* Excellent Resource - http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/
* Biological weapons discussion
* Y2K Glitch Found at Indian Point (two reports)
* China's missile test
* China Applauds U.N. Anti-Missile Defense Resolution
* U.S. offers to leave Puerto Rican base
* Vieques, Kahoolawe
* Q&A on Vieques and the US Military
* N.Korea, Japan Set to Resume Normalization Talks korea
* Emerging From Isolation, North Korea to Resume Diplomatic Relations With Japan
* South Korea Asked To Remove Wall
* North Korea, Japan Agree To Talks
* The World: Cohen warns NATO of N. Korean missile threat
* Japan Frets Over a String of Technological Accidents
* Cohen Warns NATO About 'Rogue States'
* U.S. and NATO Allies Divided Over Defense Needs
* Cohen Warns Allies About Missiles
* U.S. may send monitors to Russia for Y2K
* Russia to Expel U.S. Diplomat
* Chernobyl Reactor Shut Down
* Chernobyl shut down after malfunction
* Chernobyl Reactor Halted
* FEATURE-Soviet-era reactors gear up for Y2K test
* Fierce Storm Hits Denmark, Sweden
* India-Pakistan Fight Hurts Y2K Plan
* ANALYSIS-Turkey set for first nuke power plant
* Energy-turkey-nuclear Ankara
* ANALYSIS-Turkey set for first nuke power plant
* LGA call to stop developing uranium mines
* Clinton enters WTO as protest arrests rise
* Police: Gentle tactics didn't work
* Protests Cloud Clinton Message on Free Trade
* A Dangerous Tolerance
* Trade Obstacles Unmoved, Seattle Talks End in Failure
* Saboteurs Cut Power at W.T.O. in Geneva
* Trade Ministers Sidestep Issue of Secrecy
* Seattle Talks on Trade End With Stinging Blow to U.S.
* Newberg-Perini Awarded $300 Million Contract To Support Entire ComEd Nuclear Power `Fleet'
* Clinton Plans to Declare Y2K National Emergency (on December 28)
* Return to Fortress America?
* After the Test Ban Vote
* Missile defense system makes sense in post-Cold War era
* U.N. crimes court gets support without U.S.
* Red ammo
* Study faults workmanship on space rockets
* Editorial: Forget the Trump card
* Scientists Criticize Limits on Foreign Visitors to Laboratories
* Energy Chief to Allow Foreign Scientists to Visit Labs
* Sun steps up supercomputing push
* Bradley Accuses Gore Of Distorting Record Democratic Challenger Discounts Damage
* InteCardia Imaging Opens a New Cardiovascular Diagnostic Center and Receives Approval for Another Center in Tennessee
* URANIUM IMPORTER WON'T GET SUBSIDIES
* D.C. Plants Top List for Chlorine Storage
---------
[This looks like a very useful website address to include in various progressive issue appeals for folks to be able to easily access their congresspeople, state legislators, and local and national news media.]
http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/
Guide to the Media
http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/media.pl?dir=wnd
Enter your ZIP Code and click "Search" to find contact information for media organizations in your area, or view our complete Media Guide.
Write to Congress
http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/elecmail.html
Search Congress by name, state, committee, or leadership directory.
http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/congdir.html
Guide to States
http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/states.html
Complete guide to state legislators and governors in all 50 states.
Issues and Legislation
http://congress.nw.dc.us/cgi-bin/issue.pl?dir=wnd
Important issues - recent votes, current bills and more.
-------- biological weapons
Biological weapons discussion
December 3 1999 Washington Times Daybook
http://www.washtimes.com/politics/politics.html
8:15 a.m. -- The Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute holds a panel discussion on "Responding to the Challenge of Biological Weapons." Location: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Contact: 703/739-1538.
-------- us nuc reactors
Y2K Glitch Found at Indian Point
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 12:42:57 -0500 From: Paul Gunter <pgunter@nirs.org> Organization: NIRS
http://www.nirs.org can reach them at: 202-328-0002.
People may want to contact their local media to bring this item to their attention.
1. N.Y. Times: 212-556-1234, Fax:212-556-7306
2. New York Post: Phone 212-930-8000
3. New York Daily News: Phone 212-210-2100
An interesting Y2K-related glitch has turned up at the Indian Point units in Buchannan, NY just 35 miles from New York City having to do with the erronous disabling of a program file for control rod drive monitoring system. The Consolidated Edison error was made as a result of an earlier Y2K review on the reactors.
There are at least a couple of significant issues raised by the following NRC communication reporting the event:
1) The problem is safety significant. This PWR system monitors and alarms for reactor core reactivity levels (fuel criticality levels). Particularly, the system monitors/alarms for reactor core "hot spots" and control rod drop events that, if, occuring simultaneously and not promptly /accurately monitored and responded to by control room operators can lead to fuel damage in the reactor core.
2) The Y2K review and error was made by ConEd in March, 1999 but their erronous deletion only recently turned up as a potential problem during the restart of the unit. Indian Point was listed by NRC as "fully ready" when in fact ConEd had disabled its reacor core control/monitoring system in error. Albeit, the error has been discovered, but the level of uncertainty within other unverified work remains. Paul Gunter, NIRS
-->
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Weekly Information Report November 12, 1999
Indian Point Nuclear Generating Units 2 and 3
In March 1999, while conducting Y2K reviews, Con Edison disabled a file within PROTEUS (the plant computer) that serves as the alarm function for rod deviation monitoring. This file was developed by Con Edison and placed within PROTEUS approximately six years ago when the first cycle specific rod/bank deviation limits were established. The alarm program is a file within PROTEUS that automatically changes the Individual Rod Position Indication (IRPI) vs. Bank limits when power range instruments reach 50%. When performing their Y2K reviews, Con Ed determined that the Subject file was among 40 files that might be obsolete. These files were to be reviewed and a decision made as to whether or not they should be disabled. Due to an oversight, the 40 files, including the rod deviation monitoring file, were disabled before a proper review was conducted.
During the most recent startup, operations and computer applications personnel at IP2 realized that the file had been disabled in error. The IP3 technical specifications require that rod indications are logged once per shift if rod deviation monitoring is unavailable. To meet the requirement, Con Ed verified the rod position was within +/- 12 steps every 6 hours during startup. Con Ed then reviewed and tested the Rod Deviation Monitoring file and found it to be Y2K ready. The file has been returned to service.
Con Ed has also reviewed the other PROTEUS files that were disabled and has determined that none were disabled in error. Con Ed is planning to submit a voluntary Licenses Event Report on this Subject.
---
In light of the problem discovered at the Indian Point nuclear power facility 35 miles from the heart of the world's commercial center, Manhattan and the fact that people charged with running Y2K safety tests at the Waterford, Connecticut based Millstone nuclear facility have NOT conducted such tests, the following is from the nuclear industry itself, Sandia Labs:
-Bill Smirnow - smirnowb@ix.netcom.com
3 Dec 1999 07:02:33 -0000
Sender: owner-Y2K-nukes@envirolink.org
INDIAN POINT, UNITS 2&3, BUCHANON, NY
"Peak Early Fatalities" "Peak Early Injuries"
Unit#2 46,000 141,000
Unit#3 50,000 167,000
"Peak Cancer Deaths" "Property Damage"
Unit#2 13,000 $274.0 BILLION
Unit#3 14,000 $314.0 BILLION
MILLSTONE, UNITS 1,2, &3, WATERFORD, CT.
"Peak Early Fatalities" "Peak Early Inj."
Unit#1 13,000 12,000
Unit#2 18,000 18,000
Unit#3 23,000 30,000
"Peak Cancer Deaths" "Property Damage" [1982 $]
Unit#1 28,000 $91.5 BILLION
Unit#2 33,000 $135.0 BILLION
Unit#3 38,000 $174.0 BILLION
-------- china
China's missile test
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon
Washington Times 5am -- December 3, 1999 By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/nation/ring.html
China is making preparations to conduct the second flight test of its newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the DF-31. Pentagon intelligence agencies notified senior policy-makers last week that DF-31 test preparations were detected. The notice was contained in a classified report based on spy satellites that spotted the test preparations at the Wuzhai Missile and Space Center in central China. The center is located about 250 miles southwest of Beijing. The test firing is expected later this month, according to officials familiar with the report.
China conducted the first flight test of the new DF-31 on Aug. 2, also from Wuzhai. The missile included a dummy warhead and several decoys designed to defeat long-range missile defenses.
The 5,000-mile-range missile is China's newest strategic weapon that will be deployed soon. The CIA said in a September report it will be able to hit targets in parts of the Western United States. It is also gauged to be the first weapons system to incorporate stolen U.S. missile and warhead technology.
---
China Applauds U.N. Anti-Missile Defense Resolution
China Today Saturday, Dec 4 at Prague 05:35 am, N.Y. 11:35 pm
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=115239
BEIJING, Dec 2, 1999 -- (Reuters) China applauded the United Nations on Thursday for endorsing a resolution pressing the United States to abandon plans for an anti-missile defense system Beijing said could trigger a nuclear arms race in space.
The U.N. General Assembly voted on Wednesday in favour of a draft calling for efforts to preserve and strengthen the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the United States and the then Soviet Union, which limits missile defenses.
But Washington, which voted against the draft, wants to amend the treaty to permit construction in the next five years of a limited anti-missile defense system, based in Alaska or North Dakota, as a shield against attacks by so-called "rogue states".
"In recent years, some countries have made great efforts to develop national missile defense plans to strive for their own absolute security and short-term strategic advantages," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi told a news conference.
"These countries have proposed changing the ABM Treaty and even threatened to withdraw from it," he read from a prepared statement.
"These actions would damage strategic balance and stability, damage the progress of nuclear disarmament, shake the foundation of nuclear non-proliferation and even cause a new nuclear arms race, including in outer space."
"As one of the joint sponsors of this resolution, China expresses its thanks to countries which supported the proposal," Sun said.
RUSSIA, CHINA SPONSOR RESOLUTION
Albania, Israel and Micronesia also voted against the resolution, originally sponsored by Russia, China and Belarus. The members of the 15-nation European Union abstained, except for France and Ireland, which voted for the resolution.
The resolution called on the parties to the ABM treaty "to refrain from the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems for the defense of the territory of their country and not to provide a base for such a defense."
Russia and China have said repeatedly that any changes to the ABM treaty would threaten other disarmament accords, undermine strategic stability and spark a new arms race.
As an apparent warning to Washington, Russia test-fired a short-range anti-missile rocket last month for the first time in six years and later test-fired an old nuclear-capable tactical missile to show that its shelf-life had not expired.
"Any country's attempts to develop and deploy anti-missile systems will find little support in the world and will bring benefit only at the expense of others," Sun said.
"We urge the countries concerned to consider seriously the voice of the international community and to give up their ABM plans," he said.
The ABM treaty is based on the theory that anti-missile systems would only tempt the other side to build more missiles to overwhelm the defenses.
-------- puerto rico
U.S. offers to leave Puerto Rican base
USA Today 2/03/99- Updated 06:45 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#prba
WASHINGTON - President Clinton on Friday said he would end controversial military training over the next five years on a Puerto Rican island, but he also offered islanders $40 million in development funds if they let training continue. Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello rejected Clinton's decision concerning the island of Vieques as ''unacceptable for the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Vieques.'' Rossello objects to any possible renewal of live-bombing on the island, and he wants the Navy to abandon the base. Vieques is home to 9,000 civilians, all U.S. citizens. Puerto Ricans have long protested the Navy's presence on the island.
---
U.S. offers to leave Puerto Rican base
USA Today 2/03/99- Updated 06:02 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri03.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton on Friday ordered the military to stop using a Puerto Rican island as a live-bombing range unless residents there allow the practice to continue, and to phase out all use of the island for military training over the next five years.
Emphasizing the importance of the island to military readiness, the Clinton administration dangled a $40 million incentive to try to persuade Vieques' 9,000 civilians, who are U.S. citizens, to let the training continue.
