----------- activists

Ill workers will testify in Washington

By Laura Frank
http://www.tennessean.com/sii/00/03/16/testify16.shtml

Three nuclear weapons workers and an ill worker's daughter will carry the plight of their ailing cohorts to Capitol Hill next week to testify before one of the most powerful Senate committees.

U.S. Sens. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, yesterday released the list of people who will appear Wednesday before the Governmental Affairs committee, which is exploring how the federal government has handled health and safety issues at nuclear weapons plants.

Thompson is chairman of the committee.

"This is something we've worked on for five years," said Ann Orick, an ill Oak Ridge worker who will testify. "This is probably our one and only opportunity. We've got to take advantage of it."

Meanwhile, a team of doctors hired in 1997 to determine whether some Oak Ridge workers' ailments are related to toxic exposure from the site announced they will report their official findings at the end of next month.

Thompson and Voinovich announced the hearings last fall because, they said, the U.S. Department of Energy was not giving the sites in their states equal attention to the weapons fuel plant in Paducah, Ky., where workers have filed a massive lawsuit.

Legislation is pending in Congress to compensate some ill nuclear weapons workers: those with lung damage from the metal beryllium, those from the Paducah site with certain cancers and a group of Oak Ridge workers. That group is expected to be determined at the end of April, when the DOE-hired doctors announce findings of their three-year investigation.

Thompson said the March 22 hearing will focus on how best to compensate ill workers.

Other people who will testify include:

Vikki Hatfield of Kingston, Tenn., whose father is a former Oak Ridge worker now dying of kidney failure and berylliosis, a lung disease caused by the metal beryllium, which was used in atomic bombs.

Sam Ray of Lucasville, Ohio, who retired in 1995 from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant near Piketon, Ohio, after 41 years. He suffers from chondrosarcoma, a cancer of the cartilage in his throat.

Jeff Walburn of Greenup, Ky., a security guard at the Portsmouth site for 23 years, who suffers respiratory problems after a 1994 accident at the site.

Dr. Steven Markowitz of the City University of New York Medical School, who is leading a study of former nuclear fuel production workers at Oak Ridge, Portsmouth and Paducah.

David Michaels, assistant U.S. energy secretary for environment, safety and health.

"I realize the gravity of this," Walburn said of his upcoming testimony and the fact he will speak for dozens of other workers who will not have a chance to testify.

During the past three years, The Tennessean has interviewed more than 400 atomic weapons site workers and neighbors who suffer a host of mysterious illnesses. Many of the ailments are immune, neurological and respiratory problems. Others are more difficult to define, such as severe fatigue, rashes and pain.

Last July, President Clinton ordered a review of whether evidence existed that nuclear workers' health had been harmed.

----------- alternative energy

Fuel-cell future for gasoline?
Researchers run 'green' engine on hydrocarbons

By Miguel Llanos MSNBC, March 15, 2000
http://www.msnbc.com/news/382483.asp?cp1=1

The few fuel-cell vehicles on the road, like this bus in Vancouver, Canada, use a cell different from the one cited in Nature. But both are much cleaner than traditional. The debut of this bus in October 1998 included a toast with the exhaust's only emission: water vapor.

March 15 - Researchers announced Wednesday a breakthrough that could lead to fuel cells powered by gasoline, giving drivers two to three times more mileage. The advance could speed up what fuel-cell advocates see as the demise of the internal combustion engine.

"WE'VE DEMONSTRATED that we can run a fuel cell directly on hydrocarbons like gasoline and diesel," researcher Ray Gorte told MSNBC. "In the past, everyone assumed you had to use hydrogen." Fuel cells essentially are high-tech batteries that draw electrical current from reactions between chemicals. Unlike a battery, however, they do not run down or need recharging as long as they are supplied with fuel. NASA has used them for years to power space missions.

Essentially, the University of Pennsylvania fuel cell streamlines the fuel-cell process. Until now, supplying hydrogen to fuel cells was seen as the best way to power them. The new process gets hydrogen directly from hydrocarbons like gasoline, diesel or natural gas, so there's no need for extracting hydrogen from costlier and more complicated sources like methane.

And because fuel cells are two to three times more efficient than internal combustion engines in how they use energy, a gasoline fuel cell could get two to three times the mileage of a traditional engine.

The new process not only gets around the problem of delivering and storing hydrogen, Gorte says, it means a fuel cell that produces "less carbon dioxide for a given amount of energy" than other fuel cells because higher efficiency can be achieved. Many scientists fear carbon dioxide is a key contributor to warmer temperatures around the globe.

