----------- canada

Canada Offers Security Assurances

12:59 PM ET 12/23/99 By TOM COHEN Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562795372-300

MONTREAL (AP) _ Despite increasing evidence of terrorist activity in Canada, officials say the policies followed and actions taken adequately protect the country.

U.S. prosecutors said today that a Canadian woman arrested with an Algerian man at a Vermont border crossing had links to a man connected with an Algerian terrorist group.

In another case, an Algerian arrested twice under Immigration Canada deportation orders but never kicked out of the country pleaded innocent Wednesday in the United States to smuggling nitroglycerine from Canada, transporting explosives and other charges.

Ahmed Ressam's Dec. 14 arrest at the Port Angeles, Wash., border crossing _ and the arrests of Lucia Garofalo and Bouabide Chamchi on Dec. 19 in Vermont _ have stirred fears of terrorist attacks in the United States.

Opposition politicians accuse the Canadian government of lax border security, and the national intelligence agency acknowledges that dozens of terrorist groups operate in Canada.

Judicial officials in France said Wednesday that Ressam has suspected links to Fateh Kamel, who has been held in a French jail since April after being extradited from Jordan. Kamel is under investigation for association with a terrorist enterprise, the officials said.

They said investigators suspect Kamel is a leader of a group of Islamic militants who once operated in Roubaix in northern France.

They said French anti-terrorism investigators are familiar with Ressam, who is also suspected of having links to the Roubaix group.

Two leading anti-terrorism investigators, judges Jean-Louis Bruguiere and Jean-Francois Ricard, went to Canada in October to meet with Ressam. But Ressam could not be found, officials close to the investigation said.

Shortly after he arrived in Canada in 1994, Canada's spy agency began tracking Ressam, Canadian intelligence officials told the Globe and Mail. The officials said the investigation into Ressam's activities was called off because of a lack of resources, the Globe reported today.

A Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agent also told the paper Ressam has been linked to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile the Clinton administration considers the mastermind of a worldwide terrorist operation.

The CSIS agent told the paper Ressam was trained to make bombs at bin Laden's base in Afghanistan. ``This man is a professional. We know he had ties to bin Laden,'' the agent told the Globe.

CSIS spokesman Dan Lambert said today that the Globe and Mail story was ``inaccurate,'' but he refused to provide details. Lambert also said the director of CSIS assured Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay, who oversees the intelligence agency, that ``CSIS has the money to do the job.''

But John Thompson, director of the MacKenzie Institute, a Toronto think-tank specializing in political instability, said Canada's federal government fails to treat terrorism with proper seriousness.

``There's a reluctance to accept this as a problem,'' Thompson said.

Solicitor-General Lawrence MacAulay, who oversees the intelligence agency and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, insisted Wednesday that Canada's security situation was no worse than in the United States or any other major country.

While the United States has increased security at home and abroad and issued repeated warnings of possible terrorist attacks on U.S. targets during the upcoming millennium celebrations, Canada appeared to react to potential terrorism only after Ressam's arrest and subsequent calls for stronger security measures.

Canadian officials announced increased security at airports and along the border on Tuesday, and MacAulay said Wednesday that he and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno discussed cooperation on border security.

``We're not totally immune to having problems,'' MacAulay said, but added: ``I don't want to indicate there's a major problem at this time.''

Ressam used a French passport issued in another name to reach Canada for the first time in 1994. He immediately declared his true identity and claimed refugee status, saying he had been falsely accused in Algeria of opposing the government, said Dennis Buron, his lawyer at the time.

His fingerprints were filed with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and a hearing on his refugee claim was set for June 1995, according to Huquette Shouldice of Immigration Canada. When Ressam failed to show up, a conditional removal order was issued, she said.

Under that order, Ressam was supposed to leave Canada on his own and inform immigration officials, Shouldice said. His failure to do so changed the removal order to a deportation order, and he was arrested in August 1995, she said.

Instead of paying a cash bond, Ressam was freed on condition he meet with immigration officials once a month, notify them if he changed his address and make himself available on request, Shouldice said.

Privacy laws prohibit her from divulging information on what happened during the 33 months of Ressam's conditional release, which ended when Immigration Canada issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest, according to Shouldice.

Why the deportation failed to take place during the almost three years after Ressam's conditional release remained unclear.

Buron said Canada stopped deportations to Algeria during that period, partly because of violence in the North African country that has claimed 100,000 lives this decade.

The passport found on Ressam when he was arrested last week was in the name of Benni Noris. Foreign Ministry spokesman Reynald Doiron confirmed Wednesday a passport was issued in the name of Benni Noris on the basis of a Quebec baptism record, a common form of identification in the province.

Doiron said Canada's passports were as foolproof as any other country's, but acknowledged that ``some elements'' of the system of checking documentary evidence ``need to be improved.''

----------- china

China will get Russian ship this week

December 23, 1999 By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/news3-19991223.htm

Russia will deliver the first of two cruise missile destroyers to China this week, giving Beijing a new capability to sink U.S. warships, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

Russia will deliver the first of two cruise missile destroyers to China this week, giving Beijing a new capability to sink U.S. warships, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

A Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyer will be delivered to the Chinese navy at a shipyard in St. Petersburg on Saturday - Christmas Day - and will depart for its home port in China two days later, Russia's official Itar-Tass news agency announced on Monday.

A christening ceremony involving the hoisting of a Chinese flag on the ship will take place at the shipyard ceremony Saturday and the ships "will become Chinese property," the news agency said.

The Pentagon's main worry is that the destroyers will be equipped with advanced anti-ship cruise missiles that are part of China's expanding military role in the region, according to defense officials and private analysts.

The Chinese could use the supersonic SS-N-22 Sunburn anti-ship missiles in an amphibious attack on Taiwan, said defense officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It also will give China a greater power projection capability against U.S. ships farther from China's shores, they said.

The new ships are part of a Chinese military buildup in anticipation that the U.S. military will defend Taiwan during a conflict with China, the officials said.

Beijing regards the island as part of China and has refused to renounce the use of force to reunite the island that became the last outpost for nationalist forces defeated during China's civil war in the 1940s.

Asked yesterday about the ship sale, a senior defense official said the destroyer's missiles represent a strategic threat to the region.

"This is one of an expected two destroyers," the official said. "And while the destroyer itself isn't an issue, we are concerned about the SS-N-22 Sunburns being deployed because this will be a new capability for the Chinese."

The Pentagon is worried the cruise missile destroyers will be used against U.S. Navy warships that might be called on to defend Taiwan against a Chinese military attack, the official said.

China is expected to take up to two years to fully integrate the missile ships into the Chinese navy, the official said.

"At the same time, we're concerned about the capability to reverse engineer and improve the missiles," the official said.

Pentagon intelligence agencies have been monitoring the refurbishing of the two Russian ships since they were sold in September 1997. The deal was first disclosed by The Washington Times.

In 1997, the House sought to cut off U.S. aid to Russia if the missiles are sold, but legislation containing the provision was cut out during a House-Senate conference.

According to defense officials, the first ship will pass through the Suez Canal on the way to its home port of Shanghai. The second destroyer will be delivered next month, they said.

The intelligence assessment of the ships is that they will give the Chinese advanced missile capabilities, greater range for power projection and better war-fighting capabilities when combined with new extended-range warplanes.

The destroyer set to depart St. Petersburg conducted sea training with Russian and Chinese sailors for the past seven months, the officials said. The hulls of both destroyers were identified by the Pentagon as Sovremenny-class hull numbers 18 and 19.

Pentagon officials said at the time of the ship deal - part of an $8 billion to $9 billion arms package - that the sale was Beijing's direct response to the deployment of two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups to waters near Taiwan in March 1996.

The carriers were sent in response to China's firing of several M-9 test missiles near the island as part of large-scale, threatening military exercises that the Navy concluded could have been preparation for an invasion.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sought to play down the advanced-weapon transfer from Russia to China. "We have been following it for some time, and there's nothing new in it," he said. He declined to comment when asked if the Pentagon views the ship as a threat.

Michael Pillsbury, a senior Pentagon official during the Reagan and Bush administrations, said the missile destroyers are part of Chinese efforts against Taiwan.

"This is part of a package that began to be assembled several years ago that China is developing as the means to liberate Taiwan by force, even if the U.S. plays a role [in the regional conflict]," Mr. Pillsbury said in an interview.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin said during a speech last week that China is prepared to "liberate" the island.

According to Tass, the ship will set sail from Russia without its SS-N-22s. The missiles will be sent to the ships in April and October, the news agency said.

China and Russia have increased defense cooperation in what some U.S. officials view as a growing anti-U.S. alliance.

In addition to the ships, the Russians have sold China several Kilo-class submarines and scores of Su-27 fighter bombers. The two nations recently concluded a deal for more advanced Su-30 jets.

Intelligence reports also have stated recently that Russia may be discussing sales to China of even more advanced Akula-class submarines.

The Sunburns are supersonic missiles designed by the Soviet Union in the 1980s specifically to attack U.S. warships, according to Pentagon officials.

The SS-N-22 can carry a 660-pound, high-explosive warhead to a maximum range of about 75 miles, according to the publication Jane's Fighting Ships. A more advanced version can travel up to 155 miles.

Some defense analysts believe the missiles can be equipped with small nuclear warheads developed by China several years ago from U.S. W-88 warhead design information obtained by spies.

The radar-guided missiles use on-board computers to direct it to targets from a command ship or aircraft. It skims the sea surface and can maneuver to avoid missile defenses before hitting the ship.

According to China specialist and author William C. Triplett, the SS-N-22s could be controlled to their targets by the Russian-Israeli airborne warning control aircraft currently being built in Israel for the Chinese military.

----------- iraq

Pentagon Sees Hussein on Defense

Filed at 5:22 p.m. EST By The Associated Press December 23, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-US-Iraq.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has shifted the focus of his air defense forces from trying to shoot down U.S. and British aircraft patrolling ``no fly'' zones to defending Baghdad and other parts of central Iraq, a Pentagon official said Thursday.

U.S. and British planes do not patrol central Iraq, although they struck there last December in four days of attacks meant to retaliate for Iraq's refusal to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors. The ``no fly'' zones are in southern and northern Iraq.

Kenneth Bacon, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary William Cohen, said it was difficult to know the reason for the change of emphasis in Iraqi air defenses. He speculated that Saddam may be ``preparing to provoke another confrontation'' with the United Nations over inspections of Iraqi weapons sites.

Last Friday, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution that would return weapons inspectors to Iraq after a one-year absence and consider suspending sanctions. Iraq rejected the resolution and declared it was ``ready to face all of the consequences.'' The United Nations did not threaten military action against Iraq.

Bacon, when asked about a recent lull in Iraqi firings on U.S. and British aircraft patrolling the ``no fly'' zones, said Saddam has moved some surface-to-air missiles and other air defense equipment closer to Baghdad and Tikrit, the town where Saddam was born.

Saddam has contested the ``no fly'' zones as an unwarranted infringement on Iraqi sovereignty.

``Saddam Hussein in the last few weeks appears to have been somewhat less aggressive in challenging coalition aircraft policing the no-fly zones, both in the north and the south. I don't read a lot into this,'' Bacon said.

It may be explained in part by the Ramadan period of Muslim fasting and by the fact that U.S. and British planes have been flying less often this month due to poor weather in the North, Bacon said.

Bacon said there have been no Iraqi firings on air patrols since Dec. 12 in the northern region and since Dec. 6 in the south. There have been lulls of similar duration in the past but they have been uncommon. By the Pentagon's tally, there have been more than 400 Iraqi violations of the ``no fly'' zones over the past year.

----------- israel

Israel Says Will Maintain Army Might Even in Peace

Filed at 9:58 a.m. ET By Reuters December 23, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said Thursday it would need to maintain or even beef up its current level of military might under a future peace with once arch-foe Syria.

Israel and Syria ended a break of nearly four years in peace talks last week when they resumed negotiations in Washington.

They are due to hold a second round on January 3.

