--------- Activists

Online Petitions to sign:

Abolish Nuclear Weapons http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html

No Star Wars / Stop BMD http://www.PetitionOnline.com/BKG/petition.html

List of Petitions Online: http://www.PetitionOnline.com

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

Plutonium shipment goes without hitch, government says

Detroit News
Saturday, January 15, 2000
By John Flesher
Associated Press
http://detnews.com/2000/metro/0001/15/01150025.htm

TRAVERSE CITY -- A shipment of nuclear fuel containing weapons grade plutonium arrived safely in Canada on Friday, eluding opponents who had vowed to block it.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced the shipment was completed this week, but would not say just when. Officials said it had entered Canada from Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., but would not confirm whether the route disclosed last fall -which would have taken it across 18 Michigan counties and the Mackinac Bridge -- was used.

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, said the 4.25 ounces of mixed oxide fuel was trucked across the International Bridge around 4 a.m. Friday. It was transferred to a helicopter in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and flown to a test reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, said Larry Shewchuk, spokesman for Atomic Energy of Canada Laboratories.

"We are very pleased that there has not been a problem," Stupak said. "Everything has arrived safely. There has been no harm to our environment, or the health or safety of northern Michigan."

Energy Department officials described the shipment as a key component of the Parallex Project, designed to help Russia dispose of surplus plutonium from its Cold War nuclear arsenal. They insisted it posed little if any risk, even in the unlikely event of a spill.

But it drew fierce objections from many Michigan officials and residents, including a lawsuit that prompted a federal judge to put a temporary hold on the shipment before finally allowing it to proceed.

Verna Lawrence, mayor of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., who had threatened to block the shipment with her body, said she was angry that no local officials received prior notice.

"This is what makes people say, 'I love my country but I don't trust my government,"' Ms. Lawrence said.

Gov. John Engler's office also was informed after the fact that the shipment had taken place.

"We didn't anticipate any problems from the get-go, so it's nice to hear they made it through with no problems," spokeswoman Susan Shafer said.

When announcing the shipment Sept. 2, the Energy Department said state, local and tribal officials would be notified before it began. On Friday, the department said the timing and route had been withheld "for security reasons."

Russian plutonium also will be sent to Chalk River under the Parallex Project, which will help determine whether Canadian nuclear reactors can burn mixed oxide fuel, the Energy Department said.

Although the department Friday would not reveal what route was taken, officials said last fall the material would be trucked 3,300 miles from the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico.

They said it would pass through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois before entering southwestern Michigan on Interstate 94. It would turn north on I-69 east of Battle Creek, bypass Lansing and connect with I-75 at Flint, then head for the Upper Peninsula.

During public meetings in October, department officials said the mixed oxide fuel -- a blend of uranium dioxide and plutonium dioxide powder -- would take the form of small pellets loaded into nine metal fuel rods.

They said the rods would be shipped in a container resembling a 55-gallon metal drum. It was designed to remain intact even in a severe crash, and withstood tests such as being dropped 30 feet onto a hard surface, slammed onto a spike, burned and dunked in water.

Even if the barrel somehow lost its cargo, there would be so little radiation that 140 such accidents would be needed to give an exposed person the same dosage as from one chest X-ray, said Laura Holgate, head of the department's fissile materials disposition office.

"This is one of the safest shipments we've ever done," she said then.

But critics said Michigan's snowy winters, the possibility of terrorist attacks, and the hazards of trucking radioactive material across the Mackinac and International bridges added up to an unacceptable risk.

A group called Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination joined six individuals in a lawsuit demanding an in-depth environmental assessment of the entire Parallex Project.

U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen last month lifted a temporary order delaying the shipment. He ruled that the project's importance to nuclear disarmament outweighed the possibility that the government had not complied with some rules.

Alice Hirt, one of the plaintiffs, said the suit would proceed even though the shipment was completed. She said she was not reassured by the government's promise of no more plutonium shipments through Michigan.

"If you read the fine print in their documents, they leave open the possibility," she said, predicting there would be "a huge number of shipments of mixed oxide fuel around the world."

About the shipment

Facts about the U.S. Department of Energy's shipment of radioactive material to Canada:

--Shipment part of Parallex Project, aimed at helping Russia dispose of nuclear arsenal fuel.

--Consisted of 4.25 ounces of mixed oxide fuel, a mixture of uranium oxide and plutonium oxide.

--Originated at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Entered Canada at Sault Ste. Marie early Friday, flown to Chalk River, Ontario.

--U.S. route not disclosed; believed to have taken shipment across Lower Peninsula and Mackinac Bridge.

----------- germany

Report: USSR Had E.Germany Missiles

January 15, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Germany-Soviet-Missiles.html

BERLIN (AP) -- The Soviet Union secretly stationed nuclear missiles in communist East Germany in 1959, several years before the confrontation with the United States over missiles on Cuba, a magazine reported Saturday.

Der Spiegel, citing new research by a German historian, said Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the order to spirit 12 SS-3 missiles to Soviet bases in East Germany, keeping its ally in the dark.

With a range of 750 miles, the missiles could have hit France and Britain as well as U.S. military bases, the report said. They were withdrawn a few months after their April 1959 arrival, apparently as the Soviets developed long-range missiles that could hit those targets from Russian territory, Der Spiegel said.

Khrushchev's purpose may have been to find new ways to pressure the Allies to leave West Berlin, a western outpost in East Germany during the Cold War, the magazine said.

Historians had always viewed the 1962 Cuban missile crisis as the first time Moscow stationed nuclear missiles abroad, the report said. Khrushchev withdrew the missiles after a standoff with former President John F. Kennedy widely believed to have brought the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war.

The magazine cited research by an unnamed historian at Halle-Wittenberg University in eastern Germany who interviewed witnesses and reviewed newly available documents in Moscow.

-----------iran

Iran May Buy Russian Nuclear Reactors

Washington Post
Saturday, January 15, 2000; Page A20
WORLD IN BRIEF Compiled from news services.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/15/154l-011500-idx.html

MOSCOW--Iran may order three more nuclear reactors for power generation from Russia, a top Russian official said after meeting with an Iranian government representative in Moscow.

U.S. officials have strongly protested Russia's assistance with Iran's nuclear program. The United States accuses Iran of attempting to build weapons of mass destruction.

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

U.N. Scrambles to Choose Chief Iraqi Arms Inspector

January 15, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/011500iraq-un.html

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 14 -- With a Sunday deadline looming, Security Council differences hardened today over whom to appoint as the new chief arms inspector for Iraq.

"It's been a bit more complicated than one would have expected," said Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Under a resolution in December creating a new disarmament commission to finish the job of ridding Iraq of prohibited weapons, Mr. Annan's deadline for naming an executive chairman is midnight Sunday, and he had hoped to name a consensus candidate by now. But tonight the Security Council was so deadlocked that some officials said a new list of nominees might have to be solicited from members, which could stall the process indefinitely.

"The secretary general hasn't given up," his spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said. But several Security Council members expressed concern that having to extend the deadline could strip the commission of credibility, and that Iraq would get a clear message that it had little to fear in its inspections.

Iraq has already played an indirect role in stymying the council, as countries acting on its behalf have vetoed strong candidates. Four countries -- China, France, Malaysia and Russia -- abstained in the vote that established the new inspection commission.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the American representative and this month's council president, told members today that he opposed further delays and asked them to be on call over the weekend. Mr. Holbrooke, who had not taken an active part in Iraq discussions since his arrival in August, has been drawn into the issue as council president. Several other members said they welcomed this, adding that often only the United States has the power to force a decision.

Mr. Annan's short list of candidates has continued to fluctuate, but at least two names have been steady contenders, a Western diplomat said. They are Pasi Patokallio, a Finnish disarmament expert who is now ambassador to Israel, and Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish diplomat who helped create the first arms inspection commission, Unscom, and led it until 1997. He is now Sweden's ambassador to the United States.

Some diplomats say that Chinese and possibly Russian insistence that Mr. Ekeus would not be welcomed back in Iraq may have eliminated him. At the United Nations, however, situations are often fluid until the last minute, as envoys work the telephones to their capitals, and governments confer over the heads of their diplomats. American diplomats have not yet ruled out Mr. Ekeus or Mr. Patokallio, who also has his detractors.

Other names have been floated in the last two days -- among them Celso Amorim of Brazil, a former diplomat who works for the United Nations in Geneva; Abdul Minty, a South African nuclear expert; and, most recently, Ali Alatas, a former Indonesian foreign minister, and his compatriot Nugroho Wisnamurti, who was Indonesia's United Nations ambassador and later foreign secretary. Those last two names, proposed by Malaysia, are seen by other diplomats as more of a longshot bid to get an Asian candidate into the mix, although Mr. Wisnamurti seems to have some support.

All week, the Security Council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and Secretary General Annan have been secretly winnowing down the large field of candidates and focusing on those they find most acceptable. The council's remaining 10 members have been kept almost entirely in the dark, several diplomats said. This has revived the resentment felt when the new inspection panel, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, was created by the five permanent members in months of discussions behind closed doors, and then presented to the other council members.

