer's money. And it knows (and has signed multiple treaties) that it should not be giving any U.S. technology away. But, since there is money to make by selling it, they do.
The sale of the Lavi fighter technology allows China to leapfrog its way from the 1960s fighters it has, to today's modern airforce. Lavi was funded by U.S. taxpayers (at a cost of over $1.45 billion) and is modeled off of the F-16. In addition to advanced missile systems and radar, it has stealth capability and is currently being built in large numbers for the Chinese. There are also reports of the Israeli sale of Patriot missile technology and anti-missile missile technology, all of which is American in origin.
Well, let's follow their logic. Since we have nuclear technology and there is a large number of Arab nations (enemies of Israel especially) that would love to buy it from us, we should sell nuclear technology and delivery systems to Lebanon. Imagine the public outcry at such an event.
But, on the other hand, we're supposed to sit around and accept that one of our "allies" is putting our own national security at a risk, by doing the same exact thing. The U.S. is very likely to have to face the Chinese military forces someday. To top it off, not only are we supposed to allow this to happen, we still have to give Israel billions of dollars as they sell our weapons to our enemies. "Allies" generally don't stab each other in the back.
The only reason that Israel has survived so long is due to the U.S. Israel has gotten more from being our ally than we have gotten from them. By supporting them we have turned the oil-rich Arab nations against us. The only reason that Israel has nuclear weapons, a hi-tech airforce and the ability to conduct advanced military research is because of American generosity and assistance.
Did Israel forget that any weapons that they sell to the Chinese will undoubtedly end up being used against them? Anyone who's so much as heard of China knows that Beijing sells weapons to Syria, Iran and Iraq. Has anyone in the Israel government even thought about this?
It's unbelievable to think that Israel -- surrounded by enemies 24/7 since its creation in 1947 -- would even consider selling the most technologically advanced war fighting equipment to it's enemies; enemies that openly call for its utter destruction. Either, the Israeli government is extremely corrupted by money, or on drugs. Possibly both.
It is unbelievable to think that the American government would give itds closely guarded military secrets and large amounts of money to a country that sells that same technology to adversarial states. Even if the Israeli government thinks so lowly about the safety of its people, the American government should not. We could save over $3.5 billion a year by not giving it to Israel and could use it in a number of better ways. In fact we should stop all military and diplomatic support of Israel. It' s about time this country steps up and sends a message to our "allies" -- don't betray us.
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Inflammatory words
Embassy Row
By James Morrison Washington Times November 24, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/embassy.html
The State Department yesterday denounced the latest remarks by Yasser Arafat's wife, who expanded on accusations against Israel first made last week in the presence of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"The continued repetition of baseless charges, charges without foundation that only serve to provoke the situation, that are outrageous and inflammatory, has no place in the public discourse between Israelis and Palestinians," said spokesman James P. Rubin.
"They only serve to undermine the trust and confidence so necessary at this juncture as the parties work to resolve their differences, and we have made that view known to the Palestinian Authority."
Suha Arafat, who accused Israel last week of attacking Palestinians with poisonous gas, added a new charge on Sunday in an interview with the Arab satellite television channel Orbit.
She said Israeli insecticide factories in Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip are spilling toxic waste.
She also refused to apologize for her Nov. 11 remarks. Mrs. Clinton sat next to Mrs. Arafat during her speech and failed to denounce her accusations until 12 hours had passed. By that time, the incident had become a political issue in her planned race for a U.S. Senate seat from New York.
-------- china
China Attack on U.S. Said Possible
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999; 6:42 a.m. EST The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline064247_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- Retired Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says China is preparing to take over the Panama Canal once the United States relinquishes control.
And he warned Tuesday of possible Chinese use of the area to launch a nuclear attack on America.
Moorer said China plans to seize control through a Hong Kong company, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., which has won the right to operate ports on both sides of the canal. He contended that the firm has close links to the Chinese military.
Moorer commented at a news conference sponsored by the John Birch Society, a rightist group opposed to the treaties.
The treaties require the United States to surrender control of the canal and to remove all U.S. troops by Dec. 31.
Administration officials have previously dismissed allegations of an eventual Chinese takeover of the canal as baseless.
Li Ka-shing, who runs the company at the center of the allegations and is one of Hong Kong's richest tycoons, has rejected the criticisms as a "joke."
"I have no intention to control the Panama Canal," Li told reporters recently.
Hutchison operates ports worldwide and says it competes with several other companies that offer cargo handling services at the Panama Canal, and would be in no position to control the canal.
Li maintains close ties with the Beijing leadership but Hutchison points out it is not a Chinese company and that there are no mainland entities holding a significant stake in the conglomerate.
Moorer spoke as U.S. and Panamanian officials met to discuss canal security and other issues once the transfer to Panamanian control takes place.
Heading the Panamanian delegation was Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Aleman, who conferred with U.S. officials on a draft Panamanian plan to ensure security over the waterway in the face threats from "terrorism, insurgency and organized crime."
A statement issued by the Panamanian Embassy said the draft plan also will be shared with eight other countries, including Taiwan. China was not among the eight.
Moorer, who served as Joint Chiefs chairman during the Nixon administration, said China's missiles can carry "a nuclear payload or an explosive payload, and they can also be mounted on a truck and moved around - and, therefore, very difficult to keep track of.
"And consequently, we have a situation where the Chinese are in a position today to secret these kinds of missiles into Panama and use Panama as a launching point for missiles to attack the United States," he said. "And no one seems to get exercised over that and the media doesn't ever mention that."
He said the Chinese threat "is more difficult to handle" than the Cuban missile crisis was.
--
China Attack on U.S. Said Possible
New York Times November 24, 1999 Filed at 6:42 a.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-Panama-China.html
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China Warns Against U.S. Anti-Missile Defense Plans
Inside China Today Thursday, Nov 25 at Prague 12:45 pm, N.Y. 06:45 am
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=112503
Nov 24, 1999 -- China's top disarmament official said on Wednesday U.S. plans to build an anti-missile defense system could trigger an arms race and threaten global and regional stability.
Sha Zukang, director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, said U.S. efforts to develop anti-missile missiles, known as the National Missile Defense (NMD) system, would have a formidable, adverse impact and tip the global balance.
"If such a balance and stability were shattered, the nuclear disarmament process would come to a grind or even be reversed," Sha wrote in the official China Daily.
"It will only poison the atmosphere, undermine the conditions necessary for nuclear disarmament and breed a potential danger of an arms race," Sha said.
He added: "Who can guarantee that other non-nuclear states will not go nuclear?"
