----------- China
China Not Fully Prepared for Y2K
By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer Updated 1:24 AM ET December 14, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/01/int-y2k-china
BEIJING (AP) - Not fully prepared for Y2K, China is accepting that there will be some year-end computer failures, including the risk of office towers shutting down, hospitals doing without advanced surgical equipment and parts of the countryside going black.
China didn't begin work on the Year 2000 computer bug in earnest until 13 months ago. So it had no choice but to resort to computer-system triage, focusing money and manpower on critical government agencies, major cities and industries while leaving the rest to fend for themselves.
Officially, the strategy has paid off.
The government has said there will be no major disruptions as China passes into the new year. Chinese and foreign economists claim that any glitches - which are likely to be felt through the first three months of 2000 - won't harm the economy.
"China is better prepared than many other countries in the region," said Austin Hu of the World Bank, which gave Beijing two $100,000 grants to work on preparing for Y2K.
But behind the optimism lies much unease and uncertainty.
In a country as vast as China, even the government's top Y2K troubleshooter, Zhang Qi, admits she is not sure how smaller cities are faring, and many businesses have remained blase despite official pleading to take the threat seriously.
Y2K problems mainly afflict older computers and the microchips running many machines that use only two digits to record the year. By mistaking the "00" in 2000 for 1900, many computers could crash or garble crucial data.
China is a latecomer to the Information Age so most of its computers are less than 5-years-old.
Only the banking and aviation sectors run the large-scale mainframe computer networks most susceptible to Y2K problems, said Guo Liang, an Internet expert at the government-run China Academy of Social Sciences.
While a relative rarity in a largely rural country where abacuses are often used to check calculators' results, computers run many essential services - and Y2K-related problems have already occurred.
The Public Security Ministry, the national police force, had to destroy thousands of passports it printed in January because their five-year expiration dates read 1904, not 2004, a government website said.
In the national banking system, computers that passed a nationwide test of the switchover from Dec. 31-Jan. 1 failed when the clocks were moved ahead to check for problems on next year's Leap Day, Feb. 29, the central bank reported.
Similar problems cropped up in Beijing - hotels couldn't make bookings for next year and property leases printed up incorrectly, said Chen Xinxiang, a troubleshooter for the capital's Y2K task force.
In keeping with the country's make-do approach, hospitals in Beijing were ordered to inspect all equipment and mark those suspected of having Y2K problems with a red tag. That equipment may not be used over the sensitive New Year's period and again in late February, Chen said.
"This was done in major hospitals, but we cannot vouch for smaller ones," Chen said. He added that while planned surgeries may be affected, emergency rooms have been ordered to make sure all equipment and back-up generators are Y2K-safe.
Specialists in the sectors the government deemed critical rewrote computer codes and rechecked the results, the government has said.
The national banking system, with deposits worth $1.2 trillion at stake, has been declared a national model of preparedness but has ordered paper records be kept as a back-up.
The civil aviation administration ran drills using short-wave radios to contact airplanes in case communications systems at major airports and air traffic control centers fail.
Testing outside those sectors, for example in the postal service, has been less careful, experts familiar with the government's efforts said.
Foreign firms have also complained that the government's unwillingness to release information has hampered their efforts to prepare.
"The government has never published what it should have," said Ray Yang of IT United, which provides computer network services to businesses in China.
Beijing and Shanghai only this month began verbally assuring embassies and foreign firms that supplies of electricity, water and gas will not be disrupted.
IT United asked 18 banks, insurers and electricity, water, gas and phone companies for written guarantees, but Yang said all refused.
"We believe a written guarantee would be a legal one, and we have to leave ourselves some space," said Zhang Xiaolu, director-general of the State Power Corporation of China.
-----------
Physicist Is Ordered Held Without Bail
Lee Enters Not Guilty Plea As Wife, Daughter Look On
By Walter Pincus Washington Post, Tuesday, December 14, 1999; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/14/070l-121499-idx.html
Former Los Alamos physicist Wen Ho Lee pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges that he mishandled a vast quantity of nuclear secrets, and a federal magistrate in New Mexico ordered him to remain in custody without bail.
After a daylong hearing in Albuquerque, U.S. Magistrate Don Svet said that releasing Lee pending trial would pose a "clear and present danger" to the United States. "The weight of the evidence indicates to me that I'm required to order his detention, which I'm going to do," Svet said, according to the Associated Press.
Lee, a 59-year-old, Taiwan-born U.S. citizen who worked for almost 20 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was arrested last Friday on a 59-count indictment that accused him of endangering national security by downloading nuclear secrets from Los Alamos's computer system to cassette tapes and then taking them from secured areas of the lab. The indictment said seven of the 10 cassettes were missing.
At the hearing, federal prosecutor Robert Gorenceos argued that Lee, who has been under 24-hour FBI surveillance for more than a year, should be kept in jail because he posed "a substantial risk of flight."
Defense lawyers said the seven tapes were destroyed but did not elaborate on how, when or by whom.
"There's no evidence he has the tapes, disclosed the tapes, attempted to disclose the tapes. Is there any evidence in this huge investigation [of attempted disclosure]? The answer is no," one of Lee's attorneys said, according to the AP.
The physicist's wife, Sylvia Lee, who also had worked at the laboratory in an administrative job, and their daughter, Alberta Lee, attended the hearing. Alberta Lee said her father was innocent. "My family and I love my father and will continue to support him and stand by him," she told reporters.
Lee's indictment and arrest came after a four-year investigation into alleged Chinese espionage at the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory. Lee has been the prime suspect since 1995, but no evidence has turned up that he passed any material to the Chinese.
Lee has steadfastly denied being a spy. He was fired from Los Alamos in March after he failed a polygraph and was found to have committed security violations. After his firing, a search of his office and desktop computer showed he had downloaded the secret files.
Yesterday's hearing provided the most detailed description yet of the importance of the material Lee downloaded in 1993, 1994 and 1997.
Stephen Younger, director of nuclear weapons programs at Los Alamos, testified that the classified data and computer codes that Lee had removed could reveal the complete design of current U.S. nuclear weapons. These files "represent centuries of work," Younger said, adding that although the downloaded computer programs could be used for purposes other than weapons design, that would be "like using a Ferrari to haul cement."
In an interview broadcast earlier this year by the CBS news program "60 Minutes," Lee said he downloaded the material from Los Alamos's secure computer system to his unsecured workstation because it made it easier to work with, and he suggested that other scientists did the same thing. He did not mention putting any data on cassettes or taking them out of his secure work area.