This afternoon, Mr. Annan met with the 10 nonpermanent members, to brief them on his search for an executive chairman.

There have been no arms inspections in Iraq since December 1998, when Unscom, the United Nations Special Commission, evacuated its staff in the face of American and British bombing raids. Unscom's chairman, Richard Butler, resigned last June at the end of a two-year contract, but a skeleton staff has stayed on to complete an archive of its work.

Unscom was created in 1991 as part of the cease-fire resolution ending the Persian Gulf war. Despite Iraqi defiance, Unscom, working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, was able to find and destroy far more weapons and other prohibited materials than experts had thought Iraq possessed.

Iraq is still under a Security Council embargo imposed after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Until the Iraqis are judged to have complied fully with disarmament teams -- first Unscom and now Unmovic -- sanctions remain in place. Although Iraq is now free to export all the oil it can pump in order to import needed civilian goods, its oil income is still supervised through escrow accounts held by the United Nations.

The Iraqis have said that they will not cooperate with a new inspection plan, just as they had stopped cooperating with Unscom. But many diplomats here see this as an opening ploy in a long struggle to get inspectors back into the country, if only to find a legal way to end sanctions.

Related Articles

Iraq to Allow Nuclear Inspections Again (Jan. 13, 2000)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/011300iraq-inspections.html

Iraq Rejects U.N. Decision to Create New Arms Inspection Plan (Dec. 19, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121999iraq-un.html

U.N. Passes New Plan to Track Iraqi Arms (Dec. 18, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121899iraq-un.html

France Seeking Consensus on Iraq Inspections (Dec. 17, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121799iraq-un.html

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

South Korea Plans to Begin Rocket Program

January 15, 2000
By CALVIN SIMS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/011500korea-space.html

SEOUL, South Korea -- Having succeeded in making computer memory chips, consumer electronics and automobiles, South Korea has set its sights on a far loftier goal: conquering outer space.

The Government plans to develop a rocket capable of ferrying satellites into orbit within the next five years at a cost that space agency officials estimate at $500 million to $1 billion, although independent experts said the cost could run as high as several billion dollars.

The project, still in the planning stages, represents South Korea's hope to join the elite ranks of other space-faring nations and free itself from dependence on other countries to launch its satellites and provide military surveillance.

But United States officials have reservations about South Korea's ambitions, fearing that that the project may not be economically viable, and that the rocket technology could be exported to countries who may use it for military applications. South Korea says that the project would be sufficiently financed, and that the rocket technology would not be suitable for military purposes.

Announcing the project last month, President Kim Dae Jung said that South Korea would build "a working satellite-launching facility by the year 2005, constructed with Korean technology and equipment."

He promised that the government would allocate enough money for the rocket program and for research and development in other high technology fields, including electronics and computer software.

South Korean space agency officials said they hope to build a world-class space program, and they have grand visions of one day working with the United States and other countries on projects like a reusable space shuttle and an international space station.

South Korea's decision to develop a satellite launching station reflects the dramatic comeback of this proud nation following the Asian financial crisis, which had caused the government to shelve the project as too expensive.

Although little is known about South Korea's rocket technology, some satellite experts believe that the country could produce its own satellite-launching vehicles.

But security experts and Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed concern that the technology that South Korea hopes to develop to to launch satellites could also be used to make long-range ballistic missiles.

Without the proper checks and balances, they said that other countries could view the space project as having military applications and might lead to an arms race in northeast Asia.

"This type of satellite rocket technology is transferable to military applications, and other countries in the region are certainly going to view South Korea's program through this prism," said a United States government official who monitors missiles and weapons of mass destruction. .

"One of the reasons we are not fully pleased about countries starting up space launch programs that are not economically viable is that they could export the launching vehicle to someone else who has no intention of using it for satellites," the official said.

Under a 1979 accord with the United States, South Korea agreed to limit the range of its missiles to about 100 miles and promised to abide by treaty rules restricting the spread of nuclear weapons.

South Korea has been seeking permission from the United States to increase the range of its ballistic missiles after North Korea test fired a medium-range missile in 1998 that flew over the Japanese mainland and into the ocean.

At the time, North Korea claimed that the test launch was a multistage rocket designed to put a satellite into orbit.

Last year, North Korea threatened to test fire a second missile with a much longer range but abandoned those plans after strong international protests and after the United States agreed to lift economic sanctions against the Communist country.

Although the United States recently agreed to increase the missile range limits for South Korea to up to 180 miles, Korean officials want the United States to raise the missile range to 300 miles.

Choi Dong-Whan, president of the Korean Aerospace Research Institute, the government space agency, said in an interview that Korea's space-launching rocket program would be economically viable and that the project would not have military applications.

He said the space agency plans to develop a leaky fuel propellant rocket system that is not useful for intercontinental ballistic missiles, which typically employ a solid propellant.

The South Korean rocket is expected to operate at an altitude between 375 miles and 437 miles and initially would carry small satellites used for mapping, coastline surveillance and weather forecasting, Mr. Choi said. South Korea would continue to rely on foreign firms to launch heavier communications satellites that are placed in orbit, he said.

"We don't want to depend on other countries anymore," Mr. Choi said. "We pay a lot of money to outside countries and we have to wait for launching time which is dependent on their schedule and wastes our time and budget."

Space agency officials said that South Korea needs to place at least 19 new satellites in orbit by the year 2025 and that the country can build its own satellite launching pad for about the same cost of paying a foreign firm to launch four or five satellites.

South Korea currently has six satellites, three for communications and broadcasting and three for scientific research, and all carried into orbit abroad by foreign-made rockets.

If its rocket is cost-efficient, South Korea could also use the technology to compete in the lucrative commercial satellite launching business.

The highly competitive industry is currently dominated by three major players: the Boeing Company's Delta rockets and Lockheed Martin's Atlas rockets, both from the United States, and Ariane rockets, made by the European consortium Arianespace. Russia and China have small portions of the market.

But space experts said that South Korea faces considerable challenges building a launching vehicle made solely with its own technology, particularly in integrating the various systems of the rocket.

Despite years of development and billions of dollars in expenditures, many advanced countries still struggle to master rocket technology.

Last month, Japan said that it was abandoning its troubled H-II rocket project after a series of costly failures, including the loss of an H-II rocket that plunged into the Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff in November.

The Japanese, which had invested $4.14 billion in the program since 1986, are still investigating the cause of the rocket failure.

Still, a growing number of countries are announcing plans to build their own satellites or develop rockets to launch them, partly for the prestige that comes with such capability but also for the possible commercial and technological applications.

"More and more countries are realizing that space is really the next frontier and not just for exploration," said Duane Brown, a spokesman for National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States. "It's expensive and takes a lot of hard work and trial-and-error, but space has become a global venture that makes a lot of sense."

----------- panama

Panama Steps Up Security for Ship With Atomic Waste

New York Times
January 15, 2000
By ELIZABETH BECKER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/011500panama-canal.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 -- Bowing to renewed concerns about terrorist attacks, Panama authorities said today that they were beefing up security to protect a British ship carrying radioactive cargo through the Panama Canal this weekend.

"The vessel is a visible target for any group that wants to make a statement," Jorge Quijano, director of maritime operations for the Panama Canal Authority, said in an interview today.

Environmental groups fear that the ship, the Pacific Swan, carrying high-level waste to Japan from France, is vulnerable to terrorists who could board and dislodge or rupture the casks with the waste, threatening a potentially catastrophic release of radioactivity.

Two years ago, when the first shipment of radioactive waste passed through the canal, Greenpeace, the antinuclear group, boarded the vessel to show how easy a terrorist hijacking would be.

Since then another shipment has transited the canal without incident.

But now that the United States has given Panama control of the canal, Panamanian authorities have decided to provide what they described as "greatly enhanced protection" for the new shipment.

Panamanian security forces will board the Pacific Swan as it enters Panamanian waters and take control of security and escort vessels. If necessary, Panama will also provide security from the air, Mr. Quijano said.

"This is definitely the most secure vessel to pass through the canal since Jan. 1," he said, referring to when Panama took over the canal.

Most of the pressure to increase security came from the Nuclear Control Institute, a group in Washington that seeks to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The group has been monitoring the shipments, which are tied to nuclear power plants in Japan.

The waste is the spent fuel from nuclear power plants in Japan from which the plutonium and uranium has been recovered in France. British ships will make two trips a year through the canal to return the waste to Japan for 15 years, the president of the Washington group, Paul Leventhal, said.

"The consequence of a release of radioactive waste would be long lived," Mr. Leventhal said in an interview. "The contamination would be very hard to clean up, and it could render the canal inoperable and the surrounding areas uninhabitable."

Mr. Leventhal was in Panama at the government's invitation to monitor the Pacific Swan's passage. He said he attended a security session this morning with representatives of the canal authority; British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., whose subsidiary owns the ship; and the Japanese nuclear industry.

Any problem with the ship would be a blow to the industry, which has come under rare public criticism since Japan suffered its worst accident in September. One worker was killed and scores of people were exposed to radiation when workers set off an accidental chain reaction at a plant in Tokaimura.