Beijing had no immediate comment on a U.S. report that China appeared to be constructing a missile-related facility at a base about 300 miles (480 km) from Nationalist-ruled Taiwan.
The Washington Times said on Tuesday construction at the People's Liberation Army missile base was photographed by U.S. spy satellites in mid-October. A U.S. official later confirmed that there appeared to missile-related construction at the site.
The United States closely monitors China's military buildup because of the potential threat to Taiwan and the region. China has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares independence.
NEW BERLIN WALL
The China Daily published a cartoon of an American building a NMD wall with missiles and barbed wire. Two men watch on the other side of the wall, with one saying: "It seems he wants to build a new Berlin Wall."
Sha urged United States to "embrace" the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty signed with the then-Soviet Union.
The treaty limits defense systems designed to shoot down enemy missiles, on the theory that such shields would only tempt the other side to build more missiles to overwhelm the defenses.
Washington wants to amend the treaty to permit it to build a limited defense against any attack on the United States or U.S. troops stationed abroad by what it regards as "rogue states", such as North Korea and Iran, with a growing capacity to launch weapons of mass destruction.
Russia, which has rejected U.S. offers to amend the ABM treaty, flexed its military muscles this month. It test fired one of its short-range anti-missile rockets and for the first time in six years and an old nuclear-capable tactical missile.
WORRY DEFENSE UMBRELLA WOULD COVER TAIWAN
China is worried the anti-missile defense umbrella would cover Taiwan, a fledgling democracy with many friends in the U.S. Congress.
Taiwan has already bought technology for an air defense system with limited anti-aircraft and anti-missile capabilities, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said.
The United States has also sold surface-to-air missiles as well as vehicle-mounted "stinger avenger" systems to Taiwan.
Rubin said no decisions on theater missile defense systems had been made, but added: "We do not preclude the possible sale of such systems to Taiwan in the future."
China has taken a more belligerent attitude toward the island since Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui called for bilateral ties to be conducted on a "special state-to-state" basis in July.
Sha said the United States has "far too frequently, used or threatened to use force in international affairs in a bid to seek its own absolute security and military superiority".
"We hold the view that countries that are the loudest advocates for missile non-proliferation are exactly the ones that have actually aggravated missile proliferation," Sha said.
---
China Condemns U.S. Missile Plans
Associated Press Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999; 11:52 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline235245_000.htm
BEIJING -- The United States has no good reason to include Japan in an anti-missile defense system, a senior Chinese arms control official was quoted as saying Thursday.
Sha Zukang, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with the state-run Xinhua News Agency that Japan faced no threat from North Korea or other countries.
North Korea rattled the region by firing a missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean last year. The North recently shelved its plan to test-fire a more powerful missile after talks with the United States in October. But Sha argued "the so-called threat from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to Japan is just a pretext."
He also said Japan faced no threats from other countries because its relations with Russia had improved.
The White House, with the support of Congress, is developing a limited national missile defense, or NMD, that could be deployed as early as 2005. It also researching a theater missile defense system, or TMD, with Japan.
China opposes both systems, saying they could spark a costly and dangerous arms race. It fears TMD technology could be passed to Taiwan, allowing the island to defend itself against Chinese missiles. Although the two sides have been ruled separately for decades, Beijing views Taiwan as a province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China claims its nuclear weapons are for defense only and has pledged never to use them first. It strongly opposes a U.S. effort to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems treaty to allow for the development of a missile defense.
Washington wants to revise the 1972 ABM Treaty in order to build a defense system to protect against missiles from small rogue states.
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Taiwan: Chinese Missile Base Found
Filed at 10:04 a.m. EST November 24, 1999 By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Taiwan-China-Missile.html
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Defense Minister Tang Fei said Wednesday that Taiwan has detected a new Chinese missile brigade deployed near the island.
The new battalion of nearly 100 short-range ballistic missiles raises the threat against the island and emphasizes the need for an anti-missile defense, Tang said.
The Washington Times on Wednesday reported that the buildup was at a base in southeastern China about 275 miles from Taiwan. The missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the paper said.
U.S. State Department spokesman James P. Rubin refused to confirm or deny the report.
China and Taiwan split 50 years ago amid civil war, and China has repeatedly threatened to use force to reunify the island with the mainland.
Tang said Taiwan's intelligence gatherers had ``early on'' detected plans by China to deploy the battalion.
``This deployment is aimed at us,'' he told reporters.
The Times said China is building missile bases to deploy a missile brigade estimated to have 16 launchers and up to 96 missiles.
The growing Chinese missile threat puts more pressure on Taiwan to work aggressively to build a system for diverting or shooting down incoming missiles at low-altitude, Tang said.
Missiles are considered one of China's most potent tactical and psychological weapons against Taiwan. Financial markets plummeted here when China lobbed missiles into waters off Taiwan in 1995 and 1996 in an attempt to intimidate Taiwanese who favored maintaining the island's sovereignty.
Taiwan deployed U.S.-made Patriot defense missiles around Taipei and is developing anti-missile technology to protect the entire island, while seeking to buy improved U.S. defense missiles and guidance systems.
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Taiwan Accuses China of Threat
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999; 11:52 p.m. EST By Annie Huang Associated Press Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline235243_000.htm
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's president on Thursday accused China of threatening Taiwan with missiles in one of his most extensive speeches in months about the island's longtime rival.
The speech to business leaders came as some political observers expect President Lee Teng-hui to try to make China a bigger issue ahead of Taiwan's presidential election in March.
Referring to recent reports that China plans to deploy 100 new ballistic missiles across from Taiwan, Lee said that such military buildups encourage some Taiwanese to support formal independence for the island. Chinese officials haven't commented publicly on reports of the missile deployment.
Lee's Nationalist Party, which has ruled the island for more than five decades, is considered by many voters to be the most experienced in dealing with China.
A new focus on relations with Beijing might give the party's candidate, Vice President Lien Chan, a desperately needed boost in the polls. Most surveys show independent candidate James Soong in the lead, with the vice president lagging far behind in second or third place.
China and Taiwan separated amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing has repeatedly threatened to use force to reunify the two sides.
Taiwan's policy is to return to the mainland once it becomes more democratic and economically developed. But many Taiwanese favor breaking away for good and becoming an independent nation.
"We understand that raising tensions between the sides would create disorder in China and bring no advantage to either side or to any country in the region," Lee said.
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Are missiles targeting Taiwan?
Deseret News Wednesday, November 24, 1999
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,135007210,00.html?
WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid reports of a planned expansion of Chinese short-range missile systems across from Taiwan, the State Department said Tuesday it has made clear to China its concerns regarding missile deployments and their influence on the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
Spokesman James P. Rubin refused to confirm or deny a report in The Washington Times that China is deploying nearly 100 of its newest short-range missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, at a base about 275 miles from Taiwan.
Rubin said he could not comment because the report was based on intelligence information.
"We will continue to monitor the military balance in the Taiwan Strait closely and meet our obligation to provide Taiwan the arms it needs for an adequate defense," Rubin said. The Times said construction in China is being carried out for the planned deployment of a brigade of advanced CSS-7 missiles - also known as advanced M-11s. It said a Chinese missile brigade is estimated to have 16 launchers and up to 96 missiles.
The report added that the missiles can be armed with small nuclear warheads.
The administration has been uneasy about moves in Congress to increase training operations and exchanges between the two militaries and establish lines of communications during crises.
Rubin said the legislation, which has broad backing in Congress, "could have harmful effects, both in giving Taiwan a false impression of what would happen and/or giving China unnecessary advantage or knowledge.
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U.S. might sell missile shields to aid Taiwan
WASHINGTON TIMES November 24, 1999 By Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/news/news1.html
http://www.newslibrary.com/download.asp?DBLIST=wt99&DOCNUM=25707
The State Department said yesterday it is watching the buildup of Chinese missiles near Taiwan and is considering sales of missile defenses to counter it.
"We have made clear to the Chinese government our concerns regarding Chinese missile developments and their influence on the situation in the Taiwan Strait," State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said in response to a report in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times.
"We have a strong interest in maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," he told reporters. "That is why we have approved defensive-arms sales to Taiwan in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act."
Clinton administration officials have told The Times that Chinese forces are expanding a missile base across from Taiwan and will deploy nearly 100 advanced short-range missiles there capable of hitting the island.
"Are they doing some construction there of a probable missile facility? Yes," said a U.S. official who spoke to Reuters news agency yesterday on the condition of anonymity.
In Taipei, Foreign Minister Jason Hu criticized the new development.
"This is strictly not helpful in reducing tensions and maintaining peace and security in our region," he told The Times in a telephone interview.
"Furthermore," he declared, "it does not help the [People's Republic of China] in its avowed efforts to improve relations with the United States."
Mr. Rubin declined to comment directly on the new missile base, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters.
However, he said the administration is monitoring closely the military balance in the Taiwan Strait and is considering the sale of theater missile-defense systems to Taiwan, a move China opposes.
"We do not preclude the possible sale of such systems to Taiwan in the future," Mr. Rubin said. "Our interest, however, is in preserving peace and stability in the region and any final decision will be made on that basis."
The statement echoed the remarks of Adm. Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, who said in a recent interview that the United States is justified in providing missile defenses to Taiwan because China is deploying 500 to 600 missiles opposite the island.
Asked later about the possible theater missile-defense sales, Mr. Rubin said in an interview that the United States has "an active dialogue" with the Taiwanese government on the issue.
However, specific sales of effective missile defenses are "premature," he said, because advanced missile defenses such as the Army's Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, are still under development.
Such missile defenses now are foreseen only as protection for U.S. troops in the region, he said.
Mr. Rubin said the Taiwanese have purchased some U.S. anti-aircraft weapons that have some capability to hit incoming missiles. They include an early version of the Patriot anti-missile system, as well as the HAWK, Chaparral and Sky Guard air-defense systems, and the vehicle-mounted Stinger Avenger anti-aircraft missile.
Senior White House and State Department officials have resisted requests to provide Taiwan with more-advanced Patriot systems, or with the future Army THAAD and Navy Theater Wide systems when they are deployed, according to Pentagon officials.
A U.S. spy satellite photographed construction at the Chinese missile base at Yangang, located about 275 miles from Taiwan, in mid-October.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe the base is being readied for deployment of China's new CSS-7 Mod 2, an advanced version of a short-range missile also known as the M-11.
The Chinese are expected to deploy a brigade of the new missiles, which analysts say will include 16 truck-mobile launchers and 96 missiles.
The mobile missiles have a range of about 300 miles and will be armed with several types of conventional warheads, including high-explosive, cluster bombs, fuel-air explosive and electromagnetic pulse payloads. The missiles also could be armed with nuclear warheads -- warheads that U.S. intelligence believes were developed from stolen U.S. nuclear secrets.
Tensions have increased between China and Taiwan over the past several months since Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui said relations with the mainland should be carried out on a state-to-state basis.
The remarks were denounced by Beijing, which opposes any declaration of independence by the island it regards as a province.
Mr. Rubin said it is "wildly inaccurate" for U.S. officials to claim the State Department agrees with China's opposition to sales of advanced missile defenses to Taiwan.
A U.S. official and specialist on the Chinese military told The Times that the department is ignoring China's missile buildup, a modernization program the Pentagon says will total up to 650 missiles by 2005.
In a related development, Mr. Rubin said the administration opposes a bill now being debated in Congress to increase the amount and quality of defensive arms sold to Taiwan.
The Taiwan Security Enhancement Act currently is on hold in the House, based on a request to delay consideration of the measure until after China is allowed to join the World Trade Organization, congressional aides said.
"We have opposed that law under the basic formula that 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' " Mr. Rubin said. "We have a very good working system, a set of communiques and laws that deal with the U.S.-Taiwan military relationship."
Republicans in Congress, however, have said the administration has violated those laws by failing to consult closely with Congress on arms sales and for denying Taipei's repeated requests for such weapons as submarines, advanced air-to-air missiles and missile defenses.
Mr. Rubin also criticized China's government for its comments about Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
Mr. Bush said in a speech Friday that, if he were president, he would help Taiwan defend itself and would view China as a competitor and not a "strategic partner."
"Any attempt to have China checked does not conform with the fundamental interests of the people of Asia-Pacific," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi told reporters in Beijing.
"We have a very, very profoundly different view than the Chinese Foreign Ministry or the Chinese government, about their vision for the future," Mr. Rubin said. "And so they are entitled to their views. But I think it would probably behoove them to spend more time worrying about their vision than worrying about the vision of American politicians."
---
Taiwan says it has detected new Chinese missile base
Fox News 10.02 a.m. ET (1513 GMT) November 24, 1999
http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/news/international/1124/i_ap_1124_48.sml
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Defense Minister Tang Fei said Wednesday that Taiwan has detected a new Chinese missile brigade deployed near the island.
The new battalion of nearly 100 short-range ballistic missiles raises the threat against the island and emphasizes the need for an anti-missile defense, Tang said.
