----------- britain
Inquiry demanded into 'nuclear' grotto
By Richard Savill ISSUE 1679 Thursday 30 December 1999
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000118613908976&rtmo=r3EQtQbX&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/12/30/ngroto30.html
CAMPAIGNERS called for an inquiry yesterday into claims that drums which once held nuclear waste were made into a Santa Claus grotto. The grotto in Thurso, Caithness, was built by apprentices from the nearby Dounreay nuclear plant using four containers which had stored low-level waste.
Lorraine Mann, of Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, said she was horrified to learn that the grotto had been used by 700 children: "If what has been said is correct it is astonishingly negligent and there should be an inquiry into how this has happened. I would be amazed if the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate allowed these containers to be taken off the site." One mother, who took her two children to the grotto, said: "I would certainly have thought twice if I had known the containers had been used to hold nuclear waste."
The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which runs the plant, said the containers had been thoroughly decontaminated. It had taken a team of Dounreay apprentices a month to weld together the 3.5-ton drums and to cut out doors and windows. The containers had been used to store low-level nuclear waste including overalls and paper towels used by workers in contact with radioactive materials.
A Dounreay spokesman said: "I can categorically state that those containers were safe. They were thoroughly clean and they would not have been allowed to leave the site if there had been any danger."
The grotto had been built for a community group Thurso Beyond 2000. Its secretary, Tom Jackson, said it had been delighted to accept the offer and he had received no complaints from parents. Dounreay, which is due to close in 2004, has suffered a series of safety lapses in recent years.
---
NUCLEAR POWER ACQUISITION
New York Times December 30, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/30/news/financial/biz-briefs.html
In a move to expand in the United States, Europe and Asia, British Nuclear Fuels P.L.C. said it had agreed to acquire the commercial nuclear power businesses of the Swiss-Swedish engineering giant ABB Ltd. for $485 million. British Nuclear said it would merge ABB's operations into its Westinghouse Electric Company unit. ABB, based in Zurich, said the sale was in line with its plan to reposition the company away from heavy industry and toward high-technology operations. (Dow Jones)
----------- china
Official Criticizes Taiwan Policy
The Associated Press Thursday, Dec. 30, 1999; 11:32 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline113258_000.htm
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's declaration last summer that it and rival China should treat each other like equal states hurt the island's relations with the United States, a senior Taiwanese official was quoted as saying Thursday.
Stephen Chen, the Taiwanese representative to Washington, said Wednesday that President Lee Teng-hui harmed the trust between Taiwan and the United States when he announced that Taiwan was redefining its relations with the mainland, the China Times reported. Lee's announcement infuriated mainland Chinese leaders, and Lee made it without first informing Washington.
Chinese leaders considered Lee's move to be a radical step toward independence. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing considers Taiwan to be a province under its rule. It has threatened to use force to reunify the two sides.
Taiwan has long regarded the United States to be its most reliable ally if China's larger military decides to attack this island, about 90 miles off the China coast. But Washington criticized the new policy, saying it unnecessarily strained China-Taiwan relations.
Chen also said Washington does not support Vice President Lien Chan's recent suggestion that Taiwan develop long-range ballistic missiles, the China Times reported. Some analysts have said the weapons could provoke China or start a new arms race.
In Beijing on Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry repeated its condemnation of Lee as a "troublemaker."
"Lee Teng-hui must retract his two-states theory and only in so doing can peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region be realized," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said.
----------
China May Hold Exercises Before Taiwan Polls: Defense Officials
Inside China Today Thursday, Dec 30 at Prague 06:14 am, N.Y. 12:14 am http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=121461
TAIPEI, Dec 28, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) China may launch military maneuvers to intimidate Taiwan before the island's presidential elections in March, defense officials were quoted as saying Tuesday.
According to intelligence sources, the mainland is enforcing air defense missile deployment along the southeastern coast facing this nationalist island, the United Daily News quoted Lieutenant General Feng Shih-kuang as saying.
Feng, deputy chief of general staff for intelligence, made the remarks during talks with local magazine executives Monday, the paper said.
Chinese troops were also erecting review platforms and making other preparations at bases along the coast from Chungshan in Quandong province to Zhoushan island in Zhejiang province, the paper said.
Military activities in the areas would continue, Feng said, and could be expanded to larger scale actions.
Vitriolic attacks against Taiwan have been stepped up through some press in Hong Kong, which had also published details of the mainland's military progress -- such as long-range missiles -- to intimidate people here, Feng added.
To discourage pro-independence sentiment ahead of Taiwan's first democratic presidential polls in March 1996, Beijing launched six rounds of war-games in the waters near the island.
It also attacked then-candidate Lee Teng-hui accusing him of leading Taiwan, which it has considered a breakaway province, towards independence.
Cross-strait tensions were eased only after Washington dispatched two fleets to the region.
Defense Minister Tang Fei, meanwhile, told the United Daily News that Taiwan would further cut its troops to 350,000 by 2005. Under current plans, the number of troops is to be cut to 400,000 by mid-2000.
Taiwan and China were split in 1949 when nationalist troops fled here following their defeat by the communists. ((c) 1999 Agence France Presse)
-----------
China Gears Up for Millennium Bug, Celebrations
By Benjamin Kang Lim Reuters Updated 2:26 AM ET December 30, 1999
http://news.excite.com/news/r/991230/02/international-millennium-china
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=121870
BEIJING (Reuters) - Executives from China's main airline will pilot a passenger plane on New Year's Eve to underscore government confidence the world's most populous nation has largely beaten the Y2K computer bug.
China says there is no chance of it producing any apocalyptic nightmare of a nuclear power station running wild, and the top technology officer of the U.S. CIA says it does not see problems that might cause a Chinese nuclear missile to go berserk.
But some analysts -- including the Central Intelligence Agency man -- put China among the countries most vulnerable to Y2K troubles because of its late arrival at the battle against the bug and heavy use of pirated software.
They say lights could go out, phones go dead and banks could falter over the Y2K bug, a product of old programming which might cause some computers to mistake 2000 for 1900, possibly leading to errors or system failures.
Most of China will be celebrating the dawn of a new era. Millions are expected to watch a live television broadcast of President Jiang Zemin lighting an eternal flame at the Century Monument -- Beijing's answer to London's Millennium Dome.
Wang Lian and Zhang Fugui, the top executives at flag carrier Air China, will pilot a flight from Beijing to the southern boomtown of Shenzhen spanning midnight on December 31 as part of efforts to dispel all concerns of Y2K complications.
Li Zhongming, president of China Eastern Airlines, will also make a trans-millennium flight from Shanghai to Beijing.
DOUBLE INSURANCE COVERAGE
China Eastern has taken out a 230 million yuan ($27.8 million) policy covering the round trip flight which will straddle the millennium transition in local time and GMT.
China Life Insurance Co will underwrite the policy, which gives 400,000 yuan in coverage to each passenger and crew member aboard the millennium flights, double the normal coverage.
The chief executive of China Southern Airlines, the nation's largest, will also be in the air on December 31.
Ports will be closed to foreign shipping. The busy crossing point to Hong Kong will shut overnight.
Chinese Y2K tsar Zhang Qi, who declared this month that the country was "basically ready" for Y2K, commended the airline executives.
"Their willingness to fly indicates their strong confidence they have solved the problem," Zhang said.
Little more than a year ago, China was alarming foreign experts who saw widespread ignorance of the Y2K problem. But it has hustled to overcome a late start.
U.S. CIA PREDICTS PLETHORA OF PROBLEMS
As recently as October, however, Lawrence Gershwin, the officer in charge of science and technology at the CIA, still painted a grim picture.
"Beijing will fail to solve many of its Y2K problems in the limited time remaining, and will probably experience failures in key sectors such as telecommunications, electric power and banking," Gershwin told Congress.
China disputes this. The State Power Corp of China says power supplies will be unaffected. China Telecom says it is ready. So do the banks.
But Gershwin did say doomsday scenarios were unlikely.
"We do not see a problem in terms of Russian or Chinese missiles automatically being launched, or nuclear weapons going off, because of computer problems arising from Y2K failures."
Gershwin had told the U.S. Senate in March that China's problems were exacerbated by the fact that more than 90 percent of the software used in China is pirated, including most of that used in government offices and state-owned enterprises.
However, U.S. high technology consultancy IDC was more upbeat. It said last month that despite China's relative lack of preparedness, disruption was likely to be minimal.
"Sure, China has a miserable record of Y2K remediation -- yet in a country with little in the way of dependable infrastructure, a little computer downtime will have little impact," IDC said.
----------- japan
Braced for worst-case scenario, Japanese leader heads to bunker
Wsshington Times December 30, 1999 By Edward Neilan
http://208.246.212.80/world/news1-19991230.htm
Cynics are calling it a case of "classic overkill," but Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi is taking no chances when Tokyo becomes the first of the world's megacities to tackle the year-2000 computer glitch.
TOKYO - Cynics are calling it a case of "classic overkill," but Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi is taking no chances when Tokyo becomes the first of the world's megacities to tackle the year-2000 computer glitch.
Unlike President Clinton, who plans to welcome the New Year by setting the Washington Monument ablaze with pyrotechnics, Mr. Obuchi will hunker down in a command bunker at his residence in the capital.
Tokyo, the world's biggest city with about 27 million people, will face the year-2000 computer bug 14 hours ahead of Washington and New York.
"The day when Tokyo saves the world," is how one commentator describes it.
"If anything does happen," said Toshiaki Kanda, 38, a Kobe-based video journalist and former wine maker, "the rest of the world will want to know the degree of damage in Japan and act consequently to prevent it."
The glitch, commonly known as "Y2K," refers to the risk that computer systems will mistake the year 2000 for 1900 and then crash or churn out erroneous data that could cripple supplies of food, water, power, cash, credit and other daily necessities.
In recent days, a rash of small fires deliberately set on commuter trains and exploding bombs in train-station lockers have shifted worries away from computer-generated mischief to fears of holiday terrorism.
To respond to any crisis, as many as 50 people will be working side by side with Mr. Obuchi when the clock strikes midnight, one official told the Agence France-Presse news service.
More than 1 million Japanese workers, including 10,000 central government officials, and 106,000 police officers will be on duty.
At 1 a.m. New Year's morning, Mr. Obuchi plans to emerge from the bunker and step before a wall of reporters and television cameras to report on the first hour of battle.
"We're all going to look pretty silly come Jan. 1 [if] nothing has happened," said John Bosnitch, a Canadian-born desk editor at the English-language Nikkei Weekly newspaper.
"Classic overkill," said Fred Worthy, a computer software technician from Los Angeles who has been working in Japan for five years.
"The main bottleneck will come from people making unnecessary calls to find out if everything is OK," Mr. Worthy said. "Actually, I expect outages from Y2K will be less than glitches on a normal working day in heavily wired Tokyo."
Following the Japanese tradition of organizing an association to combat every problem, Mr. Kanda has formed a voluntary organization called "Y2K-TOKYO."
The group will broadcast live on the Internet at www.y2k-tokyo.org.
Programming, consisting of news about what's gone right or wrong worldwide, will begin Dec. 31 at 7 p.m. Japan time (5 a.m. Dec. 31 in Washington).
Japan's government has already warned people to stock up on food, water and kerosene, the fuel commonly used in home heaters.
None of the preparations should be particularly burdensome. The Japanese typically greet the New Year by stocking up since most of the country typically shuts down from Jan. 1 to 3 for one of the world's more festive New Year's holidays.
As an added precaution, the government says it will temporarily abandon the use of e-mail in communicating among key ministries, relying instead on old-fashioned fax machines and telephones.
The government had considered e-mail as a means to speed up the circulation of damage reports. But recent tests by local governments showed that bureaucrats had difficulties using e-mail.
Tokyo will be the world's first city with a population of more than 10 million to welcome the year 2000.
A private organization called JHelp says it will provide information in English for the expatriate community using information from CNN, the BBC and NHK, which is Japan's national broadcasting service.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it will provide telephone, fax and Internet information services in English as well as Korean, Portuguese (for Japanese-Brazilian workers), and Mandarin Chinese.
Kaoru Nakamura, head of the millennium-bug task force office at the Cabinet Councilors' Office on Internal Affairs, said the first reports would likely deal with major power outages and the condition of railways, telecommunications and other infrastructure.
He said he intends to use a Web site at the prime minister's residence (www.kantei.go.jp) to post detailed reports.
Meanwhile, the government, with its notoriously bad record of crisis management, is calling on the public to remain calm.
Few have forgotten that former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama first heard of the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake by listening to news on a local radio station.
---------- panama
US Sees Less Need for Panama Forces
By The Associated Press December 30, 1999 Filed at 8:11 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Leaving-the-Canal.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline011358_000.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The turnover of the Panama Canal to Panama on New Year's Eve means more than the end of American control of the 50-mile waterway. It marks the loss of a U.S. military foothold in Central America.
For some, the transfer raises questions about whether U.S. national security will be weakened.
The answer, in the view of many, is no. Panama no longer is the strategic prize it was during much of the 20th century, and the U.S. armed forces have made alternative arrangements to keep a credible presence in the region.
Some people, most notably those who have argued against the canal handover since President Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaties in 1977, disagree. They believe the loss of the canal is a blow to U.S. influence in the region and could create a security vacuum that Colombia's drug lords will try to exploit.
Retired Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress earlier this month that he believes China will use its commercial links to the canal to sneak nuclear missiles into the area.
Such fears are dismissed by Joseph W. Cornelison, deputy administrator of the Panama Canal Commission, the canal operator whose duties will cease on Friday. He told the Senate Armed Service Committee in October, ``I think I could detect a threat if it were in the making right in front of my eyes.''
Chinese, U.S. and Panamanian officials also dismiss any notion that China wants to control the canal. Richard H. Shultz, a national security expert at Tufts University, said he sees little reason for worry about the departure of U.S. forces for that or any other reason.
``With the Cold War over and the changing security arrangements we have in Latin America, I don't know what having forces in Panama does for us that we couldn't do with forces based in the United States,'' said Shultz, who is director of international security studies at Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
The first U.S. soldiers permanently assigned to Panama came to guard construction of the canal, which opened in 1914.
The U.S. troop number peaked at about 65,000 during World War II, when the canal served as an important transit point for Navy ships. Since the mid-1990s, fewer than 10,000 troops have been based there.
Today's aircraft carriers are too big to fit through the canal, and the Navy makes almost no use of it in executing overseas missions.
Panama's Quarry Heights had been headquarters of U.S. Southern Command, the warfighting command with responsibility for Central and South America until 1998, when it was moved to Miami.
The last U.S. soldiers departed Panama earlier this month with the handover of the Corozal military installation to Panama, although a small number will remain as part of the U.S. Embassy's military assistance team, a normal arrangement.
Twice -- in 1979 and 1991 -- the Congress stated that it would be in the United States' interests to retain a military presence in Panama after 1999 and urged the president to negotiate with the Panamanian government over a possible arrangement. Negotiations to maintain an anti-drug base in Panama broke off earlier this year.
Defense Secretary William Cohen has sought to dispel fears, referring to one of the Panama Canal treaties which states that if canal operations are jeopardized the United States and Panama each independently has the right to use military force to reopen the canal or restore its operations.
Raul Duany, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command, said Marine Corps Gen. Charles Wilhelm, commander in chief of Southern Command, believes the loss of Panama bases will not harm U.S. national security.
``We knew 22 years ago that we had to get out of Panama,'' Duany said. ``It was a matter of finding the best alternative locations. We don't think it has affected our operations.''
The 24th Wing, which had been based at Howard Air Force Base on the Pacific side of the isthmus, was inactivated last May. The counterdrug operations that the 24th Wing had conducted will be handled instead by U.S. Air Force aircraft using what the Pentagon calls ``forward operating locations'' at two airfields on Curacao and Aruba in the Netherlands Antilles north of Venezuela and one in Manta, Ecuador.
Wilhelm has called Howard the most valued U.S. facility in Panama, but he also told Congress in September that the alternative of using airfields in the Netherlands Antilles and Ecuador will provide ``far better and more efficient coverage'' of the areas of greatest concern for the counterdrug effort.
The Army component of U.S. Southern Command has moved from Fort Clayton in Panama to Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, and reduced its numbers from about 3,800 people to 1,380, spokesman Duany said. When Fort Sherman, on the Atlantic side of Panama, closed it meant the loss of the Army's jungle warfare training center, but Duany said the Army believes its troops can get the jungle training they need elsewhere.
----------- russia
Ex-Russian Officer Acquitted of Spying
By David Hoffman Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, December 30, 1999; Page A27
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/30/123l-123099-idx.html
MOSCOW, Dec. 29-Alexander Nikitin, a retired Russian naval captain, was acquitted today by a St. Petersburg court of espionage charges brought because he disclosed nuclear safety hazards aboard Russian submarines to a Norwegian environmental group.
The decision, nearly four years after Nikitin was arrested and after a second trial, was hailed as a major victory for environmentalists here, who have been under intense pressure from Russian security services not to probe the military's handling of nuclear materials.
The Nikitin case had attracted widespread attention in part because it centered on the dangers of one of the world's most concentrated zones of radioactive material, the waste and spent fuel from Russia's Northern Fleet submarines. Nikitin maintained that he had not committed a crime by bringing the dangers to public attention.
Nikitin co-authored two chapters of a 1995 report by the Norwegian environmental group Bellona that attempted to point to the dangers of radioactive waste from the fleet.
Nikitin's case also drew attention because he was accused under secret military orders that were adopted only after his arrest. Today's verdict appeared to strike down those orders; Judge Sergei Golets said their use was "a direct violation of the constitution."
"We are discussing the period August to September 1995," he said. "Later it became possible to apply new legislative acts, but not at that time."
The St. Petersburg prosecutor's office said it would appeal. However, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet KGB that investigated Nikitin, said the decision "is a ruling that we regard as having been reached on the basis of the law."
Nikitin was tried in the same court last year, but the case was returned to investigating authorities because the judge said the indictment was too vague. The security service issued a new indictment--the eighth in the case--but it was also classified as secret.
Today, Golets threw out the charges, saying they did not amount to a crime, and lifted an order that restricted Nikitin's travel outside of St. Petersburg.
"Despite what happened, what is happening and what may yet happen," Nikitin said in closing remarks to the judge, "I do not regret anything. I do not doubt even for a minute that it was the right choice."
Nikitin said that information about 30-year-old nuclear accidents or aging reactors could not have harmed Russia's defense capabilities, and that making the information public could help prevent accidents.
After Nikitin was arrested, the security services began investigating other people who had disclosed information about the navy's handling of nuclear waste. Grigory Pasko, a military journalist in the Far East port of Vladivostok, was sentenced in July to three years in prison for passing details of nuclear waste dumping to Japanese television, but the sentence was lifted immediately.
-----------
Russian Nuclear Whistleblower Wins Victory for Free Speech
By CELESTINE BOHLEN New York Times December 30, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/123099russia-trial.html
Issue in Depth
Russia's Turmoil
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/russia-index.html
MOSCOW, Dec. 29 -- In a ruling hailed as a rare victory for the rule of law, a St. Petersburg judge today acquitted a former naval captain, Aleksandr Nikitin, of charges that he had leaked state secrets about nuclear pollution to a Norwegian environmental organization.
Mr. Nikitin's arrest in 1996, followed by a heavy-handed investigation by security services into his report on nuclear contamination by the Russian Navy, had been seen as a chilling example of the limits of freedom in Russia's new democracy.
Today, applause broke out in a municipal courtroom in St. Petersburg as Mr. Nikitin's supporters greeted the unexpected acquittal verdict. "This is very good news for Russia," said Mr. Nikitin, who spent nine months in jail after his arrest and was subsequently barred from leaving the country.
Judge Sergei Golets found that the accusations brought against Mr. Nikitin were unconstitutional because they were based on secret decrees from the Defense Ministry which Mr. Nikitin could not have known.
"The use of these orders is a direct violation of the Constitution of the Russia Federation," Judge Golets said. He also said the federal case ran counter to the European convention on human rights, to which Russia is a signatory.
The Nikitin case has been raised by international human rights groups and Western governments as a test of Russia's commitment to free speech, and to a fair trial for those who run afoul of the Federal Security Service, the domestic intelligence service that is heir to the Soviet-era K.G.B.
"We are thrilled that he was acquitted but distressed that it took nearly four years for the Russian criminal justice system to reach an obvious conclusion," said Rachel Denber, a deputy director of Human Rights Watch.
The Federal Security Service had accused Mr. Nikitin of divulging state secrets -- a charge tantamount to treason -- in his report on nuclear submarine accidents for Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group. During the investigation, security agents raided Bellona's offices in the North Sea Port of Murmansk, and confiscated 1,500 copies of the Bellona report, which were labeled forbidden literature.
Mr. Nikitin, who had worked for 11 years as an engineer on Soviet nuclear submarines and later as a nuclear inspector for the Defense Ministry, has argued that all the material in his report was based on unclassified information that had already been published in the Russian press.
The case highlighted Russian sensitivity to the environmental threat posed by the Northern Fleet's careless handling of nuclear material. Norway, which lies on the other side of Russia's northwestern borders, has been particularly sensitive to reports of accidents on Russian nuclear submarines, overburdened radioactive storage sites and ocean dumping of nuclear waste.
In a similar case, a court in the far-eastern city of Vladivostok last July dropped treason charges against Grigory Pasko, a Russian military journalist, who had also written on nuclear dumping by the Russian Navy. Mr. Pasko was convicted of a lesser charge of violating rules for military journalists, but was given amnesty by the Vladivostok court.
Although both cases ended in a legal defeat for the Security Service, their determination may have already had the intended effect of discouraging whistle-blowers with access to information that could seen as damaging to the government.
Mr. Nikitin's ordeal began when he was roused from sleep in his St. Petersburg apartment by security agents who ordered him to come with them for an interrogation. He was put in prison, his telephone was cut off, and he had to appeal to Russia's Constitutional Court for the right to his own lawyer, after having refused one chosen for him by the security service.
After he was freed, Mr. Nikitin accused the security services of harassment. His wife and child now live in Canada. In the meantime, his case was kicked around the Russian court system. In a ruling earlier this year, the Russian Supreme Court refused to drop the treason charges against him.