''I understand the longstanding concerns of residents of the island,'' Clinton said in a statement that also stressed the importance of military training carried out at Vieques since 1941.
''These concerns must be addressed, and I believe our plan will do so in a constructive manner,'' said Clinton, whose decision was based on the recommendations of Defense Secretary William Cohen.
However, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello rejected the decision as ''unacceptable for the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Vieques.''
''It doesn't fulfill the expectations we have for the people of Vieques,'' he said, objecting to any possible renewal of live-bombing on the island. Rossello has called for the Navy to withdraw.
The Navy operations have been a target of occasional protests and legal actions since the 1960s, but the controversy erupted into a crisis after a civilian security guard was killed last April. The Navy then suspended training on Vieques but has sought a way to resume it as soon as possible.
The Navy has argued that the island was irreplaceable in preparing U.S. forces for combined land, sea and air operations on the Atlantic side of the world.
The island, which has been a key training ground for the ships and aircraft of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet since World War II, offers ''the most rigorous, realistic training'' facility available, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig said.
In a letter to Clinton outlining his recommendation on Vieques, Cohen said operations there are ''a vital part of training our combat forces.''
''I also firmly believe that all U.S. citizens, whether they live in states or other jurisdictions, must make sacrifices in order to support the strong national defense that preserves the freedoms we all enjoy,'' Cohen wrote. ''There is not a single part of our country that doesn't make some adjustments or accommodations to sustain the presence of the military.''
Under the administration's plan, the number of training days would immediately be cut in half from 180 to 90 per year.
''Within the five years, the Navy will develop alternatives to the training, and all training will terminate unless agreed to by the Vieques people and the Navy,'' Danzig said.
A resumption of training ''would be accompanied by'' a $40 million community economic development program, he said.
Early reports of the decision sparked a celebration among protesters on Vieques, some of whom have camped on the beach for nearly six months.
''If this is true, then it's a triumph of the people,'' said Ismael Guadelupe, a local fisherman who is among the protest leaders. ''But the triumph will be complete when they turn over all the lands, clean up the contamination and compensate the people of Vieques for all their years of suffering.''
The first military force affected by the decision, the USS Eisenhower battle group, was being sent to the Mediterranean without training on Vieques.
Danzig said other battle groups also would be affected until training can resume on the island.
The Marines with the Eisenhower, instead of using Vieques, will conduct an amphibious assault on the North Carolina coast, and Navy strike aircraft will conduct air-to-ground bombing runs at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., officials said earlier.
The recommendation means the Eisenhower battle group likely would deploy to the Mediterranean Sea in February at a substantially reduced state of combat readiness, several officials said.
The Navy has felt strongly that its carrier battle groups must be allowed the realistic training that Vieques provided to be ready for combat, since they may be called on to begin actual combat once they arrive on station. Navy officials had insisted that Vieques is the only Atlantic Coast site available for such training.
---
Vieques, Kahoolawe
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon
Washington Times 5am -- December 3, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/nation/ring.html
If President Clinton caves to Puerto Rican demands and keeps the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its battle group from training on the island of Vieques, his press office will surely cite precedence.
Nine years ago, a Republican president faced a similar dilemma an ocean away. For years, Hawaiian residents complained of live-fire exercises on the island of Kahoolawe. There were protest demonstrations, civil disobedience, and dire predictions about environmental damage -- the same rhetoric heard in Puerto Rico today.
What did President Bush do? He bowed to the locals' complaints, closed the range and forced the Navy to go elsewhere for training. There were suspicions in the Navy at the time that Mr. Bush was trying to help the campaign of a Republican Senate candidate, who ultimately lost the election in heavily Democratic Hawaii.
"If Clinton caves on it, he will have done no more than Bush did in 1990," said a government official.
---
Q&A on Vieques and the US Military
Associated Press Saturday, Dec. 4, 1999; 11:29 a.m. EST By Robert Burns AP Military Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991204/aponline112932_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- It is safe to say that until recently, relatively few had heard of the tiny Puerto Rican island Vieques, let alone understood how it suddenly surfaced as a national security crisis of such magnitude that President Clinton felt compelled to intervene.
Clinton announced Friday that the Navy and Marines will resume training on Vieques' bombing range but at reduced levels and with dummy bombs. Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello quickly rejected the plan, which throws into question the Navy's future in Puerto Rico and the combat readiness of some U.S. naval forces.
Here are some questions and answers to explain why the Navy considers it so important to drop live bombs, artillery shells and missiles on Vieques over the vehement objections of Puerto Ricans.
Q. Why can't the Navy do its bomb training somewhere else?
A. This is at the heart of the controversy. The Navy says it has looked hard and can find no other place along the Atlantic Coast where it can bring naval and Marine forces together for realistic combat training using live ammunition. It has used Vieques since World War II, but after an errant bomb killed a Puerto Rican security guard last April, the Navy suspended training on the island.
Q. What is wrong with using dummy bombs, instead of real ones?
A. Dummy, or "inert," bombs are used - with sand or concrete inside the casing instead of explosives. But the Navy insists there is no adequate alternative to using at least some real bombs as part of the training that sailors and Marines get before heading overseas in aircraft carrier battle groups.
Q. What is so special about live ammunition?
A. In the Navy's view, two things: those who assemble, load and arm the bombs and shells fired from naval aircraft and ships need to practice with the real thing or risk losing their edge; and the Marines who storm ashore in coordination with aerial bombing and Navy shipboard gunfire need to experience the sound and fury of real weapons in order to be fully prepared for combat they may face later.
"The use of live ordnance in training rivets the attention of those who manage, handle and employ it with a combination of fear and reverence that inert ordnance cannot convey," the Navy wrote in a July report that laid out its rationale for insisting that sailors and Marines keep training on Vieques.
Q. Why not do this training after a battle group arrives on station abroad instead of before it leaves?
A. That is a possibility, but not one U.S. military leaders like. The Navy, Marine Corps and other services pride themselves on knowing that troops sent abroad are combat-ready. This is important, they say, because units sometimes are called on to fight immediately upon their arrival abroad.
That was true with two of the last three carrier battle groups deployed from the East Coast.
In the early days of NATO's air war over Kosovo, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and its battle group crossed the Atlantic at high speed to the Adriatic Sea in spring to relieve the USS Enterprise battle group. The Roosevelt began combat operations shortly after arrival. The Enterprise group had begun its deployment in the Persian Gulf, where it, too, began operations soon after arrival. Both carriers' air wings had prior live-fire training at Vieques.
"To provide our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen with less than this optimum training in the future would be unconscionable, cause undue casualties and place our nation's vital interests at risk," Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the top NATO commander, wrote in August in arguing for resuming training on Vieques.
Q. Isn't this just a Navy problem?
A. It is mainly a Navy problem, but some in the Pentagon believe the Vieques episode could have far-reaching consequences for the entire armed forces. They fear that U.S. access to training grounds in other countries could be in jeopardy if the Puerto Rican example of civil protest is repeated elsewhere.
Navy Adm. Jay L. Johnson, the chief of naval operations, and the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James L. Jones, wrote about this in a joint statement after a presidential panel recommended in October that the Navy get out of Vieques within five years.
"Our friends and allies also have interest groups that would prefer that these activities not take place near their communities," Johnson and Jones wrote. "The 'not-in-my-backyard' movement is a phenomenon that, if it succeeds at home, could greatly undermine training opportunities abroad."
--------
N.Korea, Japan Set to Resume Normalization Talks korea
New York Times December 3, 1999 Filed at 4:05 a.m. ET By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-j.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese and North Korean ruling parties issued a rare joint statement on Friday urging the resumption for the first time in seven years of talks on establishing diplomatic relations between the historic foes.
The agreement, which follows improved ties between Pyongyang and Washington, was forged at talks by a Japanese delegation led by former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, and Kim Yong-sun, Secretary of North Korea's ruling Workers Party.
``We think it is basically good to have full-scale dialogues between the governments of Japan and North Korea,'' Japan's top government spokesman Mikio Aoki told reporters on Friday.
Aoki said the Japanese government would formally decide how to respond after receiving a detailed report from the delegation, which included members from all major Japanese political parties.
The joint statement by the Japanese and North Korean parties said: ``The two sides... decided to urge their governments to work toward an early resumption of the negotiations.''
The statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), did not give any specific timetable for when talks should resume, but Japanese media reports said preparatory discussions would begin before the end of the year.
The government of South Korea, which technically remains at war with the North after their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armed truce rather than a peace pact, welcomed the agreement.
``Japan's efforts to improve its relations with North Korea would enhance the security of the peninsula,'' said an official at Seoul's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. ``We have no objections to the decision.''
ANALYSTS SAY MAJOR ISSUES REMAIN
Despite the apparent breakthrough, analysts in Tokyo believe that thorny bilateral issues stand in the way of normalizing diplomatic relations between Japan and its former colony.
``I feel doubtful that the two countries will really move toward normalization,'' said Noriyuki Suzuki, chief analyst at the Tokyo-based Radiopress news agency.
One of the thorniest issues has been Japanese allegations -- strongly denied Pyongyang -- that North Korean spies abducted at least 10 Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.
Some of the missing persons reportedly vanished while walking alone in coastal areas facing the Sea of Japan, which lies between the two countries.
The joint statement issued on Friday said the two sides agreed to recommend that Red Cross organizations of the two countries work together to settle ``humanitarian issues.''
That was an apparent reference to the row over the alleged abductions and a stalemate over Japan's food aid to the famine-hit communist state.
The two countries began normalization talks in early 1991. But the talks were suspended in November of the next year after Japan raised the issue of a Japanese woman believed kidnapped and murdered by North Korean agents.
Relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang were also badly strained after North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong missile over Japan in August 1998, prompting Japan to impose sanctions included a halt to food aid.
Terumasa Nakanishi, a professor of international diplomacy at Kyoto University, said that unless North Korea made a ''dramatic'' change in its hardline stance toward Japan, there would be no breakthrough in bilateral relations.
IMPLICATIONS FOR WASHINGTON
Analysts also said the thaw between Tokyo and Pyongyang would tempt North Korea to toughen its stance toward the United States.
``While holding talks with Japan, I think North Korea will try to make the United States come forward and make a conciliatory move, particularly over its missile program,'' Nakanishi said.
North Korea recently promised the United States not to proceed with further testing of its long-range Taepodong ballistic missile and Washington quickly lifted some trade barriers against Pyongyang a half-century after the Korean War.
Japan followed suit by lifting a ban on chartered flights to Pyongyang but kept other sanctions in place.
The United States wants to restrain the secretive Marxist state's arms and nuclear programs, while North Korea would like to build on the easing of painful 50-year trade restrictions.
Japan established diplomatic ties with South Korea in 1965, but has never done so with Pyongyang.
---
Emerging From Isolation, North Korea to Resume Diplomatic Relations With Japan
Washington Times December 3, 1999 By CALVIN SIMS
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/03/late/04korea.html
SEOUL -- North Korea, one of the most isolated and bellicose countries in Asia, has made some unexpected diplomatic overtures recently that suggest its Communist government is itching to come out of its shell or at least see what the rest of the world has to offer.
At a meeting on Friday in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, leaders from North Korea and Japan announced a breakthrough agreement to resume talks on establishing diplomatic relations, which have been stalled since 1992.
The talks, which will include possible reinstatement of Japan's food aid to North Korea, are expected to begin before the end of the year and will be held either in Tokyo, Beijing or Pyongyang, a joint statement said.
The agreement with Japan is part of a recent effort by North Korea to improve its relations with foreign governments to gain more economic aid, which it desperately needs to rebuild its shattered economy and feed its starving people, who have suffered greatly during years of food shortages.
Political analysts said that the while North Korea's new diplomatic tack is likely to reduce tensions in East Asia, the Communist country remains as unpredictable as ever and has demonstrated no intention of reforming its repressive policies.