Syria's demand for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel which the Israelis captured in the 1967 Middle East war, is at the center of the negotiations.

Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said Thursday that peace agreements could mean shortening compulsory army service terms for Israeli youth. But he quickly added:

``As for military might, we will not be able to reduce the strength of the army, because this strength is the only true stabilizing factor for any peace treaty.

``Military strength cannot be touched, it must even be increased,'' Sneh told Israel Radio. ``If we are weak, there will be no peace treaty that will be worth anything.''

A new study on the Middle East military balance said on Tuesday that Israel had an unprecedented window of opportunity to withdraw from the Golan and make peace with Syria.

The study, by Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, identified Israel as the dominant military power in the region.

It said Syrian forces had stagnated since the mid-1980s as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union and economic constraints.

Syria's official media said Wednesday that Israel's intentions toward peace would become clear in the next round of their negotiations due to take place outside of Washington.

Barak is pressing for substantial security arrangements and normalization of ties with Damascus as the trade-off for a pullback from the Golan, where 17,000 Jewish settlers live.

BARAK HAS REVIVED PEACE MOVES

Since taking office Barak has revived peace moves with the Palestinians and Syria stalled under his right-wing predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu and warmed ties with Egypt and Jordan.

If a peace with Syria is reached, it will be Israel's third accord with an Arab country after Jordan and Egypt.

The sides expect progress on the Syrian track to lead directly to resumption of Israel's talks with Lebanon, where Syria is the main power broker and Israeli troops are embroiled in a guerrilla war on the Jewish state's last active front.

Barak's office said Wednesday that Egypt had agreed to sell Israel natural gas, ending years of negotiations strained by tensions in Middle East peacemaking.

On the Palestinian track, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy said Thursday he expected progress in the next few days over Israel's handover of more West Bank land.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held talks at a Jerusalem hotel late Wednesday to try to break a deadlock over disputes including the long-delayed land transfer, emanating from their September interim peace accord.

``I think things will move in the next few days already... that is what was agreed, that is what was understood, that is the atmosphere,'' Levy told Israel Radio.

Their talks ended without agreement despite a meeting on Tuesday between Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat meant to tackle the obstacles.

Palestinian officials had said they expected to resolve 13 disputes emanating from the interim accord, including the issues of land transfer and prisoners.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters he hoped Levy was correct in his prediction that progress was at hand.

``We hope so. The issue does not need negotiation, it needs Israeli political decisions to implement the agreements.''

---

Israel's Shame

William Safire December 23, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/safire/122399safi.html

WASHINGTON -- Li Peng, China's hardest-line Communist leader -- the man famed for ordering the Tiananmen massacre -- was feted in Israel this month.

After a visit to the Holocaust memorial, Foreign Ministry officials took him to the Israeli Aircraft Industries facility near Ben-Gurion Airport. He inspected a Russian-built plane, owned by the Chinese, on which Israel is installing an advanced AWACS battle-management system called the Phalcon.

Israel is charging a quarter of a billion dollars for the aerial reconnaissance radar installation, and has a contract for three more. It's a lucrative deal. It may also be the biggest geopolitical blunder any Israeli government ever made.

Free Chinese on Taiwan have no such high-altitude early-warning system. Combined with the new long-range and surface-to-air missiles being installed by China in Zhangzhou, its Israeli purchases will give it a "qualitative edge" in any military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait. That would include, of course, new ability for China to look down on and target any U.S. warships sent to discourage invasion.

Why is Israel, a small democratic nation threatened by powerful neighbors, helping to menace Taiwan, another small democratic nation threatened by a nearby tyranny?

Prime Minister Ehud Barak has been ducking me on this (Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin were more courageous about facing embarrassing questions), but here are the reasons behind Israel's amoral policy:

1. Arms exports enable Israel to improve its own defenses. Besides, America's Boeing and Loral have done more to build Beijing's military than all other nations combined.

2. China offers a huge market for Israeli technology; moreover, its position on the U.N. Security Council offers big-power diplomatic engagement long limited to the U.S.

3. Israel has avoided the transfer of technology it received from the U.S. to any third party without clearance; Phalcon avionics were Israeli-developed. And the U.S. for years did not object to Israel's efforts to follow the U.S. into the Chinese arms market.

4. China's vast network of human intelligence agents can, better than U.S. satellites, relay secret information to Israel about North Korea's sales of missiles to Iraq and Russia's nuclear development of Iran.

That's the case for Israel's supply alliance with China against Taiwan. Here is the case against:

This flies directly in the face of United States security interests. When China last threatened Taiwan, President Clinton was forced to put two U.S. aircraft carriers into the strait. When that happens again, American forces will be directly threatened by Chinese air, naval and missile forces emboldened by Israel's Phalcon battle management.

That's why the Senate Foreign Relations chairman, Jesse Helms, long a supporter of Israel, wrote to its government privately on Nov. 17: "The Pentagon has informed me that this system may be more advanced than the U.S. AWACS and will definitely enhance China's power projection capabilities. . . . United States security will be put at risk by the Phalcon and other Israeli sales to Beijing."

Though candidates for U.S. president today are fearful of raising this question, American supporters of Israel want to know: If Israel tips the technological military balance against a democratic American ally in Asia, why should the U.S. guarantee that Israel continue to have a "qualitative edge" in the Middle East?

Throughout the cold war, Israel and America were together on the side of freedom. In the coming superpower rivalry in Asia, will Israel choose neutralism? And when the multibillion-dollar bill comes in to subsidize a settlement with Syrians and Palestinians, will Israel's prime minister seek economic aid from his big new Asian customer?

Let's talk tachlis, Yiddish for "brass tacks": If the freedom of an island with 22 million souls is of no concern to Israel, the world will care even less about 6 million Jews getting pushed into the sea. Israeli survival has one dependable guarantor, and the powerful U.S.-Israel alliance is nothing without its moral dimension.

That's why some of us hope that after being shown around the Holocaust museum and the Phalcon plant, the "butcher of Beijing" did not get an idea for the final solution to the Taiwanese question.

----------- japan

Death Stirs Up Opposition of Japanese to Atom Use

New York Times December 23, 1999 By HOWARD W. FRENCH
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/122399japan-nuke.html

TOKYO, Dec. 22 -- The death late Tuesday of a worker exposed to radiation in Japan's worst nuclear accident brought renewed calls today for curbs on the country's atomic energy program.

The worker, Hisashi Ouchi, 35, was hurt on Sept. 30 in an accident at a nuclear fuel plant near Tokyo that also critically injured two other workers. Scores of nearby residents were exposed to radiation.

"He was a victim of a myth perpetrated by the national government and the nuclear power industry that nuclear energy is safe," said Tatsu ya Murakami, the mayor of Tokaimura, where the accident took place.

Japan's nuclear power industry has been on the defensive since the accident, opening a rare chapter in this country's history in which citizens have effectively brought pressure to bear on the tacit coalition between government and business in a major industry.

In a front-page commentary today, Asahi Shimbun, a leading newspaper, noted that the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 had led to the end of the expansion of nuclear power in the United States.

After the accident in Tokaimura, the paper said, the Japanese people "are starting to feel genuine horror and concern about nuclear power generation, perhaps for the first time in their lives."

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi offered his condolences to Mr. Ouchi's family and said, "The government has been working so that such an accident will never be repeated."

Far more than in most countries, large numbers of people in Japan have associated all things nuclear with death and destruction, a legacy of the atomic bombings of their country by the United States in 1945. The nuclear power industry, which supplies more than 30 percent of Japan's electricity, was able to thrive only after unstinting efforts to cultivate an image of extraordinary safety.

For many, the Tokaimura accident, caused by procedural lapses, not only shattered the safety myth, but also, because Mr. Ouchi died after months of suffering, brought back memories of the bombings.

Recent pressure by civic groups and a strong shift in public opinion have already forced several of the largest nuclear power plants to cancel or postpone plans to upgrade their operations. A particular target has been the planned use of a hybrid fuel containing uranium and plutonium by so-called light-water plants that were originally designed to use uranium only.

Nuclear energy experts have long warned that the mixed fuel increases the risk of rupture inside the cores of power plants. Moreover, they say, in case of a catastrophic accident, plutonium and its byproducts are far more lethal than uranium.

What few foresaw, though, was the kind of blunder that occurred at Tokaimura, where poorly trained workers were following crude shortcuts, mixing nuclear fuels by hand with steel buckets, and seven times the normal amount of fuel was poured into a container, resulting in a nuclear chain reaction that took nearly a day to halt.

In the space of a few minutes, Mr. Ouchi, the worst-injured worker, was exposed to 400 times the maximum amount of radiation a nuclear plant worker is allowed to received in an entire year.

Perhaps in part because of dread of the backlash against nuclear power, the government went to extraordinary lengths to save Mr. Ouchi, who had had not regained consciousness since mid-October. According to the doctors involved in his care, 10 liters of blood were transfused into his body daily in recent weeks.

In late November he was resuscitated after his heart failed. Since then, doctors said, his skin, which suffered severe peeling after the accident and never healed, was oozing more and more fluid.

Doctors said that despite the administration of huge amounts of painkilling drugs, and even in his unconscious state, the patient winced and showed other signs of agony when receiving treatment.

---

Nuclear accident victim dies

Sydney Morning Herald Date: 23/12/99
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9912/23/text/world3.html

Tokyo: Japan has suffered its first nuclear accident fatality with the death yesterday of one of three workers exposed to massive doses of radiation in the Tokaimura accident last September.

Mr Hasashi Ouchi, 35, died of multiple organ failure shortly after midnight Australian time.

Doctors had fought for 83 days to keep him alive after he was exposed to extreme radiation levels in the "criticality" accident at the JCO uranium processing plant north of Tokyo.

Experts say the exposure was 17,000 times the maximum annual permissible exposure in Japan.

Mr Ouchi suffered serious burns to most of his body, severe damage to his internal organs and had a near-zero white blood cell count.

Doctors at the University of Tokyo Hospital had used radical cancer treatment in an attempt to revive his white cell count. It worked temporarily, but Mr Ouchi was overwhelmed by his other injuries.

The Prime Minister, Mr Keizo Obuchi, released a statement shortly after the death pledging to strengthen Japan's nuclear safety measures, but the death is a further blow to Japan's crisis-ridden nuclear injury.

An anti-nuclear lobby group, the Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre, pointed out the industry has claimed to have avoided the loss of life during its 30-year development.

"Although the accident took place at a facility affiliated with the nuclear power plant, Ouchi's death overturned their claim."

Mr Ouchi and two other workers were bombarded with radiation when they poured too much of a uranium solution into a processing tank, triggering a nuclear chain reaction.

Mr Ouchi's co-worker, Mr Masato Shinohara, 40, is in a stable condition in the same hospital. The third worker, who was exposed to a much smaller radiation dose, left hospital this week.

Michael Millett

----------- korea

N. Korea Supports Reactor Contract

Associated Press December 23, 1999 Filed at 8:26 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-NKorea-Nuclear-Power.html
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562791970-c78
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,145013604,00.html?

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea on Thursday welcomed a U.S.-led consortium's signing of a $4.6 billion contract to build two nuclear reactors in the communist country.

``It is fortunate that the contract was signed, though belatedly,'' the official Korean Central News Agency reported, quoting an unidentified spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

The deal, a reward for the communist nation's promise to freeze and eventually dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons program, was signed last week -- the final phase of preparations to build the U.S.-designed reactors in Kumho, in northeastern North Korea.

In the 1994 pact with Washington, North Korea agreed to freeze the program in return for the reactors and 500,000 tons of fuel oil until the first reactor is built.

The North Korean official, however, warned of ``serious consequences'' in case of a delay in construction, adding that it is already far behind schedule.

At a normal building pace, the first reactor will be done by 2007, four years behind schedule. The second reactor will be completed a year later.

The (South) Korea Electric Power Corp., the main builder, has been doing ground-leveling and other preparatory work since 1997.

But the main work has yet to start as the consortium's three main members -- the United States, Japan and South Korea -- have only recently agreed on details of the funding.