Supporters said then that the Russian government seemed to be dragging the case out in order to avoid embarrassment for the powerful security services. Their case rested on two secret decrees issued by the Defense Ministry, which had never been published and were not made available to the defense.
"The stakes were set very high," said Ms. Denber, "There was a lot of foot-dragging, ordering up new investigations, appointing new prosecutors as a way to give the FSB a face saving way out of a mess."
The prosecution can appeal the St. Petersburg verdict, but many observers expect that the Federal Security Service will drop the case.
---
U.S. Govt. Employees Leave Russia
By Brigitte Greenberg Associated Press Writer, Dec. 30, 1999; 11:52 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline115248_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- A total of 352 U.S. employees and dependents have left Russia and three other countries in a Y2K precautionary move, the State Department said today.
Of these, 95 are nonessential U.S. employees and 257 are dependents. In all, 2,254 could have chosen to leave. All were free to go home with U.S.-paid transportation.
In the United States, hundreds of federal emergency officials have fanned out across the country and will await the stroke of midnight in each U.S. time zone Friday with an eye toward Y2K disaster.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has established 10 regional centers to monitor potential catastrophes in the United States and its territories.
Beginning today, FEMA is putting its emergency support team in full gear around the clock through Sunday. More than 800 personnel will be working through the weekend.
In Moscow, 1,155 embassy employees and dependents were eligible to take the offer to leave, and 254 did, 74 of them employees at the U.S. Embassy and 180 dependents, said State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker.
The offer was made by the State Department on Oct. 29 and has no connection to concern about terrorism, Reeker said. It is a precaution in the highly unlikely event heat and other services fail in the onset of the new millennium, he said.
Besides Russia, and the U.S. Embassy and consulates, nonessential employees and dependents were eligible to leave at government expense in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.
In Washington, the Federal Emergency Management Agency can draw on resources from as many as 26 federal agencies and the Red Cross if Y2K emergencies arise.
"FEMA is confident that nothing serious will happen, but we are prepared to respond just like we would for any other natural disaster or any other emergency situation," said Robert Adamcik, associate director for FEMA response and recovery.
Preparing for 18 months, the agency's officials have rehearsed a multitude of scenarios, including explosions, power outages and nuclear disaster.
FEMA officials said they will constantly gather information from state and local governments throughout the weekend, monitoring them with an automated system that assigns a green light to communities that are OK, a yellow light to those where an emergency is suspected but information is incomplete, and a red light for a confirmed disaster.
FEMA would be called in only after a state's governor asked President Clinton to declare a federal disaster area.
"Some of the things that we can provide under the plan range from mass care that Red Cross can provide, food through the Department of Agriculture, transportation, communications, search and rescue or emergency medical and pharmaceuticals, should those be needed by state and local government," said Bruce Baughman, chief of operations for FEMA response and recovery.
The Health and Human Services Department, Centers for Disease Control and Defense Department have gas masks and antidotes in the event of chemical or biological terrorism, FEMA spokesman Marc Wolfson said.
Officials emphasized that they had not received any specific threats, but extra security measures were introduced at federal buildings across the country this week, said Bob Dunfey, the regional administrator of the General Services Administration in New England.
At the federal courthouse in Boston, visitors and courthouse employees were asked to produce photo identification to enter the building.
In Scranton, Pa., officials told visitors to the federal courthouse to park in nearby lots rather than on the street right outside, allowing the building to have a buffer, said Dave Branham, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals.
Even if a significant disaster arises that is not related to Y2K, such as an unexpected weather phenomenon, FEMA would respond, Adamcik said. However, certain emergencies - cyber terrorism, local civil disturbances, a national security emergency or long-term economic recovery - would fall under the purview of other agencies.
President Clinton's top Y2K expert, John Koskinen, said stores appear to be fully supplied if people wish to stock up on water or other provisions for parties or a long midwinter weekend.
---
Confident Russia Says Space Stations Y2K-Proof
Space.com posted: 09:41 am EST 30 December 1999 By Martin Nesirsky
http://www.space.com/space/spacestation/russia_y2k_991230_wg.html
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=121950
MOSCOW, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Russia kept up its flow of positive Y2K vibes on Thursday, saying everything from the Mir space station to the country's lifeline railway network would be immune to the millennium computer bug.
Western nations say Russia, home to nine Soviet-era atomic power plants and thousands of nuclear missiles, is one of those most at risk when January 1, 2000 arrives. A glitch means some computers may read 2000 as 1900 and crash or malfunction.
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who heads Russia's Y2K task force, said he was certain things would go smoothly and the Strategic Rocket Forces reiterated all their missiles would stay put when midnight strikes.
Other Russian officials gave similarly upbeat reports on Thursday as crunch time neared in the world's largest country.
"The arrival of the New Year will not affect computers at Mission Control."
Mikhail Pronin, chief engineer
Midnight strikes first in Russia's Far East on the international dateline opposite Alaska and then sweeps across the country's 11 time zones.
"The arrival of the New Year will not affect computers at Mission Control,'' Mikhail Pronin, chief engineer at Russia's space headquarters near Moscow, told Itar-Tass news agency. "We don't expect anything to happen because of the 2000 problem.''
Sergei Gorbunov, spokesman for the Russian Space Agency, told Tass the Mir orbital station had been equipped with new computers that outperformed even those at Mission Control.
The 13-year-old station has been crewless since two Russians and a Frenchman returned to earth in August. A lack of funds means Russia is unlikely to be able to extend Mir's life.
Russia is helping to establish an International Space Station, the first modules of which are already in orbit. Gorbunov said this station was also Y2K-proof, not least because it was kitted out with modern Western computer systems.
Back on earth, Russian railway officials said they were confident their network, second only to the U.S. rail system in length, would work smoothly. But staff have been trained how to work without computers if there is a problem.
Air officials said they were fully prepared, and so did FAPSI, the government's secret communications agency.
The United States and Britain, among others, place Russia near the top of their Y2K worry list. Several countries have withdrawn non-essential diplomatic staff from Moscow.
Russian officials say they may have started late and with little money but they do not envisage major problems.
Many Russians are unfazed by the Y2K problem and are much more concerned with preparations to celebrate the New Year, traditionally the most important holiday in Russia's calendar.
Two-thirds of the 667 people who telephoned Ekho Moskvy radio for a poll said they did not think Y2K would affect them.
Russian military alert but relaxed over Y2K
Russia's navy said its nuclear submarines and conventional fleet were safe.
"The multi-layered control system completely rules out the possibility of a computer fault causing the unsanctioned use of nuclear weapons by combat vessels,'' Vice-Admiral Mikhail Barskov, the navy's Y2K chief, told RIA news agency.
The Strategic Rocket Forces say they have completed checks on automatic systems governing land-based nuclear rockets.
As an extra safeguard, Russian specialists are in the United States at a command center in Colorado, and began work on Tuesday with U.S. experts to watch for any false warnings of missile attacks sparked by the millennium computer bug.
They will keep a joint watch over Russia's 2,000 nuclear-tipped missiles and 2,440 U.S. rockets for three weeks.
Russia's electricity firm RAO UES said people should not try to save energy on New Year's night because that could give officials the wrong impression about generating needs.
"UES earnestly asked citizens not to overload their minds with global problems and to direct their energies to greeting the New Year happily,'' Tass said.
---
Russia Tells People to Relax Over Y2K
Reuters December 30, 1999 Filed at 10:29 a.m. ET By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-russia.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia kept up its flow of positive Y2K vibes Thursday, saying everything from the Mir space station to the country's lifeline railway network would be immune to the millennium computer bug.
Western nations say Russia, home to nine Soviet-era atomic power plants and thousands of nuclear missiles, is one of those most at risk when January 1, 2000 arrives. A glitch means some computers may read 2000 as 1900 and crash or malfunction.
Russian electricity firm RAO UES said people should not try to save energy as a Y2K precaution because it could give the wrong impression about generating needs.
``UES earnestly asked citizens not to overload their minds with global problems and to direct their energies to greeting the New Year happily,'' Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who heads Russia's Y2K task force, said he was sure all would go smoothly.
Other officials gave similarly upbeat reports Thursday as crunch time neared in the world's largest country. Midnight strikes first in Russia's Far East on the international dateline opposite Alaska and then sweeps across 11 time zones.
A Soviet-era atomic power plant in Chukotka region will be among the first to enter the New Year at 1200 GMT Friday.
A U.S. embassy spokeswoman told Reuters that Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov and U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson would speak by video link soon after that. A team of three U.S. experts is in town to work with Russian officials.
SPACE STATIONS ARE Y2K-PROOF, RUSSIA SAYS
The United States has also been working with Russia on a new International Space Station. The first modules are in orbit.
Sergei Gorbunov, spokesman for the Russian Space Agency, told Tass the station was Y2K-proof. He said Russia's Mir orbital station had been equipped with new computers.
The 13-year-old station has been mothballed and crewless since two Russians and a Frenchman returned in August. A lack of funds means Russia is unlikely to be able to extend Mir's life.
``We don't expect anything to happen because of the 2000 problem,'' said Mikhail Pronin, Mission Control's chief engineer.
Railway officials said they were confident their network, second only to the U.S. system in length, would work smoothly.
``We're not expecting problems, but we have got information there might be problems with electricity supply in one region,'' Railways Ministry spokesman Valery Panferov told Reuters. He declined to say which of Russia's 89 regions was involved.
Staff have been trained to work without computers. Electricity officials do not anticipate major outages.
The United States and Britain, among others, place Russia near the top of their Y2K worry list. Several countries have withdrawn non-essential diplomatic staff from Moscow.
Russian officials say they may have started late and with little money but they do not envisage major problems.
Many Russians are unfazed by Y2K and are more concerned with preparations to celebrate the New Year, traditionally the most important holiday in Russia's calendar.
RUSSIAN MILITARY ALERT, BUT RELAXED OVER Y2K
The navy said nuclear submarines and surface ships were safe. Vice-Admiral Mikhail Barskov, the navy's Y2K chief, told RIA news agency: ``The multi-layered control system completely rules out the possibility of a computer fault causing the unsanctioned use of nuclear weapons by combat vessels.''
The Strategic Rocket Forces say they have completed checks on automatic systems governing land-based nuclear rockets.
As an extra measure, Russian specialists are working with U.S. experts in Colorado to watch for false warnings of attacks. They will keep a joint watch over Russia's 2,000 nuclear-tipped missiles and 2,440 U.S. rockets for three weeks.
The U.S. embassy spokeswoman said U.S. technicians were in Moscow to ensure ``hotline'' links to Washington worked. Some lines date back to the Cold War and had to be upgraded.
The man in charge of Russia's missiles over New Year told the newspaper Trud that people should not be worried.
``Even if there was a computer fault, nuclear missiles still would not launch,'' said Major-General Vitaly Denisyuk, who will meet his 40th New Year in a command bunker. ``I'll disclose what was a secret until recently...we've never entrusted this task to computers, however sophisticated. It's all done by people.''
---
Y2K missile attack won't occur, Russian vows
Colonel is part of delegation in Colorado Springs
to monitor nuclear arsenals on eve of year
By Dick Foster Denver Rocky Mountain News Southern Bureau 12/30/99
http://insidedenver.com/news/1230russ2.shtml
COLORADO SPRINGS -- A Russian Air Force colonel gave assurances Wednesday that his country's nuclear arsenal will not be launched by accident when the 1900s come to an end this weekend.
"All of our warning systems and strategic missile systems are ready to meet the Y2K problem," said Col. Sergey Kaplin through a translator during a media session Wednesday at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
"We have done many researches, and we are really sure, believe us, that no problems will occur," Kaplin said.
Whether the Russian nuclear missiles remain stable will be answered early New Year's Eve because the millennium date change will begin on the other side of the world, Air Force Lt. Col. Jon Wicklund said. New Year's Day 2000 will come in Russia's easternmost missile ranges in eastern Siberia about 9 a.m. Mountain time Friday.
Kaplin is part of a Russian military delegation that will join U.S. Air Force officers at Peterson Air Force Base to monitor Russian and U.S. missile operations through the turn of the millennium.
The Year 2000 Strategic Stability Center is scheduled to begin operations at 8 a.m. today and continue round-the-clock monitoring through mid-January.
Five crews, each with two U.S. and two Russian operators, and a colonel from each country, will take shifts monitoring missile operations for the two-week period.
The information will be fed to the center from NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain operations center, which is linked to U.S. satellites and ground-based surveillance systems monitoring missile launches worldwide.
U.S. Air Force officers supported Kaplin's assurances, saying neither Russian nor American missiles can be launched simply because of a computer glitch. Each system requires manual operation by military personnel at the missile sites.
"For our military and for the Russian military, there's a man in the loop for all launches of strategic nuclear weapons," said Wicklund, operations director for the stability center.
"A computer glitch or a computer problem, will never in and of itself, launch a missile," Wicklund said.
In Russia, the commander of strategic rocket forces, Col. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, has invited Western journalists into some Russian control centers to witness the rollover into the new millennium, Wicklund said.
To assure stability during the New Year's time period, no country has scheduled space launches of any kind for Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, Wicklund said.
December 30, 1999
----------- ukraine
Chernobyl Reactor May Be Shut Down
WORLD IN BRIEF Compiled from news services Thursday, December 30, 1999; Page A26
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/30/116l-123099-idx.html
KIEV, Ukraine--Financial constraints could force Ukraine to shut down the only operational reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant next year even if the government wants to keep it running, a top nuclear official said.
Next year's scheduled repairs to reactor No. 3 at Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear accident, will cost some $100 million, said Viktor Stovbun, a high-level official at the Energoatom state nuclear power company, adding that Energoatom does not have the resources to finance the repairs and that the reactor is losing money because previous repairs have closed it for long periods.
----------- us nuc waste
Concerned about toxic emissions
Thursday, December 30, 1999 Letters to the Editor
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/123099/opE_1230990049.html
To The Oak Ridger:
I worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory back in the latter '80s, as the TSCA incinerator was being designed and problems with HF releases from K-25 and Y-12 were causing health concerns.
ORNL was so concerned they sent a team of white coat lab persons into the communities around K-25 to collect samples of milk, well water, and produce. Some say these HF concerns that I raised caused the K-25 plant to be shut down just after that.
The basic truth on what makes persons sick at the Oak Ridge plants has a lot to do with a poison gas called hydrogen fluoride or HF. HF is used in the "green salt" operations at Y-12, where many are so sick that the plants benefits workers call the area "death row."
Same problem at K-25 where leaky buildings and open processes allow trapped UF-6 to react with moisture and form HF gas that is in high concentrations in the buildings, since they were shut down and the large air flows turned off.
The problems with the design of the TSCA incinerator were centered mostly on burning the soluble uranium fluorides and releasing HF and other toxic fluorides into the air.
This was helped by adding chemical catalysts, like methyl cyanide, that modify the fluoride toxic products by creating less toxic methyl fluoride products.
TSCA operates no different than a catalytic converter on a car and the health problems from K-25 are not the incinerator, but connected to the releases of HF from the careless dismantlement work.
The Oak Ridge managers planned to hide these problems by using distractions and misinformation like the missing area in the aerial survey near the Scarboro community. This pulled attention to uranium dusts and off the high HF releases from the Y-12 Plant that can easily travel over the ridge and damage children's lungs and get into the food chain uptake of gardens.
TSCA concerns were even played up to pull the public attention off the extreme chemical toxic hazards of the plants tear down.
Similarly, corrupt managers and many so-called activists that help them planned to play up toxic metals and radiations that would never prove to be the real problem.
As part of this, an adviser to Richardson, dump Pu and Np documents into the Washington Post articles on Paducah illnesses and totally ignore the HF exposures that are well established to be a 1,000 times worse than the uranium in the body.
The bulk of the sick worker problems indicate exposures to fluorides or HF. The lung damages and the high blood calcium are prime indicators of HF exposures.
The arthritis, sore joints, thinking impairment, rashes, and fatigue are also prime indicators of increasing amounts of insoluble calcium fluoride rat poison in the body. HF calcium scavenges and will impact nerve myelin and also kill off mitochondria in cells and lead to heart spasms and attacks.
Toxic fluorine is the most volatile, toxic, and abundant toxin in Oak Ridge. Doctors that failed to diagnose persons affected from the above effects or have them properly treated have committed malpractice.
Workers and area residents deserve a break from the misleading games played in Oak Ridge to hide the massive mistakes of the plants managers and scientists. More information is on the Internet at: http://members.aol.com/doewatch.
Happy holidays.
Jim Phelps 1600 Buttercup Circle Knoxville
-------
Microbe trap -
ENN News Bytes Thursday, December 30, 1999
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/12/123099/newsbytes.asp
Microbes living underground at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory [http://www.inel.gov/cgi-bin/newsdesk.cgi?a=138&t=template.html] may help researchers trap a radioactive contaminant found in the groundwater beneath the lab. The microbes break down urea through a process called urea hydrolysis, according to researchers from INEEL, Idaho State University and the University of Toronto. The microbes may be able to change the chemistry of the groundwater so that calcite, a mineral found naturally in the rock through which the groundwater flows, will accumulate faster than normal. The growing calcite deposits trap radioactive strontium-90 in their crystal structures. Strontium-90 is a toxic, radioactive substance produced in nuclear reactors. For more information, contact Mary Beckman at (208)526-0061, email: beckmt@inel.gov.
-- Related:
A Little Help from Below: Naturally Occurring Microbes Ready to Lend a Hand Trapping Radioactivity Underground
Decmeber 15, 1999
http://www.inel.gov/cgi-bin/newsdesk.cgi?a=138&t=template.html
Microbes living underground at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory can do a little chemistry, which means they may be able to help researchers trap a radioactive contaminant found in the groundwater beneath the lab.
Microbes isolated from groundwater drawn at the lab site break down the compound urea through a process called urea hydrolysis, researchers from INEEL, Idaho State University, and the University of Toronto reported today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The INEEL specializes in subsurface science as part of its environmental mission.
That means the naturally occurring microbes may be able to change the chemistry of the groundwater so calcite, a mineral found naturally in the rock the water flows through, will accumulate faster than normal. The growing calcite deposits will trap radioactive strontium-90 in their crystal structures.
Researchers hope to inject urea into a contaminated area and let the native microorganisms go to work breaking it down. The resulting buildup of calcite should keep the strontium-90 from spreading. The buildup will remain limited to the area around the injection well and will not interfere with groundwater flow.
"If we can trap strontium-90 in the subsurface, it's not going to keep moving with the groundwater," said INEEL microbiologist Yoshiko Fujita, who reported the results in the Hydrology: Environmental Geochemistry poster session. "We want to stop it in place."
Trapping strontium-90 underground should be cheaper and safer than extracting it, said INEEL geochemist Bob Smith who leads the project. "If you were to do some sort of treatment where you brought it to the surface, you'd have to expose workers, you'd have to ship it, you'd have to pack it," he said.
The researchers hope to contain the contaminant until it has decayed away. Strontium-90 decays with a half-life of 29 years. That means a sample containing strontium-90 will be only half as radioactive after 29 years, only one-quarter as radioactive after 58 years, and so on. After 300 years, 99.9 percent of the radioactivity will have disappeared.
Strontium-90 is a toxic, radioactive substance produced in nuclear reactors. In past decades, some waste-disposal methods have left pockets of low-level radioactive contamination in and above the groundwater at INEEL and other DOE sites.
Proving that naturally occurring microbes break down urea and promote the formation of calcite is the first step in a 3-year, $900,000 DOE-funded project to develop the technique for trapping strontium and other metals in calcite deposits in arid regions of the western United States.
The groundwater in arid regions is often saturated with calcium carbonate. Since the water cannot hold any more of the substance, additional calcium carbonate gradually drops out of solution and forms calcite in the surrounding rock in the same way deposits build up in the pipes of houses with hard water.
Microbes that break down urea should increase the rate at which calcite builds up. When urea is hydrolyzed, the groundwater will become less acidic and more basic, which will reduce the amount of calcium carbonate the water can hold. More calcium carbonate will then precipitate out as calcite.
Growing calcite deposits should draw strontium and other metals out of the groundwater because strontium atoms and other contaminants can replace calcium atoms in the mineral's crystal structure.
The existence of the urea-hydrolyzing microbes suggests nature is willing to help the researchers with their plan. "For every sample of groundwater we tested, there was some hydrolysis of urea," Fujita said. "I think that's important because it shows this is a very common activity. If you rely on a reaction that is rare, your chances of going out in the field and having the method work are slim."
When grown in a medium rich in both urea and calcium carbonate, the isolated microbes precipitate calcite rapidly as they multiply, said microbial geochemist F. Grant Ferris of the University of Toronto. "In our medium, all of the microbes started the precipitation within the first half-hour of growth," he said.
Electron microscope images of the precipitated calcite suggest the mineral grows in globules around the microbes themselves. By serving as seeds for crystal growth, the microbes might further accelerate the rate at which calcite forms.
The researchers hope to begin field tests of the technique in two years. Before then, they must determine the rate at which calcite forms when the microbes are present, whether they should supply the microbes food as well as urea, and whether the precipitation of calcite will be as efficient if the concentrations of calcium carbonate and strontium are reduced from the artificially high levels the researchers have used in the laboratory so far.
The INEEL is managed and operated by Bechtel BWXT, Idaho, LLC (BBWI) for the U.S. Department of Energy.
-INEEL-
Media contacts: Adrian Cho, 208-526-3176, choha@inel.gov, Mary Beckman, 208-526-0061, beckmt@inel.gov Teri Ehresman, 208-526-7785, ehr@inel.gov
99-109
Visit our Web site at http://www.inel.gov
---
National Research Council Releases Report on INEEL High-Level Waste
December 16, 1999 DOE News Release
http://www.inel.gov/cgi-bin/newsdesk.cgi?a=141&t=template.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Report Completes Review Requested by Energy Department
The National Research Council Board of Radioactive Waste Management (NRC) today released a report on its study of the options for treating high-level radioactive waste stored at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The report was commissioned by the Department of Energy (DOE) in 1998 and completes an NRC review of the proposed technologies for treating 4,200 cubic meters of solid mixed high-level waste (HLW) calcine and 1.4 million gallons of liquid mixed transuranic waste (also known as sodium-bearing waste or SBW) at INEEL site.