Lee was not accused in the indictment of turning the cassettes over to China or any other foreign country. About half the counts came under previously unused provisions of the Atomic Energy Act, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison for tampering with or illegal possession of nuclear secrets. The act requires the government to prove that Lee intended "to injure the United States" and help "any foreign nation."
Normally in espionage cases in which there is no direct evidence that an individual turned material over to a foreign agent, the government makes its case by showing clandestine meetings, use of hiding places, secret transfers of money, or the like. No such acts are alleged in Lee's indictment.
Instead, the government charges that Lee, by removing secret material from a secure location, could "reasonably" have expected its unauthorized disclosure, which in turn would seriously harm the security of the United States.
Asian American groups have accused the government of "racial profiling" in the espionage investigation and, along with Lee's family, have opened a legal defense fund for him.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, concerned about such allegations, repeated yesterday that he has "zero tolerance" for racial profiling, meaning the practice of singling out suspects on the basis of race or ethnicity.
---
Lee Refused Bail in Nuclear Secrets Case
Security: Evidence suggests the government's case against Wen Ho Lee may be stronger than previously believed. He is being held for trial.
By BOB DROGIN, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/asection/19991214/t000114041.html
WASHINGTON--Calling Wen Ho Lee a "clear and present danger to the United States," a U.S. magistrate ordered the nuclear physicist held without bail Monday while he awaits trial for allegedly removing a vast computer compendium of America's most valuable nuclear weapons secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Earlier in the day, Lee had pleaded not guilty to the 59-count indictment in a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Don Svet in Albuquerque. Federal prosecutors argued that Lee might attempt to flee and requested that bond be denied.
Svet's decision came as U.S. officials disclosed disturbing new details suggesting that the government's case against Lee may be stronger than widely assumed, even though investigators were unable to find evidence to support initial FBI and Energy Department suspicions that he was a Chinese spy.
The charges focus on Lee's alleged transfer of massive amounts of top-secret nuclear weapons data into an insecure internal computer network and then to 10 portable data tapes. The FBI found three of the tapes in Lee's office, but it has been unable to locate the other seven.
Stephen Younger, head of the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos, highlighted the danger, should the missing data fall into the wrong hands, the Associated Press reported. "These files were crucial to nuclear weapons design and represent centuries of work," he told the court. "They represent the complete nuclear weapons design capabilities of Los Alamos at the time."
In Washington, a U.S. official familiar with the evidence said that Lee was "deliberate, methodical and spent countless hours" organizing the download. The official added that the high-volume tapes contain a broad array of highly classified weapons-design data and other secrets that are not in Lee's area of expertise, the hydrodynamics of nuclear weapons.
"These are not just things he worked on," the official said. "He went far outside his area" to download data. Another official called the data on the missing tapes "extraordinary," adding that they contain "the tools that nuclear designers use."
The tapes' existence was first revealed when the indictment was handed down Friday. One of Lee's lawyers, John Cline, told the court Monday that the tapes had been destroyed but he did not elaborate. "There's no evidence [Lee] has the tapes, disclosed the tapes, attempted to disclose the tapes," Cline said.
Although Lee was not charged with espionage, the indictment repeatedly alleges that he acted "with the intent to secure an advantage to a foreign nation." None is identified, however.
U.S. officials close to the case said that the legal language reflects, in part, frustration over failing to find the missing tapes and the inability to identify a reasonable justification for Lee to copy so much secret data.
"If he didn't give the tapes to someone, where are they?" asked one official. "That's the chief concern right now."
Lee previously has said that he moved classified data into the insecure network to safeguard it in case the lab's mainframe computer crashed. But an official close to the investigation said that the insecure system could be accessed--or hacked--via modem from outside with a password. The system also could transmit data to an outside computer. The indictment does not allege that any secrets were lost from the insecure system, however.
Lee, a native of Taiwan who became a naturalized American in the early 1970s, held a "Q" clearance, which gave him access to the most closely guarded nuclear secrets at the lab. He worked in the lab's X Division, where nuclear bombs and warheads are designed, from 1980 until last Dec. 23. He was fired last March for security violations after he failed to disclose potentially compromising contacts with Chinese scientists.
Until a new system was installed in 1995, the lab's Cray mainframe computer held all classified and unclassified weapons programs and data in a single archival data storage system. The common file system had four levels of access, including a red-coded system for classified material and a green-coded system for unclassified and public material. In theory, someone with access to the red system could move classified material into the green, or "open," area.
Prosecutors said that is what Lee did. In 1993 and 1994, they alleged, Lee improperly compiled 19 separate archival files containing scores of "secret restricted data" files--the most highly classified.
According to the indictment, Lee illegally downloaded "human readable . . . instructions" that can be given to a computer to calculate such nuclear physics data as "detonation, high-explosive burn, hydrodynamics, radiation transport, neutron transport, thermonuclear burn and weapon aging and degradation."
Other material he allegedly transferred included computer programs to set up a simulated nuclear explosion, including "exact dimensions and other geometrical information about a particular nuclear weapon" before detonation. Also removed, the indictment charges, was information "that describes the size and shape of the components of a nuclear weapon" and graphic images from the primary and secondary stages of simulated nuclear explosions.
After he failed a polygraph test early this year, prosecutors said, Lee sought to erase the 380 files that he had created in the open network, including the 19 with secret data.
Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories about: Trials, Wen Ho Lee, Bail, Federal Bureau Of Investigation, Los Alamos National Scientific Laboratory, Classified Information, United States - Defense. You will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one.
---
China Responds to Wen Ho Lee Case
Updated 4:56 AM ET December 14, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/04/int-china-us-spying
BEIJING (AP) - American accusations that China tried to steal nuclear weapons technology are "lies" meant to undermine relations, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said today.
"Some people in the United States cling stubbornly to a Cold War mentality (and) fabricate lies of the so-called China theft of nuclear technology from the United States," said the spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue.
She was responding to questions about the case against Wen Ho Lee, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who pleaded innocent Monday to charges he improperly handled nuclear weapons secrets.
The Taiwan-born American scientist was indicted Friday on 59 counts of breaching security at the lab, though not with espionage. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
Zhang told reporters that people with "ulterior motives" were trying to "defame China and undermine China-U.S. relations," and added that "the attempt will never succeed."
----------- iraq
Security Council Backs Off Again on Vote on Inspections for Iraq
December 14, 1999 By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www10.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121499iraq-un.html
UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council backed away Monday from a vote that had been planned on a new arms-inspection system for Iraq. Diplomats said foreign ministers of the five permanent council members were continuing to confer by telephone in hope of broadening support for the resolution.