The Washington Times on Wednesday reported that the buildup was at a base in southeastern China about 275 miles from Taiwan. The missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the paper said.
U.S. State Department spokesman James P. Rubin refused to confirm or deny the report.
China and Taiwan split 50 years ago amid civil war, and China has repeatedly threatened to use force to reunify the island with the mainland.
Tang said Taiwan's intelligence gatherers had "early on'' detected plans by China to deploy the battalion.
"This deployment is aimed at us,'' he told reporters.
The Times said China is building missile bases to deploy a missile brigade estimated to have 16 launchers and up to 96 missiles.
The growing Chinese missile threat puts more pressure on Taiwan to work aggressively to build a system for diverting or shooting down incoming missiles at low-altitude, Tang said.
Missiles are considered one of China's most potent tactical and psychological weapons against Taiwan. Financial markets plummeted here when China lobbed missiles into waters off Taiwan in 1995 and 1996 in an attempt to intimidate Taiwanese who favored maintaining the island's sovereignty.
Taiwan deployed U.S.-made Patriot defense missiles around Taipei and is developing anti-missile technology to protect the entire island, while seeking to buy improved U.S. defense missiles and guidance systems.
---
China Argues Against Planned U.S. Missile Defense
New York Times November 24, 1999 By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/24china-nyt.html
BEIJING -- China's chief of arms control warned on Wednesday that a planned American national missile defense system, even one intended to stop attacks from rogue states like North Korea and Iraq, would set off a global arms race and cause more countries to develop nuclear weapons.
The United States has proposed amending the existing Antiballistic Missile Treaty to allow limited defenses. In an article Wednesday in the China Daily, Sha Zukang, director of arms control and disarmament in China's foreign ministry, defended the treaty as a cornerstone of nuclear stability.
He wrote, "Amending it in search of national missile defense will tip the global balance, trigger a new arms race and jeopardize world and regional stability."
Russia, the main nuclear rival of the United States, has also been vociferous in opposing missile defenses and United States efforts to alter the treaty. The United States has proposed that the first phase of the defensive missile system would be built in Alaska to shield all 50 states against attacks by rogue nations.
So far China has objected more strenuously to theater missile defenses, which are local systems to protect American allies in Asia from missile attacks. China worries that such high-technology defenses would be offered to Taiwan, encouraging it to declare formal independence and cementing United States-Taiwan military ties.
Though the debate is already heated, the development of theater defenses that could stop a blitz of short-range missiles is still in the research stage. But in Wednesday's article and recent speeches, Chinese officials have also vehemently challenged the progressing American plans for a national defense system, perhaps designed to stop a handful of incoming missiles.
A prime reason for Chinese concern, according to weapons experts, is that even a limited system would undercut China's own nuclear strategy, forcing it to spend far more than it wants to build extra rockets and bombs.
Unlike the United States and Russia, each of which fielded thousands of nuclear weapons in a race for slim advantages, China has deployed small numbers of weapons simply intended to give opponents second thoughts.
Right now, Western analysts believe, China may have no more than two dozen long-range missiles capable of reaching parts of the United States with single warheads. China's theory is that if a prospective attacker believes that even one or two of China's missiles could get through to destroy a city, then a nuclear attack will be deterred.
The Chinese know that their current aging missiles are vulnerable to sudden attack on the ground, and have plans to replace them with more powerful missiles that are mobile.
Western officials do not know how many such missiles the Chinese plan to field. But even limited American defenses could reduce China's confidence that it could mount a deadly counter-attack in a war. So China may feel it needs a relatively larger force, perhaps including missiles that carry multiple warheads, to keep its stature as a nuclear power.
Sha, in the Wednesday article and other speeches, did not mention these strategic concerns, and only referred to a hastened arms race. In the article Wednesday, he also said that an American missile defense would "undermine the conditions necessary for nuclear disarmament."
And without the promise of superpower arms reductions, he said, "who can guarantee that other non-nuclear states will not go nuclear?"
-------- nuc history
[Fruits of the new Washington Times Search Engine - http://www.washtimes.com/archives_search.html - this quote might be useful for those working for or against Gore.]
TILTING AT WINDMILLS
Published on 01/30/98, WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.newslibrary.com/download.asp?DBLIST=wt98&DOCNUM=11799
Vice President Al Gore doesn't like nuclear power. He believes there are just too darn many "uncertainties," such as how to dispose of radioactive spent fuel, associated with it.
He said last year that he and President Clinton "believe strongly that this country can meet its future energy demands by incorporating better efforts toward conservation and the widespread use of alternative energy. To that end, this Administration is opposed to increased reliance on nuclear power." ...
---
[Remember this?]
Nuke Mishap Shakes Japanese Confidence Prime Minister Apologizes To Nation
WASHINGTON TIMES Published on 03/13/97
http://www.newslibrary.com/download.asp?DBLIST=wt97&DOCNUM=6293
TOKYO - Officials battled yesterday to restore public confidence in nuclear power after a fire and explosion at a reprocessing facility contaminated 35 workers and released radioactive gas into the neighborhood.
The incident Tuesday marked the second major nuclear accident in just over a year in a nation that depends on atomic power for one-third of its energy needs.
---
[I wonder what the status is on this three-plus years later?]
Faa Experts Saw Hazardous Cargo Leading To Disaster Agency Did Little After '92 Warning
WASHINGTON TIMES Published on 06/14/96
http://www.newslibrary.com/download.asp?DBLIST=wt96&DOCNUM=14869
Last month's ValuJet crash in the Everglades was the sort of tragedy the Federal Aviation Administration's hazardous-materials experts had warned about for years, but to no avail.
The May 11 crash that killed all 110 passengers and crew prompted the FAA to begin an intensive review of its hazardous-materials inspection program - hazmat for short. As The Washington Times reported last Friday, the FAA plans to spend an estimated $14 million to hire, train and equip about 118 new hazmat specialists.
---
Federal Emergency Agency Ignores An Easy Way To Prevent One Danger
WASHINGTON TIMES Published on 05/25/96
http://www.newslibrary.com/download.asp?DBLIST=wt96&DOCNUM=13131
On April 26, the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, three separate commentaries in The Washington Times discussed the alarmingly high incidence of childhood thyroid cancers in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Professor S. Fred Singer's article made the valid and important point that these thyroid cancers "could have been avoided if the children had been quickly fed ordinary potassium iodide to `saturate' the thyroid - as recommended by the Kemeny Commission after the Three Mile Island accident….