The "fossil" fuel cell would still be limited by Earth's finite supply of hydrocarbons, but it could provide a valuable interim technology that's easier to deploy and still provide much cleaner and higher mileage than internal combustion engines.

Reported in Wednesday's issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nature, the study was funded by the Chicago-based Gas Research Institute, which hopes the cells could be used in the home to produce electricity from natural gas.

NO 'REFINERY' NEEDED

Gorte, head of chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, sees the research as a "breakthrough," saying an earlier attempt to use gasoline essentially required putting "a refinery in your trunk" to get the hydrogen.

The test also used a different kind of fuel cell than the type most researchers and fuel-cell companies have focused on. Gorte's team used a "solid oxide fuel cell," while others have tended to focus on "proton-exchange membranes." Gorte emphasized that the the experiment was not on a commercial scale and that long-term testing is needed. One hitch is that the cell is sensitive to sulfur, so that gasoline would have to be cleaned further to make it a viable fuel.

Moreover, the small-scale fuel cell churns out only one-tenth of the power of a hydrogen fuel cell. But Gorte is optimistic about its potential, saying his team hopes to work with a major car company that has created a solid oxide fuel cell division. He would not identify the company, saying he wasn't sure if it was willing to go public yet. Shorter term, possibly within a decade, the fuel cell could be used for portable generators for businesses and homes.

NATURE'S SOLUTION?

Kevin Kendall, a chemical engineer at Britain's University of Birmingham, writes in a Nature article accompanying the study that while hydrogen is "the ultimate clean power source of the future" it is still expensive to extract it, difficult to store and prone to explosion.

The new research, he adds, provides an interim technology by tapping into the hydrogen stored naturally in hydrocarbons. "Nature seems to achieve this with ease through biochemical routes" described in the study, he notes.

Kendall even ventures that fuel-cell progress will go beyond just replacing internal combustion engines, as well as their noise and pollutants. "By the end of the century," he writes, "these fiery combustion processes may be banned."

------- canada

More workers claim they were exposed to radiation at colliery

Updated: Thu, Mar 16 06:22 PM EST
http://news.excite.ca/news/ap/000316/18/miner-radiation

LINGAN, N.S. (CP) - A total of 42 miners claim they were exposed to radiation while working at the Phalen Colliery in Lingan. The men, who work for the Cape Breton Development Corp., or Devco, were exposed while they worked near a faulty fixed gauge that uses a beam of radiation to identify obstructions in the coal chute.

Initially, 10 men said they were exposed to the excessive levels of radiation.

Hugh MacArthur, health and safety officer for the United Mine Workers District 26, met with Atomic Energy Control Board officials in Sydney this week to discuss the issue.

MacArthur said the officials gave him forms to distribute to the men, which scientists will use to calculate exposure levels.

MacArthur said he isn't surprised more men are coming forward with concerns. He said Devco is responsible for the exposures because the workers were never properly trained how to use the device.

"The fact was that these guys were never trained, so they didn't know how to shut the shutter and they were being exposed," he said.

A 38-year-old worker who cleaned the device for more than 12 years developed bladder cancer two months before the radiation leak was detected.

Devco pleaded guilty to at a March hearing to failing to ensure proper training for those working with radioactive material.

The federal Crown corporation was originally charged with 11 items of non-compliance under the Atomic Energy Control Act. The Crown withdrew four charges.

An inspection by the Atomic Energy Control Board last July uncovered the faulty radiation device known as a fixed gauge.

A judge will hear sentencing recommendations May 12. (Cape Breton Post)

------- china

China's Nuclear Threat: Will America Blink?

CBN News Politics Commentary,
by Michael Patrick,
March 16, 2000

It has been a long time since any nation made not-so-veiled threats to rain down nuclear-tipped missiles on American homes, or that U.S. leaders appeared so dangerously nonchalant about the warning signs.

This week, China's Premier Zhu Rongji again wagged his finger at Taiwan and the United States, warning that China is prepared to use massive military force to prevent independence and reunify the island nation with the mainland.

Zhu's comments followed the release earlier this month of China's detailed war plans against the United States and Taiwan. Those plans call for an extended war with the U.S., including the potential launch of a nuclear arsenal against America, if the U.S. intervened on Taiwan's behalf.

According to a transcript published in Insight magazine, the Chinese war plans declared that "it is better to fight now than (in the) future--the earlier, the better."