The light-water reactors will replace North Korea's Soviet-designed graphite-moderated reactors, which experts say produce greater amounts of weapons-grade plutonium.

Related Information From Hoover's Inc. Korea Electric Power Corp
http://www.nytimes.com/partners/quote/hoovers.cgi?ticker=KEP

-----------

----------- mexico

U.S., Mexico OK Waste Disclosure

DECEMBER 23, 10:13 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS71H3NVG0
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562793269-0bd

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A new agreement between the United States and Mexico requires each country to disclose where they plan to construct or expand hazardous and radioactive waste sites along the border.

U.S. officials announced the agreement Wednesday. It requires each nation to tell the other of plans for waste facilities located within 60 miles of the border. The accord still allows each country to make decisions on where waste facilities will be built.

California environmentalists have wanted Mexican officials to release data on hazardous materials produced in foreign-owned assembly plants.

Information about toxic materials are available to the public on the Environmental Protection Agency's web site, said agency spokesman Dave Schmidt. However, he said there is little information available about Mexican dumps.

``You can have a hazardous site built on the Mexican side of the border and no one on the U.S. side would know about it,'' Schmidt said.

-----------

----------- russia

Russia threatens new arms race over US missile plan

ABC News Thu, 23 Dec 1999 7:25 AEDT
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-23dec1999-30.htm

Russia and the United States have again failed to resolve differences over American plans to build an anti-missile defence shield.

Russia has threatened to increase its offensive nuclear capability over the US plan.

US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott has held talks in Moscow with Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, focusing on the row over Washington's anti-missile defence plan.

The plan would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Washington wants to convince Moscow to make amendments to allow the new US system.

So far, Russia is resisting strongly and has already warned that if Washington proceeds, Moscow will beef up its offensive nuclear capability.

Mr Talbott and Mr Putin also discussed another arms control treaty, START-2.

The Russian Parliament has long delayed its approval but there are signs the newly elected, more centrist, Russian lower house may be more inclined to ratification.

---

Russian Minister Says Nuclear Stations Y2K-Safe

Reuters December 23, 1999 Filed at 1:37 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-russia.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's minister in charge of nuclear power said Thursday no millennium-related problems were expected at the country's nuclear sites, but he promised to keep in touch with the West on the crucial night.

``We do not expect computers to influence the security of our sites on the New Year night and on other crucial dates as well,'' Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov told a news conference after the ceremonial inauguration of a nuclear millennium-bug crisis center in Moscow.

Western experts have cited Russia, which has many military and civilian nuclear reactors, among countries which may have failed to prepare properly to face possible problems when the dates on computers switch from 1999 to 2000.

Computer experts fear that some computers could fail if they misread the date. Adamov urged journalists not to automatically ascribe any computer mishaps on the New Year's night to the millennium bug.

``Computer failures happen almost every day and some of them are so small that they pass unnoticed,'' he said.

``On the New Year night international attention will be focused on the millennium problem, but that does not mean that every small incident should be attributed to it.''

Adamov said that the new crisis center would receive information from all sensitive nuclear sites, including nuclear power stations, on the New Year night to be ready to handle any potential problem.

``There will also be an exchange of information between the crisis center and the International Atomic Energy Agency and a number of countries, which showed interest in bilateral contacts, including the United States, Finland, Japan and France,'' he said. ``We will inform each other as the New Year rolls along the time zones,'' Adamov added.

Russian officials have more than once shrugged off Western fears that the country was unprepared for the millennium problem. Although they have devoted fewer resources to the problem than Western countries, they say they have taken measures to avoid a major crisis.

Russian military officials will spend the New Year night with U.S. colleagues at a command center in Colorado to make sure that no computer glitch is mistaken for an unauthorized nuclear missile launch.

---

U.S. official criticizes Russian assault on Chechnya

Cleveland Live Friday, December 24, 1999 By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdnews/metro/w24usru.ssf

MOSCOW - Russia's assault on breakaway Chechnya treats Chechen civilians "as terrorists and enemies," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said yesterday.

Talbott issued one of Washington's strongest statements yet on the Russia offensive after meeting in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Talbott said the United States understands Russia's need to combat terrorism. But it must be done in compliance with international law, he said.

Talbott also conveyed U.S. concern that the conflict could spread to other parts of the Caucasus region, including Georgia and Azerbaijan. Russian troops entered Chechnya this fall with the goal of combating Islamic rebels.

The offensive was a response to rebel incursions into neighboring Dagestan and bombings in Russian cities that left 300 people dead. Russian officials blame Chechen rebels for the bombings.

The United States and other Western countries have called the Russian offensive excessive. Russia has rejected the criticism, saying they have been careful not to target civilians.

Though the conflict has not spread elsewhere in the Caucasus, Russia and Georgia have been trading accusations.

Russia has accused Georgia of letting the rebels ferry weapons across its border with Chechnya, a charge Georgia denies. Georgia, in turn, has accused the Russian military of firing on its territory while pursuing the militants.

Talbott and Ivanov also discussed the U.S. desire to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but the talks failed to resolve major differences, Talbott said.

The United States wants to amend the treaty to protect itself from missile attacks by rogue nations. It has tried to persuade Russia that the new missile defenses it wants to build wouldn't be able to shield against a nuclear strike of the scale Russia is capable of launching.

But Russia says a retreat from the treaty would upset the strategic balance and could trigger a new arms race.

The ABM disagreement, U.S. criticism of the Chechnya offensive and other disputes have brought U.S.-Russian relations to a post-Cold War low. Both sides, however, say they don't want a return to confrontation.

"We have been through a tough year," Talbott said. "But the stakes are huge and the common interests are definitely there.

---

Talbott Steps Up Criticism of Russian Actions in Chechnya

New York Times December 23, 1999 By CELESTINE BOHLEN
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/23/late/23talbott.html

MOSCOW -- As Russian forces continued to pound rebel positions in the breakaway region of Chechnya, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, in Moscow for meetings, accused Russia today of violating "international norms" by treating civilians as "terrorists."

Stepping up American criticism of Russia's three-month-long war, Mr. Talbott wound up two days of sessions with top officials in Moscow by saying that ''substantial differences, even disagreements" remain between the two countries, including conflicts over modifications to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Mr. Talbott expressed support for Russia's goals in eliminating "extremism and terrorism" in Chechnya, but said its methods should correspond to international law. "The feeling is that this standard has not been met," he told reporters after a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor S. Ivanov.

"Clearly there are many people in Chechnya who don't want to see their territory used as a base for operations against Russia," said Mr. Talbott. "But they also don't want to see themselves treated as terrorists and enemies, not to mention victims of indiscriminate killing and driving people from their homes."

Human Rights Watch has reported that at least 17 people were killed earlier this month in the village of Alkhan-Yurt, in eastern Chechnya, when Russian soldiers went on a rampage of looting and killing after clearing the village of rebel guerrillas.

As Russia moves into what one general said were the final weeks of its Chechen offensive, Chechnya's top Muslim leader, Mufti Akhmed Kadyrov, who has broken with the Chechen leadership, said today that he would be ready to act as a go-between in talks between Moscow and Chechen leaders.

After a one-hour meeting with a top aide to President Boris N. Yeltsin, Mufti Kadyrov said Moscow should define its goals in Chechnya, and open up talks with Chechnya's reigning warlords, but not with the Chechen President, Aslan Maskhadov. The Mufti, who backed Chechnya's war of independence against Russia in 1994 to 1996, broke with Mr. Maskhadov last fall when the Chechen president failed to speak out against armed raids on the neighboring region of Dagestan, led by Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev.

"I support talks to halt the war," Mufti Kadyrov said at a news conference. "No matter with whom. Talks should be held with those who make the decisions. Maskhadov does not make them. If Moscow believes that talks should be held with Basayev, let it be so."

A day after Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said that almost all of Chechnya is already under Russian control, Russian military spokesmen said federal forces were fighting guerrillas on several fronts -- near Chechnya's western border with Dagestan, another Russian region, and in its southern mountains, where 350 rebels reportedly were trying to break out of the village of Sezhen-Yurt.

Russian television tonight reported that federal troops were closing in on the Chechen capital of Grozny where thousands of civilians -- between 8,000 and 35,000, according to various reports -- remain trapped, hiding in their cellars, afraid to move because of continued bombardment of the city.

A top Russian commander, Col. Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, said that Grozny would be taken by special operations, not by storm. In an interview published in Krasnaya Zvesda, the armed forces newspaper, he also said that Russian troops would be in full control of the entire region, including its mountainous south, within three weeks "at the most."

Speaking in Belgrade today, the Russian defense minister, Igor Sergeyev said that if a special operation was launched to clear Grozny of guerrilla forces, it would be carried out mainly by Chechen-led militia members.

Bislan Guntemirov, a former Grozny mayor who was recently released from prison to head a pro-Moscow militia in Chechnya, said he had 1,500 supporters who are ready to join federal forces in the "clean-up of Grozny."

Russian troops have already made forays into the city that have been described by military spokesmen as reconnaissance operations. During one foray last week, journalists in Grozny reported that dozens of Russian soldiers -- as many as 100 according to one account -- were killed. Those reports have been vigorously denied by Russian military spokesmen, who described the reported death tolls as disinformation.

Responding to charges about the killings of civilians in Alkhan-Yurt, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement today that Russian troops had used adequate force in taking the village on Nov. 29. According to the statement, federal troops, assured by local leaders that guerrillas had left the area, moved into the village only to find themselves under attack. Thirty federal soldiers were wounded, and ten military vehicles, including a tank, were destroyed in the fierce fighting that followed, the statement said.

Researchers for Human Rights Watch, who interviewed survivors from the village, have said that the killings took place after the village was secured by federal troops, as soldiers went on a door-to-door rampage, loading up their vehicles with stolen goods, and killing those residents who protested.

Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Koshman, Moscow's main envoy to Chechnya, said tonight that an investigation into the incident by a military special prosecutor is still under way.

After meeting today with Aleksandr Voloshin, the Kremlin's chief of staff, Mufti Kadyrov said he had presented a proposal for a negotiated settlement in Chechnya that calls for a two-year transition period, followed by a referendum on the region's relationship to Russia and elections.

"If someone is forced upon us from Moscow, nothing will come out of it," said the mufti, who has been declared a traitor by Chechen warlords. "One should be looking for people who are inside Chechnya. Only they can help set the republic on a rudimentary course towards stability."

As Mr. Talbott left Moscow today with no sign of an agreement with Russia on the changes the United States is seeking to the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, General Sergeyev, in Belgrade, told reporters that Russia's relations with NATO are sinking to a new low.

"Our relations with the alliance have apparently entered a new phase of getting colder," General Sergeyev told the Russian news agency, Interfax. "The alliance is trying to talk to Russia about the problem of Chechnya from a position of force."

U.S. Envoy Rips Russia on Chechnya
2:51 p.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-US.html

---

Putin pledges to push START II talks

USA Today 12/23/99
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm

MOSCOW - Riding moderates' success in parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised Wednesday to push ratification of the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty and long-stalled economic reforms through the Russian parliament. President Boris Yeltsin's government has long urged parliament to ratify the 1993 treaty, which would halve U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads each. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996, but the Communists have refused, saying the pact hurts Russian security.

----------- us nuc weapons

U.S. Aide Critical of Moscow at End of 2 Days' Talks

New York Times December 23, 1999 By CELESTINE BOHLEN
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/122499russia-chechnya.html

MOSCOW, Dec. 23 -- Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott ended two days of talks on a sour note here today, accusing Russia of "indiscriminate killing" in Chechnya and failing to break a lingering stalemate between Washington and Moscow over a major arms control treaty.

As Russian forces continue to pound rebel positions in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, Mr. Talbott offered some of the harshest American criticism to date of the Kremlin's military campaign, which proved enormously popular in the parliamentary elections last week. He said Russia was violating "international norms" in Chechnya by treating civilians in Chechnya as "terrorists."