-------- korea
N. Korea Warns South Over Missiles
New York Times November 24, 1999 Filed at 11:03 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Koreas-Missile.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea on Wednesday accused South Korea of developing longer-range missiles and threatened to take a ``stronger countermeasure'' against its rival.
The North said it is upset by reports that South Korea is trying to develop a missile that can reach all parts of the communist country.
``If the South Korean rulers persist in their desperate moves to develop ballistic missiles despite our warnings, we will take a stronger countermeasure against it,'' said the North's ruling party paper, Rodong Sinmun.
The paper's report, carried by the North's foreign news outlet, KCNA, did not specify what measure the reclusive country would take. North Korean statements are often belligerent.
North Korea is believed to have far more advanced missile programs than South Korea. Last year, it rattled the region by firing a missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.
The North shelved its plan to test-fire a more powerful missile after talks with the United States in October. Experts say the new missile could reach Hawaii and Alaska.
Under a 1979 agreement with the United States, South Korea cannot develop a missile with a range longer than 112 miles. Washington has agreed in principle to lift the ban, allowing Seoul to develop a missile capable of traveling up to 187 miles.
South Korea wants U.S. permission to research and develop a missile with a range of up to 312 miles, a distance that would cover all of North Korea.
Three days of U.S.-South Korea missile talks in Seoul last week failed to reach agreement on the issue.
The United States is concerned that South Korea's efforts to lengthen missile ranges may trigger a regional arms race.
The two Koreas fought a war a half-century ago and tensions have been high ever since.
-------- switzerland
Swiss Defense Minister Wants 'Armed Neutrality'
New York Times November 24, 1999 Filed at 6:06 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-swiss-a.html
ZURICH, Switzerland (Reuters) - Swiss Defense Minister Adolf Ogi, whose right-wing SVP party made strong gains in elections last month, said Wednesday that Switzerland's troops on operations abroad might be given heavy weapons as part of a new policy of ``armed neutrality.''
Ogi added that traditionally neutral Switzerland had to participate in more peacekeeping missions abroad to prevent situations in which large numbers of refugees would want to flood into the country.
``It is neutrality, it is armed neutrality,'' he said on DRS state television, noting that Finland regularly authorized foreign missions for its military without damaging its own reputation for neutrality.
Ogi is the only representative of the SVP party in Switzerland's seven-member cabinet and is scheduled to assume the country's rotating presidency in 2000.
The SVP said after making the best showing in October's parliamentary elections that it would shake up a 40-year-old coalition structure and demand another cabinet seat at the expense of one of the three other parties when the make-up of the new government is decided next month.
Ogi told the Swiss Rundschau television program that Switzerland's troops abroad could in future be equipped with machine guns, armored cars and armor-piercing weapons.
``We have to be able to protect the people who are building a school and the poor people for whom they are making the school,'' he said.
Switzerland, not a member of NATO or any other military alliance, is testing its first foreign troop deployments with the Swisscoy battalion in Kosovo.
Those peacekeeping troops were routinely carrying handguns and automatic rifles, the television program reported.
The program showed that Swiss soldiers were unarmed when inside a refugee camp near Pristina, but when they left the camp for transport work they carried guns.
Swiss military law does not allow soldiers to carry weapons abroad and the Swisscoy force is officially under the protection of Austrian KFOR soldiers. Within Switzerland, soldiers and reservists openly carry guns as part of the country's ``popular army'' defense system.
Ogi said the Swiss needed to fulfill their tasks as part of a 2,200-strong Kosovo peacekeeping contingent and outside refugee camps they were responsible for their own safety.
Other leading SVP politicians, such as Christoph Blocher, are vehemently against foreign missions for Swiss soldiers and want the country to remain staunchly neutral and independent -- not joining NATO, the United Nations or the European Union.
In October's election the SVP, campaigning on an isolationist right-wing platform, soared to 22.6 percent of the vote, while the Social Democrats (SP) had 22.5 percent, the center-right Radical Democrats (FDP) 19.9 percent and the CVP 15.8 percent.
On Dec. 15, members of the upper and lower houses of parliament are to vote for members of the cabinet, known as the Federal Council.
Traditionally the incumbent ministers are confirmed in office, maintaining the ``magic formula'' coalition which has been in power since 1959.
-------- iran
Tehran opposes visits by U.S. envoys
Washinigton Times November 24, 1999 By Toni Marshall
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl2.html
The United States wants to send diplomats to Iran despite Tehran's repeated objections to an American presence there, the State Department said yesterday.
Washington has informally approached Iranian officials about sending U.S. envoys to Tehran for short visits to help process visas, spokesman James P. Rubin said.
The United States has permitted Iranian officials to come to Washington and believes Iran should reciprocate, he said.
"We think it's high time that Iran allowed U.S. officials the same privilege in their country. . . . We have allowed Iranian officials to visit their Interest Section in Washington, for example. Unfortunately, the Iranian government has not been prepared to reciprocate."
Mr. Rubin said the United States wants consular officials to visit Iran to help with visas for Iranians traveling to the United States and to assist those Americans who wish to go to Iran.
U.S. officials say they continue to promote "people-to-people" exchanges between Iran and the United States and have permitted Iranian officials to travel here to partake in such exchanges.
Mr. Rubin made his remarks following published reports that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had rejected a U.S. request to permanently place a U.S. diplomat in Tehran.
The ayatollah, in a speech broadcast on state-run radio, said Iranian officials are resisting pressure from the United States, which says it wants to base Americans in Tehran.
"In fact, what they [Americans] want is to open an office for intelligence and political activities and forge ties with their mercenaries in Iran," the ayatollah said in the speech Monday to university students in Tehran.
Mr. Rubin denied that there had been any request for a permanent U.S. envoy in Iran. He said the Swiss government still took care of American interests at its embassy.
Earlier yesterday, National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger, traveling with President Clinton in Aviano, Italy, also denied the United States wanted to send a diplomat to live in Iran.
Mr. Rubin would not go into detail about the discourse between Tehran and Washington, but he said the matter had not gotten to the point where Washington had made a request that a visa be issued to a U.S. official.
"Our sense of the Iranian government position is not based on having presented them a visa request and it being denied," he said. "We've never gotten to that stage."
Washington severed diplomatic relations with Iran after militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
The United States has sought to improve relations since the 1997 election of moderate President Mohammed Khatami.