"North Korea is definitely trying to normalize its relations with the outside world because it needs external support to overcome its economic crisis," said Kim Yeon Chul, a researcher for the Samsung Economic Research Institute, a privately-funded institution.
"But this does not mean that North Korea has a strong appetite for major reforms," Kim said. "They are simply trying to solve short term problems, and from a long-term perspective, they are not going to significantly change their fundamental hard-line principles."
Only a few months ago, North Korea was widely considered the bane of Asia after it threatened to test-launch a long-range ballistic missile, setting off a panic across the region.
But anxiety eased considerably when North Korea agreed to suspend its missile tests in return for the United States' relaxing of long-standing trade restrictions imposed on the Communist country at the end of the Korean War.
United States and North Korean representatives have been meeting in Berlin on and off for several months to address bilateral concerns and improve relations. North Korea has also held talks with British officials in London and European Union officials in Brussels.
Driving North Korea's push to improve its diplomatic ties is the nation's leader, Kim Jong Il, who analysts said has successfully consolidated his control over the military, government bureaucracy and parliament in the last year, after a period of uncertainty following the death of his father, North Korea's paramount leader, Kim Il Sung in 1994.
With the worst of the food shortages and natural disasters like flooding subsiding, the analysts said that Kim is seeking to place his country on sound economic footing through better diplomatic ties.
Beyond diplomacy, North Korea appears to be opening up in other ways that few people ever considered. The hermetic country has permitted an unprecedented number of cultural and athletic exchanges with South Korea in the last year that are intended to promote unity between the two nations, which are technically still at war.
On Sunday, a group of South Korean and American entertainers, including President Bill Clinton's half-brother, Roger, are scheduled to participate in the year 2000 Peace and Friendship Concert in Pyongyang.
In what could be another breakthrough agreement, a leading South Korean manufacturer of jeans, Nix Company, said that after months of negotiations it has convinced North Korea to accept a donation of 10,000 pairs of jeans and 5,000 sweaters to be distributed to young people.
In the past, North Korea has banned the use of blue jeans, which it considered the ultimate symbol of "capitalism" and "Western decadence," said Park Sung Eun, Nix's public relations manager.
Tour organizers of excursions to the Korean demilitarized zone do not permit visitors to wear jeans or T-shirts because North Korean soldiers have taken photos of visitors wearing faded jeans to be used later as proof of hard times in the West.
Ms. Park said that North Korean officials approved the donation only after they were assured the jeans would be black in color and loose fitting.
The deal to resume diplomatic talks with Japan followed a meeting between 16 Japanese lawmakers led by a former Japanese prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama, and a North Korean team led by Kim Yong Sum, secretary for international affairs of the Workers Party of Korea.
Many analysts believe that while Japan and North Korea will begin formal negotiations, diplomatic ties between the two countries will be long in coming, mainly because North Korea is unwilling to provide the information and assurances Japan is seeking on its nuclear and missile development programs.
Japan halted its food and economic assistance to North Korea, after the Communist country test fired a short-range missile over the Japanese mainland and into the Pacific Ocean last year.
---
South Korea Asked To Remove Wall
New York Times December 3, 1999 Filed at 3:35 p.m.EDT By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Koreas-Concrete-Wall.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea urged South Korea on Friday to demolish a concrete barricade built along the border zone, saying the South was plotting to use it to launch its own attack.
``The wall can be used as a bridgehead for aggression against the North, as it is equipped with many pillboxes and artillery positions,'' North Korea's communist government said in a statement carried by the North's official foreign news outlet, KCNA.
South Korea has described the barricade as a purely defensive barrier between the rival countries. The South built such anti-tank concrete barricades in the 1970s across potential routes of attack.
Friday's appeal was addressed to the ``governments, political parties and organizations of all countries of the world.''
The 150-mile border between the two Koreas is the world's most densely armed frontier. The two countries are still technically at war after their three-year conflict ended in 1953 without a peace treaty.
North Korea also accused the United States of plotting an attack with the South, and demanded it stop conducting joint military activities.
Both Washington and Seoul have denied the charge, saying the military drills were defensive in nature and needed to deter military threats from North Korea.
The international community has suspected North Korea of developing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
Washington keeps 37,000 troops in South Korea under a mutual defense treaty.
---
North Korea, Japan Agree To Talks
New York Times December 3, 1999 Filed at 1:57 p.m. EDT By The Associated Press http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Japan-NKorea.html
TOKYO (AP) -- There is nothing that Shigeru Yokota wants more than to see his daughter again.
Megumi was 13 years old when she vanished in 1977 on her way home from badminton practice in the town of Niigata, which faces the Korean Peninsula across the Sea of Japan.
She is among at least 10 Japanese who may have been abducted by North Korean agents, allegedly to train spies.
As Tokyo prepares to resume talks with North Korea on setting up diplomatic ties, Yokota is worried that Megumi's fate and those of the others who disappeared will be lost in the bargaining.
The reclusive Stalinist state has repeatedly denied the abduction claims. Observers, however, believe that Japanese were kidnapped, and Tokyo has demanded their return.
``For the family, there is nothing we want more than for her to come back,'' Yokota, a retired banker, said Friday. ``She was taken against her will. I'm sure she wants to come home.''
A delegation of Japanese lawmakers returned Friday from North Korea with an agreement to resume normalization talks after a seven-year hiatus. The two countries have never had diplomatic relations, and talks broke off in 1992 over the kidnapping issue. The Japanese government was likely to approve the new plan.
It is a step forward amid chilly relations that turned positively icy after North Korea fired a missile over Japan last year. It follows other nations' efforts to improve relations with North Korea as well.
Washington lifted trade, banking and other sanctions after North Korea promised in September not to test any more missiles as long as dialogue continues between North Korea and the United States.
Seoul too has been reaching out to its northern neighbor, adopting a ``sunshine policy'' that includes cultural, sporting and tourism exchanges.
Japan has taken a far more cautious view, refusing to resume food aid halted after the missile was fired. The alleged abductions remain a sensitive topic, while the public fears that North Korea might fire another missile.
It was unclear when the dialogue would start. Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who led the delegation to North Korea, said both sides agreed the first session should take place this year.
``We must set a path toward settling the problems of the 1900s, and I hope the first talks can be held before the new year, if possible,'' he said.
Murayama acknowledged, however, that little progress had been made on either the alleged abductions or on missile tests during his three-day visit to the North.
The agreement -- signed by Murayama and Kim Yong Sun, a leader of the ruling Korean Workers' Party -- does not even mention the abductions.
They are included under ``humanitarian issues'' to be discussed by the two nations' Red Cross organizations.
The North Koreans promised to investigate again but insisted on referring to the issue as ``missing people.''
``North Korea's position was that 'abduction' is a one-sided, critical word that should be avoided,'' Murayama said, while stressing that the purpose of his mission was to pave the way for talks, not to address specific issues.
Another critical humanitarian issue in the upcoming talks is food aid to North Korea, which is suffering severe shortages.
While the agreement is a victory for Japan's politicians, Yokota has been disappointed too many times before.
He worried that Tokyo might give in too easily -- before making sure his daughter comes home.
A North Korean defector said last year that he saw a woman believed to be Megumi Yokota and another kidnapped Japanese working at a spy-training center in the North.
The Japanese are believed to be used to teach agents the language and customs they need to pass undetected abroad.
``We hope North Korea will show some sincerity,'' Yokota said. ``We fear they will just take the rice and tell us they found nothing.''
---
The World: Cohen warns NATO of N. Korean missile threat
USA Today 11/03/99 Page 24A
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/19991203/1714411s.htm
Despite its moratorium on missile testing, North Korea is quickly developing long-range missiles that could hit the United States and Europe with nuclear warheads in perhaps five years, Defense Secretary William Cohen told NATO defense ministers Thursday. Cohen, explaining controversial U.S. plans to build a national missile defense system, warned the 18 NATO ministers of a growing missile threat from ''rogue states'' such as North Korea and Iran. Though no decision will be made on deployment of the missile system until next summer, Cohen said it ''would be designed to both protect the United States from a limited ballistic missile attack from a rogue nation and preserve the strategic balance between the United States and Russia.'' Russia is threatening to scrap key nuclear arms reduction treaties if Washington goes ahead with the plan.
-------- japan
Japan Frets Over a String of Technological Accidents
New York Times December 3, 1999 By CALVIN SIMS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/120399japanese-econ.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/111699japan-satelite.html
Japan as No.1? In Debt, Maybe, at the Rate Things Have Been Going (Sept. 1, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/090199japan-debt.html
TOKYO -- Amid the economic recession, record unemployment, volatile markets, and shattered dreams that defined the past decade in Japan, the one thing that the Japanese people could always take pride in was their country's reputation as a world leader in technology.
But a recent string of costly and embarrassing accidents in Japan's renowned nuclear, aerospace and railway sectors has caused many Japanese to question whether their country is losing its technological prowess and attention to detail.
"The public should be very concerned about these accidents, which were completely preventable," said Hiroaki Yanagida, an engineering professor at Tokyo University. "In Japan there is a lack of responsibility and an arrogance on the part of engineers and industry. They've been telling us for 30 years that these technologies were completely safe, and we've just blindly accepted what they told us."
The accidents began in June, when Japan's bullet train -- long a symbol of the country's advanced technology, its efficiency and safety -- lost much of its luster, after a 400-pound concrete block fell from a tunnel wall hitting the roof of a train moving at 130 miles an hour.
Although no one was hurt, at least four other train accidents involving falling concrete and debris in tunnels have occurred this year, including one on Sunday that derailed a cargo train. The transport agency said that despite regular maintenance checks, inspectors had failed to detect the loose concrete.
In September, Japan suffered its worst nuclear accident when an employee mistake at a uranium fuel processing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, left 2 workers in critical condition and exposed at least 69 people to radiation. Government officials had once boasted that an accident of this type was impossible.
And just two weeks ago, a Japanese space agency rocket carrying a government satellite, together costing $340 million, crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff because of engine trouble. The crash was the second failure in two years for the H-2 rocket and dealt a serious setback to Japan's effort to enter the satellite launching market.
A week after the Japanese rocket failure, China successfully launched its first spacecraft designed to carry humans into orbit and guided it back to earth, in a breakthrough effort to join the United States and Russia in the elite club of manned space flight.
For many Japanese, these incidents were not merely coincidental but reflected a troubling decline in the country's industrial and technology capability, which was the cornerstone of Japan's postwar economic success.
To be sure, Japan's overall research and development efforts remain as strong as ever, and its scientists and engineers continue to churn out innovations and apply for patents at a steady clip. There is little if any evidence that Japan's technological competitiveness has been seriously compromised.
"I think it would be a huge mistake to write the Japanese off as competitors," said William Keller, director of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Japan Program. "What I think is going on here is that the Japanese psyche has been so wounded by years of recession that when there are accidents of this nature, the Japanese tend to look inwardly and begin to question their own ability."
But some technology experts say that the recent accidents have revealed flaws in Japan's industrial and technological base, mainly a decline in the education and on-the-job training of engineers, technicians and maintenance workers. In recent years, much of Japan's manufacturing of less advanced products has migrated to other Asian countries with lower wages, and fewer and fewer Japanese are willing to take jobs in labor-intensive fields.
"The best and the brightest people are not going to work for the uranium factories or in the maintenance of train tunnels," said Kiyoshi Sakurai, a technology critic. "Young Japanese dislike this type of work because it makes their hands dirty."
Indeed, perhaps most worrisome, many Japanese say, is the government's inability to guard against accidents, which jeopardize public safety and hurt Japan's image abroad. The incidents have caused a number of industries and government regulatory agencies to strengthen their maintenance and safety procedures.
Recent headlines in Japan's major newspapers underscored the public's growing concern over the accidents. "Japan's Big Technologies Start to Come Apart at the Seams," said the Nikkei, a leading financial paper. "Japan's Technology-Based State Becomes Shaky," said the daily Yomiuri.