The conventional wisdom is that Zhu's comments are more aimed at propping up his politically weak position, and corralling the growing Chinese military establishment that is itching for a fight. But real threats to the United States are unmistakably clear.

Some Asia watchers anticipate that recent talks between North Korea and China could signal a possible coordinated challenge to the U.S. presence in the Asian Pacific region. North Korea's military has engaged in a new surge of military exercises, fueled in part by fungible Western aid. Some analysts believe that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong II, could be influenced to spark a confrontation on the Peninsula, and give China more leverage in curbing the U.S. temptation to come to Taiwan's aid in a military showdown. There is ample evidence that hawks in Pyongyang and Beijing believe that they could benefit from a limited conflict.

Unfortunately, the United States may be perceived as being at its most vulnerable, militarily and politically, this year. The White House has repeatedly failed to develop coherent responses to multiple challenges by China or North Korea in recent months. China has effectively neutered the Clinton administration's political credibility through a spate of spying escapades, high technology transfers and compromising fund-raising scandals.

Also, America's readiness to deal with a potential conflict is at a critically low ebb. A recent poll showed most Americans are unwilling to go to war to protect Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. Further, most military officers will attest that the U.S. armed forces have been bled dangerously dry in the past decade. While the U.S. can still muster the world's mightiest military force, we may not have the political will or capability to sustain a defensive force in conflict half a world away.

The Chinese are apparently counting on it. In their war plans against America, they wrote, "the U.S. will lose its will to fight and withdraw after suffering serious casualties, while the Chinese side will be able to absorb heavy casualties and prevail."

America wasn't always so ready to blink. In October 1962, when President Kennedy was threatened with nuclear missiles based in Cuba, he held a firm American line, circled Cuba with warships and prevented nuclear war.

But times have changed. Our nation's greatest weakness may reside in our national character, rather than in our military readiness. In June 1982, President Ronald Reagan defined the courage and character necessary to prevent war. He said:

"Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear that we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideas to which we are dedicated."

The importance of foreign policy that stands tall against tyranny was largely missing in the latest presidential candidate debates. However, the problems created by an absence of leadership may only fester on several fronts in the months ahead, especially if China further tests American resolve in Asia.

Once again, America is waking up slowly to the reality that we live in a more dangerous world than our over-optimistic stock market prosperity would tell us. Presaging the fall of the Soviet empire, former President Reagan argued that "given strong leadership, time, and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil."

Let us hope that we find the answers in prayer, revival, and renewed leadership and national will-- before it is too late.

Michael Patrick is Senior Analyst for CBN News.

------

Premier Zhu Don Corleone

Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/121l-031600-idx.html

IN THE COMMON Western conception, China's Prime Minister Zhu Rongji is the pragmatist and the reformer in the pantheon of Communist rulers. Yesterday, in a news conference on Taiwan and other matters, he sounded more like a Mafia kingpin. He warned Taiwan voters to follow Beijing's preferences in Taiwan's coming presidential election--or else. "Otherwise, I'm afraid you won't get another opportunity to regret," he said. Anyone who advocates independence will "not end up well," he went on. And he mocked Western experts who dismiss Chinese threats by arguing reassuringly that China lacks the military strength to invade Taiwan. "People making such calculations don't know about Chinese history," the prime minister said. "The Chinese people are ready to shed blood and sacrifice their lives to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the mother land."

China experts in the West will hasten to explain why Mr. Zhu's words do not mean what they appear to mean. The prime minister, a chief advocate for China's entry into the World Trade Organization and therefore suspect to party hard-liners, is only seeking to burnish his nationalist credentials, it will be said. Or he is only looking for maximal impact on Taiwan's election, in which Beijing would like to see opposition (and formerly pro-independence) candidate Chen Shui-bian defeated. With bellicose rhetoric, he hopes to scare sufficient numbers of voters away from Mr. Chen.

It seems prudent, though, at least to entertain the notion that--even if the above theories are correct--Mr. Zhu also means what he says, that his regime is prepared to use force against Taiwan. China's rulers view Taiwan as a renegade province; Hong Kong and Macau have been folded back into the People's Republic, and now only Taiwan remains. Moreover, China's Communists may see this kind of jingoism as their best chance for maintaining power; not even they claim to believe in communism anymore, after all, and they certainly can claim no democratic mandate. Taiwan's greatest threat to them, in fact, is as an example. The island is a prospering democracy, proving that Chinese people are capable of governing themselves, and this week's hard-fought election only reinforces that.