The industry is counting on France's continuing to reprocess the fuel until it builds its own reprocessing factory. But the new criticism of the industry may threaten those plans.

Although Panama has no new intelligence that predicts a terrorist attack, American officials have said they have worried through much of this decade that a possible narcotics-terrorist plot from Colombia would try to seize the canal.

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

New Kremlin document calls NATO, U.S. a threat

Lincoln Journal Star
Saturday, Jan. 15, 2000
http://www.journalstar.com/archives/011500/nat/sto1

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia unveiled its new national security doctrine on Friday, broadening the Kremlin's authority to use nuclear weapons and accusing the United States of trying to weaken Russia and become the world's dominant power.

The doctrine replaces one adopted in 1997, a time when political and military partnership with the West were still buzzwords and many Russians remained optimistic about the country's economic future.

But Russia's attitude to the West has hardened following the eastward expansion of NATO and the alliance's intervention in Yugoslavia, and the nation's economic reform efforts have suffered serious setbacks.

"The idea of partnership has vanished," said Sergei Sorkut, a military affairs writer at the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, which published the entire doctrine in its weekly military supplement.

Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the "Concept of National Security" into law on Monday, but the full document was not published in Russian newspapers until Friday.

The most significant change in the lengthy document, which covers two full newspaper pages, concerns the use of Russia's powerful nuclear arsenal.

In a section called "Ensuring the National Security of Russia," the new doctrine would allow the country's leaders to use all existing forces "including nuclear weapons" to oppose any attack -- nuclear or conventional -- if other efforts fail to repel the aggressor.

The previous doctrine stated that Russia would use nuclear weapons only in cases when its national sovereignty was threatened.

"The level and scale of military threats is growing," the doctrine said, as if to justify the new emphasis on the potential use of nuclear weapons.

Military experts say the shift was due to the tremendous weakness of Russia's conventional forces, which might not be able to defend the country against attack.

"It widens the range of Russia's use of nuclear weapons," Sorkut said in an interview. "It's a guarantee that Russia won't be attacked." Following the publication of the document, the Russian military tried to play down the significance of the nuclear aspect.

"Moscow is interested in expanding cooperation with the West," Col. Gen. Valery Manilov, the deputy chief of the General Staff, told the Interfax news agency.

But in Brussels, Belgium, NATO officials who have seen the document described it as having a much more aggressive and confrontational tone than its predecessor. However, security experts have pointed out that the new stress on nuclear weapons sounds like NATO's own doctrine.

NATO's policy guidelines state that nuclear arms contribute to peace in Europe by "making the risks of aggression against NATO incalculable and unacceptable in a way that conventional forces alone cannot." The alliance's doctrine calls for the use of nuclear weapons only as a last resort.

---

Russia unveils security doctrine

Bergen record
Saturday, January 15, 2000
By DEBORAH SEWARD
The Associated Press
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/rusec15200001154.htm

MOSCOW -- Russia unveiled its new national security doctrine Friday, broadening the Kremlin's authority to use nuclear weapons and accusing the United States of trying to weaken Russia and become the world's dominant power.

The doctrine replaces one adopted in 1997, a time when political and military partnership with the West were still buzzwords and many Russians remained optimistic about the country's economic future.

But Russia's attitude to the West has hardened following the eastward expansion of NATO and the alliance's intervention in Yugoslavia.

"The idea of partnership has vanished," said Sergei Sokut, a military affairs writer for a Moscow newspaper.

Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the "Concept of National Security" into law on Monday, but the full document was not published in Russian newspapers until Friday.

The most significant change in the lengthy document, which covers two full newspaper pages, concerns the use of Russia's powerful nuclear arsenal.

In a section called "Ensuring the National Security of Russia," the new doctrine would allow the country's leaders to use all existing forces "including nuclear weapons" to oppose any attack -- nuclear or conventional -- if other efforts fail to repel the aggressor.

The previous doctrine stated that Russia would use nuclear weapons only in cases when its national sovereignty was threatened.

Military experts say the shift was due to the tremendous weakness of Russia's conventional forces, which might not be able to defend the country against attack.

Following the publication of the document, the Russian military tried to play down the significance of the nuclear aspect.

"Moscow is interested in expanding cooperation with the West," Col. Gen. Valery Manilov, the deputy chief of the General Staff, told a news agency.

Publication of the new doctrine comes at a time when relations between the United States and Russia have soured, with sharp differences over Washington's desire to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Russia says that pulling back from the treaty risks upsetting the strategic nuclear balance and could unleash a new arms race.

The doctrine identifies two "mutually exclusive" trends in international relations following the end of the Cold War: one an attempt to create a multipolar world and the other an alleged effort led by the United States to dominate the world.

Russia, China, India, and France have all opposed what they call U.S. hegemony following the Cold War and have attempted to create a counterbalance.

The doctrine condemns alleged efforts by a series of countries, which are not identified by name, to weaken Russian economically, politically, and militarily.

---

Moscow Issues New Policy Emphasizing Nuclear Arms

January 15, 2000
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/011500russia-weapons.html

MOSCOW, Jan. 14 -- Underscoring its darkening view of the West, the Kremlin issued a national security strategy today that inveighs against an expansionist Europe and United States and contemplates the use of nuclear weapons in war "if all other means of resolving the crisis have been exhausted."

The revised language governing nuclear weapons is a subtle but unmistakable stiffening of the previous strategy, issued in 1997, which allowed the use of nuclear arms only "in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation."

The new strategy was signed by Acting President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday and published today. It reviews not just foreign threats but also a sweeping array of internal dangers, from organized crime to terrorism to separatist movements like that of the militants in Chechnya. Buoyed by the campaign in Chechnya, Mr. Putin is the leading candidate in the election for president on March 26.

In many respects, today's document simply incorporates changes in military and political doctrine approved over the last year as Russia's domestic situation deteriorated and its judgment of Western intentions changed.

The State Department and the Pentagon made no comment today about the announcement. But while the NATO allies do not view Moscow as a source of aggression, allied military commanders still regard its huge nuclear arsenal with wariness and respect.

Taken together, the Russian changes represent a new view of the world by the nation's leaders -- one in which the West is no longer benign, but is a competitor that benefits from and even schemes to ensure Russian weakness.

In the opinion of the document's drafters, Russia is weak in almost every respect.

The strategy calls the armed forces' readiness "critically low," and says social stability is at risk because the population is being stratified into "a thin layer of well-to-do-people and a predominant layer of citizens of scanty means."

It says that terrorism poses a serious internal threat, that foreign economic influence over the economy and natural resources might be more tightly controlled by the state, and that national security is endangered by a brain drain of technologists and the leakage of intellectual property.

The deputy chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's general staff, Col. Valery Manilov, said today that the strategy's apparent suspicion of Western intentions should not be blown out of proportion.

In comments to the Russian news service Interfax, Colonel Manilov said Moscow remained interested in "mutually beneficial and neighborly cooperation on an equal footing with Western countries."

Even that wording reflects the altered sentiment of the strategy, which has dropped all mention of "partnership" with the West in favor of the more neutral term "cooperation."

Little of this bleak picture is new to people who have watched Russia's elite and average citizens alike turn against the West after the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia last spring.

Bruce G. Blair, an expert on Russian and American nuclear forces at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the change was "a codification of something that's really already been pretty well cemented in the Russian psyche, at least among their security planners."

And the discussion of nuclear contingencies, which attracted by far the most attention, may not prove to be of much practical significance.

Mr. Putin, who spent a decade or more watching the West as a K.G.B. agent in East Germany, is said by friends to be well aware that any threat that Europe and the United States pose to Russia is not military, but economic and cultural.

And the United States -- which also periodically redraws its security landscape, in an exercise not dissimilar from that of the Kremlin -- has traditionally been more hawkish about the first use of nuclear weapons than has Moscow.

America's policy during the cold war was never to renounce the first use of nuclear arms, but to counter a Russian invasion of Europe with nuclear force, if necessary.

Russia had renounced the first use of nuclear missiles for some years but, worried about China, abandoned the pledge in 1993. By then, however, it viewed itself as an ally of the West.

In that sense, the Kremlin and White House nuclear policies are not all that far apart.

But in terms of security, the Russian and American nuclear forces are now far apart, Mr. Blair said, with American forces remaining under tight control, while control of Russian nuclear missiles is more problematic.

In Mr. Blair's view, the new security policy may increase the chances of potentially catastrophic lapses in a Russian military hobbled by financial problems and lapsed military discipline.

Russia is forced to rely more and more on its nuclear force to deter threats, experts warn, because its conventional forces no longer are able to repel an outsider. That requires keeping nuclear arms on high alert, and that invites mistakes in a system where missing radars and balky satellites already provide only spotty warning of incoming missiles. The situation may also increase the chance of false alarms.

Russia has increasingly shown its nuclear card in recent years, more as a reminder of its potential to wreak havoc -- and to command respect -- than as any threat. Only last month, Boris N. Yeltsin, who was then president, startled American leaders when in response to a mild criticism of Russia's Chechnya policy, he tartly reminded President Clinton that the Kremlin controls an arsenal of nuclear missiles and does not brook attacks.