At a time when Russian-American relations are strained by Chechnya and lingering disagreements over a series of other issues, Mr. Talbott wound up his meetings with top officials in Moscow by saying "substantial differences, even disagreements" remain over Washington's proposal to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia's vigorous objections.

Washington wants to amend the treaty to allow both nations to field defense systems to protect against limited long-range missile attacks. The United States says this would help the two countries protect themselves against nuclear terrorism, but Russia asserts that changing the treaty could set off a new arms race.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said as Mr. Talbott left that Moscow "confirms its fundamental position of not accepting any attempts to undermine this agreement."

Reflecting on Russian-American disputes, Mr. Talbott said: "We have been through a tough year. But the stakes are high, and the common interests are definitely there."

The envoy had come to Moscow at a time of renewed optimism on arms control. Prime Minister Valdimir V. Putin, buoyed by the strong showing by his supporters in parliamentary elections on Sunday, had said he would push for a long-delayed vote on ratification of Start II, the arms control treaty signed in 1993 that calls on both countries to reduce their nuclear warheads to 3,500 by 2002.

But as Mr. Talbott left Moscow, the Russian defense minister, Igor D. Sergeyev, offered a gloomy view to reporters in Belgrade, saying Russia's relations with NATO are sinking to a new low.

"Our relations with the alliance have apparently entered a new phase of getting colder," Marshal Sergeyev told the Russian news agency Interfax. "The alliance is trying to talk to Russia about the problem of Chechnya from a position of force."

Mr. Talbott expressed support for Russia's goals in eliminating "extremism and terrorism" in Chechnya, but said the methods should correspond to international law. "The feeling is that this standard has not been met," he told reporters after a meeting with Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov.

"Clearly there are many people in Chechnya who don't want to see their territory used as a base for operations against Russia," Mr. Talbott said. "But they also don't want to see themselves treated as terrorists and enemies, not to mention victims of indiscriminate killing and driving people from their homes."

The international rights group Human Rights Watch has reported that at least 17 people were killed this month in the village of Alkhan-Yurt, in eastern Chechnya, when Russian soldiers went on a rampage of looting and killing after clearing the village of guerrillas.

As Russia moves into what one general said were the final weeks of its Chechen offensive, Chechnya's top Muslim leader, Mufti Ahmed Kadyrov, who has broken with the Chechen leadership, said today that he would be ready to act as a go-between in talks between Moscow and Chechen leaders.

After an hourlong meeting with Aleksandr Voloshin, a top Kremlin aide to President Boris N. Yeltsin, Mufti Kadyrov said Moscow should define its goals in Chechnya, and open up talks with Chechnya's reigning warlords, but not with the Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov. The mufti, who backed Chechnya's war of independence against Russia in 1994 to 1996, broke with Mr. Maskhadov last fall when the Chechen president did not to speak out against armed raids against the neighboring region of Dagestan that were led by the Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev.

"I support talks to halt the war," Mufti Kadyrov said at a news conference, "no matter with whom."

A day after Prime Minister Putin said almost all of Chechnya was already under Russian control, military spokesmen said federal forces were fighting guerrillas on several fronts -- near Chechnya's western border with Dagestan, another Russian region, and in its southern mountains, where 350 rebels were reportedly trying to break out of the village of Sezhen-Yurt.

Russian television tonight reported that federal troops were closing in on the Chechen capital, Grozny, where thousands of civilians -- between 8,000 and 35,000, according to various reports -- remain trapped, hiding in their cellars, afraid to move because of continued bombardment of the city.

A top Russian commander, Col. Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, said Grozny would be taken by special operations, not by storm. In an interview published in Krasnaya Zvezda, the armed forces newspaper, he also said Russian troops would be in full control of the entire region, including its mountainous south, within three weeks "at the most."

Russian troops have already made forays into the city that were described by military spokesman as reconnaissance operations. During one foray last week, journalists in Grozny reported that dozens of Russian soldiers -- as many as 100, according to one account -- were killed. Those reports have been vigorously denied by Russian military spokesmen.

Responding to charges about the killings of civilians in Alkhan-Yurt, the Defense Ministry said in a statement today that Russian troops had used adequate force in taking the village on Nov. 29. According to the statement, federal troops, assured by local leaders that guerrillas had left the area, moved into the village only to find themselves under attack. Thirty federal soldiers were wounded, and 10 military vehicles, including a tank, were destroyed in the fierce fighting that followed, the statement said.

Researchers for Human Rights Watch, who interviewed survivors from the village, say the killings took place after the village was secured by federal troops, as soldiers went on a door-to-door rampage, loading up their vehicles with stolen goods and killing residents who protested.

Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Koshman, Moscow's main envoy to Chechnya, said tonight that an investigation into the incident by a military special prosecutor was still under way.

----------- us nuc weapons facilities

Plant hid risk from workers
Paducah bosses knew some had high radiation levels

MSNBC 12/23/99By Joby Warrick WASHINGTON POST

PADUCAH, Ky., Dec. 23 - One worker collapsed on the factory floor, his body ravaged by lymphoma. Two others died within 105 days of different forms of leukemia. By the time Challie Freeman came down with a rare bone disease in the fall of 1979, questions had morphed into suspicions: Was something at the U.S. government's uranium plant making workers sick?

Senior Energy Department officials said the findings highlight a major policy dilemma for the agency: whether to pursue more studies or to expand pilot programs to directly compensate workers who get sick.

ONE POSSIBLE ANSWER -

radiation exposure - seemed persuasive to Freeman's doctor. He fired off a letter to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. "It is imperative," he wrote, "that we learn as soon as possible the extent, nature and type of radiation to which he was exposed."

The reply - "no significant internal exposure" - was brief and emphatic. It was also false.

While the plant was denying knowledge of significant hazards to Freeman's doctors, confidential records showed the opposite: Freeman had tested positive multiple times for exposure to radioactive uranium and had even been restricted from working around uranium, an internal company memo shows.

In August, The Washington Post reported that Paducah workers were unwittingly exposed to highly radioactive plutonium and neptunium on the job from the 1950s to the 1970s. A subsequent four-month Post investigation has found additional evidence that plant officials kept employees uninformed about chemical and radiation hazards. In some cases, such as Freeman's, the plant withheld accurate medical information on radiation exposure - even while it privately tracked cancer deaths among workers.

A limited review of Paducah employee death records also turned up rates of leukemia among workers that appear higher than normal, based on government mortality statistics. Epidemiologists who reviewed the findings described the data as intriguing but cautioned that a much more intensive scientific study was needed, involving investigators with full access to employee records and medical histories, to establish whether a pattern existed. Such a study has not been done at Paducah.

The 48-year-old uranium plant is the subject of an Energy Department investigation into worker health and safety practices. Union Carbide Corp., which allowed its operating contract to expire in 1984, declines to comment, saying its Paducah managers are long gone from the company. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, whose agency owns the facility, has apologized for the failure to disclose plant hazards and has promised compensation for sick workers.

Any outside attempt to review medical issues at Paducah is complicated by a lack of complete information. The Energy Department, citing privacy laws, declined to release lists of workers and their assignments. But The Post obtained company rosters listing more than 200 Paducah employees who were hired to work in some of the plant's most dangerous uranium-handling areas between 1951 and 1971. Scores of death certificates were examined and more than 120 surviving employees who worked in those areas were interviewed.

Professional help was retained to categorize deaths, and a software program developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was used to compare incidences of cancer to national rates.

The result: The incidence of leukemia at Paducah appeared elevated, according to epidemiologists who reviewed the data. Of the 211 people on the lists who could be located - about 13 percent of the plant's work force in an average year - 10 died of cancers of the blood and lymphatic system, including six of leukemia. By comparison, government mortality statistics suggest that only a single leukemia death would be expected in a group of adults of that size.

Cancer clusters are difficult to document, and cancers are not necessarily caused by radiation. Some studies at other Energy Department plants have suggested links between workplace hazards and cancers; others have not. Whether chronic exposure to low doses of radiation causes cancer has been hotly debated for decades.

NEED FOR A CLOSER LOOK?

Still, several epidemiologists who reviewed the results said the unusual incidence of leukemia and other rare diseases suggests the need for a closer look.

"The findings are interesting and noteworthy and are grounds for a more complete study of the question," said David Richardson, an epidemiologist who is researching radiation health effects for the World Health Organization.

Senior Energy Department officials said the findings highlight a major policy dilemma for the agency: whether to pursue more studies or to expand pilot programs to directly compensate workers who get sick. Yesterday, the department announced that it had shifted spending priorities in its fiscal 2000 budget to increase money for health studies and medical monitoring at Paducah. However, officials worry that studies may not be the right approach.

"Epidemiology is not going to answer the questions precisely enough," said David Michaels, an epidemiologist and the assistant energy secretary for environment, safety and health.

Energy Secretary Richardson said he has proposed legislation to change the way his agency deals with its sick workers.

"Instead of fighting claims, we're actually helping workers without the debate about the rates of illness," he said. "The legislation we sent to Congress takes the burden of proof off those who are sick."

Documents obtained in October under the Freedom of Information Act show that Union Carbide began tracking the repeated cancer cases in its work force in the 1970s.

The first to die was Wade McNabb, a 20-year veteran who succumbed to chronic leukemia in 1972. That same fall, another worker died of multiple myeloma, a bone marrow disease.

Alton Henson died of leukemia in 1976. Two years later, three workers - Arvil Bean, Leonard Lindblad and David Wilson - died of leukemia or bone marrow diseases within a span of six months.

By 1982, the company had counted 13 fatal cancers of the blood or lymphatic system out of a relatively stable work force that ranged from 1,200 to 2,000 people. The list appears on a single sheet of paper - stamped "confidential" and copied to senior plant officials - identifying workers sometimes by initials. How Union Carbide intended to use the list is unclear, but the plant's records show no attempt by contractors to investigate possible links between the deaths and workplace hazards.

WORKERS TOLD EVERYTHING WAS FINE

Meanwhile, plant workers were told everything was fine. When Challie Freeman fell ill with his deadly bone marrow disease at 59, plant officials offered a lot of sympathy but little truth, family members say.

Responding to a hematologist's queries about possible radiation exposure, a plant physician in a letter described Freeman as a "very fine man" whose exposure to hazardous materials had been near zero. Medical records produced by the plant showed "no significant internal exposure," based on years of weekly urine tests for uranium.

Not until 15 years after his death in 1984 did family members obtain his medical records from the Energy Department and learn the full story: Company tests had indeed found high levels of uranium in his body in the 1950s - so much, in fact, that Freeman once had to be moved to a different work area. His widow, Sue, recalls that he was transferred to a different job in the 1950s after being told simply that his urine was "hot."

Freeman's physician, Nashville hematologist John Flexner, remembered that the company's response "downplayed the exposures."

"They made you think there was no way this could be a case of cause-and-effect," Flexner said. "I guess I was naive to think they were telling the truth."

Union Carbide said that it did not have the ability to respond in the Freeman case because of the 20-year passage of time.

Plant policies required that workers exposed to certain amounts of radiation be moved to less hazardous jobs. But new records show this was ignored in some cases in which workers received up to twice the maximum dosage.

Plant policies required that workers exposed to certain amounts of radiation be moved to other, less hazardous jobs. But new records show this was ignored in some cases in which workers received up to twice the maximum dosage. One who never got the word was A.B. Burris, a 74-year-old retiree who learned of his past exposures when he asked the Energy Department for his medical files this fall.

"They say I was put on 'strict restriction,' but I never found out about it until weeks ago," he said. "I can tell you they never changed my job or said anything to me about it."

Workers knew even less about potentially deadly plutonium and neptunium that spread through the plant in shipments of recycled nuclear reactor uranium fuel from the 1950s to the 1970s, plant documents show.

Confidential, 40-year-old memos released by the Energy Department in September showed that Union Carbide officials had decided against testing workers for exposure to the radioactive metals because of fears that workers would "use it ... as an excuse for hazardous-duty pay."