The department, with the cooperation of the state of Idaho, is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analyzing various alternatives for treating INEEL wastes and closing related facilities. The NRC study provides an independent assessment of the proposed treatment technologies under consideration by the department. The draft EIS is scheduled for release in mid-January 2000 for a 60-day public comment period. DOE has no preferred treatment or closure alternative at this time.
Key recommendations in the NRC report include:
o Improve characterization of the chemical, physical and radiological properties for both the high-level waste calcine and the liquid sodium-bearing waste before selection of the preferred treatment alternative(s).
o Solidify sodium-bearing waste as soon as practicable, using a techology other than calcination.
o Maintain interim storage of the high-level waste calcine until such time as DOE determines where the material can be sent, what disposal form(s) are acceptable, and develops an approved transportation plan for shipment to a disposal site. The NRC report notes that the current storage configuration of the high-level waste calcine at INEEL does not present a significant hazard to public health and the environment.
"The National Research Council's recommendations will be important factors in our continuing consideration of the treatment options for high-level waste and liquid mixed transuranic waste and facility closures at INEEL," said Carolyn Huntoon, DOE's Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management. "In addition to the issues identified in the NRC report, we also will be analyzing costs, current regulatory requirements and commitments to the state of Idaho, and other factors in the selection of preferred alternatives for treating these wastes and disposing of facilities."
Copies of the National Research Council report are available from:
National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Ave., NW Box 285 Washington, DC 20055
Interested individuals may also request copies by calling 1-800-624-6242 or 202-334-3313 (Washington metropolitan area), or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu
For more information about the draft EIS, contact Brad Bugger at 208-526-0833 or call (toll-free) 1-888-918-5100.
--DOE--
Media contact: Brad Bugger, 208-526-0833, buggerbp@id.doe.gov
99-110
Visit our web site at http://www.inel.gov
---
INEEL, Republic of Korea Collaborate on Nuclear Fuel Testing System
December 14, 1999 DOE News Release
http://www.inel.gov/cgi-bin/newsdesk.cgi?a=137&t=template.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has started a program to design the first instrumented capsule for testing a new nuclear reactor fuel and the capsule control and handling systems for a Republic of Korea research reactor.
The contract is the first ever between the INEEL and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, the Republic of Korea's nuclear power research agency. The two-phase project will help KAERI develop testing capabilities at its new HANARO research reactor.
Under the project, INEEL engineers will do preliminary design for an instrumented capsule to test the performance of a new nuclear reactor fuel. They will also develop the control system for the experiments and the handling system to retrieve the capsule from the reactor and transfer it to a hot cell for examination.
KAERI will use the capsule in the HANARO reactor to test new fuel designs for use in pressurized water reactors.
The project fits within the INEEL's nuclear technology lead lab role for the DOE to promote and support safe nuclear power technology worldwide.
Gary Smith, senior account executive in the INEEL's Technology Transfer and Commercialization office, says the agreement fulfills the goal of a DOE memorandum of understanding between the DOE and the Republic of Korea to promote peaceful and non-explosive uses of atomic energy. The project also utilizes the nuclear expertise of INEEL employees.
Blaine Grover, INEEL mechanical engineer and project lead, explains the capsule holds the fuel test sample and is equipped with instruments that let scientists control and record temperature data during the irradiation experiments. Similar capsules are used at the INEEL's Advanced Test Reactor for fuel and materials experiments.
The handling system will remove the capsule from the test reactor and transfer it to a hot cell (a shielded room) where it is remotely opened to retrieve the test fuel for examination.
Once this project is completed, KAERI will have the capability of designing future fuel test capsules. Smith says the long-term value of this project is to establish a successful relationship with the Korean agency that can lead to future projects.
-INEEL-
Media contact: John Walsh, (208) 526-8646, jhw@inel.gov 99-105
Visit our Web site at http://www.inel.gov
---
All 1999 headlines
http://www.inel.gov/cgi-bin/newsdesk.cgi?t=archive.html
----------- us nuc weapons spying
Atom Scientist Is Denied Bail, but Possibility Is Held Out
New York Times December 30, 1999 By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/30/news/washpol/nuke-lee.html
Related Article
Indicted Scientist Worried He'd Let Secrets Slip, Ex-Boss Says (Dec. 29, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/122999nuke-lee.html
ALBUQUERQUE, Dec. 29 -- A federal judge refused today to grant bail to Wen Ho Lee, the government scientist charged with mishandling nuclear weapons secrets.
But, in addressing the central issue in a three-day bail hearing, the judge, James A. Parker of Federal District Court, said he would reconsider if it could be shown that Dr. Lee had told the truth when he said he had destroyed seven missing computer tapes containing much of the trove of secrets.
Judge Parker said he would have been inclined to free Dr. Lee under restrictive home detention were it not for the grave concerns expressed by a number of senior government officials that the missing tapes were not destroyed and could be passed to a hostile power.
Dr. Lee has acknowledged transferring a huge volume of information about the design, testing and construction of nuclear weapons from secure to unsecure computers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked for years, and then downloaded much of the information onto computer tapes. He has also said he destroyed seven of those tapes. The remaining three were found by government officials in his office after Dr. Lee was fired in March for security violations.
The judge noted in his decision, on a defense appeal of a magistrate's earlier refusal to grant bail, that Dr. Lee's lawyers had said Dr. Lee would be willing to submit to a lie test about the missing tapes.
Dr. Lee was indicted on 59 counts of having mishandled the secret information, although he was not charged with espionage or giving anyone else the information. He has said he is not guilty.
The prosecutors have so far refused the offer to conduct a lie detector test partly, the judge said, because of concerns about the precise questions that would be asked.
The judge encouraged, but did not order, the United States attorney here, John J. Kelly, to negotiate a deal for Dr. Lee to take the test. But afterward Mr. Kelly was noncommital and noted that the concerns that had made an agreement impossible until now had not gone away.
"We will take the judge's counsel concerning these questions," Mr. Kelly said.
Mark Holscher, one of Dr. Lee's lawyers, said prosecutors had refused the defense's offer to have Dr. Lee take the polygraph test.
After the decision, Dr. Lee showed little reaction but wore a grim expression as he was immediately led from the courtroom by federal marshals. He waved briefly to his son and daughter, both of whom burst into tears. His wife said shortly afterward that she would not comment.
The judge had also said Dr. Lee was being held in severe conditions at a jail near here, in Santa Fe, and asked Mr. Kelly to consider easing the restrictions. Dr. Lee is in solitary confinement and can see no one except his immediate family and his lawyers for just one hour a week. Dr. Lee, a naturalized United States citizen from Taiwan, is prohibited from speaking Chinese with his family, and a guard must be next to him at all times.
Mr. Kelly said only that he would consider the judge's request.
Both sides have said that a trial might not be held for a year or more, given the complex nature of the case, so Dr. Lee now faces the prospect of a year's incarceration if he cannot find some way of answering the court's doubts about what happened to the computer tapes.
One senior government scientist said that the tapes contained "the crown jewels" of the American weapons program, an almost complete description of the physics and practical information needed to design anything from simple to highly sophisticated nuclear weapons.
Today's decision came at the end of a hearing that all those involved said was unlike any other such detention hearing in their experience. Normally, such hearings are brief, with evidence offered in summary form and any testimony taken quickly.
But in this instance the judge allowed extensive examination and cross examination of several witnesses. Since the normal rules of evidence do not apply to a preliminary hearing, the testimony ranged widely, involving much speculation and opinion that would have been excluded in a trial.
The prosecution was not able to show that Dr. Lee gave the secrets to anyone, only that he had methodically violated security rules in assembling and downloading it onto unsecure computers, where hackers or others might have gained access.
In cross-examinations, the defense tried to show that there could be benign explanations for Dr. Lee's actions and that he had done little to conceal most of what he had done.
The defense never addressed what the judge today said was the most critical issue for Dr. Lee, and perhaps the American weapons program: why he made those tapes, and precisely what he did with them.
---
Wen Ho Lee denied bail
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 06:17 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#fema
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A federal judge denied bail for Wen Ho Lee on Wednesday, citing seven missing computer tapes filled with the nation's nuclear secrets and possible ''enormous harm'' to the country if the fired scientist was freed. U.S. District Judge James Parker voiced ''great concerns about the extreme restrictions'' imposed on Lee in jail, but said prosecutors had shown ''clear and convincing'' evidence that Lee should not be released. Lee, 60, who has pleaded innocent, has said he destroyed the tapes after losing his security clearance. Lee was arrested in March and indicted in December on 59 counts.
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The 'accidental' spy
Washington Times EDITORIAL • December 30, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/houseed1-19991230.htm
After acknowledging to his supervisor that he had just been informed that he had failed an FBI lie detector test in which he was asked if he had ever passed secrets to China, nuclear-weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee told his superior in February that he "may have accidentally" revealed classified nuclear weapons data to a foreign nation, according to the supervisor's startling testimony this week. Federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Lee Dec. 10 on 59 felony counts, charging that he illegally removed U.S. nuclear secrets from a classified computer system and downloaded them into an unsecure computer network at the Los Alamos weapons laboratory, where he worked as a computer scientist before being fired in March. He was also charged with transferring virtually all of those computer files, described as the "crown jewels" of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, to 10 computer tapes, seven of which have not been recovered.
At a hearing to determine whether Mr. Lee should remain in custody before his trial begins, Richard Krajcik, the deputy director at Los Alamos' nuclear weapons division and Mr. Lee's supervisor, revealed that the polygraph questioning involved the United States' most sophisticated nuclear warhead, the W-88, which is deployed on the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile. Mr. Krajcik testified that Mr. Lee failed two questions relating to whether he had disclosed secret information or classified codes to a foreign nation.
Testifying after Mr. Krajcik, FBI agent Robert Messemer said Mr. Lee responded deceptively when questioned about his failure to inform his superiors about contacts he had made with Chinese scientists during two approved visits to China in 1986 and 1988. At the February lie detector exam, Mr. Messemer said, Mr. Lee admitted helping Chinese nuclear weapons scientists solve a problem during his 1986 visit. Mr. Messemer also revealed that Mr. Lee had acknowledged during an earlier polygraph test that he attended a clandestine hotel meeting with Chinese scientists in 1988 at which, he later told the FBI, he had also assisted a Chinese scientist.
Mr. Lee's attorney disputed Mr. Krajcik's interpretation of the February meeting, arguing that the secret information Mr. Lee said he may have inadvertently revealed was disclosed only in a scholarly paper that had been approved by the laboratory. Mr. Krajcik replied that Mr. Lee made no mention of such a paper during the February meeting and that Mr. Lee had later appeared "deceptive and evasive" during a March 5 meeting at which the FBI intensively interviewed Mr. Lee, who was fired three days later.
While Mr. Lee has not been charged with espionage, his indictment did declare that he removed the equivalent of 800,000 pages worth of nuclear secrets "with the intent to injure the United States and with the intent to secure an advantage for a foreign power." For the first time since he was fired, U.S. officials this week have publicly offered information suggesting that Mr. Lee may have revealed secrets to a foreign power.
All of this will be sorted out at Mr. Lee's trial, which is expected to begin in about a year. The issue of the moment is whether he should remain in custody. Noting that the information Mr. Lee downloaded and transferred to tapes could "truly change the world strategic balance," Paul Robinson, the president of Sandia National Laboratory, which develops nuclear weapons, urged caution, cryptically observing, "This court faces a you-bet-your-country decision." With the ultimate disposition of seven of the 10 computer tapes still unknown - Mr. Lee's attorneys say that he destroyed them - this is clearly a bet that the United States cannot afford to lose.
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No Bail In Atomic Data Case
Judge Cites Missing Wen Ho Lee Tapes
By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer, December 30, 1999; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/30/229l-123099-idx.html
ALBUQUERQUE, Dec. 29-A federal judge today ordered that former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Wen Ho Lee remain in jail without bail pending trial on charges he downloaded vast quantities of secret nuclear weapons data from the lab's secure computer system and transferred them to unsecure portable computer tapes.
At the end of a three-day detention hearing, Judge James A. Parker held that no reasonable combination of restrictions on Lee's actions outside jail would be sufficient to safeguard national security, given Lee's inability to account for seven tapes containing enough information to design and construct a sophisticated thermonuclear weapon.
"The danger," Parker told a packed courtroom, "is presented primarily by the missing tapes" and Lee's refusal to state when, where and how he disposed of them.
Parker urged prosecutors to take Lee up on his standing offer to take a polygraph examination on the question of what became of the tapes. Parker said that if a passing score by Lee allayed the government's concerns about the tapes, he could reapply for bail.
Parker also urged the government to consider loosening the restrictions imposed on Lee in custody. The scientist is being held in solitary confinement and is allowed to see his family in the presence of an FBI agent for only one hour per week. A slight man with gray hair and glasses who will turn 60 on New Year's Eve, Lee was whisked out of the courtroom by U.S. marshals moments after the judge's decision as his daughter, Alberta, sobbed in the front row.
Mark Holscher, Lee's lead defense attorney, appeared stunned by Parker's ruling and said he has been waiting since Dec. 10 for the government to agree to polygraph Lee on his statement that he destroyed the tapes.
In refusing to revoke a magistrate's Dec. 13 bail denial, Parker accepted the argument of prosecutors that Lee represents an "unprecedented" threat to national security and would require, were he to be released on bail, 24-hour FBI surveillance to ensure the missing tapes were not passed to a foreign power. Ordering such surveillance as a condition of release, Parker concluded, would be unreasonable and beyond his authority.
U.S. Attorney John J. Kelly told Parker in a lengthy closing argument that "if you have concluded that the risks are sufficiently great that round-the-clock surveillance is warranted, that suggests the defendant ought to be in custody."
John Cline, one of Lee's attorneys, responded that the government had failed to show that allowing Lee out on bail would threaten the community or nation, particularly since he has relinquished his passport and agreed to have his movements and communications restricted and monitored.
Cline repeated Lee's assertion that he has destroyed all of the missing tapes and said the government has produced no evidence to show that the tapes exist, despite an international search by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement. He also said that an exhaustive FBI investigation of Lee involving 60 agents and more than 1,000 interviews has failed to produce any evidence that Lee revealed--or intended to reveal--any of the downloaded nuclear secrets to a foreign government or any other unauthorized party.
Cline said a combination of home detention and electronic monitoring would be sufficient to safeguard the community if Lee is released on bail, adding that 24-hour FBI surveillance would only be necessary if Parker accepted the government's "unrealistic scenarios about what might happen--helicopters landing, abductions by foreign spies, and so forth."
But in the end, the judge accepted arguments made in testimony by a series of nuclear weapons officials about the extreme sensitivity of the nuclear weapons computer data--the equivalent of 800,000 pages--downloaded by Lee.
Paul Robinson, president of Sandia National Laboratories and a former ambassador to nuclear nonproliferation talks in Geneva, testified that the risk to U.S. national security if a foreign power were to obtain the data contained on the seven missing tapes would be "truly a devastating one."
"Those tapes could truly change the world's strategic balance," Robinson testified.
Parker also attached significant weight to the testimony of FBI agent Robert A. Messemer, a Chinese counterintelligence expert supervising the Lee investigation, who said that no combination of restrictions could keep Lee from transferring the missing tapes to a foreign power if Lee were released on bail.
Even an innocuous remark made by Lee to one of his children, Messemer testified, could jeopardize national security. "It could be as simple as saying, 'Uncle Wen says hello,' " Messemer said. "That could be a message telling a third party to do something with those tapes."
Messemer also said that, should Lee be released, the FBI would have to put even more elaborate surveillance in place and would have to assemble teams of Chinese-speaking agents and translators fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese in order to monitor Lee's communications to ensure he did not turn over the tapes to foreign spies.
"Today, we have the additional risk of hostile intelligence services knowing these tapes exist," Messemer said. "I believe they will act upon the information being released in the media."
Lee has been in jail here since he was indicted Dec. 10 on 59 felony counts of mishandling classified information. Thirty-nine counts involve violations of secrecy provisions in the Atomic Energy Act and carry maximum sentences of life in prison if the government can prove that Lee willfully intended to damage national security by downloading the nuclear weapons data.
Lee was fired from his post in Los Alamos's X Division in March for allegedly tampering with classified documents and failing to report contacts he had with Chinese nuclear weapons scientists during authorized trips he made to Beijing in 1986 and 1988. At the time of his firing, Lee was identified by federal authorities as their prime suspect in a Chinese espionage investigation centering on evidence that China may have stolen design information related to the W-88 warhead, America's most sophisticated thermonuclear weapon.
Despite identifying Lee as an espionage suspect, authorities now acknowledge that they do not have evidence to show Lee passed classified information to China or any other foreign country. Lee's downloading of classified material was not discovered by investigators until late March, weeks after he was fired and publicly identified as an espionage suspect, and Kelly has said in court papers filed here that the charges brought against Lee for downloading nuclear weapons data are unrelated to the earlier espionage probe.
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Felons gain access to nation's secrets
USA Today 2/30/99- Updated 01:25 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed09.htm
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon agency charged with guarding national secrets regularly gives people with histories of criminal activity and drug, alcohol and other problems access to that information, USA TODAY has learned. A review of 1,500 security-clearance decisions concerning defense contractor employees shows that the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals has approved applications from convicted felons and murderers. One such successful applicant is a 42-year-old man with a lengthy rap sheet capped by a 1978 murder. Now, on parole, he can't vote in many states, but he can obtain powerful information that is off-limits to most Americans.
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Walter J. Levison, 81, Helped design `spy satellite' camera
Boston Globe By Tom Long, Globe Staff, 12/30/1999
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/364/obituaries/Walter_J_Levison_81+.shtml
Walter J. Levison of Harvard, the leader of the team that designed the first ''spy satellite'' camera for the United States, died of complications following lung cancer surgery Monday in the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester. He was 81.
Mr. Levison was the leader of the design team at Itek Corp. that developed the cameras for the Corona program, the United States's first top secret ''spy satellite'' missions. The first Corona missile was launched in 1960. The program lasted about 12 years
The work of Mr. Levison and his colleagues remained classified top secret until 1995.
''Corona marked the beginning of an explosion of intelligence data,'' CIA Director John Deutch said at a ceremony saluting Mr. Levison and his colleagues in 1995. Deutch said the Corona program was ''probably instrumental in keeping us back from the nuclear threshold.''
In a story published in the Globe on June 26, 1995, Mr. Levison said when the first Corona camera was launched, the CIA estimated the Soviets had 3,000 ballistic missiles, but the cameras showed ''they actually had about six.''
Of the belated recognition of his work, he said, ''I don't know if you've ever kept secrets from your wife for 12 years. ... I thought I would go to my grave without ever seeing this public.''
Mr. Levison was born in New York City. He earned a degree in physics at City College of New York before serving as an aerial photographer in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
He was called to active duty by the Air Force during the Korean War, when he was an optical engineer at Boston University Physical Research Laboratories.
After the Korean War, he became affiliated with Itek Corp., where he also worked on the Viking I camera that beamed back the first pictures of Mars.
After leaving Itek in the mid-1970s, he was a founder of the Aegis Venture Fund, a venture capital firm specializing in high-tech businesses.
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How decisions and appeals are handled
USA Today 2/29/99- Updated 08:53 AM ET By Edward T. Pound, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed03.htm
WASHINGTON - Most military contractor employees and Defense Department personnel get their security clearances from the Pentagon without running into trouble. However, if an initial decision is made to reject them, there are different procedures for contractor employees and Pentagon personnel who seek to overturn the decision.
The procedures work this way:
Contractor employees
A Pentagon agency, the Defense Security Service, does background inquiries on security applicants. If the review produces no derogatory information, the security service issues a clearance. That happens in most cases. However, the service has no authority to deny a clearance, so if it develops significant negative information, the case is referred to the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals. DOHA reviewed 10,190 cases last year.
DOHA either clears the employee, which is what usually happens, or its security specialists issue a formal ''Statement of Reasons,'' or SOR, detailing why the government believes the applicant should not be cleared. The SOR cites the factual and legal basis for why it is not in the ''national interest'' to issue the clearance. The SOR alleges that the applicant failed to live up to one or more of 13 ''adjudicative guidelines'' established by the government for access to classified information. Those guidelines, revised in 1997 and made government-wide, cover such issues as allegiance to the nation, personal conduct, security violations, financial problems, sexual behavior and drug and alcohol use.
An applicant can contest the SOR in writing under oath. The applicant can request a trial-like hearing before one of DOHA's 15 administrative judges or ask that a judge decide the case based on written submissions. DOHA lawyers, known as ''department counsel,'' represent the Pentagon in opposing the request for a clearance.
Hearings are generally held near the applicant's home area. DOHA attorneys and judges, based in Arlington, Va., Boston, and Van Nuys, Calif., travel to the home areas of applicants for hearings.
An applicant can be represented by a lawyer and is allowed to cross-examine government witnesses. The applicant can offer witnesses and other evidence mitigating misconduct because, the guidelines say, the ''adjudicative process'' requires evaluating the ''whole person.'' The judge decides whether it is in the ''national interest'' to issue a clearance.
Either the government or the employee can appeal to the DOHA Appeal Board, made up of three administrative judges. The board's decisions are final.
The process grew out of a 1959 Supreme Court decision. A contractor employee who was accused of having communist ties during the McCarthy era lost his clearance and his job. The court ruled that an employee was entitled to a full hearing if the government planned to deny a clearance application. In 1960, President Eisenhower signed an executive order requiring the hearing process. The Pentagon created the Directorate for Industrial Security Clearance Review. The directorate became DOHA years later.
DOHA also reviews appeals from employees of companies doing business with 20 other agencies, including the State, Justice, Treasury, and Commerce departments.
Pentagon civilian and military personnel
The procedure is markedly different. Employees do not have the right to a full trial-like hearing and can't cross-examine government witnesses or present their own witnesses. However, they do have the right to make a ''personal appearance'' before a DOHA judge.