The vote to create a new disarmament commission for Iraq and a new program for the Iraqis to follow that would lead to a suspension of nine years of sanctions had been tentatively planned for Friday, then Saturday and then Monday. Action is now possible on Tuesday. But that is also not certain.
Diplomats seemed in the dark about exactly what was being discussed at a higher level, because it was fairly clear that of the five veto-bearing permanent members of the 15-member council, Britain and the United States would vote for the measure and that Russia and China were widely thought likely to abstain. Some diplomats said the delay was intended to give more time to efforts to persuade Russia to vote yes.
France, which appeared last week ready to support the resolution, seems to be moving toward abstention, diplomats said.
Iraq has put pressure on Russia and France, traditional business partners, to stop the move toward new inspections, and France's hesitation may reflect its desire not to leave itself exposed in Iraq by breaking ranks with Russia. The French have talked the most in recent weeks about holding out for the broadest consensus. Its representative here, Alain Dejammet, said France had proposed changes in the resolution to help the Russians support it.
The Iraqis argue that they have met all the requirements for a lifting of economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and would agree to international monitoring only after the embargo had vanished. The resolution before the council would lift the limit on Iraqi oil sales immediately and make import procedures easier. But it would also keep controls on how Iraq spends its money until it had met certain requirements to be framed by a new inspection team.
Russia says that this is too vague a goal line for Iraq and would like to have tasks spelled out in advance. Under a resolution after the gulf war in 1991, Iraq was required to destroy all its weapons of mass destruction and the means to make new ones. Much of its arsenal was eliminated. But questions remain about biological weapons, which Iraq at first denied having, and nuclear programs, which inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency found to be more advanced than they had expected. Fears that both those programs have continued run high among disarmament experts.
Monday, there were reports that Iraqi was refusing to issue visas for inspectors from the atomic energy agency to make a routine visit, required by agreements on nuclear nonproliferation that predate the gulf war.
Some Arab diplomats, watching the yearlong effort to try to replace an inspection system that ended with British and American air strikes against Iraq last December, question whether the United States really wants effective monitoring in Iraq, which would make independent American military action more complicated, or whether Washington is backing the new plan in the full knowledge that Iraq would block it, providing a pretext for additional bombings.
Iraqi rejection of the plan would allow sanctions against Iraq to remain indefinitely or until Arab nations and more distant friends of Iraq are prepared to begin breaking the embargo. The Clinton administration appears willing to gamble that the embargo will hold, at least in the near future, while it pursues its plan to strengthen an Iraqi exile opposition in the hope of toppling President Saddam Hussein.
----------- israel
Spy Case Haunts Israel-Syria Talks
Updated 1:34 AM ET December 14, 1999 By LAURA KING, Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/01/int-a-spys-last-journey
JERUSALEM (AP) - It's been nearly 35 years, but the pictures still have the power to shock: a mustachioed man in a white shroud stands stiffly on the gallows, his eyes dark and unreadable as the hangman's noose is draped around his neck.
This was Eli Cohen, a 41-year-old Egyptian-born Jewish immigrant to Israel who was sent by the Mossad intelligence agency to spy on Syria. Captured when his coded radio communications were traced by the Syrians, Cohen was tried, convicted as an Israeli agent and hanged before a crowd of onlookers in a public square in Damascus on May 18, 1965.
Now, the Cohen case has become a haunting footnote to the larger drama of historic Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations resuming in Washington on Wednesday, nearly four years after they broke off. Syria has never returned his remains; Israel wants them back.
After half a century in a state of war, Israel and Syria have far-reaching issues to address in these negotiations: the fate of the strategic Golan Heights, the redrawing of borders blurred by repeated battles, a security accord for two states that have faced off for decades across a maze of fortifications and minefields.
But even if dwarfed by other disputes, the Cohen case has a strong hold on the popular imagination in Israel. Winning the return of his remains is seen as a a test of the country's long tradition of bringing its war dead home - a battlefield ethic embraced by career soldiers like Ehud Barak, Israel's prime minister.
On Monday, the eve of Barak's departure for Washington, Cohen's widow, Nadia, gave him a letter appealing to him to do all he could to get the body back.
"The people, myself among them, ask that you bring home my husband Eli Cohen, so that we can, after 35 years of inconsolable mourning, lay him to rest," she wrote.
Mrs. Cohen, who was a 29-year-old mother of three young children at the time of the execution, acknowledges she has never been able to fully accept the reality of her husband's death. At 64, she has never remarried.
"I have the feeling he is still alive somehow, because I didn't see him hanged, I didn't see him buried," she said in an interview. "When I see the body, that reality will overwhelm me."
---
Israel and Syria were already bitter foes when Eli Cohen was caught and hanged. But the execution, which came despite worldwide appeals for clemency, dramatically hardened that enmity.
For Israel, it was a national trauma, an event that heightened a young country's sense of vulnerability amid its Arab enemies - and strengthened its determination to be militarily self-reliant.
On the Syrians' side, the discovery of an Israeli spy in their midst - a man who had passed himself off as an Arab businessman, suavely cultivating friendships in the highest circles of the government and military - was painted as proof of Zionist perfidy, and helped fuel public hatred and suspicion of Israel.
Many Israelis are too young to remember the execution firsthand, but with the revival of talks, it has resurfaced like a half-remembered dream. In recent days, Israeli television has repeatedly shown scratchy newsreel footage of Cohen's predawn hanging in Martyrs' Square in central Damascus.
In the eight years following the execution, Israel and Syria would fight two bloody wars, both with the Golan Heights as the staging ground. Israel captured the plateau in the 1967 Mideast war and fought off a ferocious Syrian drive to regain it in 1973.
The territory, central to the revived Israeli-Syria peace talks, is also inextricably linked to the Cohen case. Before his capture, he relayed detailed information about Syrian weaponry and fortification of the heights - as well as an invaluable insider's view of a closed and secretive society.
If he was a resourceful spy, Cohen was also a reckless one, especially in the weeks before his capture.
Yossi Melman, co-author of "Every Spy A Prince," a history of Israel's intelligence agencies, recounted how Cohen would send radio transmissions at the same time each day, almost inviting the Syrians to track him down.
Although Melman faults Cohen for complacency, he said in an interview that the agent's Mossad handlers bore the bulk of the responsibility.
"Maybe his operators were too anxious to continue using him," Melman said. "Because he was such a good source - such a good spy."
---
As Israel heads into the talks with Syria, the Cohen case underscores a painful reality of Middle East politics: the necessity of letting bygones be bygones, even when they cut close to the bone.
Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, for example, forged a friendly working partnership - albeit one that has soured lately - even though Barak was said to have personally planned and overseen Israel's 1988 assassination of Arafat's closest associate, Khalil al-Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad.
Nadia Cohen says in spite of everything, she genuinely believes Israel can live at peace with Syria. If that happens, she says she would like to travel to Damascus herself one day.
"I want to see where he went, the coffee shops where he sat, the apartment he sent messages from - even the place where he was hanged," she said.
If Cohen's body is brought back to Jerusalem, she hopes for a state funeral and a burial at the national cemetery at Mount Herzl.
"I think the Syrians are ready for peace, and our people are waiting for it too," she said. "This time, I feel there will be peace at last - and I will finally have a grave to pray at."
-----------
Israel asks for billions in U.S. aid for peace
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES December 14, 1999
Israel is already looking for U.S. taxpayers to foot at least part of the bill - estimated at up to $18 billion - for an Israel-Syria deal on the Golan Heights to be negotiated in talks starting tomorrow in Washington.
Israel is already looking for U.S. taxpayers to foot at least part of the bill - estimated at up to $18 billion - for an Israel-Syria deal on the Golan Heights to be negotiated in talks starting tomorrow in Washington.
That sum includes $10 billion to relocate 17,000 Jewish settlers who will have to be moved from the Heights when they are returned to Syria, and $8 billion to relocate Israeli military bases.
Analysts in Washington say the cost of a comprehensive peace in the region involving Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians will run much higher - perhaps as much as $100 billion over several years.
Delegations headed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa were due in Washington today for the highest-level talks in decades, with both sides saying agreement is possible within a matter of months.
"Any Israeli-Syrian peace treaty will require heavy financial outlays," said Israeli Ambassador Zalman Shoval in a telephone interview yesterday.
"On the other hand a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty will make a tremendous contribution to the vital American interest of stability in the Middle East." Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Shohat said Sunday that Israel will need help paying the costs of withdrawing from the Golan Heights.
"Everybody understands that the state of Israel cannot by itself support such a process with the kind of investment it requires," Mr. Shohat said on Israeli public radio.
While Congress has paid more than $5 billion a year since the early 1980s to support the Israel-Egypt Camp David peace treaty, this year Congress balked at paying $500 million to the Israeli-Palestinian Wye River peace agreement
The funding eventually was found but Congress has proved reluctant to give money to former guerrilla fighters now running a quasi-authoritarian state in Gaza and the West Bank. And it has been hesitant to fund President Clinton's foreign policy initiatives across the board.
State Department spokesman James Foley denied yesterday that the Clinton administration was ready to offer such large sums for peace on the Golan.
But, he said, "We have every reason to believe that the Congress would want, together with the administration, to see that the United States would do what it could to make sure that those accords were a success."
A Republican congressional aide said there is wide support in Congress for Middle East peace but that legislators are unwilling to sign off on promises made without consulting House and Senate leaders.
"This administration has a history of promising money when [Mr. Clinton] goes out, and dumping it on Congress' doorstep," said the aide. "I wouldn't be surprised if he was dangling something" to bring Syria and Israel to the bargaining table.
The aide reported that Friday, during a briefing by the influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy, participants suggested that the total cost of a comprehensive peace in the region could be as much as $100 billion. The cash would go to:
1) Direct European and U.S. foreign aid for infrastructure and social services.
2) Writing off foreign debts as was done to bring Jordan into a peace treaty with Israel.
3) Private investment, often with U.S. government insurance.
4) Moving Israeli settlers from the Golan into Israel proper.
5) Rebuilding Israeli military and intelligence-gathering posts within Israel.
6) Possible relocation or compensation for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars.
7) Protecting, diverting, sharing or supplementing scarce water resources in the region.
Mr. Shoval noted in his interview that "after the Camp David accords and the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, quite substantial amounts of money were put into the game by the United States and Israel." While even larger amounts may be needed at the end game of the Arab-Israeli peace process, "they should be available," he said. Mr. Foley and Mr. Shoval both said it was premature to talk of relocating settlers and bases.
However Syria has repeatedly said it would only make peace with Israel once it gets a pledge to have all of the Golan Heights returned. The land was taken in the 1967 war when Israel also seized, in six days of fighting, the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. Under Camp David, Israel returned all of Sinai to Egypt in the early 1980s in return for a peace treaty. Under the Oslo accords, Israel relinquished Gaza and part of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority.
The talks this week between Mr. Barak and Mr. Sharaa, expected to take place at Blair House tomorrow and Thursday, will set the stage for detailed negotiations on peace. The site of future talks has not been announced.
One of the most difficult issues is whether the Israelis will withdraw to the 1967 armistice line, which gives Syria a short border on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, Israel's major source of fresh water. Israel wants to withdraw only to the 1928 border set during the British Mandate of Palestine. That gives Syria land to within 10 yards of the sea but not actually touching the water.
Mr. Barak has publicly said Syrian troops "will not wash their feet in the Galilee" while he is leader of Israel. An Israeli official who asked not to be identified said that the talks are taking place under a cloud of ambiguity. "President Clinton said that the talks would resume where they left off in 1994, but he did not include a statement of what the Syrians have been saying: that there would be a return to the 1967 armistice line" giving Syria access to the Galilee.
Also at issue is territory at the confluence of the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers, which Syria occupied in 1948 and lost in 1967, but which Israel claims under the 1928 borders.
----------- italy
Italy To Dismantle Nuke Plants
Updated 10:07 PM ET December 14, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/22/int-italy-nuclear-plants
ROME (AP) - Italy plans to spend nearly $3 billion over the next 20 years to dismantle its four nuclear power plants and create a national depot for nuclear waste, the industry minister said Tuesday.
Italian nuclear plants have been shut down since citizens voted in a referendum banning nuclear power in 1987.
"Until now there was no coherent policy on what to do with the results of the referendum: what to do with the power plants, the fuel, the waste," said Pierluigi Bersani, the industry minister.
Most of the money will be spent on removing all traces of nuclear material from the four plants so the area can be used in other ways.
Bersani also said the government was in the process of choosing a site to develop a national depot for nuclear waste.
---
Italy to spend $3 billion to dismantle nuclear plants
By Associated Press, 12/14/99 22:03 Boston Globe
ROME (AP) Italy plans to spend nearly $3 billion over the next 20 years to dismantle its four nuclear power plants and create a national depot for nuclear waste, the industry minister said Tuesday.