Newly released memos show that senior managers were aware of the plutonium and neptunium problem as early as 1959 but concluded in classified studies that contaminants were not a health hazard because the amounts in each shipment were small - a maximum of 10 parts per billion of plutonium in each uranium shipment.

But over the years, the two metals began accumulating in soil and waste materials.

In a survey of Paducah plant buildings conducted in the early 1990s, more than half of the work areas sampled exceeded the plant's safety limits for plutonium and neptunium - in some cases by a factor of 10. A survey of a men's locker room found high levels in shower stalls and even on toilet seats.

Workers did know enough about radiation hazards to formally request additional safeguards.

DEMANDING BETTER TREATMENT

When Union Carbide decided to stop providing mechanics with coveralls, the plant's union demanded in 1986 that the company take responsibility for "radiation carried into our homes, autos and other areas." Union Carbide denied the request, although in 1975 the union negotiated the right to protective clothing on demand.

The union was less successful in efforts to secure workers' rights to take regular breaks in a radiation-free lunchroom. In a written grievance in 1979, the union said workers "should not have to eat in a contaminated area."

The company denied the request. Ailing workers in the past have had difficulty proving harm because they lacked accurate monitoring data, David Fuller, president of the Paducah chapter of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers Union, testified at a Senate hearing on Paducah in October.

While applauding government promises to financially aid ailing Paducah workers, Fuller and other union officials called for a compensation program for all workers that "reverses the burden of proof onto the government" while expanding medical monitoring for those most at risk.

"Monitoring is imperative," Fuller said, "but without any other remedy, monitoring is simply a process to watch people get sick and die."

Director of computer-assisted reporting Ira Chinoy, database editor Sarah Cohen, and staff researchers Alice Crites, Nathan Abse and Nancy Shiner contributed to this report.

---

Uranium plant operators may be fined over whistleblower's treatment

Anchorage Daily News December 22, 1999 11:39 a.m. EST
http://www.nando.net/24hour/adn/business/story/0,1968,500145593-500174783-500683928-0,00.html

PADUCAH, Ky. (December 22, 1999 11:39 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - The operator of a federal uranium enrichment plant could face as much as $88,000 in fines for allegedly retaliating against a whistleblower who questioned safety at the facility.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed the fine Tuesday against the United States Enrichment Corp., which runs the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant for the Department of Energy.

The plant enriches uranium for use as nuclear reactor fuel.

The plant's manager of quality systems was demoted in 1998 for telling a supervisor that the plant was not fulfilling all the requirements of an industry standard for quality assurance programs, the commission said in a statement issued Tuesday.

The commission said the manager also told a supervisor he was concerned of possible adverse effects caused by the quality systems staff having to perform other activities.

U.S. Enrichment has until Jan. 19 to either pay or challenge the fine, the second and largest fine the commission has issued against the company's Paducah operations.

The company is still reviewing the issue, said spokeswoman Georgeann Lookofsky. She said the manager left employment at the plant a few weeks ago but would not disclose the circumstances.

---

RICHLAND - Hanford firm gets $10.35 million for work in 1999

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Wednesday, December 22, 1999
http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/brfs22.shtml

Bechtel Hanford will receive $10.35 million for its environmental restoration work during fiscal year 1999 at Hanford nuclear reservation.

The payment is 97.6 percent of that available to Bechtel under a performance-based rating system, the U.S. Department of Energy said yesterday.

Among the projects Bechtel has worked on:

Moving nearly 700,000 tons of contaminated soil and other material to a disposal site.

Decontamination of a surplus plutonium processing facility and bringing down the old exhaust stacks from D and DR reactors near the Columbia River.

The Groundwater/Vadose Zone Project, which is designed to provide a comprehensive look at risks to the river when evaluating contamination and cleanup.

Bechtel Hanford has been the site's environmental restoration contractor since 1993.

---

Ky. Plant Said Tracked Cancer Cases

Associated Press DECEMBER 23, 11:02 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS71H4ERO0
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Paducah-Plant.html
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562788538-60e

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) - Officials at a federal uranium processing plant covertly tracked suspicious cases of cancer among employees while claiming the workers were safe, according to published reports.

In the early 1980s, managers at the Energy Department's Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in western Kentucky counted 13 current and former workers who suffered from leukemia and other cancers in the previous 27 years.

Some names and initials were listed on a confidential DOE document, The Courier Journal of Louisville reported today. All but three had died by 1984, but medical experts apparently didn't learn of the list for nearly a decade. Others never did.

``Workers should have been told the list was being kept and why they were being tracked,'' said Jim Key, a representative for the workers' union. ``I was astounded they had been tracking this and never told us.''

The Washington Post reported today that its analysis of plant rosters listing more than 200 employees found that 10 died of blood and lymph system cancers, including six from leukemia. Government mortality rates show that only a single death would be expected in a group of adults that size.

Three plant employees have filed a federal lawsuit alleging workers unwittingly were exposed to plutonium and other highly toxic substances from 1953 to 1976. The suit is sealed.

A recent DOE investigation looking back to 1990 found that worker safety and environmental problems have persisted during federal efforts to clean up the plant.

That report, released in October, said plant workers had not been adequately informed of some risks and that radioactive contamination from the site continues to spread through groundwater toward the Ohio River.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has apologized for the failure to disclose plant hazards and promised compensation for sick workers. Congress has provided a $16 million increase for the plant's cleanup in its fiscal 2000 budget.

At the time the cancer list was put together, in 1984, the federal government and plant officials reportedly were hiding the fact that highly radioactive metals such as plutonium and neptunium had contaminated some of the uranium processed at the plant.

Government medical researchers saw the list when they visited the plant in 1992 and urged the Energy Department to study the incidence of leukemia among workers - something that was never done, the Courier Journal reported.

It is not known why the plant operator - either Union Carbide or Martin Marietta, which took over operations in 1984 - kept the list.

The names of two of the plant's former health physicists, Charles Turok and Bruce McDougal, are on the document, indicating each received a copy. Both said they hadn't seen it.

Steven Wyatt, a spokesman for the Energy Department's office in Oak Ridge, Tenn., said he showed copies of the list to department officials in Paducah and Oak Ridge, and ``no one has a clue as to who kept it or why.''

Most of the dead employees worked in the uranium-processing building, in maintenance or in laboratories that could have exposed them to radiation. The other three employees were identified only by initials.

Medical experts say the incidence of 13 cancer cases among the more than 5,000 people who worked at the plant since its 1953 opening may not be excessive. But the number does not include those who died of lung cancer or other radiation-linked cancers.

Other documents show the Energy Department has been collecting its own data on worker deaths at its nuclear plants. By the early 1990s, it had collected 700 death certificates of former Paducah workers and hundreds more of dead workers at other nuclear facilities.

---

Plant Hid Risk From Workers Paducah Bosses Knew Some Had High Radiation Levels

Washington Post Thursday, December 23, 1999; Page A01By Joby Warrick
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/23/160l-122399-idx.html

PADUCAH, Ky.-One worker collapsed on the factory floor, his body ravaged by lymphoma. Two others died within 105 days of different forms of leukemia. By the time Challie Freeman came down with a rare bone disease in the fall of 1979, questions had morphed into suspicions:

Was something at the U.S. government's uranium plant making workers sick?

One possible answer--radiation exposure--seemed persuasive to Freeman's doctor. He fired off a letter to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. "It is imperative," he wrote, "that we learn as soon as possible the extent, nature and type of radiation to which he was exposed."

The reply--"no significant internal exposure"--was brief and emphatic. It was also false.

While the plant was denying knowledge of significant hazards to Freeman's doctors, confidential records showed the opposite: Freeman had tested positive multiple times for exposure to radioactive uranium and had even been restricted from working around uranium, an internal company memo shows.

In August, The Washington Post reported that Paducah workers were unwittingly exposed to highly radioactive plutonium and neptunium on the job from the 1950s to the 1970s. A subsequent four-month Post investigation has found additional evidence that plant officials kept employees uninformed about chemical and radiation hazards. In some cases, such as Freeman's, the plant withheld accurate medical information on radiation exposure--even while it privately tracked cancer deaths among workers.

A limited review of Paducah employee death records also turned up rates of leukemia among workers that appear higher than normal, based on government mortality statistics. Epidemiologists who reviewed the findings described the data as intriguing but cautioned that a much more intensive scientific study was needed, involving investigators with full access to employee records and medical histories, to establish whether a pattern existed. Such a study has not been done at Paducah.

The 48-year-old uranium plant is the subject of an Energy Department investigation into worker health and safety practices. Union Carbide Corp., which allowed its operating contract to expire in 1984, declines to comment, saying its Paducah managers are long gone from the company. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, whose agency owns the facility, has apologized for the failure to disclose plant hazards and has promised compensation for sick workers.

Any outside attempt to review medical issues at Paducah is complicated by a lack of complete information. The Energy Department, citing privacy laws, declined to release lists of workers and their assignments. But The Post obtained company rosters listing more than 200 Paducah employees who were hired to work in some of the plant's most dangerous uranium-handling areas between 1951 and 1971. Scores of death certificates were examined and more than 120 surviving employees who worked in those areas were interviewed.

Professional help was retained to categorize deaths, and a software program developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was used to compare incidences of cancer to national rates.

The result: The incidence of leukemia at Paducah appeared elevated, according to epidemiologists who reviewed the data. Of the 211 people on the lists who could be located--about 13 percent of the plant's work force in an average year--10 died of cancers of the blood and lymphatic system, including six of leukemia. By comparison, government mortality statistics suggest that only a single leukemia death would be expected in a group of adults of that size.

Cancer clusters are difficult to document, and cancers are not necessarily caused by radiation. Some studies at other Energy Department plants have suggested links between workplace hazards and cancers; others have not. Whether chronic exposure to low doses of radiation causes cancer has been hotly debated for decades.

Still, several epidemiologists who reviewed the results said the unusual incidence of leukemia and other rare diseases suggests the need for a closer look.

"The findings are interesting and noteworthy and are grounds for a more complete study of the question," said David Richardson, an epidemiologist who is researching radiation health effects for the World Health Organization.

Senior Energy Department officials said the findings highlight a major policy dilemma for the agency: whether to pursue more studies or to expand pilot programs to directly compensate workers who get sick. Yesterday, the department announced that it had shifted spending priorities in its fiscal 2000 budget to increase money for health studies and medical monitoring at Paducah. However, officials worry that studies may not be the right approach.

"Epidemiology is not going to answer the questions precisely enough," said David Michaels, an epidemiologist and the assistant energy secretary for environment, safety and health.

Energy Secretary Richardson said he has proposed legislation to change the way his agency deals with its sick workers.

"Instead of fighting claims, we're actually helping workers without the debate about the rates of illness," he said. "The legislation we sent to Congress takes the burden of proof off those who are sick."

Documents obtained in October under the Freedom of Information Act show that Union Carbide began tracking the repeated cancer cases in its work force in the 1970s.

The first to die was Wade McNabb, a 20-year veteran who succumbed to chronic leukemia in 1972. That same fall, another worker died of multiple myeloma, a bone marrow disease.

Alton Henson died of leukemia in 1976. Two years later, three workers--Arvil Bean, Leonard Lindblad and David Wilson--died of leukemia or bone marrow diseases within a span of six months.

By 1982, the company had counted 13 fatal cancers of the blood or lymphatic system out of a relatively stable work force that ranged from 1,200 to 2,000 people. The list appears on a single sheet of paper--stamped "confidential" and copied to senior plant officials--identifying workers sometimes by initials. How Union Carbide intended to use the list is unclear, but the plant's records show no attempt by contractors to investigate possible links between the deaths and workplace hazards.

Meanwhile, plant workers were told everything was fine. When Challie Freeman fell ill with his deadly bone marrow disease at 59, plant officials offered a lot of sympathy but little truth, family members say.

Responding to a hematologist's queries about possible radiation exposure, a plant physician in a letter described Freeman as a "very fine man" whose exposure to hazardous materials had been near zero. Medical records produced by the plant showed "no significant internal exposure," based on years of weekly urine tests for uranium.