"At no time in the postwar era has the state of the nation's science and technology and the competence of its engineers been questioned as it has been today," the Yomiuri said in an editorial.
The top bureaucrat at the Ministry of Science and Technology, Toshio Okazaki, resigned his post as vice minister because of the nuclear accident and the failed rocket launching. His successor, Yasuhiro Kato, said at a news conference last week that he would work hard to rebuild public trust in the agency. Mr. Kato directed agency personnel to be more sensitive to social and technological changes.
"With these accidents we suffered a severe blow to our image, and we will have a tough time rebuilding public confidence," said Nobuhiro Muroya, deputy director for the Ministry of Science and Technology's planning and evaluation division. "But we are determined that we will regain the public support, especially after we successfully launch another rocket and ensure that the nuclear industry is safe."
Some experts say that the problems revealed by the accidents cannot be overcome so easily.
Akito Arima, who has held cabinet positions as science and technology minister and education minister, said that Japanese society had to change the way it viewed labor-intensive jobs and to improve the education and training of technical workers or it was likely to suffer more industrial troubles.
"There are so many young people in Japan who want to go to university that trade and vocational schools have started to decline, and as a nation, our legs and shoulders and hands have become weaker," Mr. Arima said. "It's fine for some youngsters to go to vocational schools and to do these important hands-on jobs. We need them."
The most unnerving of the recent episodes was the nuclear accident at Tokaimura, in which technicians poured nearly seven times the normal amount of uranium into a purification tank, setting off an explosion.
While the incident is still under investigation, there have been reports in the local news media that the plant operated by the JCO Company had failed to warn its staff of the dire consequences of having an excessive concentration of uranium in the manufacturing process.
Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of the Japanese Federation of Employer's Associations, said in a recent letter to industry and management associations that Japanese society had been shaken by the accidents and he called on the trade groups to take steps to re-establish Japan as "a country of manufacturing" and a "technology nation."
-------- nato
Cohen Warns NATO About 'Rogue States'
Defense Secretary Touts Missile Defense System
December 3, 1999; Page A By William Drozdiak Washington Post Foreign Service
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/03/078l-120399-idx.html
BRUSSELS, Dec. 2-Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told the NATO allies today that the United States believes it may soon be necessary to develop a missile defense system to counter threats from "rogue states" with ballistic weapons, but insisted it would be done with allied security interests in mind.
Seeking to convince skeptical European governments, Cohen said the United States and its allies must start to consider how to cope with new challenges, besides the nuclear arsenals of Russia and China, that will soon include long-range missiles being developed by North Korea, Iran and Iraq that could deliver nuclear, biological or chemical warheads.
"It is important for our allies to understand that the threat [from rogue states] is real, that it will intensify in coming years, and that it will put their own populations and their own forces at risk," Cohen told reporters after a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
President Clinton is not expected to make a final decision on a national missile defense before next summer at the earliest. Cohen reassured the allies that the system would take into account their security interests. But NATO's new secretary general, George Robertson of Britain, said the European allies have already raised "a number of profound questions" about the system's potential impact on the alliance.
The missile defense system has sparked deep concern among European countries who fear that it could lead to the abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the United States signed with Russia that is regarded as a foundation of nuclear arms control. Russia has refused to alter the treaty, which prohibits both countries from developing missile defense systems.
Making a detailed case for a missile defense system for the first time at alliance headquarters, Cohen explained that NATO will face a variety of evolving threats over the next 15 years that will dramatically transform the monolithic strategic landscape it confronted in staving off a Soviet invasion during the Cold War.
He said the United States was willing to provide its European allies with a missile defense system that would provide the same kind of protection as sought by the United States. But there was no indication today that any European government was willing to sign up for such a program.
But Cohen stressed to the Western allies that they could not avoid the consequences of such a threat. He cited a study by the National Intelligence Council claiming the proliferation of medium-range ballistic missiles, driven mainly by exports from North Korea, "has created an immediate, serious and growing threat to U.S. forces, interests and allies, and has significantly altered the strategic balances in the Middle East and Asia."
The declassified U.S. study noted that within five years North Korea may develop the Taepodong II as an intercontinental ballistic missile that would be capable of delivering a payload of several hundred kilograms--enough for early generation nuclear weapons--and could strike anywhere in the United States or Europe.
The study also says Iran is working on a long-range missile that, within 10 years, could be capable of striking the United States, Canada or Europe. Iraq may achieve the same capability by 2015, although it may require substantial foreign assistance to do so, the report says.
While acknowledging that Cohen made a compelling case, several European ministers said they were not persuaded that the advantages of a missile defense system outweighed the risks. German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping noted the proposed timing of Clinton's decision was troubling because it would come in the middle of Russia's presidential election campaign and could fuel support for anti-Western nationalists there.
French Defense Minister Alain Richard expressed doubts that the U.S. missile defense plan would represent a net gain in Western security because it would require enormous investments that could be better spent on other military projects. He also warned about provoking Russia and China into retaliating with new measures such as missiles tipped with multiple warheads designed to overwhelm such defenses.
"We must be very cautious about a program that could end up damaging our security if it offers indirect encouragement to an arms race," Richard said.
Apart from the dangers of an escalating arms race through a profusion of nuclear warheads and other countermeasures, Britain and France harbor concerns that their own small nuclear deterrent forces could be rendered ineffective if other nations respond to the American system by developing antimissile defenses of their own.
---
U.S. and NATO Allies Divided Over Defense Needs
New York Times December 3, 1999 By CRAIG R. WHITNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/120399nato-defense.html
BRUSSELS -- Ten years after the end of the cold war, the United States, unchallenged as a superpower, faces a different challenge in NATO: its allies' insistence on seeing the world from their own perspective and setting their own defense priorities instead of following Washington's.
So it was at the alliance's headquarters here Thursday that Defense Secretary William S. Cohen tried to convince skeptical Europeans that not only the United States but Europe, too, would face a real threat to its security if North Korea, Iran or other nations continued developing or acquiring intercontinental nuclear missiles.
"I think it's important for allied countries to understand that the threat is real, and that in all likelihood it will increase in coming years," Cohen said later.
The United States would need the support of its allies even if it decided to build an effective missile-defense system to defend just itself, he said. But he concluded: "There is by no means a consensus within the alliance. It's something they will look at and we will discuss over the coming year."
The divide over defense needs also was evident today in allies' assurances to Cohen that their ambition to create an autonomous, all-European military force with the ability to send 50,000 troops to the far reaches of the Continent the next time trouble broke out would not diminish their military commitments to the American-led alliance.
NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, who favors the European force, observed, "There are around two million people in European armies in uniform today, and yet the European allies had to struggle hard to get 40,000 to go and serve in Kosovo."
But reorganizing and cooperating more closely with one another, the Europeans said, could give both the European Union and NATO the stronger European defense pillar the United States has been urging for decades. As long as the new European Union military structure did not duplicate NATO's unnecessarily, Cohen agreed with his fellow ministers Thursday, "a stronger Europe means a stronger alliance."
To some extent, the problems the alliance is having arise because the member nations are finally getting things they have wanted for years.
The United States has been calling for a stronger European military contribution to NATO since John F. Kennedy was president. But now that the Europeans say they want to make one, the United States wants them to concentrate on building that stronger European security and defense identity within NATO.
The European allies thought that they won the lasting peace they yearned for when the cold war ended, and some of them cut military spending by up to half. But two wars in the Balkans, and the Europeans' obvious military shortcomings in this year's war in Kosovo, convinced them that they still depended far too much on the United States to handle trouble in their own backyard.
Britain, with France, bore most of the burden and frustration of the unsuccessful United Nations peacekeeping operation in Bosnia until NATO took over and ended the fighting there in 1995.
And now, France and Britain, even with President Clinton's closest soul mate in Europe, Tony Blair, as prime minister, are at the core of the European defense structure that is expected to be decided next week at a European Union summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland.
The nations that would provide the bulk of a European force agree that it would act on its own only if NATO as a whole -- in effect the United States -- decided not to get involved.
Though American officials have trouble imagining a European crisis the United States could stay out of, Europeans no longer do. "American politicians, not only in the Senate but in public discussion generally, have to make big efforts to explain to the public why they should be engaged in Kosovo with billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers even though their vital interests are not in the least involved," the German defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, said today.
But how the Europeans can build the force structure they plan by 2003, let alone meet their commitments to strengthen NATO, with military spending as low as it is now, was another question debated today.
"You cannot buy security on the cheap," Lord Robertson said.
The United States spent 3.2 percent of its gross domestic product on the military this year, according to alliance figures. But Germany, with one of the largest armies in Europe, spent only 1.5 percent.
Even France and Britain, with 2.8 and 2.6 percent respectively, will not soon catch up to the United States at those rates in precision-guided weapons technology, battlefield intelligence and command-and-control systems, heavy-lift air transport and the other assets the Europeans found they lacked in Kosovo.
The North Korean missile threat got mostly shrugs here, European diplomats said, after watching a series of slides shown by Pentagon officials depicting wider and wider circles radiating from North Korea, representing the ranges of the three classes of missiles already tested or being developed there. The circles threw their shadows over parts of both Europe and the United States.
A three-stage missile, the Taepo Dong-2, which North Korea is still developing but has agreed not to test in exchange for American economic aid, could devastate targets in all of the United States and most of Europe with a nuclear payload, the Pentagon officials said.
But the allies appeared unprepared to take this missile threat seriously, European officials said.
Part of the point of the American briefing on missiles was to try to show the allies why the United States might decide to build a limited anti-missile defense system to counter the new threat, a system that would be barred by the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty unless Russia agrees to changes American negotiators have so far failed to get Moscow to accept.
"There is no reason why you cannot have a system like the one the United States is thinking about and full strategic stability at the same time," a senior American official said, explaining that if Clinton decides to go ahead with a national missile defense, it would initially have only 100 interceptor missiles based in Alaska. That would not be enough to pose a threat to Russia's huge nuclear arsenal, but if it worked, it might be able to take care of a few warheads lobbed in from Iraq or North Korea.
But coming on top of the United States Senate's recent rejection of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, the Clinton administration's desire to tinker with the antiballistic missile treaty has piqued the concern among some allies, particularly the French, that the world's only superpower is crashing around the world like a bull in a china shop.
"We must avoid any questioning of the ABM treaty that could lead to disruption of strategic equilibria and a new nuclear arms race," President Jacques Chirac of France said a few weeks ago, as Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott was trying in vain to convince the allies that amending the treaty to meet a new missile threat from rogue states would not set off a new arms race.
French officials worry that China, for one, might decide to deploy hundreds of intercontinental missiles rather than the score or so it has now.
They also worry that, with the Senate having rejected the test ban treaty, countries like India and Pakistan will resist pleas from Washington to stick with their decision to stop testing the nuclear weapons they both first exploded last year.
Several allies, Cohen said Thursday, raised concerns that Europe might actually be more exposed to possible rogue missile attacks if the United States proceeded alone with a missile defense
---
Cohen Warns Allies About Missiles
New York Times December 3, 1999 By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Europe-Defense.html
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Drawing on new intelligence reports, the United States is warning its NATO allies that the threat of long-range missile strikes from rogue nations is growing more serious.
That news, however, hasn't necessarily rallied the allies behind a proposed U.S. anti-missile net designed to combat the threat. The proposed system worries Russia, and it has some U.S. allies wondering whether it would be worth the havoc it could wreak on existing security balances.
At an annual NATO defense ministers meeting Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen gave the allies a detailed briefing on missile programs in such nations as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
``The threat is real,'' he told reporters afterward.
North Korea has embarked on a program to develop long-range ballistic missiles, according to an unclassified summary of Washington's latest intelligence. The North Koreans are working on a new missile that could reach large parts of the United States and some of Europe.