Like contractor employees, Pentagon civilians and military personnel undergo a background investigation. The findings are referred to Pentagon organizations, known as CAFS, that judge whether a clearance should be issued. Separate CAFS are established in the Army, Navy and Air Force and in the Washington Headquarters Services, the Pentagon's administrative arm.
The CAFS also apply the adjudicative guidelines. They, too, issue Statements of Reasons why a clearance shouldn't be granted. An applicant can respond, but if not persuasive the CAFS issue a ''Letter of Denial.'' An applicant can appeal directly to an appeal board. Each branch and Washington Headquarters Services has its own Personnel Security Appeal Board, known as PSAB. Alternatively, an applicant can request a personal appearance before a DOHA administrative judge to present evidence. The judge issues a ''recommended decision'' to the appropriate PSAB, which makes the final decision.
This system was established under an executive order issued by President Clinton in August 1995. It was meant to balance the scales for government employees, including Defense Department personnel, who did not have the same appeal rights as contractor employees. Before the order, Pentagon employees could appeal only to a ''higher authority'' within the branch or agency in which they worked, according to Sheldon Cohen, an Arlington, Va., lawyer who represents clients in clearance cases. He said the personal appearance alternative allows for ''an impartial view'' from an administrative judge.
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A few who got through
By Edward T. Pound, USA TODAY 12/29/99
Decisions by the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals administrative judges were reviewed on its Web site (www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/doha/) and at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. Here are summaries of a few decisions:
Case 98-0682. In May, Administrative Judge Wilford Ross allowed a software systems engineer employed by a defense contractor to keep his secret-level clearance, even though the man had not filed income tax returns for six years. On the day of his hearing, the engineer provided his returns for 1992 and 1993 and later submitted other delinquent returns. Ross wrote that DOHA lawyers had established with ''substantial evidence'' that the engineer had violated criminal laws, but he said the man had ''successfully mitigated the government's case'' by filing the returns.
Case 98-0247. In granting a clearance to an employee of a military contractor in January, Judge Joseph Testan rejected a criminal court decision that found the man, 51, guilty of child abuse and neglect. The man was charged with five counts of sexual assault after a minor told police he had sexually molested her. The man, in an agreement with prosecutors, pleaded guilty to child abuse and neglect, a misdemeanor, and was placed on probation for three years. He was ordered to complete a counseling program for sex offenders and to have no contact with the alleged victim. In his hearing, the applicant said he hadn't molested the child. He said he pleaded guilty because he couldn't afford to fight the charges and faced a life sentence if convicted on the more serious crimes. Judge Testan concluded that the applicant ''did not engage in any misconduct with the minor.'' DOHA lawyers appealed. The agency's three-member appeal board upheld the decision.
Case 97-0399. Administrative Judge Barry Sax granted a clearance for a senior principal engineer for a major defense contractor despite the man's history of alcohol-related arrests and misstatements to Defense Department investigators. The man, 65, who held a clearance for 37 years, had three convictions for driving under the influence and a fourth DWI arrest on his record. Sax cited a Supreme Court decision issued in 1988 that said, ''Clearance determinations should err, if they must, on the side of denials.'' That meant, Sax wrote, that doubts about an applicant's judgment and reliability ''are to be resolved against the applicant.'' Nevertheless, Sax said, he was convinced the applicant would not slip again. The applicant, described as holding ''a high level position'' in his company, has had an impressive career with no indications that he mishandled classified information, Sax said.
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Action urged on security clearances
By Edward T. Pound, USA TODAY 12/30/99- Updated 02:51 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed08.htm
WASHINGTON - Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa demanded Wednesday that Defense Secretary William Cohen take "immediate steps" to prevent the Pentagon from granting security clearances "to people whose record suggests a high risk to national security."
Harkin, a Democrat, reacted strongly to a USA TODAY report detailing how the Pentagon regularly grants clearances to employees of defense contractors with long histories of financial problems, drug use, alcoholism, sexual misconduct or criminal activity.
He said some clearance decisions defied "common sense."
"It's ironic that the same agency that has a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy (on homosexuals) apparently has an 'Ask, don't care' policy when it comes to contractor security clearances," Harkin said in a statement. "The policy for contractor clearances should be 'when in doubt, just say no.' "
Harkin's criticism, also detailed in a letter to Cohen, focused on decisions issued by administrative judges who work for the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA).
DOHA's judges preside at hearings in which applicants seek to overturn preliminary decisions denying them access to classified information.
Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, declined comment on Harkin's letter. However, he said DOHA had done a good job in balancing the rights of applicants against the vital interests of national security.
"On balance," he said, "we do feel the system works."
Harkin, a frequent critic of wasteful Pentagon spending, said DOHA's "dubious decisions," coupled with an enormous backlog of background security investigations, "suggests a security clearance process that is in need of substantial reform."
Harkin, a member of an important defense subcommittee, also asked Cohen to identify any cases of suspected espionage over the past 10 years that involved contractor employees granted clearances by DOHA.
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Harkin hopping mad
Washington Times December 30, 1999
http://208.246.212.80/national/inpolitics.htm
Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, is demanding a Pentagon investigation of reports that security clearances were granted to defense contractor employees with felony records.
In a letter to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, Mr. Harkin said the practice "defies common sense." He urged Mr. Cohen to take "immediate steps to prevent granting of security clearance to people whose record suggests a high risk to national security," according to the Associated Press.
USA Today reported yesterday that security clearances have been regularly granted to defense-industry employees with long histories of financial problems, drug use, alcoholism, sexual misconduct or criminal activity.
One man was allowed to keep his security clearance despite participating in a scheme to defraud the Navy of $2 million. Another contractor employee granted clearance was still on probation following conviction and imprisonment for bank fraud.
The clearances were approved by administrative judges for the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals. Leon Schachter, the agency's director, said, "It is important to treat people fairly, and we have a system designed to be fair."
----------- us nuc weapons
Nuclear Chief Sought By Energy Dept
The Associated Press Thursday, Dec. 30, 1999; 6:11 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline181125_000.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson named a high-level search committee Thursday to recommend candidates to head the department's new nuclear weapons agency.
Richardson said he hoped to have the new chief in place by March, when the agency, created by Congress last year amid the uproar over alleged Chinese espionage, must begin operation.
The search committee will be chaired by Charles Curtis, former deputy energy secretary, and include retired Admiral James Watkins, energy secretary in the Bush administration.
Congress created the new National Nuclear Security Administration last year despite strong objections from Richardson, who said it gave too much independence to the agency.
Republicans in Congress said a new agency was needed to ensure that security and counterespionage programs are improved at the DOE's weapons labs.
But President Clinton, in signing the law that created the agency, triggered an uproar among some Republican lawmakers when he said that because of shortcomings in the law Richardson would head the agency. Congressional critics accused Clinton of trying to sidestep the law.
Richardson said Thursday he formed the search panel after receiving an assurance from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., that the senator would support legislation next year that assures that the energy secretary will have clear authority over the new agency.
Domenici said he would pursue the change sought by Richardson. He called the naming of the search committee ``a very positive step'' in getting disagreements over the nuclear agency resolved.
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Missiles Still a Threat
New York Times December 30, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/30/letters/l30dis.html
Related Articles
As Year 2000 Nears, U.S. Is Confident, Yet Cautious (Dec. 27, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/early/122799terrorist-tv.html
To the Editor:
John J. Hamre, the deputy secretary of defense, may feel that there is no longer a threat of an accidental nuclear launching from the Russians ("As Year 2000 Nears, U.S. Is Confident, Yet Cautious," news article, Dec. 27).
But thousands of Russian and United States nuclear weapons remain on high alert, ready to be launched on a few minutes' warning.
A slight miscalculation could bring unimaginable destruction. Because of the disarray in Russia, and because of the increased possibility of misreadings during the Year 2000 rollover period, President Clinton should strike an agreement with Russia to remove all nuclear weapons from high-alert status.
WENDY PERRON New York, Dec. 28, 1999
The writer is executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, New York City chapter.
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Missile defense an expensive and often repeated mistake
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Washington Post December 30, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/letter4-19991230.htm
James T. Hackett ends his column admonishing those who question the feasibility, legality or necessity of nationwide ballistic missile defenses by comparing the risk and difficulty of the current endeavor to President Kennedy's call in 1961 to send a manned mission to land on the moon and return safely to Earth ("Sorties against missile defenses," Commentary, Dec. 27). Mr. Hackett then argues that had Mr. Kennedy followed the Clinton administration's approach to missile defenses, "we probably would still be waiting" to go to the moon.
But there are many obvious and critical differences between journeying to the moon and attempting to thwart a ballistic missile attack of even modest size. For starters, the moon follows a predictable orbit; we always know precisely where it will be at any given time. Not so with either a deliberate or an accidental missile launch. The moon's predictability also means that we have lots of time to plan a launch and, if we miss the launch window, we can always try again. With missile defenses, you only have one chance to get it right, and you don't have the luxury of being able to decide when to try.
There also is only one moon. Our astronauts would never discover en route that there suddenly are a dozen or more moons - one real and the rest decoys - launched by Earthling-wary citizens of the moon. With missile defenses, however, a variety of simple and inexpensive decoy measures are available to anyone with the ability to build a ballistic missile, meaning that the job of identifying and destroying all the real warheads in the limited time available is significantly complicated.
Finally, the cost of failure with missile defenses is much, much higher. A failed moon mission would kill several astronauts. Reliance on a missile defense system that could never be fully tested under actual combat conditions, on the other hand, could jeopardize the lives of millions of Americans.
It's worth bearing in mind that since the mid-1950s, the United States has spent more than $120 billion attempting to defend against ballistic missile attacks, including some $23 billion for the ill-fated nuclear-tipped Safeguard system deployed briefly in North Dakota in late 1975. More than half of the total has been spent since Ronald Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983.
Before we repeat the expensive missile defense mistakes of the past, we should consider carefully whether expending additional billions for easily defeated systems of marginal effectiveness is in the national interest and whether other, nonmilitary measures might offer greater long-term security at less cost.
STEPHEN I. SCHWARTZ Publisher Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Chicago
Stephen Schwartz is also the editor and co-author of "Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940" (Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
Shrinking choices in the political arena
I find much irony in Monday's article regarding the Freedom in the World survey ("Liberty expands in century," World, Dec. 27). It mentions countries with "restricted democratic practices," defined as "countries with systems in which a single party exercises long-term political dominance and the role of opposition parties is limited."
In America, our system is dominated by Democrats and Republicans. Because there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two, they have effectively morphed into one party. Demopublicans advocate government as the solution to every problem. (Republicans mouth other sentiments but consistently vote for bigger government.)
That these Demopublicans do everything in their power to keep voters from having a real choice is irrefutable. Third parties such as the Libertarian Party must jump through hoop after hoop just to get their candidates' names on the ballot. Once on the ballot, such candidates are excluded routinely from media debates. While Demopublicans spend their money on saturating the airwaves with the same old rhetoric, third parties must spend their own money fighting the system Demopublicans have created just to be heard.
One must wonder: Are the Demopublicans afraid that Americans would reject them once given a true choice? When we have more choice in toothpaste brands than in the voting booth, how free are we? NOELLE STETTNER Falls Church
Bush's faith and the intolerance of the secularists
When Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a Republican presidential candidate, mentioned in an Iowa debate that Jesus Christ had changed his heart, little did he know how his comment would cause waves of fear to sweep the secular landscape.
Visions of veiled women and female genital mutilations compelled political pundits and liberal clergy to quickly denounce his comment as exclusionary and a turnoff to the patchwork of diversity that makes up the American quilt.
Chasing God from the public schools, and now the public square, requires a certain diligence. There is no guarantee the ensuing void won't be filled with something far more pernicious to our freedoms than Christian morality.
Society cannot operate in a moral vacuum for long. While liberals fret over the thought that somewhere in America, at any given moment, a conservative Christian is spoiling someone's fun, in march the environmentalists, fully intent on indoctrinating our youth while they impose their peculiar beliefs on the rest of us. Should they prevail, the restrictions these modern-day pagans place on economic growth, private property, what we eat and how we get around will make the Taleban green with envy.
You surely can bet that in the not-too-distant future, Americans will look back to the days when Christian values ruled the culture, and they will yearn for a return to the freedoms that offered. THOMAS M. BEATTIE Mount Vernon
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Humans, machines may swap roles in future
Washington Times December 30, 1999 By Kristina Stefanova
http://www.washtimes.com/business/business-19991230.htm
More and more, computerized and mechanical things are a part of daily life. Half a millennium from now, a robot maid might be waking folks, feeding them and taking them to work.
The machines of the future could be . . . human beings.
And humans could become machines.
More and more, computerized and mechanical things are a part of daily life. Roosters used to wake us in the morning. Now, a beeping digital alarm clock-radio does the job. Half a millennium from now, a robot maid might be waking folks, feeding them and taking them to work.
And the line between human beings and machines easily could be breached in the future. Higher-functioning computers will assume more human roles, including the ability to make decisions and direct other machines. Individuals will become more task-oriented, like most of today's machines.
"People will become computers," says Greg Bear, the author of more than 20 science fiction books, among them "Darwin's Radio," "Eon" and "Anvil of Stars."
"A person is a user, a computer is a tool," Mr. Bear says. "We are becoming more and more computerlike tools. And the other way around. Computers are becoming like people. They remember, record things. Our instincts will be to work with a machine, use a machine."
Hollywood long has explored the concept of machines becoming "human," from the renegade spaceship computer Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey" more than 30 years ago to the robot that is turned into a person in the new Robin Williams movie, "Bicentennial Man."
The movie-world fantasy is not so far-fetched, as Mr. Bear sees it.
Predictions for the end of the millennium have circulated for years. Some guessed robots would replace labor. Others foretold the end of the world.
Just two days short of 2000, the words of science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke come to mind: "The future isn't what it used to be."
"Thirty years ago, we were talking about things in the future," says Hugh Burns, a spokesman for Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation's largest defense company. "By 1987, we were supposed to have atomic-power vacuum cleaners and flying cars like the Jetsons. And where are they? But a lot of things people had no concept of exist right now."
Your Skycar is waiting
So what newfangled machinery does the future have in store? Dream programmers, virtual reality, more robots?
Moller International, a California company, already is testing a prototype four-passenger flying car. As early as 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration could certify the M400 Skycar as air worthy.
In the next 1,000 years, Frank Vizard, technology editor at Popular Science magazine in New York, imagines the development of computerized headgear that can instantaneously transmit messages, almost like telepathy.
"Sort of like a mental cell phone," Mr. Vizard says.
He also envisions robot dogs programmed to fetch the newspaper in the morning and "Star Trek"-like computers that react to the human voice. Voice-activated computers already are in the early stages of development.
"There will be a variety of technologies so small that they would be so integrated into your daily life that they would be like throwaway Post Its," Mr. Vizard predicts.
The question is how those new technologies will affect people over the next 500 or 1,000 years.
"Imagine asking someone in the Middle Ages what life would be like today," says Fred Edwords, editor of the Humanist, a publication of the American Humanist Association, a D.C. nonprofit that tracks the human condition. "They couldn't have imagined, couldn't have come close to where we are today."
Machines evolve
When the first computer - the size of a living room, as heavy as several elephants - was developed 30 years ago, nobody could have known it would become as commonplace as it is today.
Nowadays, computers the size of wristwatches are being introduced.
"This is a period of unusually rapid change," says William J. Raduschel, technology chief at Sterling, Va.-based America Online, the world's largest Internet service provider. "We are in the middle of an exciting 50 years. But 25 years from now most of the change will have happened. The current technology can't continue for a thousand years.
"As machines become more powerful they let you build other, more powerful machines," he says. "This generation of computers could not have existed without the previous one."
The complexity and capacity of computers increase with each minute, yet their size diminishes. Relatively soon, maybe in the next century, computers will be the size of electrons. We're talking tiny.
"People are talking about biological computers, optical computers, new forms of storage that are very different technologies from what we know," Mr. Raduschel says.
In the next 100 to 200 years, computers will work by re-creating the way the brain operates, adding complexity to the machines of today.
Computers already play a larger role in the operation of everything from Oldsmobiles to ovens.
Cars that can monitor themselves and issue warnings when something goes wrong were only the beginning. Computers that act as co-pilots, telling drivers how to get where they're going, will become pervasive. The ability to build ovens that refrigerate food until it's time to start cooking exists now. And today's ideas are tomorrow's machines.
At work
One advantage to the influx of machines is that the same number of human beings will be able to work on far more complex projects.
Computers have to a large extent already made this reality. But in the future the scale of the projects will increase, scientists say.
In the 1940s, for example, designing a building involved a few men drawing on paper, going back to it later, calculating, erasing and redrawing. Today, computer programs do the drawing and calculations; architects and engineers can design a building in far less time.
So perhaps developing technologies won't replace humanity, but simply will continue to change the nature of jobs.
Examples already can be found in the workplace: Computers now do inventory, so clerks don't have to count boxes in a storage room. Scanners at checkout counters not only register prices, but log inventory and even reorder items that are running low.
Perhaps the most drastic effect of relatively inexpensive, widely available technology on work is that employees no longer will have to travel to perform their jobs.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 21 million of us already telecommute at least one day a week, up from 4 million in 1990. The bureau projects that number will rise to 51 million by 2030.
And if machines are going to do more of the work, the question of who will run them becomes important, as evidenced by the current shortage of qualified employees for the high-tech industry. Employees who are able to keep up with or stay ahead of new technology will only increase in value.
Dale Vonhaase, a member of the corporate science and engineering staff at Lockheed Martin, says it is just as likely that jobs will be created, not just eliminated, to accommodate new technology.
Life-changing effect
Scientists envision a world where machines make, fix, work with and watch other machines. No later than 500 years from now, some say, humans no longer will be needed to perform most jobs.
For example, a repairman won't fix a car anymore - a machine will. "It's inevitable that machines become a larger part of life because it's better for the consumer and better for the manufacturer," Mr. Raduschel says. "If the motor of your dishwasher knows that it's going to fail within six weeks and it can notify its manufacturer that it needs repair, and someone shows up at your house before it breaks, you are ecstatic as a consumer -and the manufacturer is saving on the warranty."
But machines will progress far beyond that, actually creating human life.
By using genetic engineering, a machine can design a baby. Although a mother still will give birth, a machine will have assigned the baby's sex, coloring, favorite pastimes and inclination in life, whether artistic or technical.
"Just wait until we have created a novel life form we have to give definition to," Mr. Bear says. "The moral and ethical dilemmas of creating a life are well beyond those raised by the digital revolution."
Mr. Edwords predicts biotechnology, specifically nanotechnology - the designing of molecular machines - will be the next big revolution.
"So just imagine preprogrammed molecular machines fixing up things in your body," he says. "You just inject them into your body where there is tissue damage and it goes in and restructures the organism to grow new tissues. Just imagine it."
Of course, humanity's judgment on this version of the future will be key.
Concerns about developing technologies, such as biotechnology, are heightened even today. Europeans and many Americans are refusing to buy and eat genetically engineered foods, and all over the world religious groups are protesting human genetic engineering.
Free thinkers?
If the fears of a millennium bug provide a clear lesson, it's that machines are so pervasive that modern societies have grown dependent on them.
So how independent human beings will be in a world of even more machines is the subject of much debate.
"Freedom is the big question for us in the future - how to determine if you have that freedom," Mr. Bear says. "Some people will want to advance themselves [by using new technologies]. Other people are going to try and prevent them from doing it."
As surely as the Puritans burned "witches" at the stake in the 16th century and Sen. Joseph McCarthy hunted communists in the 1950s, some in the future will fear technology's increased role in their lives and stand up against it.
Such concerns could turn out to be well founded, as evolving machines have less need for humans.
"We can't count on ancient value systems to be of much use now or in the future," Mr. Edwords says. "We have to develop new moral standards to go along with new, modern technologies we are developing. We need a whole new way we think about this."
Mr. Raduschel, on the other hand, argues that the "grand fantasies that machines will control everything are simply erroneous."
"I think that humans will push back," he says. "We as a society will want to put the limit on how far technology can go."
Speeding communications
Communications technology has made breathtaking strides since Samuel Morse invented the telegraph in 1837.
These days, a teen-age girl in Venice can type on her laptop while being rowed through the city's canals. With the click of a button, she can send news of her adventure to her best friend in New York.
In the middle of the next millennium, those two girlfriends wouldn't have to send e-mails overseas. They could meet in the world of virtual reality simply by putting on "goggles," even if they couldn't transport themselves in much the same way characters in TV's "Star Trek" beam up, down and around. (Many scoff, but some speculate teletransportation will be possible within the next 1,000 years.)
The future of communications is much debated among engineers, Mr. Raduschel says. The day may not be far when babies are assigned telephone numbers and e-mail addresses at birth. And the existing line between the voice-sensitive telephone and the text-and-photo-driven Internet is destined to disappear as teleconferencing becomes the norm.
When the U.S. military invented the Internet in the 1970s, it was meant for communications in case of nuclear war. Today, the complex web of information is used by everyone from the world of academia to those teen-age girls sharing first love stories via e-mail.
New age of weaponry
New communications technology will be critical in war during the next 1,000 years.
"War is a complex system that is all information-based," Mr. Raduschel says.
Specifications and blueprints of one Navy warship weighed more than the ammunition it carried, he notes.
What happens when information systems are the key to winning wars was the main topic at a recent planning meeting at Lockheed Martin.
"A defense system needs to talk to another system somewhere else," Mr. Vonhaase says. "Twenty-five years from now, the [defense] industry will be dominated by information - between platforms, weapons systems, people. That's an enormous amount of information. The trick is to sort out which of those pieces of information are important to the war fighter. Because if they knew everything, they wouldn't be able to digest it."
Scientists and engineers say manual weapons most likely will disappear. They will be replaced by more efficient, cheaper and easier-to-make biological weapons that dispense viruses and diseases.
Mr. Edwords, the Humanist editor, predicts the day when almost anyone could have access to germ warfare.
"Now minor powers can have these kinds of weapons," he says. "Wait until not only dictators but terrorists have all kinds of germ weapons. If computer viruses can spread the way they do, pretty soon diseases will be the same way.
"We have to figure out how to control this sort of weapon," he says.