Italian nuclear plants have been shut down since citizens voted in a referendum banning nuclear power in 1987.
''Until now there was no coherent policy on what to do with the results of the referendum: what to do with the power plants, the fuel, the waste,'' said Pierluigi Bersani, the industry minister.
Most of the money will be spent on removing all traces of nuclear material from the four plants so the area can be used in other ways.
Bersani also said the government was in the process of choosing a site to develop a national depot for nuclear waste.
----------- KOREA
Tuesday December 14 1:57 AM ET
Deal on N.Korea Reactors to Be Signed Wednesday
SEOUL (Reuters) - The contract finalizing a $4.6 billion plan by an international consortium to build nuclear reactors for North Korea will be signed on Wednesday, South Korean officials said on Tuesday.
U.S. Special Envoy Charles Kartman is scheduled to be among representatives of 12 nations at a signing ceremony between the consortium, called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and South Korea's state-run Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), which will build the two light-water reactors.
The United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union are KEDO's four board members.
``Representatives from KEDO and KEPCO will sign the turn-key contract at 11 a.m. on Wednesday,'' said an official with South Korea's Office of Planning for Light Water Reactor Project.
He said no specific date for construction has been set as details of $3.2 billion in funding from South Korea and $1 billion from Japan need to be worked out.
Following a landmark bilateral agreement in 1994 which led to the KEDO project, Washington promised Pyongyang two light-water reactors generating 1,000 megawatts of power each by approximately 2003, along with fuel oil supplies until they are completed.
In return, Pyongyang promised to halt its heavy water nuclear plants and said it would put its nuclear weapons research on hold.
KEDO held a ground-breaking ceremony at the site of the reactors near North Korea's east coast in 1997 but actual construction has been delayed by complications over financing and the complicated task of setting rules for allowing foreign access to the isolationist country.
South Korea is leading the construction yet under the laws of both Koreas, almost any form of contact between them is illegal.
The two have remained technically at war since the Korean War ended in 1953 in an armed truce.
----------- panama
Clinton Pledges Security for Canal
Updated 4:46 PM ET December 14, 1999 By KEVIN GALVIN, Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/16/int-clinton-canal
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton skipped the transfer ceremonies for the Panama Canal on Tuesday but administration officials sought to reassure leaders of the Central American nation that his absence wasn't a slight.
"At the edge of a new century," Clinton said in a statement released by the White House, "the canal, long a symbol of American power and prestige, now also symbolizes the unity and common purpose of the democratic nations of the Americas."
Secretary of State Madeline Albright also missed the ceremonies, leaving the U.S. delegation under the direction of former President Carter, who signed treaties in 1977 agreeing to give up control of the Panama Canal and transfer more than 360,000 acres of land to Panama.
"Today's ceremony underscores our confidence in the government of Panama and the Panamanian people's ability to manage this vital artery of commerce," Clinton said in the written statement.
He vowed "to ensure that it remains open to the world's shipping and commerce," and to continue the U.S. commitment to the security of the canal.
Administration officials rejected suggestions that Clinton's absence from the ceremony was linked to conservative criticism of the turnover, or the prospect that the canal could become an issue in the presidential campaign.
Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso said Monday her countrymen "regret very much that President Clinton won't attend this unique and historic act."
Presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart said "We can't do every trip that's important, but our commitment to that region of the world is unparalleled by any president."
"I think we've traveled there more than any recent president. And that commitment remains the same. It remains strong," Lockhart said.
Lockhart said Clinton has taken 12 foreign trips this year. "That puts a heavy load on both the president and the staff, and there are many trips that he wants to take, that he believes are important, that we just can't do," he said. "This fits that category."
Moscoso's government has pledged to keep partisan politics out of the canal's operation. It will be run by the Canal Authority, an autonomous institution created with the consensus of all political parties.
"This decision is not made based on the politics," said Lockhart. He said that "some of the somewhat hysterical comments coming from the right ... that seek to distort the record just have to be ignored, as is oftentimes the best way to deal with some comments."
--
U.S., Panama Mark Handover of Canal
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/23/int-panama-canal-handover
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/photo/img/ap/panama/canal/19991214/pan106?r=/photo/ap/991214/23/int-panama-canal-handover
PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) Standing before mammoth container ships rising and falling on their path between the seas, former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday witnessed the ceremonial transfer of the Panama Canal, an act he set in motion 22 years ago.
----------- puerto rico
Puerto Rico Offers Spying Settlement
Updated 8:09 PM ET December 14, 1999 By VILMA PEREZ, Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/20/int-puerto-rico-secret-dossiers
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Attempting to close a painful chapter in U.S.-Puerto Rican relations, Gov. Pedro Rossello on Tuesday offered $5.7 million to settle suits filed by thousands of suspected independence supporters who were subjected to police spying operations.
The offer is an attempt to end 300 lawsuits filed by thousands of Puerto Ricans after the government admitted in the 1980s that it had been keeping secret dossiers on more than 135,000 people since the 1940s. Plaintiffs have demanded more than $100 billion in damages, saying their lives were destroyed by lies leaked from the files.
"I want to offer a solemn and sincere apology to those affected citizens and their families for the concoction and maintenance of these files," Rossello said at a news conference where he announced the offer.
Subjects of the dossiers reacted cautiously. "I don't think any amount can compensate what many of us have suffered," said Carmen Rios Rivera, a lawyer who learned from her dossier that friends, neighbors and co-workers had been informing police for years about her pro-independence beliefs.
Charles Hey Maestre of the Puerto Rico Civil Rights Institute said he would not advise any of his hundreds of clients until Rossello put the offer in writing.
The decision comes as Puerto Ricans re-examine their often contentious relationship with the United States, which wrested the island from Spain in 1898.
President Clinton's release in September of 11 pro-independence militants jailed some 20 years ago for seditious conspiracy and weapons possession, combined with a battle with the U.S. Navy over a bombing range on an outlying Puerto Rican island, has reinvigorated the island's nationalist movement.
Rossello offered $6,000 each to lawsuit plaintiff with more than 30 pages in their dossiers. Others with lengthy files who have not sued would receive $3,000 apiece, he proposed.
Police began collecting information on suspected independence advocates after the government passed the so-called Gag Law of 1948, which made it illegal to show the Puerto Rican flag, sing nationalist songs or hold "seditious" rallies.
In 1987 the island's supreme court ruled such surveillance illegal, and over the next five years the government released more than 8,700 files to their subjects.
Stunned residents - from housewives to prominent journalists - discovered old friends had been transcribing their conversations, co-workers had been taking secret photographs of them and neighbors had been stealing their mail.