In June, the Russian military unveiled its response to the West's bombing of Yugoslavia by staging the largest military exercise since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It carried out mock nuclear strikes on an unspecified, but inarguably Western, enemy.

The plan for the exercise envisioned a Kremlin unable to repel Western forces with its cash-starved army, and thus forced to resort to nuclear weapons.

The Defense Minister, Igor D. Sergeyev, then all but parroted the text of the document released today. "The exercise tested one of the provisions of Russia's military doctrine concerning a possible use of nuclear weapons when all other measures are exhausted," he said then.

"We did pursue such an option," he continued. "All measures were exhausted. Our defenses proved to be ineffective. An enemy continued to push into Russia. And that's when the decision to use nuclear weapons was made."

The strategy formalized today is hardly so apocalyptic. Indeed, it stresses that Russia can regain superpower status -- its clear aim -- only if it pursues capitalism and integrates itself further in the global economy and political system.

On a list of threats to Russia's national security, "complication of international relations" came only at the end of a parade of domestic dangers, including economic chaos, social decay, crime and terrorism, political polarization and ethnic divisions.

Still, the document is laced with Soviet-style references to "some countries," generally unidentified but clearly the United States and Europe nations, said to be bent on global hegemony and thwarting Russia's ambitions.

The document warns that "some countries" are trying to dominate the flow of information worldwide and to force Russia out of the information market.

And NATO's decision to use force outside its borders, as occurred in Yugoslavia, "is a threat of destabilization of the whole strategic situation," the document states.

Related Article

Highlights of Russia's Security Declaration
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Highlights of Russia's Security Declaration
RUSSIA IN THE WORLD COMMUNITY

January 14, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/011500russia-summary.html

Related Article
Moscow Issues New Policy Emphasizing Nuclear Arms

There are two main trends in world affairs: a multi-polar world of regional powers which Russia favors and a unipolar world surrounding the United States and its allies.

Russia remains influential despite its difficulties.

Russia wants to integrate further into the world economy.

It has common cause with many countries on non-proliferation, regional conflict-solving, terrorism, the drug trade and the environment.

But some countries are trying to weaken Russia's position and ignore it. To do so could destabilize the international situation.

RUSSIA'S NATIONAL INTERESTS

The economy is a key element.

On the domestic front, the main interests are in maintaining constitutional order, deepening democracy and rooting out extremism.

It is vital for Russia to have good ties with the other 11 former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Further afield, the aim is to guarantee Russia's sovereignty and ensure the country remains a great power.

THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

In the economic sphere, the main threats are a lack of innovation and investment, a stagnating agricultural sector, an imbalance in the banking system, foreign and domestic debt burdens and the contrast of raw materials exports with imports of finished goods.

Russia is in danger of losing a leading role in scientific research.

Domestic political threats include: separatist tendencies, tensions between Moscow and the regions, political extremism and laws unequally applied.

Organized crime and corruption are major threats, as are a lack of adequate funding for the police, the gulf between rich and poor, and alcohol and drug abuse.

On the international scene, the main threats are a reduced role for the United Nations, a weakened role for Russia, NATO enlargement, NATO operating beyond its members' borders, possible foreign bases near Russia, weapons proliferation, claims on Russian territory, poor CIS integration, terrorism, information policy, ecological problems and transnational crime.

GUARANTEEING NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

The main tasks are to spot threats, guarantee Russia's sovereignty and integrity, ensure the economy is socially oriented, reduce reliance on foreign technology and improve the balance between Moscow and the regions.

They also include the need to guarantee equal and mutually beneficial cooperation with the world's leading nations, increase and maintain Russia's military potential, minimize foreign espionage and radically improve the environment.

On the economy, the aim is to reduce foreign debt and strengthen the role of the state but to encourage investment and initiative. Competition is to be encouraged in all appropriate areas. Northern Russia needs particular help.

On internal affairs, the aims are to step up the battle against organized crime and corruption, ensure there is a clear vertical chain of command across the country, guarantee the rights of the individual and improve health care.

For foreign policy the priorities are to simplify the multilateral nature of relations particularly through the U.N. Security Council, develop relations with the CIS, defend citizens abroad, participate in international organizations, take part in peacekeeping, help control nuclear weapons and adapt existing treaties to new circumstances.

In the military sphere, Russia needs to be equipped to respond adequately to any threats that may emerge in the 21st century. The main aim is to deter aggression.

Russia has the right to use all available means, including nuclear weapons, to repel aggressors.

The Security Council has an umbrella function to monitor the security forces and advise the president on threats.

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Russia, U.S. End Y2K Monitoring Without a Hitch

January 15, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-yk-arms.html

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (Reuters) - Russian and U.S. military experts on Saturday shook hands and took group snapshots as they successfully ended an unprecedented program to make sure no Y2K computer bug touched off a deadly nuclear accident.

``This is a great day. Another chapter in the cooperation between two great nations, Russia and America,'' Air Force Major General Tom Goslin, director of operations of the U.S. Space Command, told reporters.

Since Dec. 30, the experts have been working side by side at the ``Center for Year 2000 Strategic Stability'' at Peterson in Colorado Springs to ensure that the world's two largest nuclear powers were in direct contact during the rollover in case a computer mistakenly indicated a nuclear missile launch.

News that Russian President Boris Yeltsin had stepped down and handed the reins of power to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not have an impact on the operation, marked by a relaxed atmosphere in the command center.

While much attention was focused on the project as the New Year arrived, the center remained operating until 8 a.m. MST Saturday to make sure no problems cropped up in the first days of 2000.

The Russians and Americans shook hands and exchanged flags mounted in shadowboxes as others took snapshots of each other.

``We suffered no incidents and the personnel has accomplished all its tasks,'' Russian Air Force Col. Sergey Kaplin said through an interpreter.

No long-range missile launches were observed during the period, the military experts said. The command center at Peterson was in direct contact with Cheyenne Mountain, part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which monitors the skies 13 miles from Peterson.

Russia and the United States have the most sophisticated warning devices, which could have made them vulnerable to mistaken ballistic missile launches if they had thought in error that a missile was headed their way.

Concerns about a possible Y2K bug stemmed from older computer systems programmed to read only the last two digits of a year. If the glitch had been left uncorrected, systems could have misread 2000 as 1900, causing computers to malfunction or even crash.

U.S. and Russian authorities are planning to establish a full-time joint missile launch monitoring program that will be based in Moscow, although no timetable has been set.

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New on the Russian Front Lines: Army Chaplains

January 15, 2000
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/011500russia-chechnya.html

N-YURT, Russia, Jan. 14 -- In the days of Soviet power, the Red Army had political commissars in practically every unit to make sure the soldiers obediently followed the Communist Party line, including atheism.

So Father Safrony's presence in the snow-capped mountains of the rebellious southern province of Chechnya still seems a bit unusual. Dressed in a camouflage uniform and black knit cap, the Russian Orthodox priest is the chaplain to the Russian paratroopers who are fighting the Chechen rebels near the Chechen-Dagestani border here.

"Our main purpose is to raise the fighting spirit of the army and explain to the soldiers that they are performing an important duty," he said. "We explain to them that they are real patriots. They are not just defending territory. They are defending our sacred Russian land."

In his military uniform, Father Safrony looks like any other soldier from a distance. Up close, his long hair and wispy beard give him away. He said he would never carry weapons as a priest, though Russian television has carried reports about one priest who fought with the troops and was wounded.

"An Orthodox priest never bears weapons," Father Safrony said. "His weapon is his cross, his prayer and the words he delivers to the soldiers."

Certainly, the spirits of the army could use a little bolstering. The deputy commander of the Russian forces in the Northern Caucasus, Lt. Gen. Gennadi N.

Troshev, told reporters here today that the assault on Grozny, the Chechen capital, had come to a virtual standstill. He pledged to step up the attack a few hours after his helicopter had been hit by fire from automatic weapons near Grozny.

Stationed in Chechen highlands, the paratroopers are far removed from the bitter fighting in Grozny. But their mission is not always easy. They have encircled the nearby settlements of Nozhai-Yurt and Zamai-Yurt, so Interior Ministry troops can go house to house to check for militants and arms.

At night, however, rebels creep toward them in small groups, firing automatic weapons and grenade launchers at the Russian command post before retreating to their mountain hideouts, using tactics familiar to Russian soldiers who served in Afghanistan. The Russians respond with artillery barrages, but are wary of sending troops into the mountains to chase the rebels.

"If our troops went into the mountains, it would mean their destruction," said Capt. Aleksei Shchukovsky, 26.

Father Safrony is one of a number of chaplains dispatched here under an agreement between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Defense Ministry. "I was a monk and was assigned to come here," Father Safrony said.

The priest, 36, said the airborne troops had set up a chapel dedicated to St. Aleksandr Nevsky, the Russian prince who defeated the Teutonic Knights at Pskov in the 13th century. And he sees himself as the heir to a proud pre-Soviet tradition.

"For ages, the Russian Army had a priest in every unit," Father Safrony said. "During the years of Soviet power, this practice was abolished. But the institution of the chaplaincy is coming back."