Iran also has a program and within the next decade will have a missile capable of striking all of NATO territory, the report says. Iraq, which has expelled U.N. inspectors, could develop such a missile too. Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan are also a worry.
Washington has proposed a National Missile Defense program, a limited system now under development that would focus on intercepting and destroying ballistic missiles launched from a rogue nation.
Cohen said he assured the NATO allies the proposed system was ``very limited in nature (and) not designed against the Russians.'' He also said no decision on the plan will be made before next summer.
But if it goes ahead, it would require renegotiation of part of the U.S.-Russia Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, something Moscow opposes. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says the treaty ``represents the core of strategic stability. Should this core be disrupted, then strategic stability could also be disrupted.''
With that possibility in mind, some U.S. allies reacted cautiously to Cohen's proposal.
French Defense Minister Alain Richard said it remained to be seen if the system the Americans envisage ``will be a gain in security equivalent to the expenditure. We remain cautious.''
Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary-general, said ``some of the European allies have some profound questions to ask'' about the wisdom of Washington going it alone.
Cohen acknowledged ``there is by no means a consensus.'' Some allies ``raised concerns of a decoupling'' of the United States from the rest of the NATO, he said, but added it was only healthy that disagreements are debated openly in the alliance.
Also Thursday, the defense ministers debated the European Union's plans to develop the capability to take military action on its own in cases where the United States is not interested in participating.
NATO's air war against Yugoslavia highlighted European shortcomings in all-weather air attacks, precision-guided weaponry, communications, intelligence and logistics. The allies have agreed to improve on those shortcomings, but there are questions about their ability to raise defense spending.
-------- russia
U.S. may send monitors to Russia for Y2K
CNET News December 3, 1999, 12:00 p.m. PT By Reuters Special to CNET News.com
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-1478379.html?tag=st
MOSCOW--A senior Russian military official said today that U.S. experts might be stationed in Russia over the Y2K period as part of a joint missile monitoring program with the United States.
Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov told a news conference it is understandable that Washington and Moscow would want their nuclear experts to sit side-by-side over New Year's to ensure there are no misunderstandings because of the millennium bug.
Computers may go wrong as the world reaches 2000 because older programs store the year as two digits and may read 2000 as 1900.
"We will be there at the critical moment," Ivashov said, referring to the Colorado Springs monitoring base where specialists from both countries will work for three weeks.
That project--the Center for Year 2000 Strategic Stability--is a Pentagon-sponsored watchdog that should make sure any Y2K glitches don't affect Moscow's missile-launch detection system or cause any nuclear problems. Russian and U.S. military personnel will sit side-by-side inside U.S. Space Command's Building 1840 to keep vigil by watching missiles and with luck avert an accidental atomic nightmare.
"It has already been announced that our people will be there in Colorado Springs," he said. "Talks will be held and if the need arises, they [the Americans] will be here too."
Asked where the U.S. team would be based in Russia, he said, "Outside Moscow. I can't be more precise."
The U.S. embassy in Moscow was not available for comment.
---
Russia to Expel U.S. Diplomat
Washington Post WORLD In Brief, December 3, 1999; Page A26
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/03/090l-120399-idx.html
MOSCOW--A U.S. diplomat who was briefly detained in Moscow on espionage charges has been ordered to leave Russia and will not be allowed to return, a Foreign Ministry official said. Spokesman Yevgeny Voronin refused to specify when the diplomat, identified as Cheri Leberknight, was expected to leave, and indicated that Russian authorities have not set a strict time frame for her departure.
-------- ukraine
Chernobyl Reactor Shut Down
Washington Post WORLD In Brief, December 3, 1999; Page A26
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/03/090l-120399-idx.html
KIEV, Ukraine--Ukraine's nuclear power authorities said a minor malfunction had shut down the last working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant just days after it was restarted following lengthy repair work. A spokeswoman for the state-run nuclear energy company Energoatom said radiation levels remained normal after Wednesday's cooling system leak and shutdown.
---
Chernobyl shut down after malfunction
USA Today 12/03/99- Updated 07:02 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#chec
KIEV, Ukraine - The only working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down Thursday when a leak was detected in a water pipe, just six days after the plant was restarted. Chernobyl operators found the tiny leak in a pipeline of the backup cooling system, the Chernobyl press service says. The water in the pipe does not work in the nuclear reactor itself, but provides pressure to the reactor's cooling system. The reactor was turned off Wednesday. A Chernobyl spokesman says there were no radiation leaks. The reactor may be restarted by Dec. 9.
---
Chernobyl Reactor Halted
New York Times December 3, 1999 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/03/news/world/chernobyl-reactor.html
KIEV, Ukrain -- The only working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been shut down because of a leak in a water pipe, officials said Thursday.
Plant operators found the tiny leak in a pipeline of the backup cooling system at reactor No. 3, Chernobyl officials said.
The reactor was turned off on Wednesday, just six days after it was restarted, said Oleh Holoskokov, a Chernobyl spokesman. He said there had been no radiation leaks.
Holoskokov said that a week would be needed to repair the leak and that the reactor should be restarted by Dec. 9.
---
Ukraine's Chernobyl Plant Shut Down
Yahoo 07:22 AM ET 12/02/99 By MARINA SYSOEVA Associated Press Writer
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) _ The only working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down when a leak was detected in a water pipe, just six days after the plant was restarted, officials said today.
Chernobyl operators found the tiny leak in a pipeline of the backup cooling system during a planned examination, the Chernobyl press service said. The water in the pipe does not work in the nuclear reactor itself, but provides pressure to the reactor's cooling system.
The reactor was turned off Wednesday, said Oleh Holoskokov, a Chernobyl spokesman. He said there were no radiation leaks. Holoskokov said a week would be needed to repair the leak and that the reactor, the plant's only working one, should be restarted by Dec. 9.
Chernobyl was shut down for repairs on July 1 and was restarted last Friday.
Plant officials insist the reactor is safe, even though Western governments and environmental groups have urged the former Soviet Republic to shut it down for good.
Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 exploded in 1986, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe. That reactor is covered by a steel-and-concrete sarcophagus that is currently undergoing repairs.
A 1995 agreement between Ukraine and the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations said the plant should be closed by the year 2000.
But Ukraine has said it doesn't have the $1.2 billion needed to finish construction of two new reactors to replace the output that would be lost by closing Chernobyl.
The government has said it plans to shut down the nuclear power plant sometime next year and has called on the West to provide the necessary funds.
Ukraine's five nuclear power plants, with 14 reactors, provide 40 percent of the country's electricity. At any given time, several of the reactors are down for repairs, but Ukraine says it can't afford to shut any of the plants down until more are built.
---
FEATURE-Soviet-era reactors gear up for Y2K test
Reuters 09:15 p.m Dec 02, 1999 Eastern By Christina Ling
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a4859LBY237reulb-19991202&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The grey hulk of the tomb encasing the radioactive rubble of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster looms over a bleak, snowy wasteland as a grim reminder of what can happen when atomic energy goes wrong.
But beyond the wall blocking off the stricken number four reactor of Ukraine's infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant, white-suited technicians bustle through the metal-lined halls of reactor three amid the hum of throbbing turbines.
Number Three, Chernobyl's last remaining reactor, was being brought on stream for what could be its last few months of service before closure sometime next year at the behest of the international community.
Thus the reactor, closure of which has been delayed from this year as previously planned, will be just in time to catch any ``millennium bug'' that might be waiting to strike unwary computer systems around the globe at midnight on December 31, 1999.
Officials vow there will be no second Chernobyl in Ukraine.
While those manning the wall-length panels of flashing dials and switches in the reactor's sci-fi-style control room have a healthy awareness of the potential danger of their work, they are puzzled and exasperated at the stir around their plant.
``What do you mean, 'Aren't we afraid'? Everyone at the station is afraid of accidents, but there won't be one,'' unit shift supervisor Viktor Kuchinsky told Reuters, breaking off to consult with his team as he kept one eye on the control panels.
``I'm more afraid of a car accident.''
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY WARY OF SOVIET-ERA PLANTS
The Chernobyl blast, which killed 31 people outright and sent a radioactive cloud drifting over Europe to affect the health of thousands more, has fed concern about the safety of the 57 Soviet-era nuclear plants in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia all have Soviet reactors. Russia has nine nuclear plants, with Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors at St Petersburg, Smolensk and Kursk, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Lithuania's Ignalina plant also has two RBMK reactors, the emergency safety devices of which, an IAEA spokesman said, were thought less reliable than those used at Western-style pressurised water plants and also lacked multiple back-up safety systems.
The Group of Seven leading industrial nations four years ago struck a deal with Ukraine to have Chernobyl closed by 2000 in return for funding the decommissioning and completion of replacement capacity. Delays in funding have held up closure.
The European Union has used the desire of Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia to join the EU as a lever to require them to commit to closing their oldest stations.
But the authorities at most of the Eastern-bloc stations say they have run extensive tests, dismiss the risk from possible Y2K bugs and declare themselves well prepared for any surprises.
``When these plants were designed the Soviet technology was not that advanced to build computerised plants,'' Sandor Nagy, the head of Hungary's Paks plant, told Reuters, saying his four VVER pressurised water reactors were all fully Y2K compliant.
``We only have one computer system that controls safety in one reactor and that was installed this year by Siemens.''
PLANTS BASICALLY Y2K-PROOF, CONCERNS REMAIN
The IAEA believes most stations are prepared for the millennium, but spokesman David Kyd said the change of date nevertheless posed challenges for all which Ukraine and Armenia, in particular, were struggling to meet.
``The overall situation is not too worrisome regarding the plants themselves,'' said Kyd, adding that Russian-designed plants were less reliant on computers than high-tech Western ones.
``It's true that the Russians build them cheap, cheerful and rugged, and they are very forgiving beasts. A minor computer glitch will not have an effect on the way the plant runs.''
But he said ``embedded'' safety-related computer systems were potentially susceptible to the Y2K bug, and while most Soviet- style plants had reported successful checks on such systems, IAEA experts feared Chernobyl had not paid it enough attention.
The agency was also concerned about the possibility of instability or even blackouts on electricity grids throughout the region, which experts say could force reactor operators to cut capacity or even switch the reactor off.
``That is that fear of the experts...that they would have to take precautionary measures at the nuclear plants so that there's no abnormality in operation,'' Kyd said.
``To run a power plant at an abnormal level of activity is unusual for the operating staff...and you've got to tune it a little more finely if you want to take it down to half power.''
Kyd said IAEA experts had visited Lithuania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia but had made most of their Y2K-related visits in Eastern Europe to Ukraine, which relies on five nuclear plants for almost half its power needs.
He said Ukraine and Armenia both lacked funds to upgrade radiation monitoring systems for emergencies.
SOVIET-DESIGNED PLANTS SAY THEY PREPARED
Armenian nuclear officials said the country's Medzamor plant was preparing for Y2K and they did not expect any problems.
``The present condition of the nuclear plant does not cause any anxiety,'' Medzamor official Slavik Danielyan told Reuters. ``All computers which have not been tested are now being changed,'' said another official, Slavik Pogosyan.
In the Czech Republic, the owner of the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant, CEZ a.s., said it had conducted extensive tests and Y2K preparation programmes, and all critical systems were 100 percent prepared.
Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant, which has six VVER water pressurised reactors, also said it was not in danger. Experts said most of the plant's computer systems were developed after 1994 and thus were millennium compliant.
In Chernobyl, specialists say their computers are of mainly auxiliary importance and mostly not date-sensitive.
Kuchinsky pulled out a battered ring-binder with a copy of the plant's contingency plans for all imaginable disasters, including if the country's entire power grid failed.
``I wouldn't like to say categorically that nothing will happen, but we are prepared for practically any situation,'' he said.
Chernobyl director Vitaly Tovstonohov has told Reuters that extra staff would be on duty on New Year's Eve, with the computer team standing by in case of emergency.