-------- russia
Yeltsin Wants Test Ban Ratified As Priority
Russia Today Thursday, Nov 25 at Prague 12:45 pm, N.Y. 06:45 am
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=111992
MOSCOW, Nov 22, 1999 -- (Reuters) President Boris Yeltsin announced on Monday he wanted parliament to ratify a nuclear test ban treaty as a priority, but it seems unlikely deputies will feel the same urgency while ties with the United States are strained.
The U.S. Senate dealt President Bill Clinton an embarrassing blow last month by rejecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, drawing widespread international condemnation.
Yeltsin, seeking to capitalize on Washington's discomfort and deflect criticism of Russia's military campaign in Chechnya, said last week at the Istanbul summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe he had sent the treaty to the State Duma (lower house of parliament) to be ratified.
"The president of Russia has proposed that the question of ratifying the treaty be made a priority," the Kremlin said. "The treaty, in Boris Yeltsin's view, meets Russia's interests."
In theory, the Duma can review and ratify treaties within weeks. But such a weighty accord would need to be studied by several parliamentary committees just as deputies prepare for a December 19 election to the lower chamber. The upper house would also need to place its stamp on the document.
"I'm absolutely convinced this document has no chance whatsoever of being ratified in the present Duma," said Vladimir Ryzhkov, parliamentary head of the Our Home is Russia party. "It's to do with the geo-political situation in the world. The Americans are behaving like a bull in a china shop."
He said apart from failing to ratify the test ban accord and putting pressure on Moscow because of Chechnya, Washington wanted to violate another pact, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, to be able to deploy a national missile defense system.
"As long as the United States sticks to its clearly unfriendly policy toward Russia, no Duma is ever going to ratify that (test ban) treaty," Ryzhkov told Reuters.
The Kremlin statement said the treaty, which Moscow signed in 1996, would not damage Russia's defenses or security.
"If these national interests are placed under threat, the Russian Federation can use its right to leave the treaty," the Kremlin said.
Washington wants to renegotiate the ABM treaty to allow it to deploy a Star Wars-style national missile defense system to guard against so-called rogue states.
MIXED MESSAGE ON POSSIBLE COMPROMISE
Moscow believes the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of many other arms accords and is against any changes in it.
The head of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, Colonel-General Vladimir Yakovlev, gave an intriguing hint of compromise last Friday when he said the United States and Russia should set up a commission to examine the rogue threat.
"If this commission works properly we could speak in more detail about the need to create national anti-missile systems," he told ORT television. He was speaking after the OSCE summit at which Clinton and Yeltsin discussed arms control.
The chief of the Russian General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin, stuck to a tougher line in the latest edition of the military weekly Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye. He said the U.S. plan had Russia and China in mind rather than rogues.
He said nuclear missile reductions could be suspended or halted altogether if the ABM pact was violated. The newspaper also said Russia aimed to upgrade missile testing sites to allow Moscow to test weapons capable of penetrating a defense shield.
---
Russia Says U.S. Concerns May Be Met Without Amending ABM Pact
Russia Today Thursday, Nov 25 at Prague 12:45 pm, N.Y. 06:45 am
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=112183
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 23, 1999 -- (Reuters) Russia's U.N. ambassador suggested that U.S. misgivings about the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty could be addressed within the existing pact and without the amendments sought by Washington.
Russia has been alarmed by U.S. plans to set up a national anti-missile shield against potential attacks by "rogue states" and has so far rejected American offers to amend the ABM treaty, which bans the creation of such systems.
Ambassador Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Monday that American concerns could be addressed in the context of adjustments to the ABM treaty signed in New York in September 1997. These included deployment of low-speed theatre missile defense systems.
"We are ready to address their concerns about the increased threats of missile proliferation," he said. "But this could be perfectly done at this stage in the context of 1997 New York agreement about so-called non-strategic ABM defenses."
But Lavrov, in rejecting the amendments proposed by Washington, said: "I want to make very clear that amendments to the ABM treaty, which would allow limited national anti-missile defense, would be against the core of the treaty, which prohibits such a defense and which also prohibits the creation of a basis for such defense."
His comments followed those of Russian Col.-Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, commander of Moscow's Strategic Missile Forces, who said on Friday a joint commission could examine the threat from rogue states.
In response, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said "the idea that they would want to work closely with us on defining the threat and then dealing with the threat would be welcome."
Lavrov again appealed to the United States and its allies to keep the ABM treaty intact or other strategic nuclear pacts would crumble, including the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or the nuclear test ban treaty.
"Those (U.S.) amendments would ruin the treaty, and if the treaty is ruined, you can safely forget about not only continuation of strategic arms reduction negotiations, but you can well witness the burial of the existing strategic arms limitation agreements," he said.
At the United Nations, Lavrov, along with the ambassadors of China and Belarus sponsored a resolution that calls for continued efforts to strengthen and preserve the 1972 treaty. It was adopted by a General Assembly committee on November 5, which assures its passage by full Assembly on December 1.
Lavrov said he was gratified that NATO nations did not join the United States in voting against the resolution, which he said indicated disapproval of American actions on the ABM.
The Nov. 5 vote was 54 to 4 with 73 abstentions. Voting against the resolutions, together with the United States, were Israel, Latvia and Micronesia. Thirteen of the 15 members of the European Union abstained while France and Ireland, voted for the resolution.
---
Gore to Meet Kazakh Leader After MiG Case
By JAMES RISEN New York Times November 24, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/kazakh-us.html
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Al Gore plans to meet with the leader of Kazakhstan in December, despite reports of that country's sale of Soviet-built weapons to North Korea, administration officials said this week.
Gore's office said he would meet President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Washington on Dec. 20, during the annual session of a bilateral commission on U.S.-Kazakh affairs. Gore is co-chairman of the panel.
He decided to meet Nazarbayev after reports in the summer of Kazakhstan's sale of 40 MiG fighters to North Korea.
The White House stressed that the meeting would occur after Nazarbayev had addressed U.S. concerns over the MiGs.
Fearful that the shipments of the 1960s-era jets planes, which the administration learned about in August, could harm relations with the United States, Nazarbayev ordered a series of arrests, ousted his closest adviser and announced that he was reforming his government's system of arms exports.
After Nazarbayev had moved quickly to deal with the problem, the State Department announced this month that it would not sanction Kazakhstan for the sales.
Gore's spokesman said because the State Department had decided to waive sanctions, there was no reason why the MiG shipment should delay Gore's meeting with Nazarbayev.
Gore also talked to Nazarbayev to express his concern over the shipments when they were discovered, said the spokesman for the vice president.
The discovery in August that a trainload of disassembled MiGs had been shipped from Kazakhstan to North Korea followed an incident in the spring, when Azerbaijan announced that it had stopped a cargo plane from Kazakhstan that was carrying MIG fighters that was also headed to North Korea.