To be sure, many officers and soldiers are still atheists, and the attitude of many of them toward the chaplains appears to be neutral at best. But the ties between the military and church have strengthened in recent years.

More than 100 churches and chapels have been established on Russian military bases, according to The Moscow Times. Russian draftees can request service in a unit that has a priest, though it is not always honored.

A religious academy in Moscow, the St. Tikhon's Theological Institute, offers a course on "military service and its correspondence to God's commandment."

Even the Strategic Rocket Forces, which wield the nation's nuclear arsenal, has a patron saint, St. Barbara. Purely coincidentally, Nikita S. Khrushchev formally established the forces in 1960 on the saint's day.

The growing ties between the military and church have been a concern for Moslems, who make up a significant, if minority, part of the army.

"We are seriously concerned that certain leaders of the Defense Ministry are creating a split along ethnic and religious lines by placing Orthodoxy over other religions," Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, head of the Muslims in the European part of Russia, wrote. "Is the army made up only of Orthodox?"

The Orthodox Church insists that it is not competing with other faiths. But its ties to the political and military establishment are close. Several Orthodox priests were abducted in Chechnya before the war, and Russia's Patriach, Aleksy II, has defended the military campaign in Chechnya against Western criticism.

"We are bringing order to our own country and struggling with international terrorists who have invaded our motherland," the patriarch said in November.

Here in Nozhai-Yurt, Father Safrony's task is to comfort the soldiers and help them sort out personal problems, which are compounded by youth and long separation from home. Many of the words the priest says are exactly the ones the military command likes to hear.

"How can we not defend Russian land?" Father Safrony asked. "There is power. There are borders. And there is the motherland. To strengthen the state, the army has to be strengthened, and there is no army without the spirit."

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Taiwan To Set Up China Protections

January 15, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/f/AP-Taiwan-Market-Fund.html

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- A new bill approved by Taiwan's legislature Saturday will let the government buy billions of dollars in stock to help protect financial markets against hostile moves by China.

Under the bill, the government can create a fund of up to $16 billion to buy blue chip shares when ``major events'' occur to weaken public confidence.

Critics say the idea violates free market principles.

But President Lee Teng-hui, recalling how markets were roiled four years ago when China test-fired missiles into Taiwanese waters, said the bill gives the government an effective defense against financial turmoil.

``You can test-fire missiles, but I will have money to stabilize the stock market,'' Lee told a business gathering. The plan will also allow the government to head off speculation by foreign funds, he said.

Lee proposed the fund last year, shortly before he enraged Beijing in July by claiming that Taiwan and China have a special ``state-to-state'' relationship. That prompted China to repeat threats to retake the island and triggered a sell-off in the Taiwanese stock market.

Taiwan and China split amid a civil war in 1949, but Beijing insists the sides will reunify, by force if necessary.

The money for the stabilization plan will come from government pension funds, the labor insurance fund and bank loans using government-owned stocks as collateral, officials said.

A committee of scholars and members from various political parties will be set up to oversee operations.

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Pentagon Missile Defense Test to Take Place Tuesday, January 18

Space.com
16 January 2000
By Paul Hoversten Washington Bureau Chief http://www.space.com/space/launches/vandenberg_prelaunch_000116.html

WASHINGTON -- In an ultimate demonstration of hide and seek, a Minuteman II missile with a dummy warhead will be launched into the night sky Tuesday, December 18 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA , the target for a smaller "kill vehicle" which will be sent up moments later from a tiny atoll in the central Pacific.

Pentagon officials say the test -- designed to see whether an interceptor can destroy ballistic missiles launched by rogue nations -- is their most difficult yet in developing a national missile defense system. The launch window is to open at about 9 p.m. ET on Jan. 18.

On Friday, the Pentagon acknowledged that an October test of the two-stage interceptor rocket encountered more problems than officials initially said. The interceptor hit and destroyed its target but only after first putting its "cross hairs" on a large decoy balloon released from the Minuteman.

"This is a very demanding program, technologically. We've said that from the beginning. We hope that every test we have is a success but I think it would be unrealistic to expect that." Kenneth Bacon - Pentagon spokesman

The balloon was there to replicate the kind of countermeasures that a hostile nation might use to confuse an actual U.S. missile defense system. The problems, not mentioned when the Pentagon declared the Oct. 2 test a success, were first reported Friday by The New York Times.

Next Tuesday's test is the second for the Raytheon-built "kill vehicle" and much more difficult than the first. Pentagon officials are struggling to demonstrate the technology necessary for President Clinton to make a decision by this summer on whether to build such a system.

"This test is not as contrived," said a Pentagon official who briefed reporters on the condition he not be identified. "This time, we'll roll in more elements to make sure we have an integrated test with command capability. The real challenge to this is not making it work, it's holding your breath for 30 minutes."

That's about how long it takes for the Minuteman to soar out over the Pacific for an encounter with the intercepting "kill vehicle" launched from a Pacific island more than 4,000 miles away.

After the Minuteman launches, infrared detectors aboard military satellites will pick up its hot exhaust plume. Those satellites relay the missile's position to a radar site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Test officials on the atoll, which abuts the world's largest lagoon, then launch the interceptor. The boosters on that rocket burn for two minutes, then a 120-pound "kill vehicle" with its own thrusters flies in space for another six minutes, maneuvering itself to hit the Minuteman at an altitude of 80 to 140 miles.

Unlike the first test, the interceptor will be relying on commands coordinated through military test centers in both Kwajalein and Colorado. Program managers at both sites will try to interpret the signals from the early warning satellites and coordinate efforts to direct the interceptor to the target.

"This is a very demanding program, technologically," said Kenneth Bacon, Pentagon spokesman. "We've said that from the beginning. We hope that every test we have is a success but I think it would be unrealistic to expect that."

Should the National Missile Defense program be deployed, it would be "designed to deal with a very specific threat and that threat is from countries like North Korea and Iraq and Iran," Bacon said. "It's a limited missile threat against our country from rogue nations and we believe that it's important to develop a defense against that threat."

If the White House approves deploying such a system this summer, a workable program could be in place by 2005, Pentagon officials said. Two sites are under consideration -- Alaska and North Dakota. Only Alaska, however, is capable of defending all 50 states because of its location. North Dakota could not cover either Alaska or Hawaii.

Tuesday's test already is drawing opposition from a hodge-podge of protesters who plan to picket for 12 hours at the main gate of Vandenberg. Among the protesters are groups representing anti-nuclear activists, environmentalists, Catholic workers and war resisters.

"People all over the world are now vigorously organizing to stop (the missile defense testing)," said organizer Bruce Gagnon, who also has led protests at NASA's Kennedy Space Center against the launches of the nuclear-powered deep space probes Galileo and Cassini. "We cannot allow the Pentagon and aerospace corporations to move the arms race into space. There must be a ban on all weapons in space."

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Improve defense

Kansas City Star
Date: 01/15/00 22:00
http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/opinion.pat,opinion/3774274d.114,.html

The Clinton administration says it plans to seek an additional $2.2 billion in spending for missile defense. In light of the latest revelations regarding the decay of Russia's advanced warning systems, it makes sense to move more rapidly to erect a defense against incoming ballistic weapons. Currently, the United States possesses no such defense.

A recent Knight Ridder story revealed that Moscow's satellite array has deteriorated to the point that its military commanders have no more than 17 hours -- or less -- of daily coverage of U.S. missiles in silos in northern states. In addition, say experts, the Russians no longer possess any advance warning system for missiles fired from American submarines patrolling northern latitudes.

Why does this matter? In the world of nuclear strategy, credibility is pivotal, and an information void can lead to rash decisions. In 1995, the Russians went on alert after a science rocket was launched from Norway, even though their military had been told in advance about the launch.

By the time the Russians figured out what was going on, the nuclear "suitcase" containing the launch codes for Moscow's nukes had been passed to then-President Boris Yeltsin.

The Clinton administration has proposed the establishment of a joint early-warning center in Moscow, an idea that seems worth pursuing. Another idea -- giving the Russians money to launch the satellites they need -- seems a stretch. But as the White House has tacitly admitted, boosting missile defense is an increasingly important response to the situation in Russia, as well as to the growing missile threat from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

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Next president has rocky foreign policy road ahead

Nando Media
January 15, 2000 2:18 a.m. EST
By LEO RENNERT,
Nando Washington Bureau
http://www2.nando.net/noframes/story/0,2107,500154885-500191223-500817000-0,00.html

WASHINGTON (http://www.nandotimes.com) - The next president can look forward to rocky relations with China and Russia, missile threats from rogue states like North Korea and Iran, a defiant Saddam Hussein astride Iraq, terrorist groups on the prowl against American targets and simmering ethnic conflicts in the Balkans.

And that'll be just for starters as the new leader of the world's only superpower confronts the full range of daunting challenges to American security, interests and values on his four-year watch.

With the disappearance of Cold War certitudes, the next president will have to pick up Bill Clinton's unfinished agenda and define his own view of a steady U.S. role in a world with many new dangers - from proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to the hazards of unchecked economic globalization.