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Russians Delay Vote on Arms Treaty
WORLD IN BRIEF - EUROPE
Compiled from news services Tuesday, December 14, 1999; Page A32
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/14/152l-121499-idx.html
MOSCOW--Russian lawmakers delayed voting on the START II nuclear arms treaty yesterday, once again dashing prospects that it might be ratified soon.
Leaders in parliament's lower house, the State Duma, said last week that they planned to debate START II during a special session, which was also expected to include ratification of a union treaty with Belarus. But Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said the "issue hasn't been prepared yet."
The move raised the possibility that the Communists and their hard-line allies who dominate parliament might drop their resistance to the treaty. Russia and the United States signed the agreement in 1993, and the U.S. Senate ratified it in 1996.
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Russia lashes West for "using language of force"
MOSCOW, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin angrily criticised the West on Tuesday, saying it was increasingly using ``the language of force'' when dealing with Moscow, Russian news agencies reported.
``We won't stand for it and we will use all the levers at our disposal -- diplomatic and military-political,'' he told reporters covering his trip to watch a nuclear missile test from an Arctic base. ``Russia has everything to guarantee its security.''
---
Russia Tests Missile, Warns West
Updated 10:07 PM ET December 14, 1999 By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/22/int-russia-missile-test
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia launched a new strategic missile Tuesday and used the occasion to warn the West against criticizing its campaign in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who witnessed the test, said Russia "will use all diplomatic and military-political levers in its disposal," to confront Western opposition.
Putin's comments came in a speech to military officers at the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia, after the successful test-firing of a Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile was launched from Plesetsk and flew across Russia, hitting its target on the Kamchatka peninsula, some 3,400 miles to the east.
"The diplomatic levers are clear, and as for military ones, Tuesday's successful launch of the Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile is one of them," Putin said, according to Russian news agencies.
Putin's warning followed last week's tough statement from President Boris Yeltsin, who reminded President Clinton that "Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal." Yeltsin was reacting to U.S. criticism of the Chechnya campaign.
Putin at the time sought to moderate Yeltsin's statement, saying that Russia and the United States have good relations, but his statement Tuesday sounded as harsh as Yeltsin's.
"No one can accuse the government of inappropriate use of anti-terrorist measures in Chechnya, call Russia an aggressor or an occupier," Putin said.
The United States and other Western nations have criticized Moscow for excessive use of force in Chechnya, causing civilian casualties and the exodus of over 230,000 refugees.
"Some nations and blocs under cover of international organizations are interfering into affairs of independent states, and trying to speak to them in the language of force," Putin said. "We are not used to such language, since Russia has a nuclear shield."
Putin also warned the United States against trying to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to build anti-missile defenses. Washington says such a defense system is intended to protect the United States from possible missile attacks by rogue nations and wouldn't be capable of deflecting a massive nuclear attack of the kind Russia is capable of launching.
But Moscow dismisses the argument and warns that attempts to amend the treaty could trigger a new arms race.
The Russian military has said that fitting multiple warheads to the Topol-M missiles would be a part of Moscow's response if the United States walks out of the treaty.
Russia is pinning the future of its missile program on the Topol-M. Most of its other long-range missiles are either past their service lifetime or will have to be dismantled if the country ratifies the START-II nuclear disarmament treaty.
Unlike Russia's older missiles, the Topol-M is a relatively small, mobile missile designed to be fired from trucks or other vehicles, making it difficult for potential enemies to locate and track.
---
In Yeltsin's steps, Putin reminds West of Russia's nuclear potential
MOSCOW, Dec 14 (AFP) - Tuesday, December 14 9:28 PM SGT
http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/asia/article.html?s=singapore/headlines/991214/asia/afp/In_Yeltsin_s_steps__Putin_reminds_West_of_Russia_s_nuclear_potential.html
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday the West had no right to meddle in Russia's internal affairs and pressure Moscow to end its offensive against the rebel republic of Chechnya.
"Russia will not allow itself to be spoken to from the position of force, and so will use every diplomatic and military-political lever available" to prevent this from happening, ITAR-TASS quoted Putin as saying.
Clarifying his remarks, Putin added: "You understand what I mean by diplomatic levers. As for the military -- one of them is today's launch of the Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile.
"Russia has everything it needs to secure its safety," he added according to Interfax while on a visit to the Russian town of Plesetsk, where the new generation Topol-M rocket was tested.
His comments came in the steps of remarks by President Boris Yeltsin last week, when he reminded Washington that Russia still had "a full nuclear arsenal" at its disposal and would thus not be pressured from abroad.
Western capitals and human right organizations have urged Russia to implement a cease-fire in Chechnya that would allow civilians to flee the republic and political negotiations to get on track.
During a Helsinki summit last week, the European Union threatened to sever economic cooperation with Russia should civilian casualties continue to mount in the campaign.
But Putin has said that no political solution to the conflict was possible unless Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov handed over to Russia "terrorists" Moscow holds responsible for a wave of apartment block bombings in August and September.
Putin further warned that Russia would deliver an "adequate" response should Washington follow through on plans to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty to allow a nuclear defense shield to be built over the United States.
"We hope that this will not happen," Putin said in reference to the ABM. "If this does happen, our response will be adequate, but much more economical," Interfax cited him as saying.
---
Chechens pass through the Kavkaz checkpoint in Ingushetia
Viktor Korotayev/Reuters December 14, 1999
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who witnessed the test, said Russia "will use all diplomatic and military-political levers in its disposal," to confront Western opposition.
Putin's comments came in a speech to military officers at the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia, after the successful test-firing of a Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile was launched from Plesetsk and flew across Russia, hitting its target on the Kamchatka peninsula, some 3,400 miles to the east.
"The diplomatic levers are clear, and as for military ones, Tuesday's successful launch of the Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile is one of them," Putin said, according to Russian news agencies.
Putin's warning followed last week's tough statement from President Boris Yeltsin, who reminded President Clinton that "Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal." Yeltsin was reacting to U.S. criticism of the Chechnya campaign.
Putin at the time sought to moderate Yeltsin's statement, saying that Russia and the United States have good relations, but his statement Friday sounded as harsh as Yeltsin's.
"No one can accuse the government of inappropriate use of anti-terrorist measures in Chechnya, call Russia an aggressor or an occupier," Putin said. <P>
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Belrusian Panel OKs Russian Union
Updated 7:10 AM ET December 14, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/07/int-belarus-russia-union
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - The Belarusian parliament today unanimously ratified a treaty with Russia that is intended to bring the two former Soviet republics closer together.