Traveling through space
One guarantee for the near term is more space travel, Mr. Bear predicts.
"The space tourist industry is a good investment for long term, 20 to 30 years from now," he says. "I'd put my money on that. Because if you could go even on a small orbital flight for $10,000, would you go? Yeah, people would. Tens of thousands of people would."
Mr. Bear sees space tourism becoming a reality as soon as the next decade. Companies already are putting out brochures and taking reservations.
Space-travel advocates who attended the first U.S. Space Tourism Conference in the District last summer said the public could begin suborbital, up-and-down trips like Alan Shepherd - the first U.S. astronaut in space - as soon as 2002.
A Seattle-based adventure travel company, Zegrahm Expeditions, has taken 250 reservations since October 1997 for a seven-day flight into space that it hopes to offer late in 2002 at the price of $98,000 per person.
Sixty adventurers have paid at least $5,000 of the $98,000; 10 have paid for the entire trip.
Orbital trips would follow in the next 100 to 200 years, allowing us to circumnavigate the globe about 180 miles above the Earth, experts say.
So the next step is creating the vehicles that would allow space tourism.
"It's hard to get venture capitalists to look in that now," Mr. Bear says. "Now they want to spend money on the Internet."
A millennium from now, he predicts, inhabitants of Earth will have left - either on long space adventures or to permanently live on space stations or other planets.
"Our descendants will be making very different choices," Mr. Bear says. "They will be farther away from us than we have ever been from a medieval person. By the end of the next millennium, we won't even be able to recognize our surroundings - if we are still around, and we could be."
---
Ike, Reagan Ended Terms Strongly
Associated Press December 30, 1999 Filed at 3:17 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Other-Presidents.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline151720_000.htm
In their last years in office, President Eisenhower saw a Soviet summit shot down and President Reagan saw the Cold War begin to thaw. They were the last two presidents to serve two full terms.
Eisenhower's final months in office were consumed by his fight with communism. Earlier, he sent the first American military advisers to help South Vietnam fight the communist-supported Viet Cong.
In 1960, just before Eisenhower left to meet with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Paris, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane flying over its territory. When Eisenhower refused to apologize, Khrushchev boycotted and the summit was called off. The Kremlin leader uninvited Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union.
Less than a month before he left office, Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba after communist dictator Fidel Castro seized property that U.S. companies held in the island nation.
The end of the Reagan era brought an easing of U.S.-Soviet tension. Reagan met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow and they agreed to begin to reduce nuclear missiles. If not for that thaw, it would have been a lean year for the administration, which was entangled in the Iran-contra affair. The scandal erupted over sales of U.S. weapons to Iran and the use of the profits to help Nicaraguan rebels known as the contras.
-----------
Widower sues beryllium company
December 30, 1999 BY SAM ROE BLADE SENIOR WRITER http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/beryllium/9l30bery.htm
The widower of Marilyn Miller, a woman whose long battle with beryllium disease was chronicled in The Blade, filed suit yesterday against Brush Wellman, Inc., the company where she allegedly contracted her fatal illness.
"Brush Wellman knew of a dangerous condition and knew that dangerous condition was substantially certain to cause some injury,'' said Rick Alkire, a Cleveland attorney representing the Miller family.
Mrs. Miller was exposed to toxic beryllium dust while working as a secretary at a former Brush beryllium plant in nearby Luckey. In an interview before her death in April, 1998, she said she never thought she was in danger. She said no one told her beryllium dust could harm her, that workers in other plants had died, or that her plant was exceeding safety limits.
"If I had known that, I wouldn't have worked there,'' she said.
The Blade story, published in March and April as part of a six-day series on the hazards of beryllium, detailed Mrs. Miller's final days, and final hours.
It described how she learned in 1969 that she had beryllium disease, a progressive lung illness caused by the metal's dust, and how the illness slowly stole her ability to breathe.
She was 68 when she died and had spent her last 10 years tethered to an oxygen tank.
The wife of a Bradner dairy farmer, she used to climb up in the silo and help toss out the silage.
In her last few months, she didn't have the strength to wash herself.
"Those who did this should be held responsible,'' her widower, Jack, said yesterday.
He said he watched his wife slowly slip away. "It's probably the worst way to go, when you can't get any air."
Yet she was not the only one in the family with beryllium disease. Her youngest son, Dave, contracted the illness while working at Brush's main processing plant, near Elmore.
His mother begged him not to work there, but he didn't listen. He was diagnosed with the illness in 1983.
Jack Miller's lawsuit, a wrongful-death claim, was filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in Cleveland where Brush Wellman has its headquarters. It alleges that Brush knew Mrs. Miller was being exposed to high levels of beryllium dust.
The suit states Mrs. Miller worked at the beryllium plant in Luckey from about 1949 to 1953. During that time, the plant was making beryllium for weapons for the U.S. government.
And during that time, the old U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which oversaw nuclear weapons production, had a contract with Brush that required the beryllium firm to meet certain safety standards, the suit states. Among those standards was a limit on the amount of beryllium dust that workers could be exposed to.
The suit alleges that Brush knew that its workers, including Mrs. Miller, were being exposed to beryllium dust above the safety limit.
Furthermore, the suit states that Brush knew the safety limit was not sufficient to protect workers from disease in the first place.
The suit seeks damages in excess of $25,000.
Brush spokesman Hugh Hanes said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
The company is America's leading beryllium producer, with facilities in several states including the 780-worker Elmore plant.
Beryllium is a strong, lightweight metal used in the defense, automotive, and electronics industries.
At least 10 other suits have been filed against Brush in recent months. Most allege the company knowingly exposed workers at the Elmore plant to unsafe conditions.
The Blade series detailed how the U.S. government and the beryllium industry, primarily Brush Wellman, repeatedly put production of the metal ahead of safety.
Among the findings: Over the last five decades, the government and beryllium industry knowingly allowed thousands of workers to be exposed to levels of beryllium dust over the safety limit.
An estimated 1,200 people have contracted beryllium disease nationwide since the 1940s, including 65 current or former workers at the Elmore plant.
----------- terrorism
Bombing suspect had military explosives
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 09:26 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm#pent
SEATTLE - The Algerian man caught at the U.S.-Canadian border earlier this month and charged with explosives smuggling wasn't carrying nitroglycerine, as previously thought. Instead, he allegedly had a rarer, more powerful explosive commonly used by the military, officials said. Ahmed Ressam was arrested Dec. 14 in Port Angeles. According to federal officials, he was carrying 200 pounds of a fertilizer called urea, four rudimentary timing devices and two jars of liquid. According to federal court documents released Tuesday, the liquid thought to be nitroglycerine turned out to be RDX, or cyclotrimethylene trinitramine, one of the most powerful explosives in the world, used by military forces around the world for demolition.
---
Fighting terrorism
Washington Times December 30, 1999 John R. Kasich
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/Kasich-19991230.htm
Terrorists are intent on causing real harm to American citizens, and Americans are wondering why. The answer says much about our world, our heritage and our responsibility as leaders of the free world and civilized people.
Terrorists attack free people all over the globe, not just Americans. However, America is the crown jewel of civilized society. When terrorists attempt to kill Americans, they are not only seeking to shatter our confidence and shake our very foundation, but also to send a message well beyond our borders: No one is safe; we despise your values, and we will kill any human being in order to change the order of the world.
Bringing change through peaceful means, by winning an election or pursuing fundamental reform under the rule of law, is not a consideration of terrorist organizations. Such action would require persistence, the power of persuasion and respect for opposing points-of-view. It would mean that human life was to be held in the highest regard and that a link is clearly established between mankind and our Creator - the giver of life.
Terrorists may use the blood of innocent victims to intimidate the strong, but their real message is directed at the vulnerable. Through a pattern of senseless violence, accompanied by acquiescence or downright fear on the part of victims and bystanders alike, they hope for a bargain or negotiation they cannot win in a civilized, democratic way. They attempt to drive up the stakes and make us question if the price of insisting on our way is something we can afford. They hope to turn us against our leaders in the name of peace.
We can take a lesson from Steven Ambrose's book about the American GI in World War II, "Citizen Soldier," an amazing portrait of ordinary U.S. citizens in combat against the opponents of freedom. It showed that everyday Americans could be heroes. Americans recognized the need to fight for the values of the civilized world. Compromise and conciliation were out of the question. Our common commitment made the world safe for democracy. Today's terrorist war is fought on a different battlefield but it is about the same issues - maintaining justice, the rule of law, respect for human life, and democratic institutions. This war can only be won with the same commitment by each citizen that an earlier generation of Americans demonstrated more than a half-century ago.
Sometimes Americans feel that we carry a burden that is far greater than our fair share. We become frustrated as we sense that others on our team resent us and question our motives. Even as the leader of the free world, we feel tempted at times to just take care of ourselves. But we must remember that we, as a nation, have received many blessings. And with those blessings comes a responsibility to shoulder the burdens of leadership and stand in the breach against those forces that threaten the future of a civilized world. We have done so before. We can, and must, do so again.
Rep. John R. Kasich is an Ohio Republican.
---
Bauer hits 'hurdles'
Washington Times December 30, 1999
http://208.246.212.80/national/inpolitics.htm
Conservative activist Gary Bauer called yesterday for easing restrictions on CIA operatives working to gather information abroad about terrorist groups.
"I don't understand many of the restrictions in place for the CIA," Mr. Bauer said. "They've got the ability to discover in foreign countries what might be planned or what might be happening with certain terrorist groups."
Mr. Bauer pointed to recent arrests of people who crossed into the country carrying terrorist material as evidence that intelligence gathering needs to be strengthened, the Associated Press reports.
"There are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles that the agency had to jump through now that they didn't in the past," Mr. Bauer said, causing "a very bad decline in the morale of the agents and the sense they had to be so careful about how they used informants . . . that we were missing out of a lot of very important information. There have been a number of embarrassments lately."
Former CIA Director James Woolsey has complained that rules governing how foreigners are used as informants have become overly restrictive, preventing operatives from using human rights violators.
As he opened a two-day campaign swing in Iowa, where caucuses on Jan. 24 launch the presidential nominating season, Mr. Bauer pointed to the border episodes as evidence that intelligence gathering is lacking.
"I think we've got to be more serious about securing our borders," he said.
Mr. Bauer said he spoke with Mr. Woolsey about the issue and shares his concern. "In the last 20 years we've put restrictions on both the CIA and the FBI on what they are allowed to do to counter situations like this."
---
Prudence may be party pooper but terrorist risk is too real
USA Today 12/29/99- Updated 12:17 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/edtwof.htm
In canceling Seattle's long-planned millennial gathering beneath the city's world-famous Space Needle on Tuesday, Mayor Paul Schell stated the obvious: "It is safer to be prudent."
But then for no other event have people received so many obvious warnings that terrorists may be afoot.
Nothing prepared the public for the bombings at New York City's World Trade Center in 1993 or Oklahoma City's federal building in 1995. And only the Olympics' bloody history, most notably Munich in 1972, foretold the bombing at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
This time more than vague feelings of danger abound.
In Jordan this month, authorities arrested 13 people associated with U.S. Embassy bomber Osama bin Laden on suspicion of planning attacks. Near Seattle, an Algerian was arrested on Dec. 14 for allegedly trying to bring a trunkful of explosives from Canada. A Canadian woman and Algerian man arrested in Vermont on Dec. 19 are being held in jail because of alleged links to a terrorist group.
At the same time, the State Department has issued a series of warnings to Americans abroad to keep their guard up, while the FBI has told mail recipients here to beware of suspicious packages from Frankfurt, Germany.
One result of all this has been a rash of false alarms. On Monday, four people arrested at Washington's border with Canada initially were mistakenly linked to terrorists; it appears they were, at worst, illegal immigrants. And one Frankfurt package blown up by Sandwich, Mass., authorities contained merely chocolate bars and a music box.
Federal officials traverse a fine line in encouraging caution while not prompting panic. President Clinton hued to it in a (italic)60 Minutes II (/italic)interview that aired Monday: "I would say to the American people, they should go on about their business and celebrate the holidays as they would, but they should be aware."
If he or others have more information, the best course is to disclose it so people can judge for themselves the risks they face.
In Seattle, Mayor Schell says none of the federal or local safety officials he consulted told him of any specific threats, but they couldn't "rule out the area as a terrorist target."
Critics contend that destructive protests earlier this month at the world trade conference in his city have made the mayor too timid.
They may be right. And certainly there is no need to panic. But there's also no denying "it is safer to be prudent." Especially in the face of clear warnings.
---
Feds link Vt., Wash. border arrests
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 11:23 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndsthu03.htm
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - A Canadian woman and an Algerian man arrested at border entries in Vermont and Washington state are members of the same cell of an Algerian terrorist organization, federal prosecutors said today.
The prosecutors made the link before asking a magistrate to continue to deny bail for Lucia Garofalo until her trial.
''This is a defendant who is working to assist terrorist organizations,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin said in court.
In court documents, prosecutors said Ms. Garofalo and Ahmed Ressam were in the same cell of the GIA. GIA is the French abbreviation for the Armed Islamic Group, the fundamentalist faction held responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks in Algeria's nearly eight-year civil war. It has also been blamed for bombings in France in 1995 and 1996.
Ressam faces charges of trying to smuggle explosives and timing devices into Washington from Canada on Dec. 14.
Ms. Garofalo was arrested five days later at a Vermont border crossing with an Algerian man. She was linked before today to what prosecutors described as a terrorist group operating in Europe and Algeria but not to Ressam.
Deputy U.S. Attorney David Kirby made no direct links between Ms. Garofalo and Ressam other than their alleged membership in the same terrorist cell.
The prosecutor said the information he used in his court filing came from a foreign government, which he did not identify.
The document says that Ms. Garofalo's husband is Yamin Rachek, an Algerian national who was expelled from Canada after presenting a false passport.
Rachek, who now lives in Italy, was arrested in London in 1996 for allegedly using an altered Greek passport. He also faces an outstanding arrest warrant in Germany for theft, authorities said.
Ms. Garofalo has sought unsuccessfully to persuade Canada to allow Rachek back into the country. In 1997, she allegedly arranged with a man named Said Atmani to buy her an airline ticket to travel to Germany and to hire a lawyer for her husband, Kirby said.
''The foreign government reports that Atmani is a documents forger for the GIA, a violent Algerian terrorist organization,'' Kirby wrote. ''The foreign government also reports that at one time Atmani and Ahmed Ressam, the man recently arrested in the Seattle area, were roommates.''
Kirby said that government reported that in 1997 it monitored a conversation between GIA members who spoke of a man living at the time in Germany whose Italian wife lived in Canada.
''The foreign government reports that these two members of the GIA are in the same cell of that organization as Ahmed Ressam, the man recently arrested in the Seattle area,'' Kirby said in his court filing. The documents did not elaborate on how big the cell was.
Ms. Garofalo faces minor immigration charges. She and another man, Bouabide Chamchi, were arrested Dec. 19 at the remote border crossing at Beecher Falls.
Chamchi, an Algerian national, already has been ordered held without bail until his trail.
The arrests of Ms. Garofalo, 35, and Chamchi, 20, combined with the arrest a week earlier of Ressam have stirred fears of terrorist attacks.
---
Precautionary arrests made in Mideast
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 06:17 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#fema12/30/99- Updated 06:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON - In what U.S. officials describe as a precautionary move, authorities in several Middle Eastern and other countries have made an unspecified number of arrests since the breakup of a suspect terrorist cell in Jordan. The bust itself provided information clearly linking Saudi expatriate Osama bin Laden with a planned attack in Jordan, said the head of the State Department's office to counter terrorism, and it ''told us we ought to be worried about other groups." The recent arrests were not based on hard evidence that the people detained belonged to terrorist groups, including a network the U.S. government believes is headed by bin Laden, officials said. Unless questioning produces useful or incriminating information, they are likely to be released early next year, the officials said.
---------- y2k
FEMA Awaits the Stroke of Midnight
By Brigitte Greenberg Associated Press, Dec. 30, 1999; 10:04 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline100421_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of federal emergency officials have fanned out across the country and will await the stroke of midnight in each U.S. time zone Friday with an eye toward Y2K disaster.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has established 10 regional centers to monitor potential catastrophes in the United States and its territories.
Beginning today, FEMA will have its emergency support team in full gear around the clock through Sunday. More than 800 personnel will be working through the weekend.
The agency can draw on resources from as many as 26 federal agencies and the Red Cross if Y2K emergencies arise.
"FEMA is confident that nothing serious will happen, but we are prepared to respond just like we would for any other natural disaster or any other emergency situation," said Robert Adamcik, associate director for FEMA response and recovery.
Preparing for 18 months, the agency's officials have rehearsed a multitude of scenarios, including explosions, power outages and nuclear disaster.
FEMA officials said they will constantly gather information from state and local governments throughout the weekend, monitoring them with an automated system that assigns a green light to communities that are OK, a yellow light to those where an emergency is suspected but information is incomplete, and a red light for a confirmed disaster.
FEMA would be called in only after a state's governor asked President Clinton to declare a federal disaster area.
"Some of the things that we can provide under the plan range from mass care that Red Cross can provide, food through the Department of Agriculture, transportation, communications, search and rescue or emergency medical and pharmaceuticals, should those be needed by state and local government," said Bruce Baughman, chief of operations for FEMA response and recovery.
The Health and Human Services Department, Centers for Disease Control and Defense Department have gas masks and antidotes in the event of chemical or biological terrorism, FEMA spokesman Marc Wolfson said.
Officials emphasized that they had not received any specific threats, but extra security measures were introduced at federal buildings across the country this week, said Bob Dunfey, the regional administrator of the General Services Administration in New England.
At the federal courthouse in Boston, visitors and courthouse employees were asked to produce photo identification to enter the building.
In Scranton, Pa., officials told visitors to the federal courthouse to park in nearby lots rather than on the street right outside, allowing the building to have a buffer, said Dave Branham, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals.
Even if a significant disaster arises that is not related to Y2K, such as an unexpected weather phenomenon, FEMA would respond, Adamcik said. However, certain emergencies - cyber terrorism, local civil disturbances, a national security emergency or long-term economic recovery - would fall under the purview of other agencies.
President Clinton's top Y2K expert, John Koskinen, said stores appear to be fully supplied if people wish to stock up on water or other provisions for parties or a long midwinter weekend.
---
MILLENNIUM ROUNDUP Security Tightened in Jerusalem
New York Times December 30, 1999
From COMBINED WIRE SERVICES
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/30millennium.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/regional/123099ny-newyear-map.1.GIF.html
JERUSALEM -- Jerusalem bristled with security forces Thursday as the city prepared for the most momentous day of the year -- the last Friday in the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which happens to coincide with the last day of the second Christian millennium.
The Israeli army and police were out in force at all sites where crowds might congregate, most notably the labyrinthine alleyways of the Old City in east Jerusalem, the Arab part of the city occupied and annexed in June 1967.
Their numbers will be upped even further on Friday evening and throughout the night, with some 20,000 security forces and volunteers mobilised to ensure order.
On Wednesday, an Israeli Arab was arrested in the Old City, trying to enter the Compound of the Two Holy Mosques -- known to Jews as Temple Mount -- carrying a machine gun. The site is holy to both Muslims and Jews.
Moscow's Children to Celebrate Year and Peace
MOSCOW -- Revellers on Moscow's Red Square will be raising their vodka glasses to welcome in the New Year no less than 11 times Friday -- each time midnight breaks in the 11 time zones the vast Russian Federation spans.
Up to 50,000 revellers should crowd into the capital's chilly streets. Local authorities have drawn up a glittering program of festivities at a cost of 40 million rubles. As the clock strikes, the band will roll: Muscovites on the central Pushkin and Lubianka squares will be boogying on down at a massive outdoor pop concert.
The high point of the evening will be midnight Moscow-time, when dozens of schoolchildren will put on a peace performance. They will burn paper tanks, missiles and weapons on the central Tverskaya Square.
Wishing Her Majesty a Happy New Year
LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth will have plenty to see when she attends Britain's showpiece millennium event -- a male and female acrobat will perform what organisers say will be an erotic aerial ballet.
What is more Jean Paul Zaccarini, 29, and Abigail Yeates, 30, will appear to be naked to the audience 145 ft below because they will be wearing sheer bodystockings and skimpy underwear for their "Lovers' Duet."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey, spiritual head of the world's 70 million Anglicans, are due to be among the guests.
Race in South Pacific to Birth Millennial Baby
WELLINGTON -- A frantic search will begin in New Zealand and the Pacific islands in the early hours of Saturday to identify the first baby born in 2000.
Following a request from Israel for the name of the millennium baby as soon as possible, New Zealand's TV3 will have a team dedicated to finding the right one in an operation to be treated with "utmost sensitivity."
TV3 millennium spokeswoman Jude Turner said an Israeli television station wanted to plant an olive tree in honour of the child in a traditional ceremony that will be screened live throughout Israel.
But there will no doubt be confusion across New Zealand -- the first industrialized country to greet the New Year.
Antarctica's 24 Times Zones Brace for Party
SCOTT BASE, Antarctica -- University of Chicago graduate student John Kovac is not content to celebrate the arrival of the New Year once. He wants to welcome in the third millennium 24 times.
A physicist studying the ancient origins of the universe through the pristine dry polar air, Kovac is one of around 200 scientists and support staff who on December 31 will be at the United States' Amundsen-Scott Base at the South Pole.
The pole has a foot in all the world's main 24 time zones, although for practical reasons the base sticks to just one.
The Last Sunset
APIA, Samoa -- A village in the South Pacific island of Samoa will claim its place in history as the last territory to see the sunset in 1999, hours after the new millennium has already dawned on other parts of Asia.
Hundreds of people, including at least six wedding parties, have flocked to the tiny village of Falealupo on the western-most coast of the largest Samoan island of Savai'i to witness the last sunset of the century.
The U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department has said Falealupo, nestling close to the eastern side of the international dateline at 13 degrees 25' South, 172 degrees 45' West, should see the last sunset of the millennium at 7.02 p.m. on Friday (0602 GMT on Saturday).
In the capital Apia on the main island of Upolu, a prayer service and police band will mark the start of an official New Year's Eve program to be followed by a fashion show, a fire knife dance and a concert.