``I haven't quite decided yet what I will be doing,'' he said.''But most probably I will be somewhere here, too.''
-------- sweden
Fierce Storm Hits Denmark, Sweden
Associated Press Friday, Dec. 3, 1999; 8:42 p.m. EST
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- A storm packing winds of more than 100 mph swept across the area Friday night, killing at least three people and forcing ferries, an airport and a nuclear reactor to halt their operations.
Officials said the shutdown of the reactor at the Barsebaeck power plant in southern Sweden was routine because of a short circuit outside the structure and did not pose a safety threat.
"This does happen every once in a while," said Anders Jorle, a spokesman for the Swedish nuclear power inspection agency. "It's a concern for the consumers of electricity but it's not any safety problem."
Barsebaeck, about 25 miles east of Copenhagen, provides power in southern Sweden, where thousands were without electricity Friday night.
The duty officer at the plant, Christer Palm, said power could not be restored before morning because of the storm.
Meanwhile, a coastal vessel was reported in difficulty in the high seas off Denmark's western coast. A rescue helicopter and at least one Danish ship were heading to assist the Finsjord of the Dutch Antilles, according to the Danish navy.
The heavy rain and winds also forced the closure of at least two bridges, and police warned people to stay indoors because of what Denmark's Meteorological Institute called the country's worst storm in recent times.
The storm knocked over trees and electrical cables, disrupting traffic and train travel all over the country and across the border in Sweden.
Two people were killed when trees fell on their cars in Denmark, police said. Police also said a woman died after she was hit by a flying tile, and channel TV2 reported that a German woman died after a trailer fell on her in the west. Identities or other details were not immediately available.
The storm caused flooding in several towns and villages along the west coast and damaged at least one dike, police said. Authorities evacuated up to 80 people in the southwestern Denmark village of Ballum because of flooding, police said, revising an earlier figure.
Ferry connections to Sweden and Norway, and those between Danish islands were also suspended due to the rough sea. The Copenhagen airport and Denmark's second-largest airport in Billund, western Denmark, both were closed.
-------- india
India-Pakistan Fight Hurts Y2K Plan
Saturday, Dec. 4, 1999; 1:28 a.m. EST By Ashok Sharma Associated Press Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991204/aponline012806_000.htm
NEW DELHI, India -- Early this year, when relations were on an upswing, the leaders of India and Pakistan pledged to cooperate on sharing technology and reducing the risk of accidental nuclear war.
Three months later, the two countries were engaged in their worst fighting in almost three decades and were on the brink of their fourth full-scale war since both won independence from Britain in 1947.
Among the casualties of that episode was a plan for Indian experts to visit Pakistan to work on technical problems, possibly including cooperation on the unpredictable Y2K computer glitch.
"The visit didn't take place," said G. Parthasarthy, India's ambassador to Pakistan.
Nineteen months after both countries proved they were ready to produce nuclear arsenals, there is concern that still-developing controls on their nuclear devices could be disrupted come the New Year, when digital clocks on untreated computers turn from 99 to 00.
In India, no one seems overly concerned.
"I don't think that the two sides have reached such sophistication that Y2K should be a major problem," K. Subrahmanyam, a member of India's National Security Council, told The Associated Press.
In Pakistan, although scientists at the Atomic Energy Commission say their nuclear facilities are now Y2K compliant, there is uncertainty about India.
"We just don't know what our neighbor has done to handle this problem," one scientist told the AP, speaking on condition he not be identified.
An Indian nuclear expert, Brahama Chellany, said he believed the danger of the Y2K bug causing either country to fire a missile accidentally is "absolutely nonexistent" because neither possesses a system in which a missile is automatically fired after detecting a launch by an adversary.
"The missiles are absolutely safe and secure," said Chellany, of the independent New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research. "To fire them, you have to first load the fuel, activate various systems and then fire them."
Pakistan's military, which seized power in an Oct. 12 coup, is not disclosing any information on its millennium bug readiness, says that country's Y2K coordinator, Ijaz Khawaja, beyond assuring him it is compliant.
In India, the government's Y2K Action Force says the defense sector has done "impact analysis" on most systems and that rectification and testing was done "wherever necessary."
The task force says 11 critical sectors in India - including banking, telecommunications, railroads, the space program, petroleum and civil aviation - have achieved complete readiness. However, sectors including water supply, sewage and health, continue to be of concern.
"The critical thing for water supply and sewage is power," said the task force's chairman, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. "And we are pretty assured that on the power side we won't have problems."
Some foreign governments and independent analysts, however, are not so sure of India's readiness.
"The situation was quite bad six months ago, especially in the power sector," said Dewand Mehta, director of the National Association of Software and Service Companies. "Things have considerably improved in most of the 11 core sectors."
Mehta said, however, that "because of the late start, the testing process is yet to be completed."
International Y2K experts have expressed concerns about the level of preparation of India's air traffic control systems, and many airlines have decided to cancel flights over the region during the crucial New Year's rollover period.
H.L. Khola, director-general of civil aviation, said the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. body, tested Y2K compliance at New Delhi airport and will submit a report on Dec. 15 after testing facilities at the three other major airports.
As a contingency measure during the rollover period, all international flights will fly above 27,000 feet, domestic flights below that height. The longitudinal separation between any two planes also will be increased from 10 to 15 minutes, and all planes will carry extra fuel.
Under normal circumstances, some 1,200 aircraft operate in Indian airspace daily, half of them landing or taking off from its airports
-------- turkey
ANALYSIS-Turkey set for first nuke power plant
Reuters Friday December 3, 8:47 am Eastern Time By Ercan Ersoy
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/991203/j8.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/991203/j2.html
ANKARA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Energy-hungry Turkey appears eager to finalise a tender by the end of this month to build its controversial first nuclear power plant, ending a three-decade-long saga fraught by protests and cancellations.
``We have decided to intensify our efforts to conclude work on the nuclear power plant tender,'' Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told reporters on Thursday night after a six-hour meeting of government coalition leaders.
``The government has made a decision to go ahead with the nuclear power plant,'' he said.
Turkey, which cancelled two previous tenders in the past three decades, collected bids for the plant, to be located near the Mediterranean coastal village of Akkuyu, from three international consortia in 1997.
The companies agreed to extend their bids to December 31, 1999, following a request by the government, which failed to finalise the tender assessment by October 15, 1999, the original deadline put forward by the consortia.
Energy Minister Cumhur Ersumer has said if the government failed to award the tender again, ``this will give the world the message that Turkey will never be able to build any nuclear power plant in the future.''
Turkish state electricity producer TEAS, which will be operator, said technical assessment of the project was completed and it was now up to the government to move.
ANTI-NUCLEAR CAMPAIGN
The project has been severely criticised by local residents, environmentalists, the influential chamber of electrical engineers and some politicians.
The Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in Ukraine in 1986 encouraged such groups to anti-nuclear campaign.
A strong earthquake that killed about 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in August also raised questions about the location of the plant, which some experts said lay near a seismic fault line.
Ethem Torunoglu, head of the Chamber of Environmental Engineers, said Turkey was criss-crossed by active fault lines and there were legal barriers to building the plant.
``A fault line is passing some 25 km (16-mile) to the east of the plant site. Also, the project does not have a key document, called the environmental assessment report, for it to go ahead,'' he told Reuters
But a housing ministry map suggested the site was in one of the safest locations in terms of exposure to earthquakes.
Thursday's meeting was prompted by a series of gas and power cuts in Istanbul, Ankara and Bursa this week after gas pressure in the pipeline from Russia dropped.
Melda Keskin, head of Greenpeace's Mediterranean Energy Campaign, told a news conference the timing of the power cuts was significant. ``They are trying to scare people off by using darkness and cold weather in order to conclude the nuclear tender,'' she said.
Turkey, which will consume 117.3 billion kiloWatt-hours (kWh) of power this year against 115.3 billion kWh generated, imports electricity from Iran, Georgia and Bulgaria to make up for the shortage.
BIG NAMES AMONG BIDDERS
The project is expected to cost up to $5 billion and is planned for completion in 2007. The bidding consortium is led by U.S. White Westinghouse (NYSE:WAB - news), Canada's AECL and French-German NPI (Nuclear Power International).
The best bidder in terms of per unit costs energy generation is NPI, which includes Siemens Framatome, Alstom Campenon Bernard, Hochtief , Turkey's Garanti Koza, Simko, STFA and Tekfen.
Its first bid is for a 1,482-MegaWatt (MW) plant that will generate power for 2.56 cents per kWh and cost $2.393 billion. The second alternative is a 2,964-MW, $4.48 billion plant that will produce power at 2.28 cents per kWh.
Canada's AECL has Anglo-Norwegian Kvaerner John Brown , Hitachi , Turkey's Guris, Gama and Bayindir as partners. The consortium proposed a 1,339 MW, $2.572 billion plant and pledged a unit cost of 3.3 cents/kWh.
(Note: this article is ``in progress''; there will likely be an update soon.)
---
Energy-turkey-nuclear Ankara
Reuters Friday December 3, 8:50 am Eastern Time
The consortium led by U.S. Westinghouse includes Mitsubishi Electric Corp , Raytheon (NYSE:RTNa - news) and Turkey's Enka . Its bid for a 1,218-MW, $3.279 billion plant envisages a 3.35 cents/kWh unit cost.
---
ANALYSIS-Turkey set for first nuke power plant
Reuters 08:26 a.m. Dec 03, 1999 Eastern By Ercan Ersoy
http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1197reuff-19991203&qt=%2Bnuclear&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
ANKARA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Energy-hungry Turkey appears eager to finalise a tender by the end of this month to build its controversial first nuclear power plant, ending a three-decade-long saga fraught by protests and cancellations.
``We have decided to intensify our efforts to conclude work on the nuclear power plant tender,'' Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told reporters on Thursday night after a six-hour meeting of government coalition leaders.
``The government has made a decision to go ahead with the nuclear power plant,'' he said.
Turkey, which cancelled two previous tenders in the past three decades, collected bids for the plant, to be located near the Mediterranean coastal village of Akkuyu, from three international consortia in 1997.
The companies agreed to extend their bids to December 31, 1999, following a request by the government, which failed to finalise the tender assessment by October 15, 1999, the original deadline put forward by the consortia.
Energy Minister Cumhur Ersumer has said if the government failed to award the tender again, ``this will give the world the message that Turkey will never be able to build any nuclear power plant in the future.''
Turkish state electricity producer TEAS, which will be operator, said technical assessment of the project was completed and it was now up to the government to move.
ANTI-NUCLEAR CAMPAIGN
The project has been severely criticised by local residents, environmentalists, the influential chamber of electrical engineers and some politicians.
The Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in Ukraine in 1986 encouraged such groups to anti-nuclear campaign.
A strong earthquake that killed about 18,000 people in northwestern Turkey in August also raised questions about the location of the plant, which some experts said lay near a seismic fault line.
Ethem Torunoglu, head of the Chamber of Environmental Engineers, said Turkey was criss-crossed by active fault lines and there were legal barriers to building the plant.
``A fault line is passing some 25 km (16-mile) to the east of the plant site. Also, the project does not have a key document, called the environmental assessment report, for it to go ahead,'' he told Reuters
But a housing ministry map suggested the site was in one of the safest locations in terms of exposure to earthquakes.
Thursday's meeting was prompted by a series of gas and power cuts in Istanbul, Ankara and Bursa this week after gas pressure in the pipeline from Russia dropped.
Melda Keskin, head of Greenpeace's Mediterranean Energy Campaign, told a news conference the timing of the power cuts was significant. ``They are trying to scare people off by using darkness and cold weather in order to conclude the nuclear tender,'' she said.
Turkey, which will consume 117.3 billion kiloWatt-hours (kWh) of power this year against 115.3 billion kWh generated, imports electricity from Iran, Georgia and Bulgaria to make up for the shortage.