Not until 15 years after his death in 1984 did family members obtain his medical records from the Energy Department and learn the full story: Company tests had indeed found high levels of uranium in his body in the 1950s--so much, in fact, that Freeman once had to be moved to a different work area. His widow, Sue, recalls that he was transferred to a different job in the 1950s after being told simply that his urine was "hot."

Freeman's physician, Nashville hematologist John Flexner, remembered that the company's response "downplayed the exposures."

"They made you think there was no way this could be a case of cause-and-effect," Flexner said. "I guess I was naive to think they were telling the truth."

Union Carbide said that it did not have the ability to respond in the Freeman case because of the 20-year passage of time.

Plant policies required that workers exposed to certain amounts of radiation be moved to other, less hazardous jobs. But new records show this was ignored in some cases in which workers received up to twice the maximum dosage.

One who never got the word was A.B. Burris, a 74-year-old retiree who learned of his past exposures when he asked the Energy Department for his medical files this fall.

"They say I was put on 'strict restriction,' but I never found out about it until weeks ago," he said. "I can tell you they never changed my job or said anything to me about it."

Workers knew even less about potentially deadly plutonium and neptunium that spread through the plant in shipments of recycled nuclear reactor uranium fuel from the 1950s to the 1970s, plant documents show.

Confidential, 40-year-old memos released by the Energy Department in September showed that Union Carbide officials had decided against testing workers for exposure to the radioactive metals because of fears that workers would "use it . . . as an excuse for hazardous-duty pay."

Newly released memos show that senior managers were aware of the plutonium and neptunium problem as early as 1959 but concluded in classified studies that contaminants were not a health hazard because the amounts in each shipment were small--a maximum of 10 parts per billion of plutonium in each uranium shipment.

But over the years, the two metals began accumulating in soil and waste materials.

In a survey of Paducah plant buildings conducted in the early 1990s, more than half of the work areas sampled exceeded the plant's safety limits for plutonium and neptunium--in some cases by a factor of 10. A survey of a men's locker room found high levels in shower stalls and even on toilet seats.

Workers did know enough about radiation hazards to formally request additional safeguards.

When Union Carbide decided to stop providing mechanics with coveralls, the plant's union demanded in 1986 that the company take responsibility for "radiation carried into our homes, autos and other areas." Union Carbide denied the request, although in 1975 the union negotiated the right to protective clothing on demand.

The union was less successful in efforts to secure workers' rights to take regular breaks in a radiation-free lunchroom. In a written grievance in 1979, the union said workers "should not have to eat in a contaminated area."

The company denied the request.

Ailing workers in the past have had difficulty proving harm because they lacked accurate monitoring data, David Fuller, president of the Paducah chapter of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers Union, testified at a Senate hearing on Paducah in October.

While applauding government promises to financially aid ailing Paducah workers, Fuller and other union officials called for a compensation program for all workers that "reverses the burden of proof onto the government" while expanding medical monitoring for those most at risk.

"Monitoring is imperative," Fuller said, "but without any other remedy, monitoring is simply a process to watch people get sick and die."

Director of computer-assisted reporting Ira Chinoy, database editor Sarah Cohen, and staff researchers Alice Crites, Nathan Abse and Nancy Shiner contributed to this report.

Challie Freeman
Job: Cascade worker, security officer
Age at death: 64
Illness: Myelofibrosis

Did radioactive exposure on the job make Challie Freeman sick? His doctor suspected a link, but plant managers said no. Asked by doctors to provide details of Freeman's work history, a Union Carbide memo described light exposure to the skin but "no significant internal exposures."

Fifteen years after Freeman's death, the family obtained confidential plant memos that showed the opposite: Freeman had been restricted from uranium work in the 1950s because of "repeated positive urine samples" for radioactive uranium. The uranium remained high after weekends away from the job, the memo said.

Freeman became sick from a slowly progressing bone marrow disease in the 1970s and died in 1984. Near the end his weight plummeted from 190 pounds to 100 and he was in constant pain, said his wife, Sue, who quit her job to care for him. 'We always wondered if it was the plant that made him sick,' she said. 'Now I have no doubt.'

David R. Wilson
Job: Cascade operator
Age at death: 54
Illness: Lymphosarcoma

Like most Paducah workers, Wilson said little about his job, though sometimes he'd confide to his wife when he was exposed to unusually high levels of radiation. "He would say just he had been 'hot,'" remembers his widow, Winnie. One day in early 1978 he was rushed to the hospital after becoming ill at work. Tests confirmed he suffered from a form of lymphoma, which ended his life just four months later.

Wade McNabb
Job: Cascade operator
Age at death: 55
Illness: Leukemia

The doctor's eyes spoke volumes. After breaking the awful news to McNabb -- a diagnosis of leukemia at age 40 -- he asked the ailing man where he worked. The reply, "Atomic Energy Plant, Paducah," prompted a nod and a knowing look. "Oh, yes," the hematologist said, "I'm treating several patients from Oak Ridge," Paducah's sister plant in Tennessee. McNabb began treatment and returned to the same job to preserve his salary and health benefits. "We didn't know what else to do," Dove, his widow, says. "You couldn't even talk about it at work, not if you wanted to keep your job."

Jack Owens
Job: Cascade operator, emergency crew
Age at death: 36
Illness: Rare blood/bone marrow disease

Owen's emergency crew job brought him into some of the most dangerous areas to clean up spills of chemicals and radioactive material. "Some days he'd come home with chemical burns at every orifice," remembers his widow, Norma Rebik. "Later, when his doctor asked what he had been exposed to, he said, 'Everything.'" In 1961, at 36, he died of a form of thrombocytopenia, a condition sometimes linked to environmental exposures. "He went from perfectly well to dead in a week," his widow said.

Leon Lindblad
Job: Cascade supervisor
Age at death: 62
Illness: Leukemia

An avowed believer in Paducah's "mission," Lindblad was ambivalent about whether the plant posed risks. "He'd say the radiation levels were not that high," remembers his widow, Virginia, and yet, he always "took his shoes off at the door because he didn't want to bring that stuff inside the house." Lindblad's suspicions multiplied after he became sick with leukemia. He drew up a list of accidents and dates. "If I die, you can sue them," Lindblad explained to his wife, "because they're the ones who did this to me." Virginia never got the chance: On a Friday in 1976, Linblad stashed the list in his desk, never suspecting that he would become gravely ill over the weekend. He never returned to work.

C. Arvil Bean
Job: Process maintenance
Age at death: 64
Illness: Leukemia

Bean's retirement plans included firing up the '49 Cadillac he was restoring and taking his wife on a trip to the Dakotas, where he was once stationed with the Army. Those ambitions faded the day he was diagnosed with acute leukemia at age 55. He replayed in his mind the times he had been exposed to radiation -- like the day he worked 16 hours cleaning up radioactive debris from a 1962 explosion. Despite his illness, Bean clung to his vacation dreams to the end. "Every few days he'd go out there and crank up that old car," daughter Nita said, "even in the snow."

Charles Edward Harris
Job: Machinist
Age at death: 62
Illness: Cancer, multiple organs

For 25 years, Harris worked in the plant's machine shop, grinding down and repairing the nickel-plated pipes and gear used to convert uranium powder to nuclear fuel. Unknown to Harris and most other workers at the time, the metals were contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and neptunium, radioactive elements far more dangerous than ordinary uranium. His son, David, may have been exposed to the same hazards during summer jobs at the plant: College students mowed grass and cleaned up pond sludge in areas now known to be contaminated with the highly radioactive metals. "At the time they told us point-blank there was nothing there but uranium," David said.

Eugene Ragland
Job: Chemical operator
Age at Death: 49
Illness: Lung cancer

The accident and Ragland's death will always be connected, at least in the mind of his widow, Marie. She still remembers his worried voice the night in March 1978 when he called to say he wouldn't be coming home from work. Ragland had been exposed to radiation during a mishap and had been asked to stay overnight for testing. Four months later, a separate medical test found "something wrong" with his blood, she said -- a result that led to the discovery of a rapidly spreading cancer in his lungs and chest. His death on Aug. 4 came so suddenly that Ragland had little time to ponder his illness, or the possible causes. "He always thought he was safe at the plant," Marie said. "They never let him know differently."

----------- us nuc facilities

Upstate Utility to Buy 2 Nuclear Reactors at a Low Price

New York Times December 23, 1999 By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/23/news/national/regional/ny-nuke-power.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 -- A utility in upstate New York said today it was buying the controlling share of two nuclear reactors, including the state's biggest, most expensive reactor, at a small fraction of what they cost to build, and would turn the reactors over to an outside group to operate.

The utility, Rochester Gas and Electric, said the deal would make generating nuclear power cheap enough to benefit consumers.

Entergy, the New Orleans-based company that would operate the two plants, Nine Mile Point 1 and 2, already owns and operates six reactors in the South. It said it would also like to run three more of the six reactors in New York State.

Rochester Gas and Electric said that Entergy would take over much of the financial risk of operating the plants. The utility is paying about $210 million for the controlling interest it is buying.

Entergy is already negotiating to buy two more of New York nuclear reactors, FitzPatrick and Indian Point 3, both owned by the New York Power Authority, and today expressed interested in a fifth, Indian Point 2, which Consolidated Edison said last week it was considering putting on the block.

Indian Point is about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, on the east bank of the Hudson River. (The other reactor on the site, Indian Point 1, closed almost 30 years ago.) Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 are in Scriba, N.Y., near Oswego. FitzPatrick is adjacent to Nine Mile Point.

"This is a first-of-a-kind agreement," said Thomas S. Richards, president and chief executive of Rochester Gas and Electric's parent company, RGS Energy. "It benefits customers, benefits the company and benefits upstate New York."

Under the deal, operating and maintenance costs will be covered by Entergy, which will earn revenue only by selling power; thus if the plants do not run, the cost falls on the shareholders of Entergy, not the utility's customers.

The transaction announced today represents another step toward consolidation in the business of running nuclear plants that some experts predict will eventually swallow all but a handful of the nation's 103 operating reactors, leaving them in the hands of a tiny number of operating companies. It also confirms that the market value of such reactors, a number calculated by profit-making companies based on their expectations of how much electricity the plants can make and what they will cost to run, is an extremely small fraction of what they cost to build.

A vice president of Entergy, Michael Kansler, said at a news conference in Rochester that his company intended to make its profit by improving the plants' reliability and keeping them in service about 90 percent of the time, rather than the current average, in the low 80's.

That idea makes some safety advocates nervous. But Mr. Richards said that Entergy, which already owns and operates six reactors, was a "world class nuclear operator" that would bring greater expertise to the plants.

Regulators may also be skeptical. At the New York Public Service Commission, David C. Flanagan, a spokesman, said that the commission had been trying to have utilities sell their generating assets, to enhance competition. "Rochester Gas and Electric will bear a significant burden in terms of proving that this proposal is consistent with the commission's competitive agenda, and in the overall public interest," he said.

Entergy agreed to decommission the plants at the end of their lifetimes for a fixed cost; if there are overruns, as there were in construction, Entergy would absorb them. The plants will come from the sellers with what amounts to a decommissioning dowry of about $300 million.

"The risk of operating and decommissioning the plant is substantially reduced," said Mr. Richards. "We now pay for power only. If Entergy produces power, we pay for it. If they don't, we don't."

Nine Mile Point 1 is owned by the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, another utility in upstate New York, which also owns 41 percent of Nine Mile Point 2. The transaction announced today also includes the 18 percent share of unit 2, the state's largest reactor, that is owned by New York State Electric and Gas Corporation, for a total of 1,287 megawatts, for about $163 per kilowatt of capacity. The plants cost about $4,000 per kilowatt of capacity.

Niagara Mohawk and New York State Electric and Gas had announced in June that they were selling their shares to AmerGen Energy Company, a joint venture of Peco Energy Company (the parent of Philadelphia Electric) and British Energy. But Rochester Gas and Electric, as the owner of 14 percent of unit 2, exercised a right of first refusal that it had been granted in 1975, to pre-empt AmerGen.