China's Gift to World Leaders: Tiananmen Slabs
BEIJING -- China has a millennium gift for world leaders -- chunks from what was once Tiananmen Square, the political heart of the country and centre of student-led demonstrations for democracy crushed by the army in 1989.
The Society of Chinese History is sending chunks of the old Tiananmen Square pavement to leaders of more than 170 countries which have diplomatic relations with China and "outstanding" Chinese at home and abroad, the Beijing Evening News said.
It did not say in its report on Thursday how the chunks, each numbered and measuring 4.7 by 3.8 inches and 21 mm thick, would be delivered.
East Timor May Be Late for Its Own Party
DILI, East Timor -- When the clock strikes midnight on December 31, East Timor will herald the start of the next millennium as the newest nation on earth.
The problem is deciding which midnight to celebrate in the ravaged territory only just released from 23 years under Indonesian control.
Its past rulers, the argument goes, put it in the wrong time zone at eight hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. Its geographic location should make it nine hours ahead.
There are no clear records to say who or what is behind the anomaly. Some say the decision was made by the Portuguese colonial rulers, but most blame their successors, Indonesia, who allegedly turned the clock back one hour for military expediency.
South Koreans to Ring 'Peace Bell' in Divided Korea
SEOUL -- A Russian helmet, an Israeli rifle and a rusty piece from a U.S. warship have all been melted together to make a bell that will ring in the new millennium on the Korean Peninsula.
North and South Korea are technically still at war, with no peace treaty ever signed following the 1950-53 Korean War.
When the new year arrives, the Peace Bell will toll as 10,000 South Koreans gathered in the border village of Imjingak make their collective "new millennium wish" -- peace at home. Imjingak is 31 miles north of Seoul, just outside of the demilitarized zone that separates communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea.
The 12-foot, 21-ton bell was made mainly of bronze. But the artists threw in some items collected from the world's major battlefields, including a piece from the USS Arizona, which was sunk during Japan's 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the United States into World War II.
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For the Record
Thursday, December 30, 1999; Page A30
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/30/079l-123099-idx.html
From remarks by Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K Cooperation Center, at the Foreign Press Center yesterday:
On the question of . . . [nuclear weapons], the good news is that weapons take people to be launched. Computers don't launch weapons. And so there's no concern that there will be any accidental launches of nuclear weapons.
The only issue in the weapons area that has been of concern is whether there might be a problem on advanced early-warning systems. And the two countries that operate those sophisticated systems are the United States and Russia, and for those countries they have now set up a joint Y2K center in Colorado, where they'll be monitoring each other's warning information. So if there is any confusion or erroneous data that gets into those systems, they'll be in contact with each other. . . .
On the nuclear power plant side, we issued a report on nuclear power plants about a week ago. And the conclusion of that was that there are no safety issues with respect to nuclear power plants for the immediate period, but that there is still work remaining to be done in nuclear power plants, particularly in Eastern Europe and Russia, and that it is important that that work continue, because if not, then there could be an erosion of the safety margins over a period of weeks in January and February.
-----------
Poll: Most shrugging off Y2K
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 09:26 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm#pent
Despite a blitz of stories about potential computer glitches, power meltdowns and terrorist attacks, most Americans are ignoring the dangers and say they are intent on welcoming the new year. Only 22% in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll Tuesday say they are afraid. Sixty-six percent of those surveyed say they are unlikely to change their behavior or take special precautions. Nevertheless, 61% say one or more terrorist attacks against the United States are very or somewhat likely New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.
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Feds Stand Ready for Disaster
By The Associated Press December 30, 1999 Filed at 1:48 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Y2K-US.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline014836_000.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hundreds of federal emergency officials have fanned out across the country and will await the stroke of midnight in each U.S. time zone Friday with an eye toward Y2K disaster.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has established 10 regional centers to monitor potential catastrophes in the United States and its territories.
Beginning today, FEMA will have its emergency support team in full gear around the clock through Sunday. More than 800 personnel will be working through the weekend.
The agency can draw on resources from as many as 26 federal agencies and the Red Cross if Y2K emergencies arise.
``FEMA is confident that nothing serious will happen, but we are prepared to respond just like we would for any other natural disaster or any other emergency situation,'' said Robert Adamcik, associate director for FEMA response and recovery.
Preparing for 18 months, the agency's officials have rehearsed a multitude of scenarios, including explosions, power outages and nuclear disaster.
FEMA officials said they will constantly gather information from state and local governments throughout the weekend, monitoring them with an automated system that assigns a green light to communities that are OK, a yellow light to those where an emergency is suspected but information is incomplete, and a red light for a confirmed disaster.
FEMA would be called in only after a state's governor asked President Clinton to declare a federal disaster area.
``Some of the things that we can provide under the plan range from mass care that Red Cross can provide, food through the Department of Agriculture, transportation, communications, search and rescue or emergency medical and pharmaceuticals, should those be needed by state and local government,'' said Bruce Baughman, chief of operations for FEMA response and recovery.
The Health and Human Services Department, Centers for Disease Control and Defense Department have gas masks and antidotes in the event of chemical or biological terrorism, FEMA spokesman Marc Wolfson said.
Officials emphasized that they had not received any specific threats, but extra security measures were introduced at federal buildings across the country this week, said Bob Dunfey, the regional administrator of the General Services Administration in New England.
At the federal courthouse in Boston, visitors and courthouse employees were asked to produce photo identification to enter the building.
In Scranton, Pa., officials told visitors to the federal courthouse to park in nearby lots rather than on the street right outside, allowing the building to have a buffer, said Dave Branham, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals.
Even if a significant disaster arises that is not related to Y2K, such as an unexpected weather phenomenon, FEMA would respond, Adamcik said. However, certain emergencies -- cyber terrorism, local civil disturbances, a national security emergency or long-term economic recovery -- would fall under the purview of other agencies.
President Clinton's top Y2K expert, John Koskinen, said stores appear to be fully supplied if people wish to stock up on water or other provisions for parties or a long midwinter weekend.
---
Millennium Bug Impact Unknown
By Frank Bajak Associated Press Writer Thursday, Dec. 30, 1999; 4:40 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991230/aponline164011_000.htm
Up against the deadline for fixing an unprecedented technological blunder, the world exhibited some jitters Thursday over the prospect of failures in the computers on which we so depend. There was testing galore and a few confessions of Y2K-unreadiness.
Experts say that given this planet's hundreds of millions of computers and tens of billions of embedded microcircuits - and the inexactitude of computer science - some failures are inevitable on Jan. 1 and in the ensuing weeks and months.
Governments and companies have been too vague on their Y2K preparedness, however, for anyone to predict the scope and severity of this once-in-a-lifetime shock to the systems.
And when cyber-disasters strike - be they in small businesses' workstations or government mainframes - getting systems back on line will depend on the quality and thoroughness of any initial Y2K repairs.
"If you've done a majority of work you can sort of get that thing fixed in a few days," said Peter de Jager, a Paul Revere of Y2K awareness. "If on the other hand you haven't done much work at all it could take a few weeks to fix."
News of a Y2K glitch that this week triggered failures in 20,000 credit-card swipe machines in Britain sent Chinese troubleshooters hurriedly checking their nation's banking systems Thursday - with no problems reported.
Technicians in the United States made last minute Y2K repairs Thursday to a vital air safety system. And 352 nonessential U.S. diplomats and their families left Russia and three former Soviet republics deemed at high risk of Y2K-induced power and telecommunications outages.
South Korea's government also worked diligently, checking systems to the end. It declared itself fully prepared on Thursday after a final test involving 14,000 technicians from 620 government offices, Internet providers and businesses.
Officials on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada also claimed readiness, but admitted that government computers that track import tax revenues had not been purged of the software flaw.
Central banks across the globe have printed tens of billions of dollars worth of currency - from 10 to 40 percent more than normal - to hedge against possible bank runs, though experts are fairly confident the financial sector is in good shape.
Most worrisome to analysts are manufacturers and their supply chains, small businesses and government agencies, particularly in vulnerable regions including eastern Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia.
"I think some organizations, particularly smaller businesses that find they haven't done the work they needed to do, could go out of business," said Bruce McConnell, director of the World Bank-funded International Y2K Cooperation Center.
Governments could fall or be forced to devaluate their currencies by major Y2K catastrophes.
"If Y2K problems are severe, the incumbent politicians will be blamed for it and be voted or thrown out of office," said Capers Jones, chief scientist at Artemis Management Systems and another early prophet of Y2K.
He estimates more than $1 trillion will be spent overall on Y2K fixes, and more than twice as much on cleaning up - everything from bug-wrought damage to lawsuits filed against those responsible.
Some early damage was felt Thursday in Nigeria, where the state-run telephone company disconnected private carriers who it claimed had failed to prove themselves complaint and thus threatened the entire national network.
A few thousand phone users lost service in Nigeria, a country widely assessed as poorly prepared. A minor crisis compared to the income lost by an estimated 1,800 to 3,500 seasonal hotel workers laid off in Jamaica because of a dropoff in holiday tourists blamed on Y2K worries.
Holiday hotel bookings on the tropical island, normally at 90 percent this time of year, dropped to 60 percent, the industry said. Ditto to the south on Aruba. Tourism industry officials worldwide report a holiday slump because so many people want to be close to home - or work - in case of serious Y2K-triggered disruptions in vital services.
Precaution is the watchword worldwide.
Airlines have canceled hundreds of flights, citing low demand and also out of concern that air traffic control systems in regions such as the Asian subcontinent and Latin America may not be ready.
"We're not taking any chances," said spokeswoman Liz Rahaman of Guyana Air 2000, which despite its name has canceled all flights on Friday and Saturday over concerns that aviation systems in that South American country are not Y2K-ready.
Many airports, from Denmark to Bolivia, will also be closed for the rollover to the new millennium.
So will everything from Korean and Polish steel mills, Israel's nuclear power plant, ports from Australia to Holland and Turkey barred big ships from its narrow Bosporus strait.
In much of the developing world, where Y2K work began late and money was short, many of the fixes were makeshift.
Colombia's air traffic radars, for example, were forwarded to the year 2028, which is identical to 2000 in having 366 days and in their distribution.
And in the eastern Russian republic of Yakutsk, another bit of technical trickery was applied - computers' clocks were turned back from five to 20 years, deferring, not fixing, the problem.
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World Girds for Y2K Trouble
By The Associated Press December 29, 1999 Filed at 9:50 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Y2K-World-Roundup.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- It's hardly a new Cold War, but some Russians are starting to suspect that international concern about their ability to handle Y2K computer problems is an American smear.
Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, the top official in charge of Year 2000 preparations in Russia, on Wednesday became the latest official to dismiss U.S. fears as unfounded.
``The U.S. administration has aroused public opinion about Russia's readiness for the problem,'' he said in a radio interview. ``Russia is just as well-prepared for the Y2K problem as the United States.''
Klebanov's comments came as other nations made final equipment checks at Y2K crisis command posts, girding for a long weekend when air travel will be minimal and extended bank and stock market holidays common.
Y2K experts say that, while the United States and industrialized countries including Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand appear to be well prepared, many other nations are not. And not all are in the developing world.
``The sky is the limit when it comes to what might happen,'' said Peter de Jager, a Canadian computer consultant who was among the first to sound the Y2K alarm. ``There will be a handful of what can only be described as catastrophic problems around the world.''
Though most failures aren't expected to be felt until New Year's, a Y2K failure affecting 20,000 credit card swipe machines caused frustrating delays across Britain this week for thousands of retailers and customers.
Some of the machines, supplied by HSBC bank, improperly rejected credit cards because of a failure to recognize the year 2000. The machines had been programmed to look ahead four working days in processing merchant transactions to ensure they are registered within that time period.
When the machines compared Dec. 28, 1999, with Jan. 1, 2000, they read the date as Jan. 1, 1900 and so failed. But the error should not hit any U.S. credit card machines, since it is particular the software used by the British machines, said Linda Stryker, a public relations executive for HSBC in the United States.
As for Russia, Western experts have said the country is poorly prepared for Y2K, and that the bug could trigger widespread power and telecommunications outages. Lower-level Russian officials have admitted that work got started late in many crucial sectors and won't be finished by Friday.
The State Department spokesman in Washington, Philip Reeker, said Wednesday that 96 nonessential employees and 258 dependents at U.S. embassies or other outposts in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova were expected to leave ahead of the New Year because of Y2K concerns.
One specific area in Russia causing worry abroad is the natural gas deliveries from Russia's gas monopoly, Gazprom. Turkey depends on them, and a senior Turkish official said Wednesday that power cuts may be necessary should Y2K problems develop along the pipeline, which originates in Russia and traverses Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria.
Turkey, which uses gas to heat homes and generate electrical power, simply has no way of stockpiling it, the official said.
Earlier this month, people in the capital, Ankara, went without power for two hours a day as the government tried to save power after a drop in gas supplies from Russia.
Gazprom insists there will be not supply interruption. But it has admitted to having to scramble to make last-minute fixes in hundreds of systems -- and analysts say eastern Europe's power grids are a huge question mark.
The Y2K bug is the legacy of an early programming practice that expressed years in only two digits. Uncorrected computers can't differentiate between 1900 and 2000 and could crash or scramble dates.
Worldwide, fear of flying is one sign of Y2K anxiety. Although major airlines get good marks for Y2K preparation, air traffic control is a concern in some regions so the skies will be lonely on New Year's Eve.
On Wednesday, officials in Peru claimed their air traffic systems were compliant but said airlines had canceled nearly half of all fights this weekend in and out of Lima, the capital.
The deputy director of the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization in Peru, Jose Miguel Ceppi, said his biggest concern was losing telecommunications links among air traffic controllers in the region.
``These local telecommunications providers are beyond our control,'' he said, but added that controllers have backup satellite and radio communications.
Even in countries considered best purged of the bug, contingency was the rule. Israel shut down its nuclear reactor for the rollover and officials said 12,000 police would be deployed nationwide to cope with any millennium bug fallout as well as possible religious tensions.
In Russia, where activities of the government commission set to deal with the bug have been barely visible, the Communications Ministry waited until Wednesday to set up a Y2K crisis center.
Most people are hardly aware of the problem.
Yelena Merkulova, busy selling fir trees in Moscow for the New Year holiday, said she had no time to worry about Y2K.
``American people have no other problems, so they have invented this problem to keep them busy,'' she said. ``Here, we have many other things to worry about, such as how to feed our children on miserable wages.''
The U.S. government has granted nonessential embassy employees in Russia and other former Soviet republics free trips home to wait out possible trouble -- a move ridiculed by the Russian media, which has followed the government in paying Y2K little heed.
Klebanov said vital facilities would be watched but reiterated that he foresees no serious trouble.
``There will be no breakdowns at nuclear facilities, other vital installations or life-support systems,'' he said. ``The sewage system will be working, it's not dependent on computers here, and plumbing will be running and lights will be on.''
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Millenium Celebrations Glance
Associated Press December 30, 1999 Filed at 6:22 p.m. ES
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-MIL-Celebrations-Glance.html
Highlights of New Year's Eve celebrations planned worldwide. Events climax at midnight local time, unless otherwise indicated.
MILLENNIUM ISLAND, Kiribati
The usually vacant island -- once known as Caroline Island but renamed for the occasion -- is visited by revelers at world's first spot of land to see new millennium. Celebration includes song, traditional grass-skirt dances, and an elder and boy bearing a flaming torch west in dugout canoe. CHATHAM ISLANDS, New Zealand
Descendants of first settlers, the Moriori tribe, ignite torch in ritual dance, prayer and song, then greet sunrise with chants, war dance and blowing of conch shell. SYDNEY, Australia
City's waterfront erupts in fireworks as 18 three-story ``sea creature'' lanterns float past. Sydney Harbor Bridge emblazoned with lights spelling ``Eternity'' -- the word scrawled in chalk on city sidewalks for nearly 40 years by reformed petty criminal who died in 1967. GUAM
On one of the first U.S. territories to enter millennium, worshippers attend midnight fiesta and Mass at Dolce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica, sing native Chamorro hymn seeking protection in the new year -- including help against any Y2K bug. TOKYO
Traditional pilgrimage to Zojoji temple, where Buddhist monk strikes temple bell 108 times to dispel evils of past year; 24-hour pop concert, ``Love Love 2000.'' IMJINGAK, Korea
On southern edge of demilitarized zone between two Koreas, ``DMZ 2000'' show, with traditional music, theater, dance, video art, children's choir and pop concert. North Korean defectors take part in ceremonial cutting of barbed wire to symbolize hope for Korean unification. Ringing of peace bell made of melted bits of sunken U.S. warship, Russian helmets, South African fighter jet. BEIJING
Flag-raising as sun climbs over Tiananmen Square, military band plays Chinese ational anthem. MOSCOW, RUSSIA
Crowds gather in Red Square under Kremlin walls to hear its clock toll midnight. BETHLEHEM, West Bank
Rabbis barred Jerusalem hotels from throwing New Year's Eve parties, since it's Jewish Sabbath and no millennium for Jewish state. Not so in Palestinian-run Bethlehem, birthplace of Jesus Christ. Midnight is marked with release of 2,000 doves. CAIRO, Egypt
Blaze of laser lights turn Great Pyramids into stage for 12 hours of opera with thousand-member cast. ATHENS, Greece
Towering columns of light surround Acropolis, beams radiate from 2,500-year-old Parthenon. PARIS
Living up to its name, the City of Light flashes 20,000 bulbs on Eiffel Tower under cascade of fireworks installed by mountain climbers. BERLIN
Fireworks glitter over Brandenburg Gate; toned-down version of light show at city's Victory Column, long a symbol of German nationalism. People complained of evoking Nazi spectacles, so instead of 250 symmetrical beams encircling the pillar, lights will be more colorful and asymmetrical. GREENWICH, England
As world's air traffic control computers roll into 2000 Greenwich Mean Time, Queen Elizabeth II leads 10,000 guests at debut of Millennium Dome, futuristic $1.2 billion edifice south of London. Mocked and admired dome is tourist attraction meant to entertain and edify with thematic zones asking: Who we are? Where do we live? What we do? ANTARCTICA
Sun crests over Dibble Glacier at 10:08 a.m., marking first 2000 sunrise. (Being midsummer, sun won't have actually set.) Farther south, U.S. Geological Service scientists move the South Pole. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station sits on a moving ice sheet, so pole needs annual adjustment. This year, after midnight party, about 200 people will take turns with a hammer driving the metal rod into the ice. CUZCO, Peru
Peruvians re-enact ancient purification rituals and offerings to moon at Sacsayhuaman, Incan stone fortress in the Andes. Musicians, actors and dancers perform rites enhanced by wind and thunder machines. WASHINGTON
United States officially enters 2000 with drop of time ball down U.S. Naval Observatory mast. PUTNEY, Vt.
Frank Wilson, basket factory founder, blows collection of 23 antique factory whistles in his parking lot. NEW YORK
Times Square transformed into pristine pedestrian mall -- even trash barrels taken away -- for revelers there to witness 1,070-pound Waterford Crystal ball drop and frolic amid fireworks, laser lights, balloons, 4,000 pounds of confetti. MILLENNIUM, N.C.
Outdoor gospel service in village of 700 founded and named for Pentecostal church. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
Party in blockhouse at Launchpad 14 for space program veterans. Positive RSVPs from astronaut Story Musgrave and moonwalker Ed Mitchell. John Glenn sending video greetings. PHILADELPHIA
``Rocky'' wannabes' charge up steps of Philadelphia Museum of Art, annual New Year's Day Mummers Parade, ringing of Liberty Bell, public reading of Declaration of Independence, mass wedding for 1,000 couples, with Mayor Ed Rendell and wife officiating. PETERSBURG, W.Va.
Churches invite residents to share joys and disappointments, hopes and fears before procession to town center for fireworks. PORT CLINTON, Ohio
City on Lake Erie, self-proclaimed world's walleye pike capital, drops 18-foot fiberglass fish down a rope. ROSWELL, N.M.
Those who believe Roswell is where in 1947 an alien spacecraft crashed -- and those who don't -- can be on hand at missile silo outside town when encoded lasers beam peaceful greetings to outer space. TUCSON, Ariz.
Indians bless sunrise in 10-day New Millennium First Peoples' World Fair and PowWow. LOS ANGELES
Count 'em: 2,000 folk dancers, a 2,000-member marching band, 2,000 gospel singers, 2,000 line dancers; 2,000 drummers -- afternoon entertainment around L.A. with finale the lighting of Hollywood sign and fireworks. HONOLULU
Laser lights flash giant numerals on Diamond Head, rim of extinct volcano, counting down last 10 seconds. Then: ``Hawaii 2000.'' FRENCH POLYNESIA
Midnight in last region on Earth to enter new millennium includes Tahiti's ``World's Parade'' with floats representing assorted islands and foreign countries, laser lights and fireworks on beach. On Bora Bora, church choirs raise their voices; dancing until dawn.
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Poll: Most shrugging off Y2K
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 01:38 AM ET By Richard Benedetto
http://www.usatoday.com/2000/y2k012.htm
Despite a blitz of stories about potential computer glitches, power meltdowns and terrorist attacks, most Americans are ignoring the dangers and say they are intent on welcoming the new year.
Only 22% in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll Tuesday say they are afraid: 66% of those surveyed say they are unlikely to change their behavior or take special precautions.
Nevertheless, 61% say one or more terrorist attacks against the United States are very or somewhat likely New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.
The poll shows that 71% have no special plans for New Year's Eve. But whether they are ushering in the new year quietly at home or going out for a noisy and expensive celebration, nine of 10 expect to have a good time.
Respondents are split, 49% to 45%, over whether the millennium officially starts Jan. 1, 2000, or a year later. But a convincing majority, 68%, say the big celebration should occur this weekend. Most say they expect to feel joyous and excited, though a bit reflective, as they embrace the new millennium.
Though 37% say they expect some calamity as a result of Y2K computer problems in the USA, 70% say other countries are likely to have breakdowns.
Frances Linder, 78, a retired secretary in Springfield, Mo., is moving ahead with plans to fly to Pasadena, Calif., today with a tour group to attend the Tournament of Roses Parade.