Perhaps, most importantly, he will have to set benchmarks for when, where and under what circumstances he will use military power - unilaterally or multilaterally. The stakes could be huge for American forces in far-flung hot spots, and prospects for building a safer and more peaceful world.

Yet, pollsters report little voter interest in foreign policy and national security issues. Candidates are beginning to stake out their strategies and priorities. But they're putting them on the back burner while they concentrate on domestic concerns.

In fact, one of the great ironies of Campaign 2000 is that, while more terrifying dangers lurk abroad than at home, politicians are downplaying international issues and focusing on the home front.

"The foreign policy stakes in this election could be very high, particularly in how the next president handles China and Russia," said Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who held high national security positions in Democratic and Republican administrations in the 1960s and 70s.

"The next administration may have to deal with a crisis over Taiwan if Beijing threatens military moves. And there's still Russia with its huge and increasingly unsecured arsenal of nuclear weapons," Sonnenfeldt said. "But voters care more about education, health care, the environment and computer literacy."

That may start to change when the primary season ends and sharper debates emerge in the general election campaign. What's already obvious is that there is no consensus on foreign policy across the political spectrum and that vociferous partisanship will be just as evident in this area as on domestic issues.

"American foreign policy is more contentious than it has been in 60 years," said James M. Lindsay, a scholar at Washington's Brookings Institution and former director for global issues at the National Security Council. "Officials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue routinely complain that foreign policy-making has broken down and badly needs repair."

In stump speeches and position papers on the Internet, candidates offer a rich menu of diverse - and conflicting - policy prescriptions.

Pat Buchanan, who left the GOP to seek the Reform Party nomination, is anchoring the isolationist position, decrying loss of U.S. military, political and economic sovereignty to international institutions. He asks voters to enlist in a "millennial struggle of nationalism against globalism."

In the two major parties, presidential contenders uniformly repudiate Buchanan's "America First" platform and identify themselves as stout internationalists. But behind the "internationalist" label lurk profound differences over basic objectives and use of American influence and power.

GOP front-runner George W. Bush accuses the Clinton administration of squandering U.S. military power and lurching from crisis to crisis. He promises a "distinctly American internationalism - idealism without illusions."

Bush attacks Clinton's view of China as a "strategic partner" and instead paints Beijing in more somber colors as a "competitor" on the global stage. He would strengthen U.S. security alliances with Taiwan and other Pacific nations with a NATO-like containment ring around China, buttressed by missile defenses.

Yet, at the same time, Bush offers to expand trade with China and won't condition commercial relations on its human rights performance - a more flexible stance than his absolute insistence on keeping Cuba under economic quarantine.

On Russia, Bush similarly adopts a wary stance, pointing to widespread corruption and a brutal war in Chechnya. He advocates channeling aid directly to the Russian people but also hopes to enlist Kremlin support in reducing the danger of loose Russian nukes.

Bush opposed the global nuclear test ban treaty that the Senate rejected last year. He wants to pump up Pentagon spending. To protect against missile attacks from rogue nations like North Korea, he favors early deployment of a national missile defense system, an offshoot of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program.

That could complicate relations with China and Russia, which see a U.S. missile defense as an attempt to marginalize their offensive nuclear arsenals. Western European leaders also have warned that such a step could fracture NATO because it might be seen as an attempt by Washington to rely less on the alliance and more on defensive weapons for its security.

All-out support of missile defenses -- with a deployment price tag in the tens of billions of dollars -- will be a key GOP plank this year, regardless of who gets the nomination.

Bush's leading rival, Sen. John McCain, is ready to jettison old arms control agreements in favor of missile defenses. He also calls for preparations to counter China's potential emergence "as the primary threat to American interests and values." In outlining a more assertive U.S. foreign policy, McCain pledges an end to "strategic incoherence and self-doubt" in dealing with other powers.

A strong supporter of NATO, McCain would pressure the Europeans to shoulder a bigger financial burden while insisting on continued U.S. leadership of the alliance. In contrast, he's skeptical about using the United Nations to foster international stability.

On the Democratic side, Vice President Al Gore finds himself on the receiving end of attacks on an administration that has tended to give greater priority to domestic problems. As a major player in relations with Russia, the vice president claims vast experience in dealing with Kremlin leaders. But he's also become a target for critics of perceived U.S. setbacks in dealing with Moscow.

A certified internationalist since his days in Congress, Gore is striking out with his own agenda of widening the circle of democracy around the globe and looking for new arms control opportunities. Although a staunch supporter of free trade, Gore has been careful to walk a fine line with traditional Democratic constituencies by insisting that environmental safeguards and labor rights must become part of a new world economic order.

On missile defense, Gore is prepared to move toward deployment, but only after a careful analysis of costs, technological feasibility, the impact on arms control, and the extent of the threat from rogue nations.

Bill Bradley is the most dovish among the major candidates. He's cautious about use of military power and open-ended security commitments. He voted against military action against Iraq after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. He is reluctant to increase defense spending and wants more authority for the United Nations to avoid or end ethnic wars.

Bradley wants to jump-start negotiations with Moscow on a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons to about 1,000 to 2,000 strategic weapons on each side.

To avoid military intervention in regional conflicts, he advocates a strong dose of preventive diplomacy with help from allies and international organizations.

Bradley doesn't see missile defense as a security panacea. He believes missile-interception tests so far have not proved that the system would be effective. Even if it were, he adds, America would remain vulnerable to nuclear bombs carried in terrorists' suitcases. The threat of nuclear retaliation, he argues, remains the best protection against a nuclear missile attack.

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U.S. to give land back to Ute tribe 84,000 acres hold valuable oil deposits

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Saturday, January 15, 2000
By ROBERT GEHRKE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.seattlep-i.com/national/utes15.shtml
http://www.journalstar.com/archives/011500/nat/sto3
http://detnews.com/2000/nation/0001/15/01150074.htm
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=011500&ID=s732408&cat=

SALT LAKE CITY -- In one of the biggest givebacks of Indian land in U.S. history, the government is returning 84,000 acres to the Northern Ute tribe as part of a deal to clean up millions of tons of uranium waste along the Colorado River.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced the agreement yesterday at the tribe's headquarters in Fort Duchesne, about 110 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

The deal, which the Energy Department called the largest return of Indian land in the Lower 48 states in a century, is subject to approval by Congress.

The land, which is believed to contain oil-rich shale deposits, was given to the Utes in 1882. But in 1916, on the eve of the nation's entry into World War I, the federal government took it back to create a reserve supply of oil for the Navy fleet. The reserve was never tapped.

"The land is not needed for national security anymore," Richardson said. "The right thing to do is turn it back. They're the rightful owners."

Under the agreement, the Indians can open the land to oil and gas drilling. But they will have to pay a percentage of the royalties to the government.

That money will, in turn, help the government cover the $300 million cost of relocating 10.5 million tons of radioactive rock and soil left over from the mining of uranium during the Cold War.

"It is actually a moral issue in that the government has finally returned to us what was taken from us without our consent," said O. Roland McCook, chairman of the tribe's governing body.

The Energy Department estimates that the land, which is next to the 4.4 million-acre Ute reservation, holds 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or about 30 percent of the natural gas used in the United States during 1998. There are no estimates of how much oil is there.

The royalty percentage is being negotiated but is expected to be around 8 percent. The radioactive waste sits 750 feet from the Colorado River just outside Arches National Park. The pile is about 50 miles south of the land being returned to the Utes.

A study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that toxins such as arsenic and ammonia are leaching from the pile and contaminating the river.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., has raised concern that the river contamination is tainting the drinking water for 25 million people in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.

Denver-based Atlas Corp., the company that operated the mine from 1962 to 1984, has declared bankruptcy, leaving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to clean up the pile. But the cleanup bond Atlas left behind was inadequate.

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U.S. to Return Land to Ute Indian Tribe
Environment: Energy Department will voluntarily turn over 84,000 acres in Utah and begin the cleanup of a toxic uranium mine.

Los Angeles Times
Saturday, January 15, 2000
By JULIE CART,
Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20000115/t000004742.html

DENVER--The Department of Energy unveiled a complex plan Friday to return 84,000 acres of land to the Ute Tribe and start the cleanup of a notorious uranium mine in Utah whose radioactive waste has been polluting the Colorado River for a decade.

The deal, announced by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson at Moab, Utah, constitutes the largest-ever voluntary return of public land to Native Americans in the lower 48 states. It also signals a long-awaited commitment from the administration to clean up the closed Atlas uranium mine, which has become synonymous with ground water contamination in the West.

Richardson, calling it "the right thing to do," outlined a three-part proposal that would:

* Move a 10-ton mountain of radioactive mine tailings that currently sits 750 feet from the Colorado River near Moab in southern Utah and seek congressional approval to fund a potential $300-million cleanup.

* Return the 84,000-acre parcel in northeastern Utah to the Utes. The land was taken from the tribe in 1916 in order to claim oil shale reserves for the Navy.

* Set aside a 75-mile strip of land along the Green River on the Ute land for protected status.