The U.S. posture has been one of "strategic ambiguity": The United States does not explicitly ally itself with Taiwan, but neither does it rule out coming to Taiwan's defense. The idea is to discourage China from attacking while also discouraging Taiwan from provocatively declaring independence. This policy has served well, but it is wearing thin, both because the Clinton administration has tilted unnecessarily toward Beijing and because Beijing's policy has become less and less ambiguous. Yesterday Mr. Zhu explicitly mocked President Clinton's call for a "shift from threat to dialogue."

It's right for Mr. Clinton nonetheless to continue urging peaceful dialogue. It's right to keep warning Taiwan that the United States will not support provocative gestures. But Mr. Clinton also should make clear that the United States will help defend Taiwan if it is attacked simply for being a democracy--for, say, electing a president displeasing to Don Zhu. Ambiguity does not offer the best deterrence against bullies or Mafia dons.

-----------

U.S. Sees No Sign China Readying Taiwan Attack

March 16, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-china-u.html

TOKYO (Reuters) - Defense Secretary William Cohen said on Friday he saw no signs China was preparing to attack Taiwan, but warned Beijing that the use of force was not an acceptable way for the two rivals to settle their differences.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Wednesday told the people of Taiwan, which China regards as a maverick province, that the Communist mainland might not give them a second chance if they vote for a pro-independence candidate in Saturday's presidential elections.

``We do not see any evidence of preparation for attack, any imminent attack. What we do see is a war of words,'' Cohen said in response to a question at a news conference at the end of his three-day visit to Japan.

``They appear to be trying to affect the outcome of the election with a show of words.''

But Cohen added that he did not think the voters of democratic Taiwan would be affected by cross-strait pressure from Beijing.

Cohen reiterated U.S. warnings to China against the use of military force and again said the United States does not support independence for Taiwan and urges peaceful settlement of the issue. Increases in China's military forces facing Taiwan ``will only serve to increase pressure'' in the U.S. Congress to sell more defensive arms to Taiwan, he said.

The United States, angered by blunt Chinese threats against Taiwan as it prepares to elect a new president, called in Ambassador Li Zhaoxing on Thursday in Washington to urge Beijing to tone down its rhetoric.

------

China's military links forces to boost power

March 16, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-20003162315.htm

China's military has a new battle management system that will boost its ability to fight wars with combined army, navy and air forces, The Washington Times has learned.

Details of the new system were contained in a classified Defense Intelligence Agency report sent to senior officials recently. The report said Beijing's newest satellite, launched in January, is a military communications satellite and a major component of the first integrated command, control, communications, computer and intelligence system (C4I).

The new system, called Qu Dian by China, gives the Chinese military new capabilities for coordinating and supporting its growing force of modern aircraft, ships, submarines and ground forces.

"This is a major force multiplier," said one official.

A Defense Intelligence Agency spokeswoman declined to comment.

Disclosure of the new battle management system comes amid rising tensions that include a series of threats by Chinese leaders against Taiwan and the United States. The threats have been timed to Taiwanese elections Saturday and efforts to influence the issue of Taiwan's status and U.S. efforts to defend the island against forcible reunification with the mainland.

China launched the satellite, reported by official Chinese media as a civilian ChinaSat-22 system, on Jan. 26 from Xichang in southwestern China.

The DIA identified the satellite as Feng Huo-1, the first of several military communications satellites for the Qu Dian C4I system, said defense officials familiar with the report.

Officials also said the military satellite was launched atop a Long March rocket booster - the same system that was improved as a result of two U.S. companies improperly sharing space technology in 1996.

An initial test of a subsystem known as the Tactical Information System will be carried out by Chinese defense technicians in the next several weeks, the report said.

Officials who disclosed details of the DIA report on the condition of anonymity said the Chinese military is describing the new information system as similar to the Pentagon's Joint Tactical Information Distribution System or JTIDS - a secure communications network used by U.S. and allied aircraft, ships, submarines and ground units to communicate and share intelligence in wartime.

The Pentagon describes that system as "a secure, jam-resistant, high capacity data link communications system for use in a tactical combat."

"The Chinese reference to JTIDS suggests the Tactical Information System will yield an integrated battlefield picture, centralizing data from ground, air and naval platforms for wide dissemination to subordinate units," the report, labeled "secret," stated.

"Chinese work is progressing on both the software and hardware to increase the integration and automation of command and control systems," the report said.

The new FH-1 satellite is the first space-based communication platform to provide military units with both C-band and UHF communications, according to the DIA.