AmerGen, like Entergy, is trying to assemble a chain of reactors. AmerGen last year bought Three Mile Island 1, the undamaged twin of the reactor that melted down in 1979.

Niagara Mohawk said it was still evaluating whether Rochester Gas and Electric's bid was in fact identical to AmerGen's, a prerequisite for pre-empting the purchase.

Among the losers in today's transaction, at least on paper, is the Long Island Power Authority, whose 18 percent share in Nine Mile Point 2, which it inherited from the Long Island Lighting Company, then valued at $680 million, is not part of the transaction. That share would now appear to have a market value of about $33 million.

But Bert Cunningham, a spokesman for LIPA, said, "Regardless of what the price tag may or may not be, it's a source of reasonably cheap power for us." If Entergy makes the plant run better, he said, that will mean more electricity for the same capital expense.

The deal will not raise anyone's electric rates, executives of Rochester Gas & Electric and Entergy promised today.

---------- y2k

U.S. Power Industry Struts With Y2K Confidence

New York Times December 23, 1999 Filed at 1:05 p.m. ET By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-electricity.html

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two years ago they were ''cautiously optimistic''. Off the record, they were ``deeply concerned''.

Today, electricity industry officials are confident, if not downright cocky, that North America will not be plunged into darkness at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2000.

``Everything is fine. The lights will be on,'' said Eugene Gorzelnik, spokesman for the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), the group assigned to ensure reliable service on the grid serving customers across the United States and Canada.

Government officials in Washington, including President Clinton and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, showered the news media last week with assurances that the country's power system will not fail, with Richardson going so far as to recommend people seek refunds on recently purchased emergency generators.

This confidence was not bought cheaply.

THREE BILLION DOLLAR BUG

Eradicating the Year 2000 bug, which threatens to shut down older computers unable to see the difference between the year 2000 and 1900, has cost U.S. investor-owned utilities $2.5 billion, according to the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group that represents them.

Industry analysts add to this at least another $500 million in Y2K remediation costs at Canadian, municipal and federal U.S. power companies -- about 3,100 companies in all.

``We've tested everything and we're confident we're ready to make the transition,'' said Mike Tyndall, a spokesman at the giant Southern Company in Atlanta, which supplies power to 12 million people through its five U.S. electric utilities.

At stake in this huge effort is the entire North American power grid, some half a million miles of high-voltage transmission lines that carry electricity from about 10,200 power plants to 274 million Americans and 31 million Canadians.

This power passes through 112,000 substations where it is ''stepped down'' to a voltage that can be used in homes and offices without blowing up toasters or television sets.

The task of keeping this vast, interconnected network running is daunting even if the Y2K bug is taken out of the picture, which is the main reason power company officials hasten to add that there will almost certainly be blackouts New Years Day.

OUTAGES LIKELY NEVERTHELESS

Tyndall, like many of his colleagues, said one of the utilities' biggest fears now is that people will assume any power outages January 1 are linked to Y2K computer failures.

``There will be outages. Outages occur normally on any given day and we keep crews on call around the clock to deal with them. But they will not be related to Y2K,'' he said.

New Year is notorious for roughing up the power grid.

``On an average New Years Day we'll have about 2,000 customers without power. We don't want people to panic or jump to conclusions, but to call us. We'll send someone and figure out the problem,'' said Scott Simons, a spokesman at Detroit Edison, a company with about 2.1 million customers.

Drunken drivers plowing into power poles and bullets fired at transformers and ceramic insulators by enthusiastic revelers are among the many hazards utility crews face that night.

Detroit, like many U.S. cities, has been plagued in recent years by gunfire at midnight. This year, the city launched a campaign to ring in the New Year with bells instead of guns.

``Sometimes the bullets hit our equipment on the way up, sometimes on the way back down. Regardless, its a very dangerous situation for everybody,'' he said.

But nasty weather is by far the biggest culprit behind New Year outages. Ice storms, heavy rains, and blustery winds take a heavy toll on power lines, knocking out electrical service for days and even weeks in rural areas.

MUNIS Y2K-READY, TOO

About one in seven Americans buy their electricity from municipally-owned or rural cooperative power companies.

Early in the Y2K saga, top federal officials singled out the ``munis'' as the ones most likely to fail to overhaul their systems in time for the 2000 rollover, a warning representatives of this sector deem baseless.

``Our overall preparedness is excellent,'' said Michael Hyland, director of engineering at the American Public Power Association (APPA) in Washington, which represents about 2,000 municipal power companies across the U.S.

``A municipal system typically consists of a substation taking power from the grid and serving 2,000 meters or less. They are pretty much hard-wired systems. There's no date-sensitive black box out there. So our number one concern has been the grid, and that's operated by about 255 investor-owned utilities,'' he said.

NUCLEAR POWER

The investor-owned power companies also own and operate the 103 nuclear power stations that supply about 20 percent of North America's electricity.

Fears of catastrophic failure at one of these facilities has been fanned by the mainstream media, with one recent television drama raising the spectre of an entire city being destroyed by an undetected Y2K bug among the thousands of embedded microchips in a fictitious reactor.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees safety issues at these units, said the reactors' critical systems are fully Y2K ready and that there are no plans to shut any of them as a precaution on New Years Eve.

But there's a twist: NRC officials said that this year they will have their own inspectors stationed in each plant's control room, helping ensure a safe and smooth transition to

---

U.S. Nuclear Plants Deemed Y2K Safe
Plants Being Decommissioned No Longer a Concern

Decommissioned U.S. Nuclear Plants Deemed Y2K Safe

New York Times December 23, 1999 Filed at 4:29 p.m. ET By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-nuclear-usa.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Thursday it found no Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problems with U.S. nuclear power plants that are being decommissioned.

The NRC said the main Y2K-related health and safety concerns at nuclear plants that no longer generate power was sufficient cooling and shielding of spent nuclear fuel.

There are 19 U.S. nuclear power plants that are permanently shut down, 14 of which have spent fuel on site.

``NRC reviews confirmed that the licensees for these facilities have adequately addressed Y2K computer issues,'' the agency said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the NRC began reviewing six of the plants that had been shut down in the last four years that had high levels of heat generated from the natural decay of spent fuel.

Those plants were: Maine Yankee in Maine; Millstone 1 and Haddam Neck in Connecticut, Big Rock Point in Michigan and Zion Units 1 and 2 in Illinois.

The remaining plants had spent fuel that generated low levels of heat and could remain in a safe state for three to four weeks, if the plants' cooling system was interrupted by Y2K problems.

The NRC staff contacted all decommissioning reactor licensees earlier this year and determined that they were addressing Y2K-related problems, but no on-site reviews were conducted by the agency.

To ensure the safety of these facilities, the NRC decided to review a selected group of nuclear power plants being decommissioned.

Y2K refers to the potential computer problems which may happen when the year 2000 starts. Many computers were programmed to read only the last two digits of a year, raising the possibility that if left unchecked, such systems will break down when reading the 2000 as 1900.

The NRC says the nation's other 103 nuclear power plants that are operated by utilities are fully ready for the rollover and pose no safety threat from possible Y2K computer glitches.

About 20 percent of the nation's electricity is generated by nuclear power, enough electricity for 65 million homes.

Related Stories
Y2K Bug Won't Infect Nukes
http://www.abcnews.go.com/ABC2000/abc2000tech/EEuropeNukes_991206.html

-----------

Russian Minister Says Nuclear Stations Y2K-Safe

Reuters December 23, 1999 Filed at 1:37 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-russia.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's minister in charge of nuclear power said Thursday no millennium-related problems were expected at the country's nuclear sites, but he promised to keep in touch with the West on the crucial night.

``We do not expect computers to influence the security of our sites on the New Year night and on other crucial dates as well,'' Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov told a news conference after the ceremonial inauguration of a nuclear millennium-bug crisis center in Moscow.

Western experts have cited Russia, which has many military and civilian nuclear reactors, among countries which may have failed to prepare properly to face possible problems when the dates on computers switch from 1999 to 2000.

Computer experts fear that some computers could fail if they misread the date. Adamov urged journalists not to automatically ascribe any computer mishaps on the New Year's night to the millennium bug.

``Computer failures happen almost every day and some of them are so small that they pass unnoticed,'' he said.

``On the New Year night international attention will be focused on the millennium problem, but that does not mean that every small incident should be attributed to it.''

Adamov said that the new crisis center would receive information from all sensitive nuclear sites, including nuclear power stations, on the New Year night to be ready to handle any potential problem.

``There will also be an exchange of information between the crisis center and the International Atomic Energy Agency and a number of countries, which showed interest in bilateral contacts, including the United States, Finland, Japan and France,'' he said. ``We will inform each other as the New Year rolls along the time zones,'' Adamov added.

Russian officials have more than once shrugged off Western fears that the country was unprepared for the millennium problem. Although they have devoted fewer resources to the problem than Western countries, they say they have taken measures to avoid a major crisis.

Russian military officials will spend the New Year night with U.S. colleagues at a command center in Colorado to make sure that no computer glitch is mistaken for an unauthorized nuclear missile launch.

---

U.S. Power Industry Struts With Y2K Confidence

Reuters December 23, 1999 Filed at 1:05 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-electricity.html

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two years ago they were ''cautiously optimistic''. Off the record, they were ``deeply concerned''.

Today, electricity industry officials are confident, if not downright cocky, that North America will not be plunged into darkness at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2000.

``Everything is fine. The lights will be on,'' said Eugene Gorzelnik, spokesman for the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), the group assigned to ensure reliable service on the grid serving customers across the United States and Canada.

Government officials in Washington, including President Clinton and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, showered the news media last week with assurances that the country's power system will not fail, with Richardson going so far as to recommend people seek refunds on recently purchased emergency generators.

This confidence was not bought cheaply.

THREE BILLION DOLLAR BUG

Eradicating the Year 2000 bug, which threatens to shut down older computers unable to see the difference between the year 2000 and 1900, has cost U.S. investor-owned utilities $2.5 billion, according to the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group that represents them.

Industry analysts add to this at least another $500 million in Y2K remediation costs at Canadian, municipal and federal U.S. power companies -- about 3,100 companies in all.

``We've tested everything and we're confident we're ready to make the transition,'' said Mike Tyndall, a spokesman at the giant Southern Company in Atlanta, which supplies power to 12 million people through its five U.S. electric utilities.

At stake in this huge effort is the entire North American power grid, some half a million miles of high-voltage transmission lines that carry electricity from about 10,200 power plants to 274 million Americans and 31 million Canadians.

This power passes through 112,000 substations where it is ''stepped down'' to a voltage that can be used in homes and offices without blowing up toasters or television sets.

The task of keeping this vast, interconnected network running is daunting even if the Y2K bug is taken out of the picture, which is the main reason power company officials hasten to add that there will almost certainly be blackouts New Years Day.

OUTAGES LIKELY NEVERTHELESS

Tyndall, like many of his colleagues, said one of the utilities' biggest fears now is that people will assume any power outages January 1 are linked to Y2K computer failures.

``There will be outages. Outages occur normally on any given day and we keep crews on call around the clock to deal with them. But they will not be related to Y2K,'' he said.

New Year is notorious for roughing up the power grid.

``On an average New Years Day we'll have about 2,000 customers without power. We don't want people to panic or jump to conclusions, but to call us. We'll send someone and figure out the problem,'' said Scott Simons, a spokesman at Detroit Edison, a company with about 2.1 million customers.

Drunken drivers plowing into power poles and bullets fired at transformers and ceramic insulators by enthusiastic revelers are among the many hazards utility crews face that night.

Detroit, like many U.S. cities, has been plagued in recent years by gunfire at midnight. This year, the city launched a campaign to ring in the New Year with bells instead of guns.

``Sometimes the bullets hit our equipment on the way up, sometimes on the way back down. Regardless, its a very dangerous situation for everybody,'' he said.

But nasty weather is by far the biggest culprit behind New Year outages. Ice storms, heavy rains, and blustery winds take a heavy toll on power lines, knocking out electrical service for days and even weeks in rural areas.