All 101 lawmakers taking part in the parliament session voted for the treaty, which was signed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko last week and ratified by the Russian parliament Monday.
The treaty, the third such agreement between the two countries in three years, is a largely symbolic document that steers well clear of Lukashenko's goal of fully merging the two countries.
Passage of the treaty was never in doubt. The authoritarian Lukashenko, who has consistently cracked down on his political foes, disbanded the old parliament and set up a new one in 1996 filled with his backers.
The treaty establishes a council of officials from both nations to coordinate policy. A similar but weaker body already exists.
It also proposes combining the two countries' currencies by 2005 and introducing a joint tax system starting in 2001, but is short on specifics.
Lukashenko, who laments the breakup of the Soviet Union, has pushed hard for the merger. He has expressed his ambition to lead the unified state.
But Belarusian nationalists oppose such a merger, saying Belarus would lose its sovereignty. Liberals say Lukashenko's human rights record would make him a liability for Russia.
Still, public support for the union appears strong, with many people in both countries nostalgic for the stability of the Soviet era.
----------- US
Brinkley Protests Nuke Plant Plan
December 14 2:40 AM ET
NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) - Anti-nuclear activists, fueled by the star power of Christie Brinkley, are challenging a plan to store more radioactive fuel rods at the Millstone 3 power plant.
Activists from Connecticut and Long Island, N.Y., worry the spent fuel rods will not be stored safely, and that increased fuel storage could up the chances for a nuclear accident.
At a hearing Monday, Brinkley said her home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., is 11 miles from the plant in Waterford - across Long Island Sound and just outside the 10-mile radius for evacuation plans.
``As parents, it's just not acceptable for us to be told that we live 1 mile outside the limit for an evacuation plan,'' said Brinkley, who brought her daughter, Sailor, to the hearing. ``Imagine being told there's a radioactive plume heading your way and you have one hour to get off Long Island. It's impossible.''
Northeast Utilities (NYSE:NU - news), the plant's operator, said it needs to increase storage space because the federal government has not yet approved a permanent site for spent fuel from Millstone and other nuclear plants.
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Energy Dept. Scales Back Polygraphs
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer December 14 4:20 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department soon will begin giving polygraphs to scientists with access to U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, but the anti-spying program will be far less sweeping than expected.
A final regulation for the polygraphs announced Monday calls for about 800 scientists, mostly nuclear weapons experts at the government's three weapons labs, to be subjected to the polygraphs.
Earlier this year the department had indicated it might test as many as 10,000 people as part of a broad revamping of security at nuclear weapons labs in response to the outcry over alleged Chinese espionage.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the tests will be narrowly targeted and cover only those individuals with access to some of the country's most highly classified nuclear secrets.
Most of the 800 scientists work at the three weapons labs: Sandia and Los Alamos in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore lab in California.
There are about 12,000 nuclear weapons designers and other scientists who work in nuclear weapons programs. Managers at each of the facilities will provide a list of scientists who must undergo the tests, officials said.
The final polygraph regulation was announced as a former Los Alamos computer scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was being held without bond in Albuquerque, N.M., for security violations. He is accused of taking thousands of top-secret nuclear weapons computer codes from the Los Alamos lab. Most of them have yet to be recovered, according to FBI officials.
Lee, who has been a prime target in an espionage investigation for nearly four years and was fired from Los Alamos in March, has denied providing any secrets to China or any other country. He pleaded innocent Monday to charges that he improperly handled national nuclear weapons secrets.
The demand for polygraph tests of nuclear weapons scientists grew out of the uproar earlier this year over lax security and inadequate safeguards against espionage at the weapons labs, including the controversy surrounding the Lee case.
The exams will be taken by both Energy Department and contractor employees at the labs as well as a small number of officials at DOE headquarters and other facilities.
``This is a narrowly targeted implementation plan,'' Richardson said. ``We need to focus security efforts on protecting information that needs protection without impeding scientific research in the process.''
The polygraphs have been the most contentious and emotional of any of the new security and counterintelligence initiatives ordered by Richardson.
Many scientists at the labs have argued that the tests are not reliable and could destroy careers because of a false or unclear reading of a response. Others have said the polygraph was an affront to years of loyal service by weapons scientists.
In response, department officials said they've crafted the tests in such a way that they focus narrowly on security areas and will not delve into people's private lives.
Also, said Brooke Anderson, a DOE spokeswoman, the polygraph results cannot be used as the sole reason for denying or revoking a scientist's access to nuclear secrets. She said it will be part of a broader security review that would include background checks, financial disclosures and reports on foreign travel.
The polygraph examiners will ask four specific questions, including whether the individual had illegal or unauthorized contact with foreigners; has passed classified information to a foreign agent; has been involved or associated with terrorists; or has been involved in sabotage.
In a related action, Richardson sent out a directive Monday reiterating the department's policy against racial profiling in any security or counterespionage evaluations, or other activities.
The polygraph regulation and the Richardson's directive on racial profiling came as some Asian-American scientists have complained that they were being singled out because of their ethnic heritage in light of the wide publicity over the Lee case.
Lee has maintained that he has been made a scapegoat because he is Asian-American, a charge denied by Richardson.
While not mentioning Lee by name, Richardson said ``at this juncture it is appropriate that I reiterate emphatically my policy of zero tolerance of any form of racial profiling within the DOE workplace.''
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Con Edison to Explore Alternatives to Continued Ownership and Operation of Indian Point 2 Nuclear Power Plant
December 14, 11:26 am Eastern Time Company Press Release
SOURCE: Consolidated Edison Company of New York
NEW YORK, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) today announced its intention to explore alternatives to the continued ownership and operation of its Indian Point 2 Nuclear Power Plant. The review will include the retired Indian Point 1 unit and the site's gas turbines. Indian Point 2, located in the Village of Buchanan in Westchester County, New York, provides a total gross capability of over 1,000 MW of power to New York City and Westchester County.
The decision to review alternatives for the plant reflects the pace of deregulation in the industry, Con Edison's evolving business strategy of serving primarily as a ``wires and pipes'' company operating and owning utility transmission and distribution facilities, and the trend toward concentrated ownership in the nuclear power business.
``Con Edison continues to believe that nuclear power plant generation plays a significant role in the nation's energy supply,'' said Eugene R. McGrath, Chairman and CEO of Con Edison. ``While we will consider the sale of Indian Point 2, continued ownership and operation of the unit by Con Edison also remains a potential outcome of this process.'' Earlier this year, Con Edison sold its Now York City-based electric generating facilities. The company retains its steam-electric generating units.