"I have some slight concerns about safety, but I feel everything has been well taken care of," she says.
Looking ahead, 85% of Americans are optimistic about what 2000 has in store for them. A thinner majority, 68%, are equally hopeful for what the new year holds for the world in general.
Three of four say the Clinton administration has done a good job of preventing possible problems. Seventy-one percent say U.S. cities should not cancel large public gatherings scheduled for New Year's Eve.
Seattle has scaled back its celebration. Huge outdoor celebrations are continuing as scheduled in New York and Washington.
The poll of 622 adults has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.
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Feds take precautions against Y2K bug
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 10:59 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#fema12/30/99- Updated 06:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON - While confident that the rollover will cause no severe problems, federal officials are taking final precautions nonetheless and offering last-minute advice to help Americans sail smoothly into 2000. Hoping to ease the transition, officials are mailing out benefit checks to veterans and Social Security beneficiaries early. They're advising citizens to keep emergency numbers and battery-operated radios handy. And they are shutting down some public Internet sites to safeguard against hackers. Social Security's 44 million beneficiaries learned last week of the Social Security Administration's plans to do the same, for both the majority who receive electronic payments and those who still take mailed checks.
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Officials to respond rapidly to Y2K glitches
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 06:17 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm#fema
WASHINGTON - Even as federal officials continue to assure citizens that minimal Y2K glitches are anticipated in the U.S. this weekend, they are prepared to respond quickly with aid from up to 26 federal agencies and the Red Cross if necessary. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has established 10 regional centers across the country to monitor any potential problems, and about 800 people will work through the weekend to ensure any mishaps are dealt with. In fact, FEMA says it will be able to respond quickly to disasters that aren't related to Y2K, such as an unexpected weather events. "Frankly, while it may be Y2K-related ... we don't care," one spokesman said. "We'll worry whether it's Y2K-related after the fact."
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Poll: Coloradans cautious on Y2K
But few expect major problems as calendar turns from 1999 to 2000
Denver Rocky Mountain News 12/30/99 By Tina Griego Denver Rocky Mountain News
http://insidedenver.com/news/1230poll2.shtml
Marilyn Mitchell has never been one to panic.
The Denver resident is pretty certain New Year's Eve is going to come and go without anything serious happening. Still, she bought extra water and cat litter. Her cupboards hold cans of tuna and salmon; her shed is stocked with firewood.
"I just feel it would not be prudent to thumb my nose at the whole thing, but it's not my nature to be hysterical," she said.
That pretty much sums up the attitude of most Coloradans.
The Colorado News Poll, a telephone survey of 602 Colorado residents, found that about six in 10 are not worried that the Y2K bug is going to cause major problems for them. They don't think there will be a nationwide blackout. They don't think the banking system is going to collapse or that people are going to run amok in the streets. They don't think there will be an accidental nuclear weapons launch from Russia or China. And almost nine in 10 believe they will still be able to make all those "happy new year" phone calls.
In fact, the poll, conducted for the Denver Rocky Mountain News and News4 by Talmey-Drake Research & Strategy, showed that people are more confident now than they were in February.
"I'm not a bit worried," said Dr. Fred Abrams, a retired obstetrician. "I think it's going to be the anticlimax of the millennium."
Not even astrologer Mary Jayn sees anything special in the stars.
"I'm not apprehensive in the least," she said. "It's an arbitrary time in space. As far as any of the esoteric, spiritual stuff, I'm just, nah ... I'm not concerned. I'm going to be working a party and getting paid a lot of money to do it."
Pollster Paul Talmey, whose firm conducted the poll, says Coloradans are "definitely laid-back."
"There's a sense that there will be some hassle, but most people are saying, 'Hey, there's been a lot of money spent, a lot of time, and at least in the United States, it's solved."
Half of the people polled aren't so sure that other countries have the Y2K
bug squashed. They think systems probably will crash in other countries, causing a shortage of raw materials.
And although people may have faith in the system, they don't have nearly as much in their fellow man. Four in 10 believe that terrorists are going to strike somewhere in the United States on New Year's Eve.
That's not surprising, Talmey said, because the poll was conducted between Dec. 17 and Dec. 27, after a man was arrested trying to smuggle explosives into the United States.
"People feel the technological issue has been solved but what could be a better time for terrorists to attack," he said. "You've got big crowds, a lot of exposure. There's also the sense that perhaps some people think there will be chaos due to the computers and, gee, what a great time to cause trouble."
Still, he pointed out that only 3 percent are very concerned that come midnight catastrophe will strike.
"And 3 percent are always concerned about everything," he said. "Two to 3 percent think the world is going to come to an end on any particular day, that it will end tomorrow."
Slightly more than half of the people polled said they had organized their financial statements in case they have to prove what was in their accounts. But most people are not stocking several months' food supply or buying generators or stocking up on ammo. And almost all are staying at or near home.
"That's probably not a bad thing," said Chuck Cairns, an emergency room physician at University Hospital. "We're busy on the holidays because you get a lot of people who normally wouldn't be out, doing things they normally wouldn't be doing, in altered states they normally wouldn't be in. It just leads to trouble."
Cairns has taken no extra precautions, but he always keeps extra food and water for his family. He carries blankets and bandages in his car. He keeps his gas tank at least half-full.
"I think it's prudent to be prepared for any sort of emergency," he said. "In my profession, I deal with folks all the time who have had things happen to them they didn't plan on."
red Pollack, the owner of All Around Bail Bonds, is going to make sure that he is not one of them. He has purchased a generator, extra food and has 60 gallons of water for his wife and two children.
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Y2K offers opportunity to be a good global neighbor
By Lois M. Collins Deseret News Thursday, December 30, 1999
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,145015160,00.html?
If you're the average Utahn, you have not planned an extra trip to the bank to stock up on cash or rented a trailer to haul home all the food you plan to buy at the grocery store before the year ends.
Our officials have told us we're "Y2K ready," and for the most part we believe them. Besides that, we have a short attention span, and we're already burned out on Y2K stories, although the real story hasn't even been written yet.
Our utilities, from electric power to gas to phone service to water, have been checked, double-checked and then re-checked, state Y2K experts say. And as long as those aren't affected adversely, we can probably survive almost anything the Y2K computer bug might bring.
That bug, in case you've been living in an underground bomb shelter somewhere far, far from civilization, was created when space-conscious computer designers opted to use two digits to designate years, instead of the full four. The fear is that when the clock turns over on the new year, computers around the globe will read the date as 1900 instead of 2000, creating a ton of problems. To counter its potential negative effects, we've spent thousands of hours as a nation updating computer systems - and billions of dollars, to boot.
Even those who believe the arrival of the new year will be, from a technology standpoint, a nonevent suggest that it's wise to have a few basic emergency supplies on hand, including food, water and a print-out copy of important financial records. Again as a precaution, a lot of people are planning to stay close to home. After all, Utah's own Sen. Bob Bennett said he wouldn't want to be in an airplane when Y2K kicks in. (By the way, experts have since certified air travel as safe.)
What no one is talking about is the potential Y2K has to show up who we are as members of the global community. And that potential is, indeed, great.
Will we be hoarders or sharers? Good neighbors or bad?
The truth is, no matter how well prepared we prove to be when the date turns from 99 to 00, there will be problems around the world, and some of them will impact us. As 2000 unfolds, we'll have an opportunity to be part of the solution or not, depending on how our leaders choose to participate. With more than 1.2 trillion lines of software code that had to be updated, not to mention the 25 billion microchips that have to properly read the new code (and let's hope no one made a devastating typo or, heaven forbid, deliberately inserted errors in the code), the probability that some country somewhere will stumble is extremely high.
A great deal is already known about which systems are particularly susceptible to failure. In Egypt, for example, the public sector is 97 percent Y2K compliant, but experts predict that the health-care industry will experience glitches. It's even more ominous in Indonesia, where electrical power, nuclear facilities, health care and communications are being red-flagged.
And Russia's probably going to be in real trouble. Fewer than half of the computers have been fixed, and experts predict that disruptions will occur for months. In fact, a number of Russian officers will spend New Year's at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado so that they can reassure Russia if there are false missile warnings.
That's a lovely scenario, since false warnings could prompt Russia to fire a few missiles in retaliation of a perceived attack. And those missiles would certainly not be directed back at Russia herself, which points out why helping other countries overcome their computer errors is not only wise but mandatory for each country's very survival.
In the United States, we've been told that all 103 nuclear plants are in great shape to greet the dawn of a new year. But the commercial information service Graphic News warns that state and local governments, social welfare programs and small businesses are vulnerable. Which in turn makes other things vulnerable. We're interconnected, to be sure. Anything that fails will weaken something else somewhere else.
Some countries are erring on the side of caution. Israel, for example, plans to shut down its nuclear plant, while Holland will ground its airline fleet. Taiwan's going to prevent a run on its banks by closing down all of its automated teller machines. The list goes on.
Eventually, though, those computers will be brought back online. So problems that exist will have to be fixed to prevent disasters.
That's where we come in. If we're as ready as we say we are, and only time will tell that, we need to be geared up to help those countries that are not. We should already have been doing it.
A global world leaves us with no choice.
Deseret News staff writer Lois M. Collins may be reached by e-mail at lois@desnews.com
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Officials to respond rapidly to Y2K glitches
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 12:50 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/2000/y2k008.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal officials said Wednesday they are prepared to respond quickly and can draw on resources from as many as 26 federal agencies and the Red Cross if any Y2K emergencies arise this weekend.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has established 10 regional centers around the country to monitor any potential difficulties in the United States or U.S. territories. Beginning Thursday, FEMA will have its emergency support team in full gear 24 hours a day through Jan. 2. Roughly 800 personnel will be working through the weekend.
"FEMA is confident that nothing serious will happen, but we are prepared to respond just like we would for any other natural disaster or any other emergency situation," said Robert Adamcik, associate director for FEMA response and recovery.
Even if a significant disaster arises that is not related to Y2K, such as an unexpected weather phenomenon, FEMA would respond, he said.
"Frankly, while it may be Y2K-related ... we don't care," Adamcik said. "We'll worry whether it's Y2K-related after the fact."
FEMA officials said they will constantly gather information from state and local governments, monitoring them through an automated system that assigns a green light to communities that are OK, a yellow light to those where a significant emergency is suspected but information is incomplete, and a red light for a confirmed disaster. FEMA would be called in only after local officials have determined that state and local resources would be inadequate. In such a situation, a state's governor would call on President Clinton to declare a federal disaster area.
Bruce Baughman, chief of operations for FEMA response and recovery, said the agency will draw on its experience in responding to a variety of national emergencies, including this year's Hurricane Floyd.
"Some of the things that we can provide under the plan range from mass care that Red Cross can provide, food through the Department of Agriculture, transportation, communications, search and rescue or emergency medical and pharmaceuticals, should those be needed by state and local government," he said.
Federal officials also are offering last-minute advice to help Americans sail smoothly into 2000.
Hoping to ease the transition, officials are getting benefit checks for veterans and Social Security beneficiaries to the Postal Service early, in order to ensure on-time delivery. They are also advising citizens to keep emergency numbers and battery-operated radios handy. And they are shutting down some public Internet sites to safeguard against hackers.
The Department of Veterans Affairs said Tuesday it always processes its paperwork a few days before the end of each month and that an estimated 4.5 million veterans and survivors should receive their benefits by the 30th of the month as usual. A spokesman said Wednesday the department did process a relatively small number of educational benefit payments a few days earlier than usual this month to avoid potential delays related to the Y2K computer bug.
The early mailings "will mitigate unexpected year 2000 interruptions of benefit payments arising from anything outside our control," VA spokesman Terry Jemison said Tuesday.
Social Security's 44 million beneficiaries learned last week of the Social Security Administration's plans to get paper checks and electronic payments on their way to post offices and banks a day early. Beneficiaries should expect their checks or direct deposits to show up on the normal day, Jan. 3 for most people.
While generally optimistic about communications, including 911 calls going through and emergency broadcast alerts reaching people, federal officials urged people not to forget the basics.
"There was a way to call the police, to call ambulance services, long before 911," said Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Powell. He advised people to keep on hand direct numbers for emergency services, like the police.
Powell also recommended that people have radios with batteries handy. Officials foresee no difficulty in getting out emergency news to the populace, he said, because so many broadcast stations are available.
In other Y2K news:
The Pentagon is shutting down some of its public Internet sites this weekend to keep them safe from computer hackers. While it intends to keep its central Web site - www.DefenseLink.mil - in operation, one site being temporarily blocked is that of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which oversees military pay. Also being taken off line this weekend is the site maintained by the Office of Personnel Management, which services the rest of the government payroll. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said people are not hoarding pharmaceuticals, so there won't be any shortages of medicine over New Year's. She cited a 60-to-90 day supply in almost every category of medicine. As for civilian communications, industry and federal leaders reiterated caution against people picking up the phone early Jan. 1 just to see if it is working or dialing 911 just to check it. Too many callers at once could clog the network, meaning some might get fast busy signals. Even so, the FCC's Powell said, that wouldn't necessarily indicate any Y2K-related problems. "This is a basic network congestion issue that we see every Mother's Day. This is Mother's Day on Viagra," he said. The nation's largest telephone companies have said for months that their networks are ready. But officials say they have more limited information on international calling and on smaller, rural U.S. phone companies.
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Millennium pandemonium abounds
Washington Times December 30, 1999 By Jennifer Harper
http://www.washtimes.com/national/news4-19991230.htm
Makers of more than a thousand items have applied for an official "Millennium" designation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The M-word has been wedged, hammered, plastered, and embroidered upon thousands of events, ideas, edibles and wearables.
Everybody wanted a piece of the millennium.
The M-word has been wedged, hammered, plastered, incised, embroidered, blow-torched and draped upon thousands and thousands of events, ideas, edibles, wearables, potables, polls and parodies.
The millennium was blamed for hysteria, depression, frenzy, hype, paranoia, fever, price gouging, sexual dysfunction, dread and innovation, among other things.
It has also been the ultimate revenge of the cocooners.
Many weary folks simply want to pass from one eon to the next eating popcorn and watching a video with someone who is reasonably pleasant.
A recent Harris poll, in fact, revealed that 80 percent of those surveyed will huddle somewhere agreeable with friends and family.
And who can blame them? Millennial anything has been mighty shrill. And of course, the purists know that the true millennium isn't really until next year, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.
But hey, that hasn't stopped most revelers. And oh, the variety of it all. . . .
New York may spend $7 million dropping its brand new Waterford crystal ball and tons of confetti over Times Square this year. But Port Clinton, Ohio, won't be outdone. The tiny fishing town on Lake Erie will heave a 20-foot fiberglass walleye pike onto the town square at midnight.
"Port Clinton is the place to be," Mayor Tom Brown noted.
Then there's Dillsburg, Pa., founded by pickle man Matthew Dill. The town plans to lower an 8-foot papier-mache pickle onto the town square from a firetruck ladder.
Religious leaders in San Francisco, meanwhile, defeated a hotel's plans to inflate a seven-story blue martini glass on Union Square, complete with a 10-foot olive. A prayer vigil will be held there instead.
The millennium has given rise to the noteworthy, the earnest, the hair-raising and the poignant.
The M-word has been, simply, a kind of cultural catchall - a catalyst for a kind of loony sense that time was slipping away. Something was ending. Something else was beginning. Alpha. Omega.
Whatever.
As the year shut down, the media was rife with top 10 lists, predictions, quizzes, time lines and the best and worst from 10 centuries. Gaudy programming on global revelry clashed with dire documentaries on year-2000, the millennium's evil twin.
Millennium merchandise went off the scale. Makers of more than a thousand items applied for an official "Millennium" designation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in fact.
Choices have included year 2000-festooned Barbie dolls, housewares, board games, diapers, men's dress pants, marriage certificates, sirloin steaks, underwear, sunglasses, chocolates, cigars, sports equipment, beer, clocks and high-heeled shoes, among other things.
General Mills brought out a "limited-edition cereal" made of little 2s and 0s aptly named Millennios. The box can be used as a time capsule. Kellogg's followed suit with something called Marshmallow Blasted Froot Loops 2000. Miller Beer declared it the "Millerennium," complete with corresponding packaging.
There is a 1,200-pound Millennium Safe available in seven designer colors for the stylish paranoid, designed to withstand "sledgehammers, power saws, carbide disc cutters and drills."
Pet owners can consider the $45 bejeweled millennial "Mood Collar" for their beloved furred one -the gems change color when the dog or cat gets crabby or magnanimous, as the case may be.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency felt called upon to seriously recommend that animal owners keep a "Pet Disaster Kit" on hand for New Year's Eve, just in case the pet in question was experiencing any year-2000 difficulties, presumably.
The kit, FEMA advised, should include "pet foods and treats, drinkable water in plastic bottles, pet medications and medical records in a waterproof container, current photos of your pet in case of loss. . . ."
Hoteliers and event planners spooked the public early with accusatory "Where will you be on New Year's?" questions, and some very expensive answers.
Hotel rooms are still available in all the choice locations, cruises remain underbooked and many high-profile bashes were canceled due to lack of interest.
There are exceptions, though.
One man fretted so much over his millennial accommodations that he rented a room at the Times Square Marriott Hotel in 1983 -before the hotel was even built. Another group rented out the Seattle Space Needle for the millennium back in 1994.
Let us not be too harsh on this millennium madness, as dopey as some of this stuff is.
Though cultural catchalls like this can be annoying, inconsistent and fake, they have a certain giddy innocence about them - a vulnerable charm.
In reality, all this hoopla has a very short shelf life. It is disposable. The millennium will be passe soon, the many icons and trinkets and paraphernalia devolving into collectibles and nostalgia.
Here's a sampling of what's out there:
For those who are remaining resolutely at home on the big night, there's the $15 "Stayed Home 2000" commemorative medallion from Portland Mint at www.stayedhome2000.com.
"Stay home and be proud of it," they advise. "Those who say you should go out and party are just foolhardy ne-er do wells."
Wired magazine determined 100 people, things and concepts that would not survive passage into the new millennium - the "third you-know-what," they say.
On the list: gravity, luggage, local TV news, wrinkles, first novels, jet lag, leaf blowers, breast implants, the penny, the two-party system, golf, political spinning, the Beatles and Elvis.
Not to be outdone, Durex, a London condom maker, gathered some tasteless statistics.
The manufacturer polled 5,000 young people in 14 countries to determine that half of them "hope the fireworks of the millennium celebrations will end with sex."
Canadian youngsters, apparently, were the most hopeful of the respondents, followed by the British, Poles and Czechs. Rest assured, though. For once, American children were not polled.
The bored can always log onto the "Webcast of the Century" Web site, which is located at newyears.earthcam.com, which features live video cameras in five cities around the world.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth has given the entire country the day off on Dec. 31. And no wonder. Pubs have also been authorized to serve alcohol for 36 uninterrupted hours, rather then their normal 11 p.m. "time, gentlemen, please."
Then there are celebrations for those who step to a different drummer.
The solemn "New Year's Eve Party for Peace" is actually a protest march staged by anti-nuclear groups at the Nevada atomic test site, about 65 miles from Las Vegas.
The First Millennial Foundation, meanwhile, is thinking about the future. The far future. The group wants to colonize space.
"In the year 3000, our descendants will be looking back at the Earth from a vantage point out among the stars," noted foundation member Marshall Savage.
For their part, the laid-back folks of Berkeley, Calif., are gathering up unwanted firearms and melting the guns down for a millennial sculpture.
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Pilgrims from across the world go to Jerusalem - just in case
Waashington Times December 30, 1999 By Julia Duin
http://208.246.212.80/world/news2-19991230.htm
While desiring the tourist dollars, city officials are discouraging anything overt on New Year's Eve, which will be a volatile mix for the coming of the year 2000.
JERUSALEM - "Bobby Bible," a 60-year-old Los Angeles resident whose "Jesus Saves from Sin and Hell" T-shirt slogan stands out even on this city's colorful streets, is a man with a plan.
Come New Year's Eve, he's renting out a church on the Mount of Olives for religious services as the clock strikes midnight for the benefit of curious Christian pilgrims who are filling local hotels.
"The world's looking at that site," he said, brandishing an olive wood cross and a 'prophecy study' Bible. "I think we ought to take advantage of it."
He has had threats stemming from his in-your-face evangelistic techniques, hence the assumed name. "Bobby" is one of the more colorful American visitors in town for the coming of the millennium and he makes no bones about his plans to win converts.
"I'm going to come here and say, 'Yes, Jesus,' " he said.
But when he showed up at Bethlehem's Manger Square just before Christmas, with Bible in hand, nervous Palestinian police took him aside and grilled him for 10 hours.
"They wanted to know if I was going to blow up a mosque, jump off somewhere or commit suicide," he said. "I looked like I could be a problem. Then they took me to my hotel, searched my room and told me to get out."
Once he was back in Jerusalem, Israeli police also questioned him. Police will be fidgety all week, as Jerusalem - specifically the Mount of Olives - is typically viewed as ground zero for any messianic activity.
But the city will not be filled to capacity. Jerusalem had originally planned for some 60,000 tourists to be in town this week, but counts are down, despite the balmy weather. Now the number is closer to 40,000, a government tourist office spokeswoman said.
While desiring the tourist dollars, city officials are discouraging anything overt on New Year's Eve, which will be a volatile mix of the coming of the year 2000, possible computer problems associated with it and hundreds of thousands of Muslims coming to the Temple Mount for prayers on the last Friday of their holy month of Ramadan. The Temple Mount has two imposing Muslim shrines on it and is the site of both first and second Jewish temples.
The city canceled a performance of Handel's "Messiah" tomorrow night at the Jerusalem Convention Center. Then this week, its Religious Council renewed pressure on the city's hotels to forbid New Year's Eve parties, even though the two had agreed two months ago that private parties could be held in closed-off rooms.
As for the city's Christian populace, no one is making predictions, says Tom Doyle, a 20-something lawyer from the District who arrived in town Dec. 20 with fellow attorney Carol Ensalaco.
"People have all been backing off from a year-2000 date," he said yesterday. "We went to a Pentecostal service [at the local YMCA] and it was amazing how people danced around the end-of-time rhetoric. The pastor just said 'exciting times' were coming."