MUNIS Y2K-READY, TOO

About one in seven Americans buy their electricity from municipally-owned or rural cooperative power companies.

Early in the Y2K saga, top federal officials singled out the ``munis'' as the ones most likely to fail to overhaul their systems in time for the 2000 rollover, a warning representatives of this sector deem baseless.

``Our overall preparedness is excellent,'' said Michael Hyland, director of engineering at the American Public Power Association (APPA) in Washington, which represents about 2,000 municipal power companies across the U.S.

``A municipal system typically consists of a substation taking power from the grid and serving 2,000 meters or less. They are pretty much hard-wired systems. There's no date-sensitive black box out there. So our number one concern has been the grid, and that's operated by about 255 investor-owned utilities,'' he said.

NUCLEAR POWER

The investor-owned power companies also own and operate the 103 nuclear power stations that supply about 20 percent of North America's electricity.

Fears of catastrophic failure at one of these facilities has been fanned by the mainstream media, with one recent television drama raising the spectre of an entire city being destroyed by an undetected Y2K bug among the thousands of embedded microchips in a fictitious reactor.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees safety issues at these units, said the reactors' critical systems are fully Y2K ready and that there are no plans to shut any of them as a precaution on New Years Eve.

But there's a twist: NRC officials said that this year they will have their own inspectors stationed in each plant's control room, helping ensure a safe and smooth transition to

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Decommissioned U.S. Nuclear Plants Deemed Y2K Safe

Reuters December 23, 1999 Filed at 4:29 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-nuclear-usa.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Thursday it found no Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problems with U.S. nuclear power plants that are being decommissioned.

The NRC said the main Y2K-related health and safety concerns at nuclear plants that no longer generate power was sufficient cooling and shielding of spent nuclear fuel.

There are 19 U.S. nuclear power plants that are permanently shut down, 14 of which have spent fuel on site.

``NRC reviews confirmed that the licensees for these facilities have adequately addressed Y2K computer issues,'' the agency said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the NRC began reviewing six of the plants that had been shut down in the last four years that had high levels of heat generated from the natural decay of spent fuel.

Those plants were: Maine Yankee in Maine; Millstone 1 and Haddam Neck in Connecticut, Big Rock Point in Michigan and Zion Units 1 and 2 in Illinois.

The remaining plants had spent fuel that generated low levels of heat and could remain in a safe state for three to four weeks, if the plants' cooling system was interrupted by Y2K problems.

The NRC staff contacted all decommissioning reactor licensees earlier this year and determined that they were addressing Y2K-related problems, but no on-site reviews were conducted by the agency.

To ensure the safety of these facilities, the NRC decided to review a selected group of nuclear power plants being decommissioned.

Y2K refers to the potential computer problems which may happen when the year 2000 starts. Many computers were programmed to read only the last two digits of a year, raising the possibility that if left unchecked, such systems will break down when reading the 2000 as 1900.

The NRC says the nation's other 103 nuclear power plants that are operated by utilities are fully ready for the rollover and pose no safety threat from possible Y2K computer glitches.

About 20 percent of the nation's electricity is generated by nuclear power, enough electricity for 65 million homes.

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Y2K 'Maybes' Linger in U.S., Abroad

01:46 PM ET 12/23/99 By ANICK JESDANUN Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562795996-75b

NEW YORK (AP) _ The big things have been taken care of: Y2K planners are confident the nation's power grid, telephones, banks and air traffic control system will run smoothly on New Year's Day.

It's the smaller things they're not so sure about: local governments, small businesses and health care providers, for example. Even less is known about how many foreign countries will fare.

``The smaller the entity, the greater the uncertainty,'' said Cathy Moyer of the Cassandra Project, a Y2K education group based in Denver. ``There's great potential for isolated disruption and for some of that isolated disruption to spread around.''

For example, some experts have suggested that municipalities might send incorrect tax bills or schools might be unable to operate. Also, many smaller businesses are taking a fix-on-failure approach to the Y2K computer problem: See what happens, then solve the problem.

``Planes won't fall out of the sky, and we're not going to have the entire East Coast electric grid collapse,'' said Norman Dean, executive director of the Center for Y2K and Society in Washington. But smaller problems ``do seem likely and cumulatively they could be quite painful.''

Major companies and government agencies have contingency plans and employees on standby to deal with unexpected glitches. The federal government also set up a $50 million crisis center for Y2K.

John Koskinen, head of President Clinton's Y2K advisory council, said he expects ``aggravating glitches and inconveniences, but not major systemic problems.'' He urged individuals to prepare by getting flashlights, batteries and a few days' worth of food and water _ just in case.

The fear is that some computers, left uncorrected, will misread the ``00'' in 2000 as 1900, throwing off alarm systems, traffic lights and billing programs. Larger companies and government agencies started fixing computers years ago. Many local and county governments began later, if at all.

A survey by the National Association of Counties found that, as of April, one-fourth of counties had no Y2K plan, possibly leading to incorrect tax bills, for example. The Education Department reported that more than one-third of public school districts are still not ready.

Up to 1.5 million small employers did no Y2K preparation, according to the National Federation of Independent Business.

In health care, manufacturers of medical devices have updates available, but some hospitals might not have implemented them.

And while Medicare is ready to pay bills, individual health-care providers might have trouble producing invoices electronically.

Also, problems abroad could affect American companies that have plants abroad or import raw materials.

The extent of preparedness overseas is unclear. Bruce McConnell, director of the World Bank-funded International Y2K Cooperation Center, said he has had trouble getting detailed information from some countries.

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FBI Warns of Possible Mail Bombs

Yahoo News 02:10 PM ET 12/23/99 By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562796300-cc8

WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a fresh warning about a possible terrorist attack at home, federal officials today warned Americans of possible mail bombs arriving from Germany. Airports and the Postal Service immediately took precautions.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an early morning statement warning Americans that it had received ``unsubstantiated information that individuals may be planning to send bombs in small parcels to addresses in the United States'' from Frankfurt, Germany.

``Out of an abundance of caution, the public is being promptly alerted to this information,'' the statement said. ``Questionable packages should not be handled and local authorities should be notified.''

The FBI sounded the alert at 2 a.m. based on tips that government officials would not describe. An official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said airlines were quickly notified.

The FBI warning prompted the Postal Inspection Service to begin screening all incoming parcels and first-class mail from Frankfurt, Inspection Service spokesman Dan Mihalko said.

Inspectors are using X-ray machines to check the mail at U.S. airports where it arrives, Mihalko said, adding that his agency knows of no specific threat.

Meanwhile, the government alleged today that a woman apprehended at a border crossing in Vermont had ties to Algerian terrorists.

Federal prosecutors argued sucessfully in a federal court in Burlington, Vt., to keep Lucia Garofalo and Bouabide Chamchi in jail. Both were arrested Sunday at a remote U.S.-Canadian border crossing in northeastern Vermont.

In court documents, prosecutors said they have linked Ms. Garofalo's cell phone and the car she was driving to a member of the Algerian Islamic League, whose leader is said to be connected to ``organizations sponsoring a number of terrorist acts in Europe and Algeria.''

U.S. officials have been passing on warnings of possible attacks on Americans overseas, but the threat of domestic terrorism became real on Dec. 14 when an Algerian was arrested in Port Angeles, Wash., after bomb-making materials were found in his car.

Ahmed Ressam, 32, was indicted in Seattle and pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges he made false statements to U.S. customs officers; smuggled nitroglycerin across the border; transported explosives; committed a felony while carrying explosives; and possessed unregistered firearms _ the apparent timing devices found in Ressam's car.

Then on Sunday, U.S. Border Patrol officers arrested Chamchi crossing into the United States with a falsified French passport at a remote border station at Beecher Falls, Vt. Garofalo, a Canadian woman, was arrested with him.

Dogs sniffed traces of what may have been explosives in their car, but no bomb-making materials were found, federal agents said.

Prosecutors said in court papers that they were asking that the two continued to be detained pending further investigation.

In other developments, Defense Secretary William Cohen told reporters in Kosovo today that U.S. forces have been put on a general alert. ``We will continue to have force protection of a top priority for all our bases and facilities. We're just being much more cautious because of some general threats that we've had and discovered.''

And Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said that the Energy Department was ready for any terrorism related to the start of the new millennium.

``We are taking extra security precautions at energy installations,'' said Richardson, conceding that there are ``some terrorism concerns,'' although there have been no specific threats.

On Wednesday, President Clinton, law enforcement and State Department officials all walked a fine line, encouraging people to go ahead with holiday plans while saying they should look for unattended packages and other signs of possible terrorism.

``We obviously are trying to strike an appropriate balance,'' Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference. He advised Americans traveling overseas to avoid large gatherings, but assured people it was safe to attend large New Year's events in the United States where there will be ``an extensive law enforcement presence.''

Clinton, who plans to attend a large New Year's celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, visited a Washington food kitchen Wednesday as airport security tightened around the country and federal buildings received extra protection.

He advised Americans to ``go about their holidays and enjoy themselves and make the most of it,'' but urged them to report ``anything suspicious'' immediately. ``We are taking extraordinary efforts in the government to act based on the incident out in the Pacific Northwest,'' Clinton said.

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Locals Keep Watch in Vt Border Town

By ANNE WALLACE ALLEN Associated Press Writer05:15 AM ET 12/23/99
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562789699-329

BEECHER FALLS, Vt. (AP) _ In a place as tiny as Beecher Falls, it's not hard to tell when someone new is in town.

Bruce Tibbetts, who runs Bruce's Tire & Gas just a long stone's throw from the U.S. Customs station and the Canadian border, calls authorities if he sees someone who looks out of place.

``Anyone that's strange, we call the Border Patrol,'' he said. ``They come and check him out.''

The arrest on Sunday night of a Canadian woman and an Algerian man as they tried to enter the United States at Beecher Falls brought attention to the community, a hamlet in the town of Canaan, population 1,100.

Suspicion that Lucia Garofalo, 35, and Bouabide Chamchi, 20, may be connected to Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian allegedly caught smuggling bomb-making materials into Washington state, grew after bomb sniffing dogs detected what could be explosive residue in Garofalo's car.

No bomb-making materials were found, and no link to Ressam has been established. Ressam pleaded innocent in Seattle on Wednesday to five federal charges.

The length of border in Vermont and upstate New York is a hotbed of smuggling, authorities say. People, drugs and cash are the primary southbound cargo, while liquor and cigarettes head north.

Suspected terrorists have been caught along the Vermont-Canadian border before.

In 1987, three Lebanese-born Canadians were arrested with a bomb in the border town of Richford after the local police chief noticed them acting suspiciously. The three were sent to prison after a trial in which prosecutors contended all were connected to a Lebanese terrorist organization.

And in the late 1970s, Christina Berster, a suspected member of West Germany's Bader-Meinhoff Gang, was captured entering Vermont.

But at Beecher Falls, located where Vermont and New Hampshire meet, life appeared normal on Wednesday _ just another cold winter day.

Not much was going on in the village, though traffic was brisk at the border. At the crossing, a Boston news crew taped logging trucks rumbling by.

Pat Beauregard, a Beecher Falls native, said it wasn't hard for the village to play a small role in the latest international intrigue.

``Seeing other nationals is pretty unusual,'' she said. ``They stand out.''

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Border Suspect Tied to Terror Group

01:41 PM ET 12/23/99 By WILSON RING Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2562795941-6b6

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) _ A woman arrested at the Vermont-Canadian border has ties to an international group that is believed to have sponsored terrorist activities in Europe and Algeria, federal prosecutors said today.

The disclosure came as prosecutors argued successfully in federal court to keep Lucia Garofalo and Bouabide Chamchi in jail. Both were arrested Sunday at a remote border crossing in northeastern Vermont.

Their arrests, combined with the arrest of an Algerian man in Washington state last week on bomb-related charges, have stirred fears of terrorist attacks. At the same time, the State Department has warned that U.S. citizens abroad should be cautious over the holiday weekend because of possible terrorism.<