The intelligence report concluded that when fully deployed in the next several years the Qu Dian system "will allow theater commanders to communicate with and share data with all forces under joint command."

The system will provide Chinese military leaders with "a high-speed and real-time view of the battlefield which would allow them to direct units under joint command more effectively," the report states.

According to the officials, the CIA offered a dissenting view of the DIA's assessment, stating in the report that "rigidity" of the Chinese military command structure will limit the effectiveness of the new military system.

Larry Wortzel, a former Pentagon China specialist now with the Heritage Foundation, said it is "dangerous" for U.S. analysts to systematically play down each improvement of Chinese military capabilities.

The new Chinese system will "improve command and control and when the system is in use and used in exercises it will help improve decision-making," Mr. Wortzel said.

"It took the PLA about four years to learn to use the computer-based war-fighting simulation system it was given by the U.S. Army in 1998, and they'll learn to use this system, too," he said.

China's official Xinhua news agency stated that the new communications satellite was built by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. and was launched on a Long March 3A booster. The agency said Feb. 6 that the satellite was in a stationary position above the equator at a point 98 degrees latitude.

The use of the Long March with a military payload shows that China uses its space launchers for both civilian and military purposes, and that improvements to the launchers would have consequences for U.S. national security.

Components of the new system are being tested amid a war of words over Taiwan. Chinese officials and official military publications have warned in recent weeks that Taiwan independence "means war."

The official People's Liberation Army newspaper, Liberation Army Daily, three weeks ago threatened the United States with "long-range strikes" - nuclear missile attacks - against the United States if it intervenes to defend Taiwan from a Chinese military strike.

Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday that Chinese leaders believe resolution of the Taiwan dispute "may come to fighting."

As for the so-called policy of "ambiguity" about a U.S. defense of Taiwan in the event of a mainland attack, Adm. Blair made it clear the U.S. military is ready.

"As far as the military situation, I hope I made it clear the ambiguity is the political decision, not the military capabilities. The PRC cannot take and hold Taiwan, and we can defend Taiwan if ordered. And that's what will happen," he said.

The Chinese recently have deployed several hundred new M-11 short-range missiles that the DIA has said could strike all of Taiwan's military bases with little or no warning.

-----

China Threatens Voters in Taiwan
Premier Issues Warning Near Election

Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A01
By Clay Chandler Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/270l-031600-idx.html

BEIJING, March 15-Three days before a closely contested presidential election in Taiwan, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji bluntly warned the island's voters today against choosing a pro-independence leader, saying the future rides on their selection.

"Let me advise all these people in Taiwan," Zhu said. "Do not just act on impulse at this juncture, which will decide the future course that China and Taiwan will follow. Otherwise I'm afraid you won't get another opportunity to regret."

Zhu's ultimatum, delivered before foreign reporters at the close of the annual meeting of the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress, was the latest--and loudest--salvo in an increasingly bellicose rhetorical assault aimed at Taiwan. It seemed designed in particular to dissuade Taiwanese from voting for Chen Shui-bian, a candidate in the dead-heat race who has repeatedly said that Taiwan is an independent country and China should treat it that way.

Although the prime minister did not specifically threaten an attack, his warning came against a background of repeated declarations that China would resort to military action if Taiwan were invaded by a foreign power, declared independence or put off talks "indefinitely" on reunification with the mainland.

The war of words escalated last year when the outgoing Taiwanese president, Lee Teng-hui, infuriated Beijing by saying the time had come for Taiwan and China to deal with each other as separate and equal states. Although most Taiwanese regard their land as a country, China has considered it a renegade province since Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Nationalists took refuge there when Mao Zedong and his Communist forces seized power in 1949.

Zhu's warning today constituted an overt attempt to influence the outcome of Taiwan's election Saturday, and it defied the Clinton administration's wishes that Beijing avoid antagonizing Congress before a much-publicized vote on U.S.-Chinese trade relations.

U.S. defense officials expressed concern that Zhu, long seen as a moderate, came out with such a hawkish statement so close to Taiwan's elections. "It's extremely unhelpful," said one senior official.

Zhu's manner today contrasted starkly with his image as an even-tempered pragmatist. He drove home his comments in emphatic tones and in several instances shouted into the microphones before him.

"No matter who comes into power in Taiwan, Taiwan will never be allowed to be independent," he vowed. "This is our bottom line and the will of 1.25 billion Chinese people."

Zhu also rebuked American politicians for what he characterized as meddling in China's internal affairs. He warned outsiders seeking solace in the perception that China lacks sufficient military might to take Taiwan not to underestimate the depths of Beijing's resolve.