Nevertheless, people are arriving to grab hot viewing spots such as the Petra Youth Hotel's rooftop balcony with its panoramic view of both the Temple Mount and Mount of Olives.
"I don't think anything is going to happen," said Avi, a Petra hotelier who asked that only his first name be used. "Maybe a couple of computer glitches, but I think there'll be a bad comedown."
One American TV network was making plans to be on site all the same. Three floors up, a crew from ABC-TV was setting up a camera platform on the southeastern corner of the hotel's roof, slinging TV cables and stringing phone lines under a white tent. Watching them were bare-chested young men who were guests at the low-cost hostel, some of them lounging underneath a sign: "No politics, no religion and definitely no thinking."
Brad Rourke, a young man from Vancouver, British Columbia, ignored the sign as he read from Revelation.
"I think the Messiah is going to come, but not on the 31st," he said. At the stroke of midnight that day, he'll be at the Western Wall.
"I want to be praying at the turn of the clock," he said. "Right now I can see where Christ ascended. It was right there," gesturing toward the Mount of Olives about a half-mile away.
Minnesotan Ted Varani, seated a few feet away, wasn't committing to where he would be New Year's Eve but tonight he was planning to take a "millennium tour" of the city by night, led by a guide who swears Christ will return in 2029.
"There will be a lot of interesting people there," he said. "I want to see the weirdos who have turned out in droves."
But Bruce Mills, a deacon at Jerusalem Baptist Church who often counsels troubled Christian pilgrims, says the deluded ones are not in town this week.
"It's a bust," he said of millennium preparations. "No one is going to blow themselves up or doing anything like that."
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POLL WATCH The Public's View of New Year's Eve and Beyond
New Yrk Times December 30, 1999 By MICHAEL KAGAY
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/123099poll-watch.html
Related Articles
Poll Watch Column Archive
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/poll-watch-index.html
Despite the growing buzz over the millennial celebrations, most Americans will be ringing in the New Year at home, according to a poll by ABC News.
Several polling organizations have asked Americans about their plans for New Years' Eve, their expectations of Y2K problems, and their outlook for the coming century.
More than three-quarters of American adults say they will probably spend New Year's Eve at home (61 percent) or at a friend or family member's home (16 percent), rather than going out to a public place (18 percent), according to a nationwide poll by ABC News.
That is not much different from what people say they normally do on New Year's eve. Most New Years' 66 percent say they usually stay at home, while 17 percent go to a friend or family member's home, and 14 percent say they usually go out to a public place.
Younger people, age 18 to 34 years, are more likely to go out to a public place for New Years (25 percent) than older people, age 65 years and over, are (10 percent).
ABC News interviewed 1,042 adults by telephone on December 1 to 5.
About one-third of American adults expect to be inconvenienced (or worse) after midnight on New Years because of a computer failure and the Y2K problem.
Only nine percent of Americans say it is "very likely" they will be inconvenienced (or worse) after midnight on New Year's. But another 27 percent say it is at least "somewhat likely."
The Harris Poll found these expectations in a telephone survey of 1,011 adults nationwide taken Oct. 27 to Nov. 2.
Those limited expectations of trouble probably explain why relatively few people have taken steps so far in order to protect themselves against possible Y2K bug problems.
The Gallup Poll found in a poll taken Dec. 20 and 21 that only 21 percent said they had already obtained special documentation about their account balances, and only 19 percent had already stockpiled food and water.
But another 32 percent said they would "probably" document their account balances in the time remaining. Another 22 percent said they would "probably" stockpile food and water in the time left.
Gallup surveyed 1,000 adults nationwide.
People's outlook for the next 50 years contains a mixture of progress and disaster, according to a poll taken by the Pew Research Center.
In health and science, for instance, there is optimism. Eighty-one percent of adults say there will definitely or probably be a cure for cancer in the next 50 years. Seventy-nine percent expect there will be a cure for AIDS.
But regarding terrorism and warfare, there is considerable pessimism. Sixty-four percent think there will definitely or probably be a major terrorist attack on the U.S. involving chemical or biological weapons. And a minority of 37 percent expect there will be a nuclear war involving the U.S., while 58 percent disagreed.
The interviewing for Pew was conducted last April and May.
CBS News asked the American public to look even farther ahead ... to the end of the next century.
On some subjects there was high agreement. For instance, 82 percent said people will still be getting married at the end of the next century. And 78 percent said most people will NOT still be retiring at age 65 then.
But the public was split on whether most people will still be going to an office to work at the end of the next century. Fifty-two percent thought people would, while 46 percent thought they wouldn't.
CBS News interviewed 1,026 adults by telephone on December 17 to 19.
All of the polls cited above carried a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
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Expecting a Whimper, but Preparing for a Bang
New York Times December 30, 1999 By MATT RICHTEL
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/y2k-preparation.html
Related Articles
The Year 2000 Problem
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/reference/millennium-index.html
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 29 -- Charlotte White knows something about surviving the end of the world. As a girl living in England during World War II, she weathered the German Air Force's constant barrage. Sixty years later, she is not taking any chances a computer glitch will accomplish what the Luftwaffe could not.
Already stocked up on apples, crackers, bottled water and cheese, Mrs. White, 69, and her husband, Hugh, 80, shopped this week at a San Francisco camping store for a propane stove to use in the event of a millennium catastrophe caused by any year 2000 computer glitch.
"If something goes wrong, at least my husband will have hot soup," Mrs. White said.
Across the country, people are approaching the computer scare not with panic but with pragmatism and precaution. Rather than witnessing hoarding, stores report measured buying, in particular of two basics: water and light (as in batteries and flashlights).
The buying patterns suggest a populace preparing for a hurricane whose force is dwindling, with many sensing that this computer-generated disaster will pass or never materialize at all. Yet, they are stocking up on a few necessities, just in case.
Some consumers say they have been comforted by assurances from government and corporations, banks in particular, that their computer systems are ready for the rollover to the new millennium.
The potential problem is that some computers read dates in only two digits -- 99 rather than 1999 -- so that at midnight on New Year's Eve, the computers may process information as if the year is 1900 rather than 2000. Computers and networks that have not been prepared for the changeover may crash, lose their data or garble it to the point of incomprehension.
More dire prophecies warn of widespread power and computer failures.
Most retailers still are unable to quantify the buying patterns of emergency-related items, but some national chains that use computer tracking systems validate the anecdotal claims. At 300 7-Eleven stores in Texas and Florida, sales were up 60 percent for bottled water and 30 percent for batteries from Dec. 20 to Dec. 27, compared with the same period a year ago.
Some other items were in unusual demand. Compared with a week in early October, 7-Eleven said sales across the United States were up 52 percent for can openers and 64 percent for candles, presumably not because people were planning romantic evenings.
"We really do think the incremental increases are because people are getting prepared," said Jim Keyes, chief operating officer of 7-Eleven Inc., which has 5,800 stores in this country and is based in Dallas.
Jim Sinegal, president and chief executive of Costco Wholesale Inc., which operates 220 stores in the United States and is based in Issaquah, Wash., said water sales had increased 150 percent over the last four weeks while battery sales had edged up slightly. But canned goods and other emergency supplies, he said, had been selling at normal levels. The buying "hasn't hit anything like the panic stage," he added.
Even so, some people are practicing a higher level of caution. In Athens, Ga., John Myers, 46, a computer animation designer at the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education, shopped today for bottled water at Harris Teeter, a neighborhood grocery store, and said he had also bought a water purifier and duct tape.
He said he planned to use the tape to put over the doorways in his home "for security reasons" and said if things went awry, he planned to "live off the land."
Sales of guns appear to have risen in some regions. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has performed 6,000 more background checks during December than it did in December 1998, 17,704 compared with 10,997.
Dave Anver, owner of Dave's Guns in Denver, said his business had been booming in the past six weeks. One man, he added, bought a gun and asked if he could return it after Jan. 1. "He said, 'What if I fire it off a couple times, and then bring it back?' " Mr. Anver said. "Only chap I've ever met who wanted to lease a firearm."
The official position of the American Red Cross is that people should stock two to three days of emergency supplies, including a gallon of water per person per day, canned food, food for infants and the elderly, first-aid kits, flashlights with extra batteries, matches kept in waterproof containers and money.
In a study released this month, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that consumers would spend $14 billion stocking up for possible problems. Indeed, some retailers say they have been surprised by heavy sales.
In Albany County in New York, Phillips Ace Hardware Stores reported unusually strong demand for kerosene lamps, lamp oil, batteries and flashlights. At B. J.'s Wholesale Club in Colonie, an Albany suburb, the emphasis has been on water.
Damon Korszun, a forklift operator, pointed out Tuesday evening that 23 pallets of bottled water had dwindled down to three in a single afternoon. "If you go down our cereal aisle, it's beat up bad," Mr. Korszun said. "Empty, empty, empty. It's unbelievable."
At Home Depot in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, workers reported brisk sales of flashlights, lanterns and Y2K Emergency Kits, $16.88 packages that include lanterns, flashlights, radios and Red Cross checklists of what to do in case of emergency. One Brooklyn resident, Maryse Pearra, 37, of Brooklyn, said that in addition to buying "everything -- water, juice and canned food," she knew precisely how she would handle New Year's.
"I'll be home that night hiding under the blanket," she said.
But those experiences are not universal, either for businesses or consumers. Some business owners around the country said they had increased inventories to cater to demand but were disappointed with the returns. And the reason may be that many consumers say that while they want to be minimally prepared for a millennium bug they think it will come with a whimper, not a bang.
Craig Bode, a student at Northwood University in West Palm Beach, Fla., spent the day after Christmas looking at Zip disks and rewritable CD's at CompUSA in Deerfield Beach, a few miles south. He bought his computer three years ago but now he wants to be sure it is protected against any year 2000 problems.
"You never know what to believe," he said. "You don't know if it's the latest media craze or what. I hope it's just hype, but if I hear the phrase Y2K one more time I just might lose it."
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For New Year's, go climb a mountain
USA Today 12/30/99- Updated 12:52 AM ET By Sal Ruibal, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/acovthu.htm
The first tick of the new millennium will be celebrated by millions with a champagne toast.
For millions more, a kiss.
But for a few daring souls, Y2K will arrive with the adrenaline scream of an extreme sports challenge.
From the tallest peaks of Africa and the Americas to the dusty roads of Baja California, the trails of New Zealand to the timberline vastness of the Rocky Mountains, adventure athletes are gearing up for their millennial feats.
"It's not surprising that these people are choosing to usher in the new millennium by doing what they love to do," says Chris Stiepock, communications director for the ESPN X Games.
"People who are really into alternative or adrenaline-based sports are usually the first ones to do anything, whether it's first to the ski lift to get first tracks on fresh snow or into the water to surf or even just to lace up the sneakers for a run.
They think a hangover is just a cramp that'll go away."
High in the Andes mountain range of South America, members of the Alpine Ascents International Millennium Climb are preparing to reach the 22,829-foot summit of Cerro Aconcagua, the tallest peak outside of Asia.
Although Aconcagua lacks the reputation of Himalayan giants such as Everest and K2, it is no walk in the woods: During the 1998 climbing season, 16 people died on "The White Sentinel," more fatalities than on Everest in the tragic season of 1996.
Aconcagua, in Argentina near the border with Chile, is subject to freak storms from the Pacific Ocean that send monstrous mushroom clouds of ice crystals soaring above the 18,000-foot level.
On Wednesday, the self-described "millennioids" were moving to a higher camp at 19,000 feet, "weather permitting."
"We say 'weather permitting' because right now we're having wind out of the west at about 25 miles per hour, and that could build overnight or it could dissipate," climber Vern Tejas said in a satellite phone dispatch to MountainZone.com.
"We're, of course, knocking on wood and hoping that it is going to dissipate.
So come tomorrow morning, we are going to get up bright and early, trying to get high on the mountain and then position ourselves for a shot at the summit come the millennium."
Another Alpine Ascents team is hoping to reach the top of 19,399-foot Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa, by Jan. 1.
The North Face Millennium Expedition to Everest was canceled Dec. 22 when Sherpa climbing guide Lahakpa Dorji fell ill.
Thrills down under
Just 500 miles from the International Dateline, adventure sports-crazy New Zealand will be the first major nation to greet the new year.
In the city of Hamilton, an international band of hard-core runners, including 700 Americans, will celebrate at midnight with a pasta feast in anticipation of running the first marathon of the millennium at dawn.
The global news media have descended on the island nation for the first reports of Y2K problems, but most of the visiting runners have their minds on blisters instead of computer glitches.
"I didn't even think about it," says David Brust, 58, an architect from Milwaukee. "I just made sure someone waters the plants. I told them I'd call if the world ends."
Brust and his wife, Sara, are running a 10K race that starts minutes after the marathon.
It will include their sons, Chris, 21, and John, 27, who's competing in his first 26.2-mile race.
In Auckland, downtown celebrations will be punctuated by the latest extreme craze, "urban rap jumping," in which daredevils bungee jump with only concrete below.
The ultimate leap last year was by A.J. Hackett, who launched himself off the observation deck of the landmark 1,000-foot-high Sky Tower.
He landed in a sea of multicolored helium balloons that were floating only 50 yards above the concrete sidewalk.
A lack of deep powder snow hasn't dampened plans at Colorado's famed Irwin Lodge, a 10,900 -foot-high mecca for extreme winter sports that can be reached only by snowmobiles and tank-treaded snowcats.
The 22-room inn is expecting 150 guests for a high-altitude millennium bash that includes soaks in an outdoor hot tub, dancing to the funky hip-hop sounds of Sucker and a gourmet buffet.
At midnight, guests can either snowshoe or ride snowmobiles to a nearby ridge to oooh and ahhh over the fireworks at the Mount Crested Butte ski resort.
A party all year
One group of hardy cyclists likes the idea of a millennium adventure so much that its expedition will last the entire year.
The 20,000-mile, 366-day Odyssey 2000 ride will begin Saturday in Pasadena, Calif., at the lead of the Tournament of Roses Parade.
It will end in Los Angeles on Jan. 1, 2001, considered the true start of the millennium by calendar purists.
"We've got it covered on both ends," says Peter Bolton, 42, a Canadian who is giving up his job with a San Diego bike company to make the trek with 261 other riders.
Bolton is also leaving his home and wife behind.
Maureen Bolton is relocating to a new job in Sacramento.
He also has sacrificed to come up with the ride's $36,000 fee, which includes everything except someone to pedal your bike.
"I saved literally every spare penny for the last four years," Bolton says.
Al and Stephanie Tarkington of Del Ray, Calif., have rented out their seaside home for the next year, but they're staying close on a tandem bike.
Stephanie, 58, says she won't get tired of seeing Al's 60-year-old backside for 20,000 miles.
"Oh, I like to give it a lot of pats," she giggled. "It's a lot of fun to be always in touch."
Al is winding down his accounting practice, and Stephanie retired three years ago, so they're almost footloose and fancy-free.
"We both have elderly mothers in their 90s, so their care is a concern for us," Stephanie says.
"But we're going to be in contact as much as we can."
Experienced tandem riders, the Tarkingtons have already made a 1,100-mile ride through Baja California, which is also the first leg of Odyssey 2000.
"We're pretty durable on our trips," she says.
"We only drink bottled water. I'm a vegetarian and Al can eat anything, even mystery meat."
Leading the Tournament of Roses Parade has special meaning for the Tarkingtons, who grew up in the Pasadena area.
"I was never the Rose Queen or Princess," Stephanie says. "But this is just as good."
'That's a very cool thing'
Bolton says the grueling circumnavigation has personal meaning far beyond the turning of a calendar page.
"Two thousand is a nice round number, but I would do this no matter what year it came on.
When people hear about the ride, their imaginations are sparked. They're riding vicariously through me, and that's a very cool thing."
Doing the coolest thing is a high priority for risk-taking athletes, says the X Games Stiepock:
"These kinds of people live their life playing Can You Top This?, so they're going to greet the new millennium by doing something special to remember.
"What sounds better: I stayed at home and watched the ball drop on TV, or I went to Alaska for three days of extreme skiing?"
Contributing: Kimi Puntillo in New Zealand
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Watching for the Y2K Bug
New York Times December 30, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/30/editorial/30thu1.html
Years from now, historians will be fascinated by the combination of arduous planning, breathless hype and stubborn indifference that have gone into preparations for the computer glitch known as the Y2K bug. By now it seems clear to experts who have followed the saga that when the new year arrives tomorrow night, the most dire predictions of crises in computer systems in this country will not come to pass. Air travel and the banking system are expected to continue uninterrupted, and there will probably not be widespread power failures.
Americans may need to brace for inconveniences and localized problems, but the worst potential disasters are expected overseas.
As almost everyone knows, the Y2K snag is expected to occur because some computers may shut down or misfire when their internal clocks fail to recognize the year 2000. Many of the preparations have been extremely impressive. American businesses and government have spent an estimated $100 billion to get ready for Y2K problems, and tens of thousands of Americans will be working this weekend to cope with crises as they unfold. The federal government reports that Medicare and Social Security payments will go out, and defense readiness has been checked and rechecked.
American experts are most alarmed by the lack of preparations abroad. Russia, China, Italy, several oil-producing states and many more developing countries with aging computer systems could face major disruptions. Russia is an obvious worry because of its nuclear weapons, though Russian leaders insist they have everything under control.
No one knows what will happen when American computer systems that have been fixed interface with systems that have gone haywire, either in this country or elsewhere. It may take days or weeks to determine that the globe's vast network of electronic systems is home free.
A second problem is that many if not most small businesses in the United States, and many local governments, school districts and homeowners, have simply not heeded warnings to check their systems. Another difficulty relates to equipment with so-called embedded computer chips. Because of all these factors, experts say, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, transit systems and small or medium-sized businesses face potential stoppages and delays in their vital functions.
At the stroke of midnight, amid fears of terrorism and computer breakdowns, we will listen expectantly to the news, hoping for the best. Even those of us who have not filled the bathtub with emergency water, withdrawn extra cash from the bank and stocked up on food will be entering the new millennium sobered by the awareness that unknown problems of our own making are an enduring part of existence.
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Millenium dream catchers
Washington Times December 30, 1999 Suzanne Fields
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/Fields-19991230.htm
LAS VEGAS, Nevada
Where to spend the last week of the year, of the century, of the millennium? That was the question. New York? Hollywood? Paris? Venice? Bali?
Why not at all of the above? So I headed for Las Vegas.
I check into the Venetian hotel where for $10 I can take a gondola ride in the Grand Canal gliding underneath an artificial blue sky with hand-painted white clouds, and where everyday is cool. A walk down Las Vegas Boulevard, known as the Strip, takes me to Paris-Las Vegas for a delicious croissant in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower (one-half the original's size). At MGM Grand, I join a safari of tourists walking into a lion's habitat. Real lion cubs play near our feet. Exhausted, I relax on a beach looking at six foot waves in Bali, one every minute, choreographed and mechanized in a pool at the Mandalay Bay.
Las Vegas is the essential existential illusion. You can always be someone else somewhere else. Just enter another hotel fantasy and get in sync with its exotic theme. This isn't virtual reality, this is real fantasy, compressed and concentrated. Time and space collapse and collide in an extravaganza devoted to one central purpose, to entice a visitor to part with his money. The path to every destination runs through the casino.
New York, New York, with skyscrapers depicting the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building surround a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty. Inside the casino, just in front of the "New York Slot Exchange" a smaller freedom lady's skirts swirl high above her thighs, like Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven Year Itch." Love Goddess merges with Freedom Goddess. All that along with a hot pastrami on rye with a crisp half-done kosher pickle at a Greenwich Village deli.
One evening at the Caneletto, a restaurant in the Venetian where the chic meet in a cosmopolitan corner of St. Mark's Square, (without the pigeons) everyone speaks Italian. The men and women are mostly dressed in leather jackets soft as silk.
Nearly everybody else here is dressed either in High Tacky - lots of gold bracelets, big rings and shirts and scarves with designers names as bright as neon - or Low Casual which means you can identify your favorite brand of sneakers and dress in the clothes you slept in. But gone is the celebrated kitsch.
Liberace, the King of Kitsch, whose image was synonymous with Las Vegas show biz glitz of the 1950s, left a museum with his collection of rhinestone pianos, iridescent cars and bejeweled capes covered with feathers and furs. One weighs 200 pounds. But the piano maestro is rarely mentioned today.
Sinatra's velvet voice is still ubiquitous in restaurants, casinos and elevators, but the Sands Hotel, which he made famous, has been torn down. Before anyone could say "Dean Martin" the Venetian rose on its site.
The last time I saw Las Vegas it was a honeymoon drive across America. My father was a bookmaker (as in "bookie") and his gambling friends had lots of connections at the Desert Inn. They treated the newlyweds to everything on the house. We even got an envelope of cash every morning to spend in the casino.
But Vegas has gone through several reincarnations since then. Today Vegas has pretensions that Bugsy Siegel, the gangster and founding father of the Strip, never dreamed of. Tourists line up to get in a gallery of fine art in the Bellagio Matisse, Monet, Renoir and Picasso are, as the billboard puts it, "Now Appearing." Genuine though they are, it's a rough environment for old masters. The tab is $12 and there's no chance of winning a jackpot.
The new Las Vegas aspires to be family friendly. Magic shows with jugglers are aimed directly at children. Treasure Island offers a pirate show nightly (for free) where children and adults gather on the sidewalk and watch a sea battle with canons and gun fire. The Southern Baptists, 35,000 of them, held their annual convention here.
But a sadness competing with decadence lurks in the casinos, where children are not allowed but baby strollers are. A pretty young woman, with a cigaret dangling from her mouth, wears a poker face drained of emotion but lined with stress. The elderly who get special package rates do not look like Granny or Pop-Pop when they're obsessed with striking it rich. One frail octogenarian with blue hair plays two of the one armed bandits simultaneously. Pawn shops do a thriving business here.
But it's a free country, and everyone gets to choose the sins to carry into the millennium. Las Vegas is living proof that no one gets a round-trip ticket to the end of the rainbow. Happy New Year.
Suzanne Fields is a columnist for The Washington Times.