Richardson said the proposals, linking disparate issues at opposite ends of the state, constitute something of a "Utah Preservation Act." The land giveback is subject to congressional approval and the details of other agreements are still being negotiated, the secretary said.

"I see a triple win," Richardson said in an interview from Salt Lake City, "by returning land to its rightful owner, by cleaning up Moab and [addressing] a water quality issue for several states and finding a way to pay for it, and by protecting land in the corridor of the river."

The plan to return the land was applauded by the Utes. "It is actually a moral issue in that the government has finally returned to us what was taken from us without our consent," said O. Roland McCook, chairman of the tribe's business committee.

The issue of the Atlas mine cleanup has been lingering and thorny. The Atlas mine and mill operated from 1956 to 1984. The Denver-based Atlas Corp. filed for bankruptcy two years ago and its $6.5-million reclamation bond has not begun to fund the cleanup.

A trustee group has been working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to clean up the site. Friday's deal also transferred the responsibility for the mine remediation from the NRC to the Energy Department.

Robert Wiygul, a lawyer for Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund, which represents a coalition of groups that have filed suit against the NRC, said the ground water degradation has been significant. At least two endangered fish species are at risk, and concerns have been raised about the 25 million human users of Colorado River water, including many in Southern California. "It's a toxic cocktail of radioactive material, metals and ammonia, all toxic to marine life and seeping into ground water," Wiygul said.

"This is a great leap to solve a problem that has been around for a long time," said Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah). He said a site for the tailings had been found in the desert, some 14 miles from the river.

Richardson said that $10 million had been appropriated in fiscal 2001 for the start of the job, which he said could take six to seven years.

Friday's announcement was the latest effort by the government to reduce lands no longer needed by the Navy. In 1998, the Energy Department sold off 47,000 acres of Navy oil reserves at Elk Hills near Bakersfield to Occidental Petroleum for $3.6 billion.

The Naval Oil Shale Reserve land, which was given to the Utes in 1882, adjoins the 4.5 million-acre Uintah and Ouray Reservation, home to the tribe's 4,200 members.

The Utes' financial gain may be tempered by concessions made by the tribe. The deal calls for the tribe to pay a percentage of its mineral royalties to help defray the cleanup cost. Richardson said the tentative figure is 8.5%. * * * Times researcher Belen Rodriguez contributed to this story

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Study quantifies illnesses from OR nuke emissions

January 15, 2000
By Frank Munger,
News-Sentinel Oak Ridge bureau
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/4087.shtml

OAK RIDGE -- After gathering and analyzing Oak Ridge pollution data for nearly eight years, a health studies team concluded that emissions from the government's nuclear facilities undoubtedly caused harm among area residents -- mostly during the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

The significance of those health effects, however, may depend on an individual's interpretation because even the panel members didn't wholly agree on how the results should be viewed.

Of the toxic and radioactive materials analyzed by the study under the direction of Tennessee Department of Health, mercury and radioactive iodine-131 were found to be the chief culprits.

The study, which was released Friday, concluded:

* Six to 80 people living within 24 miles of Oak Ridge National Laboratory probably got thyroid cancer because of iodine releases from ORNL in the late 1940s and early '50s. Those most at risk would have been children who drank contaminated milk, particularly in farm families who lived near the plant and got milk from their own dairy animals (goats or cows) -- rather than commercial dairies. Iodine tends to concentrate in the thyroid gland and the radioactivity, passed along through the food chain, can cause cancer.

* About 100 fetuses likely were exposed to unsafe mercury levels in the wombs of mothers who ate lots of contaminated fish from the Clinch River and Watts Bar Lake. A percentage of those babies would have developed brain damage, although panel members said it's difficult to project how many. The period of most concern would have been the 1950s, when the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant released tons of mercury into a creek that feeds into the Clinch and downstream reservoirs. The most dangerous form of mercury would have been methylmercury, although previous studies have shown much of the mercury in the Oak Ridge environment was elemental or inorganic mercury -- less hazardous to humans.

Other Oak Ridge pollutants of potential concern were PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and radioactive substances, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, but the study team concluded that collectively those discharges over the past 50 years probably caused three or four cases of cancer at most.

Dr. Joe Hamilton, a physics professor at Vanderbilt University and a member of the project's steering panel, said he thought the study dispelled the notion that "cancer is rampant in Oak Ridge" because of pollution.

Other than cases of thyroid cancer attributed to iodine discharges at ORNL decades ago, Hamilton said he didn't think any cancer cases could be blamed on releases from the government's Oak Ridge facilities.

The $14 million health project, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, only looked at off-site releases and the potential impacts on the regional population.

Reviewers did not attempt to assess health impacts among workers at the Oak Ridge nuclear plants. Hundreds of present and former employees at the facilities have blamed illnesses on their workplace exposures to chemicals and radioactive materials.

Asked if Oak Ridge was a dangerous place to live, study chairman Paul Voilleque said, "It depends on where you lived and when you lived there."

Voilleque, a health physicist from Idaho, and other members of the steering panel said they thought it was unlikely that emissions from the Oak Ridge plants caused any health problems among people who've moved to the area during the past 20 years.

Dr. Nasser Zawia, an associate professor at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, said the study's important contribution was to characterize the pollution problems of greatest concern, define the potential risks and provide that information to the public.

While the pollution risks may be relatively low for most of the region's population, there obviously were some health impacts tied to the Oak Ridge facilities and that's a big concern for those people "who were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Zawia said.

Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.

================================================

Comments:

These studies were done mostly by persons that don't live here and don't know t processes or the leaks. Some of the ones that do live here are company minions that did not tell the HF or fluorides release problems.

HF and fluorides is the biggest health affector here and its long and massive releases affect the entire region and make I-131 impacts worse and metals impacts.

This expensive study totally failed to provide this impacted community with quality analysis. HF and fluorides are highly connected to cancers in humans, and thyroid diseases.

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 08:30:37 EST From: Magnu96196@aol.com Reply-to: downwinders@onelist.com

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Feds to return land to Utah tribe

01/14/00-
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm

SALT LAKE CITY - Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is expected to detail a land swap plan with the Northern Ute tribe Friday intended to help clean up tons of mining waste near the Colorado River. According to reports, the deal will involve an 88,890-acre area about 150 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. The plan is to return the acreage to the tribe with the stipulation that a percentage of revenue generated by oil and gas development on the land be returned to the government. The agency will use the money to clean up the abandoned Atlas mine - a site not far from both the Arches and Canyonlands national parks.

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Feds Returning Land to Utes

January 15, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Indian-Land.html

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Eighty-four years after the federal government confiscated thousands of acres of potentially oil-rich land from the Northern Ute Indian tribe, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says the government is ready to give it back.

If Congress approves the deal, the 84,000 acres will be the largest return of Indian land in the continental United States.

``The land is not needed for national security anymore,'' Richardson said Friday after announcing the agreement at the tribe's headquarters in Fort Duchesne, about 110 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. ``The right thing to do is turn it back. They're the rightful owners.''

But there's a caveat. Under the agreement, the tribe can open the land to oil and gas drilling, but will have to pay a percentage of the royalties to the government.

The money will help the government cover the $300 million cost of relocating 10.5 million tons of radioactive rock and soil along the Colorado River left over from the mining of uranium during the Cold War.

``It is actually a moral issue in that the government has finally returned to us what was taken from us without our consent,'' said O. Roland McCook, chairman of the tribe's governing body.

The land, believed to contain oil-rich shale deposits, was given to the Utes in 1882. But in 1916, on the eve of the nation's entry into World War I, the federal government took it back to create a reserve supply of oil for the Navy fleet. The reserve was never tapped.

The Energy Department estimates that the land holds 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, equal to about 30 percent of the natural gas used in the United States during 1998. There are no estimates of how much oil is there.

The royalty percentage is still being negotiated but is expected to be about 8 percent.

``This is just a big step in the direction of solving the problem,'' said Rep. Chris Cannon, whose district includes both the 4.4 million-acre reservation and the radioactive waste, known as the Atlas tailings. He expects Congress to approve the deal and a proposal to move the tailings.

The radioactive waste sits 750 feet from the Colorado River just outside Arches National Park and about 50 miles south of the land being returned to the Utes.

A study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that toxins such as arsenic and ammonia are leaching from the pile and contaminating the river, threatening endangered fish.

California lawmakers also have raised concerns that the contamination is tainting drinking water used by people in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.

Denver-based Atlas Corp., the company that operated the mine from 1962 to 1984, has declared bankruptcy, leaving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to clean up the pile. The cleanup bond Atlas left behind was woefully inadequate.

The NRC planned to cover the tailings with an earthen cap and drain 500 million gallons of water from the pile. But state and federal officials and environmentalists argued that would not stop contamination. They pressed the Energy Department to take control of the pile and move it 18 miles north of Moab.

``This is a huge breakthrough, and we're very heartened,'' said Bill Hedden, chairman of the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group that had sued to have the tailings moved.

As part of the agreement, the Utes pledged to protect a quarter-mile corridor along 75 miles of the Green River. The tribe also has agreed to abide by federal protections for wild horses on the land.