``Con Edison is committed to the safe and responsible operation of Indian Point 2. One of the most critical considerations in any sale of nuclear assets is the demonstrated capability and performance records of the potential owners and operators,'' said Mr. McGrath. ``These factors will be of primary importance in our study of alternatives for the future of this plant.''
The Company plans to complete this initiative in the year 2000.
Con Edison is one of the nation's largest utility companies, with more than $7 billion in annual revenues and $14 billion in assets. The company, a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., provides electric, gas and steam service to more than three million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York. For additional financial, operations and customer service information, visit Con Edison's web site at http://www.coned.com.
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Bulgaria Denies Selling Arms
Updated 12:47 PM ET December 14, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/991214/12/int-bulgaria-arms-trade
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Bulgarian government officials Tuesday dismissed allegations that their country sells arms in defiance of its international commitments and pledged to tighten controls on military exports.
Trade Minister Valentin Vasliev told an international conference on arms trade that Bulgaria "strictly complies with all international sanctions and restrictions, including recommendations made by the European Union and the United Nations."
Human Rights Watch has said that Bulgaria last year supplied an unspecified amount of tanks and other weapons to Uganda and to the warring sides in Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict. The move, the group said, violated international commitments to ban arm sales to human rights abusers and areas of violent conflict.
Deputy Trade Minister Hristo Mihailovski on Tuesday denied any arm sales to Uganda. He said Bulgaria legally exported an unspecified type and quantity of weapons to Ethiopia and Eritrea until an international arms embargo was imposed on the area last March.
The government has taken away the license of one firm and canceled three export deals that defied trade restrictions, he said. Next month parliament is expected to approve legislation toughening permits for arm dealers and banning exports to human rights abusers and conflict areas, he added.
The two-day meeting in Sofia was organized by the governments of the United States and Bulgaria. Officials from Russia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia and Poland also attended.
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Military Anthrax Shots Delayed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS December 14, 1999
ASHINGTON, -- The Pentagon Monday reported more delays in its program to vaccinate all 2.4 million service members against anthrax, a lethal disease that might be used as a biological weapon.
About 383,000 service members, most of whom serve in high-threat areas like South Korea and the Persian Gulf, have received all or part of the series of six shots, said Dr. Sue Bailey, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
Pentagon officials warned Monday that the program, already six months behind schedule, might slip another six months to a year.
As a result, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has delayed vaccinating military forces and reservists not stationed in high-threat areas until the Pentagon has assurances it will have an adequate, safe supply.
Obtaining a reliable supply of the vaccine is the main problem, Dr. Bailey and other Pentagon officials said, because the one company manufacturing the vaccine, BioPort Corporation of Lansing, Mich., has had production problems and cost overruns. The company has not obtained approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin producing the vaccine at its new plant.
The Pentagon agreed in August to pay more per dose and to make an $18.7 million advance payment to BioPort to enable the company to pay creditors. Now, an additional $7 million to $10 million from the government may be needed, said David Oliver, a deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
"We underestimated how difficult this was going to be," Oliver said.
Anthrax is an infectious disease that is lethal if inhaled. The Pentagon considers it one of the greatest biological weapon threats to American military forces. ---
Pentagon Anthrax Program Suffers Setback New Manufacturing Plant Fails FDA Inspection; Inoculation Expansion Delayed
By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 14, 1999; Page A12
The Pentagon's controversial effort to inoculate U.S. troops against anthrax bacteria suffered another setback yesterday with the disclosure that a new facility built to produce the vaccine had failed its first safety inspection.
As a result, Pentagon officials said, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen decided to halt the planned expansion of vaccinations next year.
Until deficiencies at the manufacturing plant are resolved, the officials said, military authorities will draw on stockpiled doses produced at a predecessor facility and administer shots only to the several hundred thousand troops who rotate periodically through such high-threat areas as South Korea and the Persian Gulf region. The delay in producing new doses could take up to a year and cost an additional $7 million to $10 million, officials said at a Pentagon news conference.
The announcement brought further embarrassment to the two-year-old vaccination effort, already battered by questions about safety and effectiveness. Touted initially by defense officials as a farsighted response to the rising threat of germ warfare, the program has become a source of some unrest in the ranks and political controversy on Capitol Hill.
Sue Bailey, the Pentagon's top civilian health official, said yesterday that the inoculations remained essential to protect U.S. forces. But with Congress weighing legislation that would either suspend the inoculations or make them voluntary, the latest development promises to generate fresh questions about the program's management and necessity.
Defense officials cited several reasons for the problems with the new production plant, which was built after the old facility--the nation's only source of the anthrax vaccine--was sold by the state of Michigan to a new company, the Bioport Corp. of Lansing, Mich. Bioport knocked down the old plant and built a larger, more modern one to handle the big jump in production required by the Pentagon's decision to inoculate all 2.4 million active-duty and reserve troops.
But getting the new facility certified by the Food and Drug Administration has proven more challenging than either the company or the Pentagon predicted. An FDA inspection in November found about 30 deficiencies that are being addressed, officials said.
"Frankly, it has been more difficult than the department and Bioport expected to move from a small state-regulated production facility to a large, modern production facility that meets the state-of-the-art FDA requirements," Bailey said.
Dave Oliver, a senior Pentagon acquisition official, told reporters that about 1 million doses of the vaccine made by the old plant had already been certified by the FDA and would be used to keep the inoculation program going on a limited basis. FDA approval of another roughly one million stockpiled doses is expected within the next three months, Oliver said.
So far, about 383,000 troops have started receiving the vaccine. With each recipient requiring a total of six shots in the first 18 months, plus annual boosters, the Pentagon has been consuming about 75,000 doses a month, Oliver said.
While acknowledging that the FDA's concerns had caught them by surprise, Defense officials also sought to portray the inspection process that leads to plant certification as often a lengthy one. Even before the FDA stumbling block, however, Bioport was running into financial problems over the low vaccine price that had been negotiated with the Pentagon.
In August, the Pentagon announced that it had agreed to a doubling of the price--from $4.36 a dose to $10.64 a dose--last year when Bioport purchased the laboratory for $25 million. The new agreement boosted the total cost of the Pentagon's contract from $25.7 million to $49.8 million over the next five years. The Pentagon also agreed to advance Bioport $18.7 million to help it cover debts.
Indicating that the vaccination program has suffered from weak or inadequate oversight, Defense officials said yesterday that Bioport had recently beefed up its management team and that the Army was putting a new one-star general in charge of supervising the program.