Other problems still cloud relations between the United States and Kazakhstan. Gore has expressed concern how October's parliamentary elections were handled and plans to press further for election reforms, officials said.
But the important ingredient in U.S.-Kazakh relations is oil.
The Clinton administration is eager for oil-rich Kazakhstan to devote at least some of its supply to a Caspian region pipeline to Turkey that circumvents Russia, to reduce Moscow's influence over the giant Caspian oil fields.
The administration now sees itself competing with Russia for influence over the Caspian region's energy resources, and that has turned U.S. policy in Central Asia into a complicated game of pipeline politics.
In addition to nonproliferation and political reforms, the session will most probably cover U.S. proposals for changes in Kazakhstan's laws that govern foreign investments in its oil and gas industry.
---
Russia to Cut Its Military Forces in Georgia
New York Times November 24, 1999 By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/112499russia-georgia.html
MOSCOW -- In a move that will blunt its influence in the Caucasus, Russia has agreed to slash its military forces in Georgia.
The agreement was negotiated last week in Istanbul during the summit meeting of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe and completed even as Russia pressed ahead with its military campaign in Chechnya, Georgia's neighbor.
"We achieved almost everything we would have liked," said Archil Gegeshidze, the foreign policy adviser to Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, on Tuesday in a telephone interview. "It is very important and the beginning of a new relationship with the Russians."
The agreement announced Tuesday was not the only understanding sealed in Istanbul. Moscow also agreed to withdraw its 2,500 troops from Moldova by 2002, marking a further retreat from the former Soviet republics around Russia's periphery, which Russians refer to as the "near abroad."
Georgia, a former Soviet republic with a pro-Western policy, has a complex relationship with Russia. Russia has four military bases in Georgia, and the Georgians do not want all of them to close just yet. Still, Georgia has been looking for a way to reduce Russia's military presence, and the new accord will help Shevardnadze's government move away from Moscow's shadow.
As Georgian and Russian foreign ministry and military officials began a final round of talks last week, however, the outcome was far from certain. The negotiations were part of the broader effort to update the treaty governing conventional military forces in Europe.
Some Georgian officials feared that the Russian campaign in Chechnya was part of a new assertiveness in the Caucasus, and might jeopardize the talks on reducing Russian forces in Georgia. Those fears were aggravated by a blunt speech just before the summit meeting by Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, casting the Caucasus as a new area of heightened East-West competition.
Moscow, which fought a 1994-96 war to suppress a secessionist movement in Chechnya, began its current offensive in September after accusing Chechen militants of terrorist bombings in Russia and of incursions into neighboring Dagestan.
As Shevardnadze and his aides arrived in Istanbul last week they also received some ominous news that appeared to bode ill for the talks. Russian helicopters had ventured across the border into Georgia last Wednesday and dropped mines near the town of Shatili in an apparent effort to seal one of the routes from Georgia into Chechnya.
Russia has charged that Chechen militants continue to receive arms shipments across the 50-mile-long Chechen-Russian frontier, something Georgia has denied. And Georgia has rejected Moscow's proposal to dispatch Russian troops to the Georgian side of the border, fearing that it would be drawn into the fighting.
As the Istanbul meeting got under way, some Georgians thought the helicopter episode might have been intended as Moscow's way of pressuring Georgia to make concessions.
Russian officials have refused to comment on the helicopter incident. However, Vitaly Pavlov, the chief of aviation for the Russian army, told reporters Tuesday that Russian Mi-8 helicopters are dropping mines near the Chechen-Georgian border.
Despite the dispute and some tense exchanges, Russia and Georgia worked out an agreement.
Under the new accord, Russia will close two military bases in Georgia by mid-2001.
One is the Vaziani air base near Tiblisi, which has been a symbol of Russian influence near the Georgian capital and, according to the Georgians, a center of some Russian intrigues.
The other is the Gudauta base, which is located in the seccessionist province of Abkhazia. The Georgians have long accused Russia of sympathizing with the Muslim rebels there and even providing them with aid.
The Russians will still be allowed to use their bases in Akhalkalaki and Batumi. The Georgians fear the economic impact of closing the Russian base in Akhalkalaki, an ethnic Armenian area, because it is one of the region's main employers. And Georgians say that closing the base in Batumi could lead to instability there.
But Georgia's ultimate goal is to force the closure of those Russian bases as well.
The new accord will also require the Russians to reduce their weapons in Georgia. The most significant cut is in armored combat vehicles, which will be slashed to 241 from 481.
The Georgians did not get everything they wanted. They had hoped to get the Russians to accept the principle that their forces should not exceed those of the Georgia's own modest military, but eventually dropped that demand.
Still, given the anxiety about Russia's ambitions in the Caucasus, the accord was a welcome development.
"The Georgians basically got what they wanted," said U.S. official.
---
Gorbachev Faults US on Weaker Ties
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 1999; 11:22 a.m. EST The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991124/aponline112219_000.htm
MOSCOW -- Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev blames the United States for Russia's deteriorating relations with the West, the Interfax news agency said Wednesday.
Western countries have intensely criticized Russia for its three-month military offensive in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, focusing on widespread civilian deaths and the plight of more than 200,000 war refugees. Russia angrily rejects such criticism, saying Chechnya is an internal matter.
Relations with the West also have been strained by Russian alarm over NATO's eastward expansion, allegations of widespread Russian money laundering and Russia's firm opposition to U.S. efforts to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
"I am seriously concerned by this trend. What lies on the surface is just the tip of the iceberg," the agency quoted Gorbachev as saying. If this change strengthens, we will have a second round of confrontations."
"The United States has not been able to rid itself of the complex of suspicion in relation to Russia, and this determines everything," Gorbachev said, according to Interfax. Gorbachev said the United States is primarily to blame for "attempting to adjust all international institutions to their interests."
-------- y2k
Y2K poll shows drop in public concern
USA Today November 24 1999
http://usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm
Americans are increasingly confident the Year 2000 glitch won't spoil their New Year's Eve weekend. Yet the number of people who are taking precautions has risen in the past few months. More than half of those responding to the latest in a year-long series of USA TODAY/National Science Foundation polls say they will avoid air travel (55%) and document their financial holdings (58%). And more people than in three previous polls plan to stockpile food and water (40%) or gasoline (28%). Despite the precautions, the percentages anticipating that critical systems will fail in some significant manner slipped to the lowest point in a year. Just 38% say financial services will be troubled; 34% expect problems with air traffic control; and 32% foresee food shortages.