BIG NAMES AMONG BIDDERS
The project is expected to cost up to $5 billion and is planned for completion in 2007. The bidding consortium is led by U.S. White Westinghouse, Canada's AECL and French-German NPI (Nuclear Power International).
The best bidder in terms of per unit costs energy generation is NPI, which includes Siemens Framatome, Alstom Campenon Bernard, Hochtief, Turkey's Garanti Koza, Simko, STFA and Tekfen.
Its first bid is for a 1,482-MegaWatt (MW) plant that will generate power for 2.56 cents per kWh and cost $2.393 billion. The second alternative is a 2,964-MW, $4.48 billion plant that will produce power at 2.28 cents per kWh.
Canada's AECL has Anglo-Norwegian Kvaerner John Brown, Hitachi, Turkey's Guris, Gama and Bayindir as partners. The consortium proposed a 1,339 MW, $2.572 billion plant and pledged a unit cost of 3.3 cents/kWh.
The consortium led by U.S. Westinghouse includes Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Raytheon and Turkey's Enka. Its bid for a 1,218-MW, $3.279 billion plant envisages a 3.35 cents/kWh unit cost.
-------- australia
LGA call to stop developing uranium mines
ABC News Thur, 2 Dec 1999 12:40 CDT
http://www.abc.net.au/news/regionals/port/regport-2dec1999-8.htm
The Australian Local Government Association is calling on the Federal Government to stop the development of any more uranium mines in Australia.
Almost 800 members voted for the motion at the ALGA meeting in Canberra yesterday.
ALGA President, John Ross, says it could have ramifications on South Australia's proposed radioactive waste repository.
Mr Ross says planning laws must be changed, to stop further mining and prohibit all transportation, storage, and treatment of nuclear waste.
"The only area where we can actually make changes is through our planning regulations."
"And our planning regulations in most instances are subject to ramification by State Government authorities in any event".
"We are just expressing a real concern on behalf of our residents that there aren't adequate safeguards in the nuclear industry."
-------- wto
Clinton enters WTO as protest arrests rise
USA Today 12/02/99- Updated 01:36 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed01.htm
--
Police: Gentle tactics didn't work
USA Today 12/02/99- Updated 01:31 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed07.htm
--
Protests Cloud Clinton Message on Free Trade
By Charles Babington Washington Post , December 3, 1999; Page A32
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/03/080l-120399-idx.html
---
A Dangerous Tolerance
Washington Post Friday, December 3, 1999; Page A41 By William Raspberry
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/03/038l-120399-idx.html
---
Trade Obstacles Unmoved, Seattle Talks End in Failure
New York Times December 4, 1999 By JOSEPH KAHN and DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/120499wto-talks.html
---
Saboteurs Cut Power at W.T.O. in Geneva
New York Times December 4, 1999 By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/120499wto-geneva.html
---
Trade Ministers Sidestep Issue of Secrecy
New York Times December 4, 1999 By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/120499wto-secrecy.html
---
Seattle Talks on Trade End With Stinging Blow to U.S.
New York Times December 5, 1999 By JOSEPH KAHN and DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/120599wto-talks.html
---
GREEN BURDEN ENVIRONMENTALISTS ON QUEST FOR POWER
Published on 12/02/99, WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/archives_search.html
The World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Seattle has opened, and there was no shortage of meetings to mark the occasion. Consider "Ensuring Open Trade for Global Prosperity," sponsored by International Consumers for Civil Society (ICCS) and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The papers and speeches were rational and well-researched; the participants were distinguished and intellectually elegant. It couldn't compete.
-------
Newberg-Perini Awarded $300 Million Contract To Support Entire ComEd Nuclear Power `Fleet'
Company Press Release Friday December 3, 11:28 am Eastern Time Infoseek
FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 3, 1999--Perini Corporation (AMEX:PCR - news) announced today that it had received a contract valued at $300 million from Commonwealth Edison Co. of Illinois, one of the nation's leading nuclear power generators, to supply construction management services for maintenance and modification work required for all of ComEd's nuclear plants for a five year period. Newberg/Perini, a division of Perini Corporation, will perform the work under an existing 50/50 joint venture with Stone & Webster, Incorporated in support of ComEd's nuclear services program.
Under the agreement, the Newberg/Perini and Stone & Webster team will provide construction, maintenance and support services to ComEd's Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, LaSalle and Quad Cities nuclear generating stations.
Newberg/Perini has worked for ComEd on their nuclear sites since the construction program started in the 1960's, providing construction and maintenance/modification services. Newberg/Perini, in joint venture with Stone & Webster of Boston, Massachusetts, is currently performing the maintenance/ modification contract at ComEd's Braidwood and Dresden nuclear sites.
Perini Corporation provides construction management and general contracting services to private industry as well as federal, state and local agencies throughout the United States and select international locations.
The statements contained in this Release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements regarding the Company's expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties or other factors that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the continuing validity of the underlying assumptions and estimates of total forecasted project revenues, costs and profits and project schedules; the outcomes of pending or future litigation, arbitration or other dispute resolution proceedings; changes in federal and state appropriations for infrastructure projects; possible changes or developments in worldwide or domestic, social, economic, business, industry, market and regulatory conditions or circumstances; and actions taken or omitted to be taken by third parties including the Company's customers, suppliers, business partners, and competitors and legislative, regulatory, judicial and other governmental authorities and officials.
Contact:
Perini Corporation Robert Band, 508/628-2295
---
Clinton Plans to Declare Y2K National Emergency (on December 28)
More than 50 simultaneous Y2K crises expected, stretching resources to limit.
Tue, 30 Nov 1999 16:00:31 -0600 WorldNet Daily, by David M. Bresnahan
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_bresnahan/19991129_xex_clinton_set_.shtml
President Clinton has already made plans to declare a national emergency because of expected disruptions caused by the Y2K computer problem, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] documents.
A final training session followed by a mock Y2K disaster exercise will include the actual disruptions and problems that Y2K emergency planners believe will take place during the change to the New Year.
Plans for the emergency declaration were made known to Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and other federal employees in preparation for use of the Information Coordination Center, set up by the President's Council on the Year 2000 conversion. The plans were also given to the Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem.
The staff on hand at the Information Coordination Center have been told to expect a presidential declaration of a national emergency. FEMA staff who will run the regional emergency operation centers have also been told the same thing.
[According to the article, the national state of emergency will commence on December 28]
Emergency agency expects the worst: Y2K could be more than government can handle
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_bresnahan/19991129_xex_emergency_ag.shtml
mailto:dbresnahan@worldnetdaily.com
-------- us nuc weapons
Return to Fortress America?
Christian Scince Monitor THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1999
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/12/02/fp11s2-csm.shtml
Evidence accumulates that there is a revival of the controversial pre-World War II defense doctrine called Fortress America. It envisaged a world in which the United States could be secure even if everybody else went up in flames. Those who thought that strategy had died in the cold war may now have cause to reconsider in the light of recent actions by Congress.
This time Fortress America comes with an anti-Chinese bias. Congress has reiterated its support of the program to build an antiballistic missile (ABM) system, a modified version of President Reagan's "star wars" proposal. This was the notion that we could build a network of radar and missiles that would intercept and destroy incoming nuclear missiles. Inexplicably, the Clinton administration also supports the program. The Chinese as well as the Russians think we want the ABM so that we can attack them without worrying about a counterattack.
In addition, the Senate defeated the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This action was not aimed at China, but it is a part of building Fortress America. If we have an impregnable shield against nuclear attack, we don't need to be concerned about the development of nuclear weapons by others.
In pledging to deploy antiballistic missiles and in opposing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Texas Gov. George W. Bush has allied himself with Fortress America despite his protestations of internationalism.
Neither the House nor the Senate loses an opportunity to infuriate China about Taiwan. The House International Relations Committee has approved a bill called the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act. Among other things, the bill would require annual reports to Congress on the administration's plans to defend Taiwan.
In the Senate, the nomination of retired Admiral Joseph Prueher as ambassador to China triggered more cries to bolster Taiwan's defense. Some senators worried that, as Sen. Robert Smith (R) of New Hampshire put it, Mr. Prueher was "lax on planning for the defense of Taiwan" in his former post as commander of US forces in the Pacific.
For China, Taiwan is the most sensitive issue. For Taiwan, the only threat comes from China. Thus, any help for Taiwan's defense would be aimed at China. Nothing could inflame the Chinese more. One thing that upsets them about the ABM is they see it as a shield for Taiwan - as do some US planners.
Recently there have been two developments that give Congress an opportunity to reconsider the direction in which it has been heading. Early indications are not promising. An elite Defense Department panel has made a report listing all the things wrong with the Pentagon's program to develop an ABM. This could provide a welcome excuse to abandon the project.
But no. The ABM has taken such root among Republicans on Capitol Hill that Sen. Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi argues that the threat from such nations as North Korea justifies steaming ahead, notwithstanding expert warnings that the system won't work.
Hard negotiating in Beijing has provided another chance to get our China policy on course. This is the US-China trade agreement. The agreement itself doesn't need congressional approval; but for it to become effective, Congress must make permanent legislation that now gives China temporarily the benefit of normal trading relations with the US, which is the same tariff treatment other countries receive.
Aside from settling a number of bilateral US-China trade problems, the agreement opens the way for Chinese admission to the World Trade Organization. This, by itself, is a huge benefit to both countries. It would involve China more permanently in the commercial and economic affairs of the world. This in turn would slowly but inevitably moderate Chinese behavior in a number of desirable ways, leading to a more open economy and, we hope, a more open political system.
The test in Congress will be whether long-term benefits can overcome short-term losses plus anti-Chinese biases. It will likely be a close thing with both parties split: Democratic free-traders versus their labor friends worried about losing jobs; Republican protectionists versus their business friends anticipating profits. ABM and trade are key indicators of whether Congress will persist in its path toward Fortress America or whether it will recognize the existence of the rest of the world.
President Truman based his reelection campaign in 1948 on relentless attacks on the "do-nothing Republican 80th Congress." In a sense the 80th Congress quite unintentionally kept Truman in the White House. Might the 106th put Gore or Bradley there?
Pat M. Holt is a Washington writer on foreign affairs. He is coauthor of the forthcoming 'National Insecurity: US Intelligence After the Cold War' (Temple University Press).
---
After the Test Ban Vote
Washington Post Friday, December 3, 1999; Page A40
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/03/031l-120399-idx.html
Henry Kissinger is correct to call for an end to name-calling and denunciations in the wake of the Senate vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [op-ed, Nov. 23]. The question is where to go from here.
The primary defense against the worldwide spread of nuclear weapons is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and its associated regime.
The nonproliferation treaty was given a 25-year lifespan, but its members agreed in 1995 to extend it indefinitely, something the United States very much wanted. The principal price for a permanent nonproliferation treaty was a test ban treaty by 1996. With the Senate rejection, the United States has bounced the check it wrote when it signed the test ban treaty in 1996.
The test ban treaty has long been considered by nonnuclear weapon states as the litmus test of the commitment of the five nuclear powers to the nonproliferation treaty and of their willingness to balance the renunciation of nuclear weapons by 181 nations. If the United States does not ratify the test ban, the NPT regime could unravel.
The negotiation of the test ban treaty was long and difficult, but more than 150 nations have signed it, and more than 50 have ratified. It is illusory to believe that amendments to the current treaty or a new test ban treaty could be negotiated and accepted by the other signatories. The only practical course of action is for the Senate to fashion conditions to the resolution of ratification that address concerns raised during the recent Senate debate.
In a world in which almost anyone can build a crude nuclear weapon, the only workable route is multilateral cooperation. The bottom line is that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is essential to preserving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is central to our national security.
THOMAS GRAHAM Jr.
Washington
The writer was special representative of the president for arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament from 1994 to 1997.
---
Missile defense system makes sense in post-Cold War era
Florida Today 12/03/99By John Omicinski A Gannett News Service column
http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/1999b/120399e.htm
WASHINGTON - This year's successful test of a Star Wars-generation space-shooter that zaps incoming missiles with pinpoint accuracy at speeds up to 15,000 mph is another remarkable feat of American technology.