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Agreement Is Signed on Return of 84,000 Acres to Ute Indians

January 15, 2000
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/00/01/15/news/national/native-land.html

Related Article
U.S. Is Returning 84,000 Acres to Indians (Jan. 14, 2000)

MOAB, Utah, Jan. 14 -- As good fortune for Utah, it might not equal Salt Lake City's winning the right to stage the 2002 winter Olympics, but it seemed it was not far off.

In a whirlwind tour that began on a Ute Indian reservation in Fort Duchesne and ended here along the Colorado River, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced two major initiatives today that addressed longstanding land issues in the state.

First, he signed an agreement to return 84,000 acres that the federal government took from the Utes 84 years ago for the land's oil shale reserves. Later, he flew here to announce that the federal government was preparing to remove 10.6 tons of uranium waste from an abandoned mine site.

The uranium is polluting the Colorado River and ground water.

Crowds cheered heartily at both announcements, a sign that President Clinton's hoped-for environmental legacy might gain traction in this most-Republican state.

But residual benefits of both initiatives may be a long way off. Congressional action is required on each, meaning it could be several years before the Utes realize any profits from mining on their land and even longer before the first load of contaminated dirt is trucked away.

The Utes lost land adjoining their 4.5 million-acre reservation in 1916, when the federal government sought fuel reserves for its naval fleet. No mining ever took place. But Energy Department officials say the land could generate a fortune from gas reserves for a tribe that suffers enormous poverty and high unemployment.

"We haven't done any real evaluation yet," O. Roland McCook, a tribe official, said after he and Mr. Richardson signed papers to begin the process of transferring the land. "We're going to do it as soon as we can."

As part of the agreement that links the two initiatives, the Utes will contribute 8.5 percent of any mining royalties to the uranium cleanup, with the federal government paying for the rest.

But several hurdles remain, including the transfer of authority over the site from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Energy Department. Then, Congress has to set aside money for the cleanup.

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School District Still Suffering After Settling L.I. Tax Fight

January 15, 2000
By JOHN T. McQUISTON
http://www.nytimes.com/00/01/15/news/national/regional/ny-lipa-tax-fight.html

SHOREHAM, N.Y., Jan. 14 -- School officials here in this hilly, wooded village overlooking Long Island Sound breathed a collective sigh of relief today over the settlement of a $1.4 billion tax dispute announced Thursday by the Long Island Power Authority.

But while the $620 million agreement lifted the threat of a budget-breaking financial judgment that has hung over the Shoreham-Wading River School District for nearly a decade, the district still faces long-term problems bequeathed it by the ill-fated project that touched off the tax battle: the Shoreham nuclear power plant.

The plant, which the power company built in the mid-1970's, once paid hundreds of millions of tax dollars to the school district, which used the money to turn itself into an educational showcase, with extras like a demonstration farm and lighted tennis courts. But after environmental opposition prevented the plant from opening, the utility sued the district, the Town of Brookhaven and Suffolk County to recover the tax money it said it was overcharged, and the district has been cutting its staff and programs ever since.

Now the schools are trying to cope with increased enrollment, thanks in part to the reputation they earned during their prosperous years. And while the utility has helped soften the schools' loss of taxes by reducing payments gradually, the district will have to wean itself from that money entirely over the next two years.

The settlement announced this week -- in which the power authority reduced its demands on the district, Brookhaven and Suffolk County -- means the district owes nothing to the utility. The cost of the deal is being borne by electric ratepayers in Suffolk County.

"We're happy it's all over and our finances are back on a secure footing," said Edward M. Tronolone, superintendent of the district, which has 2,700 students. The school board voted today to approve the settlement, he said.

The agreement was forced by a ruling Tuesday by the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, upholding a lower-court decision that the utility was entitled to $1.4 billion. That would have cost the school district $574 million -- a figure that even utility officials conceded the district could not pay.

"There was no way the 2,000 families in this district could come up with that kind of money," Mr. Tronolone said.

For years, money had not been a problem. The Shoreham plant provided the schools with property taxes, even after the plant was decommissioned in 1989.

At one point, the revenue from the utility paid for 90 percent of the school budget.

Local property taxes were low, property values were high and the school district could afford innovative programs that were the envy of other districts on Long Island.

But since 1992, when the utility won its first judgment for tax overcharges, the district has been cutting about $3.2 million from its budget each year.

Clerical and other support staffing has been trimmed, as well as maintenance and capital projects.

At the same time, the average class size has increased to between 25 and 30 from 15. Teachers have been assigned to teach five and sometimes six classes, as opposed to four a day a decade ago.

The demonstration farm was closed and lighting for the tennis courts ended; gone, too, are class trips, musical instruments and Hudson River sailing outings for biology students.

Despite the threat of higher taxes from the LIPA lawsuit, the district's good reputation and new housing have caused enrollment in the district's high school, middle school and three elementary schools to increase by 18 percent over the last five years, Mr. Tronolone said.

As a result, school tax rates in the district are rising above the average for the county, and they are expected to top the list by the end of 2002, he said.

Among the district's lingering financial problems is $38 million in revenue it owes Brookhaven as a result of a separate tax dispute over the Shoreham plant.

The LIPA settlement will be financed with low-interest-rate bonds obtained by the utility.

The bonds, in turn, will be financed by a 2 percent surcharge that was added to electric bills in Suffolk in recent years.

How long the surcharge lasts depends upon the rate of interest on the bonds, officials said.

In addition, LIPA said it would continue to make payments in lieu of taxes to the school district.

The utility began making the payments in 1992, when they were $30.4 million, reducing them by $3.2 million a year until they are eliminated in 2002.

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Air Force Scraps Rocket Launch

January 15, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Launch-Scrubbed.html

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) -- Officials scrubbed the launch of an Air Force rocket that was primed to carry nearly a dozen tiny satellites into space late Friday after low voltage was detected in on-board batteries.

Liftoff of the Orbital Suborbital Program rocket was canceled at 9:40 p.m. PST, just 14 minutes before the close of its launch window. The launch was rescheduled for Jan. 22.

Before the cancellation, takeoff had been delayed at least three times due to a glitch in the system that commands the countdown, said U.S. Air Force Lt. Colleen Lehne.

The rocket's first two stages are comprised of engines from Minuteman II missiles decommissioned under a 1991 arms control treaty. The third and fourth stages are from a commercial rocket.

The launch was to have marked the first time pieces of a missile were used to place a payload into orbit, although the Air Force has used the engines several times in suborbital tests. It also was to have been the world's first space launch this year.

Using a hybrid rocket shaves about 30 percent off the cost of sending a payload into orbit, said Air Force Maj. Steven Buckley, the mission's flight director.

Although several small satellites were to be carried into space, the flight's primary mission was to test whether the rocket works.

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Virginia readies itself to fight terrorism
Virginia is stepping up efforts to fight terrorism and the national guard is gearing up for the challenge.
The state is calling out the troops in an effort to protect itself against terrorism.

MSNBC
Update filed: 1/15/00 6:59 PM
http://www.msnbc.com/local/WWBT/240829.asp

A National Guard unit will be trained to respond as quickly as possible in the event of a terrorist act here in the Commonwealth. They will specialize in chemical, biological or nuclear attacks, as well as weapons of mass destruction. At the Virginia Army National Guard, officers are preparing a plan of action to get their new "weapons of mass destruction civil support unit" up and running.

The move to create such a unit comes in response to an announcement made Thursday by Governor Jim Gilmore. Col. Mike Coleman of the Virginia National Guard told NBC12, "When you look at Virginia and the number or military bases and prime industrial businesses, like America Online, it's in close proximity to Washington DC. Having this asset in Virginia is definitely a benefit."

The Commonwealth of Virginia is one of 17 states chosen this year to have a terrorist response unit. It will be comprised of 22 members selected from both full-time and part-time National Guard troops.

Training for the rapid-response unit will take about 15-months. It will involve both individual and group instruction. Michael Yanchisin has served in the National Guard for 3-years. Speaking to 12News at his home, Yanchisin said, "I think it will be a good thing. We've done some anti-terrorist training but I think it's always good do have more training. There's always stuff that you don't' know about terrorists or what they're gonna do, or what they're capable of doing."

The National Guard unit will receive its training in Missouri and be stationed at Fort Pickett in Blackstone. They hope to have everyone in place by July, 2001.

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State to Host Attack-Response Units

Washington Post
Saturday, January 15, 2000; Page B03
METRO IN BRIEF
Compiled from reports
Victoria Benning, Steve Vogel, Sylvia Moreno and Caryle Murphy and the Associated Press.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/15/045l-011500-idx.html

Virginia is one of 17 states selected to host new National Guard units trained and equipped to respond to nuclear, chemical or biological attacks, the Department of Defense announced yesterday.

The new units will join 10 others created two years ago as part of a Pentagon initiative to better prepare the nation for responding to attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.

Each team consists of 22 full-time National Guard soldiers, who the Pentagon says will be able to quickly respond to attacks, assess the situation, provide medical help and assist local authorities.

The units, called weapons of mass destruction civil support teams, are expected to be established between March and July, the Pentagon said.