Fewer people planning to withdraw large amounts of cash
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg735.htm
Few worried about Y2K, but just in case...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg736.htm
Make Y2K list now, check it twice
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg737.htm
---
DOs and DON'Ts of Y2K
USA Today 11/24/99- Updated 11:20 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg738.htm
These recommendations reflect a broad swath of opinions, some far more conservative than others. For example, the Red Cross recommends preparations to last three to seven days; California and Florida, seven to 10 days; Canada, two weeks. Some experts insist on longer. Your goal should be to achieve a level of comfort for you and your family, based on your personal inventory list and your educated concerns about Y2K. For the purposes of this list, it's assumed that there may be some difficult situations, but it won't be the end of the world as we know it. USA TODAY's M.J. Zuckerman looks at the do's and don'ts:
DOs
DO make all possible preparations as soon as you can.
DO plan on spending a fair amount of time checking, upgrading and preparing your home computer and software applications. PC and software makers typically are providing consumer-friendly information and upgrades at their Web sites.
DO create a basic "disaster supply kit," including water, food, first-aid supplies, clothing, bedding, tools, emergency supplies and special items. Check the Red Cross' Web site (www.redcross.org) for specifics.
DO stockpile some basic foods, enough to get through a week to 10 days without going to the store.
DO keep extra cash on hand, perhaps enough to live on for an entire week.
DO keep detailed records of your finances for the last six months of the year and continuing into 2000. And watch carefully for financial oddities, such as unexplained transfers or deductions or decimal points in the wrong places.
DO keep stock certificates, insurance policies and other records in a safe, fireproof container.
DO keep battery-operated lights, specially designed, long-burning emergency candles, or kerosene lamps and necessary supplies.
DO have an alternative means of cooking if you are dependent on electricity. Propane camping stoves are ideal for this purpose.
DO consider alternative means for heating your home, such as kerosene heaters and efficient wood stoves. Keep sufficient supplies stored safely. Make sure the chimney is clean.
DO store enough water for a minimum of three to seven days' use -- a gallon per person per day for drinking and cooking, according to the Red Cross, or up to 4 gallons per person per day if you plan to rig makeshift showers. Some states are recommending storing a two-week water supply.
DO refill prescriptions so you always have a supply for seven to 10 days on hand.
DO consider how you could operate your home, for three to seven days at a time, without electricity.
DO keep your car's gas tank at or above half-full. Have a system for siphoning gasoline, such as the small hand pumps available at hardware stores.
DON'Ts
DON'T assume that Jan. 1 is the only date to worry about. Some problems have surfaced, and others are expected to continue for months after New Year's Day.
DON'T assume that having gone through the upgrade process, you are safe. Back up files and systems wherever possible.
DON'T forget that even after Y2K is a memory, the Federal Emergency Management Agency endorses the "disaster supply kit" as a staple of every safe home.
DON'T count on frozen foods; canned and dry foods are a better bet.
DON'T close out your bank account and stash large amounts of cash around your home. ATMs are least likely to fail, and large amounts of cash make you vulnerable to theft.
DON'T panic if you see some oddity. Your documents will help prove your case, and the federal government insures your accounts.
DON'T take everything home from a bank safe-deposit box. That exposes you to an increased chance of loss. Besides, even in a worst-case scenario -- if the bank loses power or the vault door locks -- documents are safer there than at home.
DON'T use decorative, common long candles for light; they are unstable and a fire hazard.
DON'T operate a barbecue gas grill or charcoal grill in the house. DON'T count on a fireplace to heat your home -- unless specially installed, it will draw off more heat than it provides.
DON'T bother with bottled water. Fill large containers with tap water. Five-gallon plastic containers can be stacked in a garage and easily carried; 55-gallon drums require hoses and pumps; inexpensive 200-gallon vinyl water bags are available through camping outlets. If you store large quantities of water, you also might need some method of purifying it.
DON'T horde prescriptions; that action might deny someone else easy access.
DON'T assume a large generator is the only answer. A small generator, if operated safely on an extension cord outside, can run any number of appliances, one at a time. And battery-operated lights and radios are essential.
DON'T store gasoline or other fuels inside your home.
--------romania
Romania Nuclear Plant Restarts Production
Central Europe Online
Thursday, Nov 25 at Prague 01:54 pm, N.Y. 07:54 am
http://www.centraleurope.com/news.php3?id=112818
BUCHAREST, Nov 24, 1999 -- (Reuters) Romania's sole nuclear power plant Cernavoda resumed power generation after staying shut for seven weeks due to a lack of funds to pay insurance fees, the plant's operator said on Wednesday.
"The plant has managed to pay its $250,000 quarterly insurance fee after (national electricity company) Conel funded it with $1 million for maintenance work," Nuclearoelectrica manager Teodor Chirica told Reuters.
The plant at Cernavoda, on the River Danube, closed down its sole 750-megawatt nuclear reactor on October 3. Maintenance was scheduled to end by November 3 but was extended by 21 days while funds were sought.
Chirica said the reactor was working at one sixth of its operating capacity of some 660 megawatts. He expected output to increase gradually to full capacity later on Wednesday.
The reactor produced some 4.2 million megawatt hours in the first nine months of this year, compared to 4.9 million in the full year 1998.
-------- australia
Transport of nuclear waste suspected through Sydney
ABC News 11/25/99
http://www.abc.net.au/news/1999/11/item19991125172016_1.htm
Federal politicians have condemned the suspected transportation of nuclear waste through the southern suburbs of Sydney today.
The Democrats and Greens Senator Bob Brown say 308 spent nuclear fuel rods were taken from the Lucas Heights reactor to a ship at Port Botany under police escort.
The nuclear fuel is destined for France, where it will be reprocessed under a contract with the French company Cogema.
There has been no official confirmation of the transportation.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Industry and Science Minister, Nick Minchin, says international conventions prevent the Minister from commenting on nuclear transport movements.
Pangea persists
Meanwhile, the international conglomerate Pangea Resources will continue to campaign to establish a nuclear waste dump in Western Australia.
The company is undeterred by legislation passed in State Parliament overnight banning a waste dump site.
Pangea says WA has always been, and will continue to be, the focus for its proposed nuclear waste dump site.
The company appears committed to a long campaign to try to convince politicians of the benefits of its plan.
Pangea spokesman Dr Charles McCombie says the bill was passed without an adequate public information phase, and he has not given up hope it could be repealed.
But Labor's upper house leader Tom Stephens says it is about time Pangea took the hint.
-----------
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