Called an exoatmospheric vehicle - EAV - the weapon makes construction of a national missile defense not only possible, but likely.
Not surprisingly, the space-shooter's accuracy rattled the Chinese and Russians. Sha Zakung, Beijing's chief of arms control, said a U.S. national missile defense will ''tip the global balance'' and ''trigger a new arms race.'' Col. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, Russia's strategic missile commander, said a national missile defense system - NMD - could upset the ''balanced system'' of arms control agreements.
But let's get real: The old arms control regime is as broken as Humpty Dumpty, despite an epidemic of wishful thinking about the good old days of the Cold War. All the king's horsemen cannot put it back together.
The world is a different place since India and Pakistan got the A-bomb, since Iran started building and selling three-stage missiles, and since Russia's armed forces were so shattered that Moscow's generals have abandoned their Cold War promise of never being the first to use nuclear weapons.
Moscow says its conventional forces are so weak that it considers its nukes a ''deterrent'' against possible attack. Face it: If either Moscow or Beijing could build a workable national missile defense, they would do so, despite their whining.
Indeed, let's hope neither Russian moles nor Chinese agents are allowed to climb in through the holes in our national security system and steal the EAV secrets. That would be a disaster worse than Moscow and Beijing's thefts of U.S. nuclear and missile technology over the years.
Make no mistake, the Chinese and Russians would love to get their hands on the super-modern EAV technology.
In this new and shaky post-Cold War atmosphere, nations will pursue their own best interests. That leaves the U.S. political system with the difficult question of whether to go ahead with a nuclear shield, probably in South Dakota and Alaska, that may cost $11 billion or more.
All candidates have various levels of enthusiasm for such a system - generally the Democrats the least and Republicans the most.
But the NMD is likely to become a major political question in the 2000 presidential race next year after the initial testing is over and the Pentagon sends a formal recommendation to President Clinton on whether to proceed.
Foreign policy and security matters completely escaped political press scrutiny in the past two elections. That's unlikely to occur again in the 2000 campaign. NMD is too big to ignore.
Clinton initially questioned or opposed the need for NMD, but switched sides when Congress sent him a resolution overwhelmingly supporting it. An NMD decision is likely to press upon him next summer or early fall, in the very heat of the campaigning. All the candidates will be pressed for their opinions.
China, the sharp-toothed rising power, and Russia, the old bear in diseased and dangerous decline, will growl. Questions of appeasement may arise. The national missile defense issue is likely to make next year's campaign an even longer and hotter political summer.
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U.N. crimes court gets support without U.S.
By Betsy Pisik Washington Times December 3, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl1.html
NEW YORK The United States has resigned itself to the eventual creation -- over Washington's objections -- of a U.N. International Criminal Court to be modeled after war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Even if the United States does not ratify the treaty, American citizens will be subject to arrest and trial as the treaty document is now drafted.
International backing for the court became apparent this week as legal experts gathered at the United Nations to discuss fine print in a treaty that would establish the world judicial body.
David Scheffer, assistant secretary of state for war crimes issues, acknowledged that the court is on track, even without the United States.
"We expect many nations to ratify by the end of next year," he told The Washington Times.
He also said that the presence of many U.S. allies on the court would ratchet up pressure on the United States to join, but added: "We're never going to sign a treaty we can't support."
The United States voted against creating the court last summer, saying that the structure of the tribunal would not protect American troops from frivolous or politically motivated indictments and prosecutions.
Although 90 nations have already signed the treaty, only five have formally ratified the document.
Ratification by 60 nations is required for the tribunal to begin working -- something experts expect to happen within the next two years.
Mr. Scheffer said the U.S. delegation was still hoping to secure language in the treaty that would provide protection for Americans -- enough that the United States could eventually join.
He said negotiators were hoping to make strong provisions for national prosecutions that would pre-empt the international tribunal's jurisdiction.
They are also hoping to define agreed-upon crimes and rules of procedure in such a way that U.S. troops would be highly unlikely to ever be called before the court.
Mr. Scheffer said Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright was discussing the tribunal with her counterparts in numerous foreign ministries.
In voting against the court's creation, the United States was joined by a curious collection of nations: Iraq, Libya, Israel, Russia, China and India.
But supporters range from Germany to South Africa to Australia: an increasingly diverse and powerful bloc of nations that experts say will provide the political leadership and financial heft to ease concerns of smaller and more cautious nations.
All of the European Union has signed the treaty, and Italy has ratified it.
The German government on Tuesday announced that it would ratify the treaty but did not say when.
France has committed to ratifying it within the next few months. The governments of Britain, Canada and the Netherlands say they will complete ratification within the next year.
The entire European Union is expected to approve the statute by the end of 2000, said a statement read by a diplomat from Finland. Finland currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
The European Union has promised financial and legal assistance to the court, to be located in The Hague.
The court will prosecute allegations of war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity, and will do so without direct authorization of the U.N. Security Council, where the United States holds a veto.
Although it has no enforcement mechanism, all nations -- including the United States -- would be subject to the international court's jurisdiction, the treaty document says.
This means that all nations will be required to comply with the court's demands for information, evidence, witnesses and suspects, the treaty says.
"We cannot recognize the court's competence in bringing prosecutions against U.S. personnel engaged in official actions when the U.S. government is not a party," Mr. Scheffer told the U.N. legal committee in October.
The court will not be retroactive, but the existing tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia will eventually be rolled under its umbrella.
The financing of the court has not been decided, but many nations hope that the bulk of the court's expenses -- particularly in the start-up years -- will be paid from the U.N. regular budget.
This means that Washington could be assessed up to one-quarter of the court's budget, even if it does not accept the treaty.
Legal experts and delegates from around the world have repeatedly said that the court will be severely limited without the financial, legal and intelligence-gathering capacities of the United States.
"There is no doubt the court would be much stronger with the United States than without," said Bruce Broomhall, an observer with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
However, he said, it is "out of the question" that signatories would allow Washington to renegotiate portions of the treaty.
Foreign delegates say they increasingly doubt whether Washington can be reassured.
Several nations and legal experts have complained that any protections afforded to American troops would be more than enough to shield notorious rulers such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein who could be accused of war crimes.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, has said the treaty will be "dead on arrival" if the president ever submits it for Senate ratification.
Mr. Scheffer said that U.S. officials have not yet decided whether to simply ignore the court, or actively work against it. "We're not going to make that decision until the end of next December."
-------- us military
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon
Washington Times 5am -- December 3, 1999 By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/nation/ring.html
Red ammo
Politically correct environmentalism is a hallmark of the Clinton administration, which created an entire Pentagon bureaucracy devoted to questionable "environmental security."
Now the Army has jumped on the bandwagon. The service has ordered all new bullets, notably the 5.56 mm round used in standard-issue M-16 rifles, to be produced with tungsten filler instead of environmentally polluting lead.
The decision was made before the designation of an Army firing range on Cape Cod, Mass., to be an environmental disaster area requiring federal cleanup funds --even though lead rounds there will not pose any threat for 300 years.
The problem for U.S. national security, we are told, is that the United States has no domestic tungsten resources. It must be purchased abroad and is only available from the Czech Republic, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and China.
Guess where the Pentagon currently gets its tungsten? "We're getting all of ours from China," an upset official told us. "The Army could have opposed this and didn't."
If the decision on green ammunition stands, the Army will be reliant on a foreign power for the basic combat unit -- bullets. The tungsten would be used to replace the lead currently used as filler behind a steel tip and inside the metal jacket surrounding M-16 rounds.
Army spokeswoman Karen Baker said the service fires between 300 million and 400 million M-16 rounds a year and will produce about 1 million "lead-free" bullets this year. She did not know where the Army gets the tungsten for the new rounds.
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Study faults workmanship on space rockets
USA Today 12/03/99- Updated 06:45 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#prba
WASHINGTON - Flawed workmanship and engineering by U.S. rocket manufacturers are at the root of a recent string of space launch failures, a Pentagon study concludes. It faults the government for not keeping a closer eye on the contractors - defense giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The Air Force ordered the study after the malfunctioning of a Delta III rocket in May left a communication satellite in a useless, lopsided space orbit. It was the fifth failed space launch since August 1998 and the second botched flight in a row for Boeing's Delta III. The report also raised concern about the risk of failure in flying the fleet of 39 existing Titan, Delta and Atlas rockets, which are valued at $20 billion and include critical systems with no spares.
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Editorial: Forget the Trump card
Toledo Blade December 3, 1999
http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/edit/9l03ed1.htm
Donald Trump wants to be president, and he has begun to share with the nation some of his views on the policy avenues he might pursue were he to move into the White House. Mr. Trump, who will decide by February whether to run for the presidency on the Reform Party ticket, is evidently a hard-liner.
Discussing North Korea, he suggests the possibility of a U.S. military pre-emptive strike to halt development of that country's missile program. Better that, he says, than having to decide what to do five years from now when North Korea has more nuclear warheads and missiles than this country.
He's plain-spoken. Give him that, at least. But to threaten military action against North Korea, with no indication that the ramifications of such rash action have been considered, is dangerous. Mr. Trump's bluster may be fine for his present line of work, but not when it might lead the nation down the path to nuclear confrontation.
At least Mr. Trump is unafraid to recognize the ineffectuality of the administration's "softly, softly'' approach to North Korea, which clearly isn't working. North Korea's leadership is a despotic and hard-line anachronism, a regime that has overseen the decline of its agriculture and consequent widespread hunger.
And while the people starve, it makes loud and bellicose noises, threatening its neighbors. We have argued before that not one more grain of rice should be sent to North Korea in food aid until the regime pulls back from its aggressive posture and allows a full outside accounting of the aid and where it is distributed.
While Mr. Trump thus deserves some credit, he cannot be a credible candidate for the presidency as long as he continues to speak first and think later. It isn't necessarily the best way to cement a relationship with our former adversary to call Boris Yeltsin a "disaster'' with a "major alcohol problem.''
But then Mr. Trump is not discriminatory with his sweeping condemnations of people he apparently doesn't respect. He described Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Bradley as "almost Marxist in his leanings.'' In contrast, he praises Bill Gates of Microsoft Corp. as having an amazing vision.
Displaying a keen understanding of one fundamental of presidential politics, Mr. Trump recognizes the power of money, and has said that he will spend around $100 million of his own money on his campaign if he decides to run.
Increasingly it appears as though he will. Having scaled the financial heights, perhaps he feels the presidency is a worthy challenge.
Before he gives it his best shot, however, he could use a lesson in the niceties of diplomatic relations. It doesn't stand the country in good stead to treat an unfriendly nuclear power as if it were a recalcitrant property owner standing in the way of another Trump Tower.
-------- us nuc weapons facilities
Scientists Criticize Limits on Foreign Visitors to Laboratories
New York Times December 3, 1999 By WILLIAM J. BROAD and JUDY MILLER http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/120399nuke-spy.html
A committee of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's top scientific advisory group, has criticized a federal crackdown on visits by foreign scientists to the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, saying worries about security must be balanced by the benefits of the visits and by the scientific openness they foster.
"There are many aspects of the work at the laboratories that benefit from or even demand the opportunity for foreign interactions," the committee said in a recent report.
A moratorium on visitors from some countries was imposed in the wake of accusations that China obtained information on nuclear weapons by spying at one of the sites, the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Although officials at the laboratories acknowledge the security lapses, many of them have criticized the espionage accusations as overblown and the restrictions on visitors as excessive.
Investigators found no evidence that foreign visitors had been involved in the espionage, though federal investigators suspect that was the case.
"The moratorium is hurting our work and not providing any increased level of security," Bill Richardson, the secretary of energy, said in an interview. "It's tying people up in bureaucracy and undermining our labs as credible scientific partners."
The Defense Authorization Bill imposed the moratorium, which to