"People making such calculations don't know about Chinese history," he declared. "The Chinese people are ready to shed blood and sacrifice their lives to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the motherland."

Zhu's comments could be seen as an effort to shore up his position within the Chinese leadership. Since his trip to the United States last April, when he negotiated the initial terms for China's accession to the World Trade Organization that many decried as too conciliatory, Zhu has drawn criticism on Web sites and in Internet chat rooms here as a "traitor" and "lover of America."

In today's remarks, Zhu seemed to go out of his way to counter such perceptions. Indeed, some of his statements about U.S. leaders dripped with sarcasm. For example, Zhu took a direct swipe at President Clinton, quoting from a recent speech at Johns Hopkins University in which the president called for "a shift from threat to dialogue across the Taiwan Strait."

Switching to English, Zhu recommended a two-word revision to Clinton's statement. What the American president should have said, Zhu admonished, was that there must be "a shift from threat to dialogue across the Pacific Ocean."

A senior Clinton administration official said in Washington that Clinton had "sought to be constructive" in his comments. The official warned that failing to resolve the Taiwan issue "would be very harmful to the interests of everyone concerned."

"We continue to uphold our 'one China' policy, urge the two sides to engage in dialogue, and insist that there be a peaceful resolution to cross-strait differences," said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin. "We have repeatedly encouraged both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan to pursue steps to reduce tensions across the strait."

Beijing's rhetoric on reunification took a turn on Feb. 21 with the release of a white paper from the Taiwan Affairs Office. The document stated explicitly that China would use military force to take control of Taiwan if the island's political leaders attempt to put off the question of reunification with the mainland "indefinitely."

Since the white paper, top Chinese leaders have reiterated the invasion threat. Their statements have been interpreted as an effort to frighten Taiwan's voters away from Chen, whose Democratic Progressive Party has urged that Taiwan declare independence.

[The latest comments came Thursday when a Beijing academic implied at a cabinet-sponsored news conference that China could use force against Taiwan if the island elects a pro-independence candidate. Answering a question about China's timetable for unification with Taiwan, Li Jiaquan said it could be as long as a few years or as short as 24 hours.

"If Taiwan goes along the path of peaceful unification, it could take a long time, but if Taiwan moves toward independence, then there could be change in three to five years or within 24 hours," said Li, a research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan Studies in the state-controlled Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.]

Zhu's comments dominated television news broadcasts this evening in Taiwan. In Taipei, the top official on China policy denounced Zhu's declaration.

"Mr. Zhu, among other People's Republic of China officials, has no right to say anything about our election," Su Chi, chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, told Reuters.

Chen, meanwhile, told a campaign rally that Taiwanese voters will not be intimidated by what he called the "terror card." "Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country," he added, according to the Associated Press. "It's not a part of the People's Republic of China."

The white paper has had no discernible effect on voter support for any of Taiwan's three presidential contenders, and many pollsters say the race remains too close to call.

Zhu, describing Taiwan's ballot as a "local election" that should therefore be decided by local voters, did not endorse a specific candidate. Most analysts, though, regard independent James Soong, a former Lee protege who espouses a more conciliatory approach to relations with the mainland, as Beijing's first choice. The third principal candidate is Lien Chan, the Kuomintang's chosen standard bearer.

---

China Threat Looms in Taiwan

MARCH 16, 01:16 EST
By MARCOS CALO MEDINA
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7387OD80

KINMEN, Taiwan (AP) - Between the windswept coastlines of this Taiwanese island and mainland China is a narrow strait of choppy waters, guarded day and night on both sides by soldiers and heavy artillery.

But despite the Chinese guns pointing at Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, this military outpost two miles from China seems unworried about Beijing's latest threats of war.

``We don't feel the pressure or tension from China anymore. We just go about our business quietly,'' says fisherman Ou Yang Yan-chun, standing beside his fleet of two fishing boats in Kinmen's harbor.

``I rarely hear the sound of guns these days,'' says Ou Yang, recalling the 1950s when Kinmen was an almost daily target of a Chinese artillery bombardment.

Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party held on to Kinmen after it lost mainland China to Mao Zedong's Communists in 1949. Beijing still views Taiwan to be a renegade province that must be taken back by force if necessary.

Last month, Beijing issued a new threat, warning that it would attack if Taiwan rebuffed indefinitely talks about reunifying. Military experts often name Kinmen as a target that China might try to take hostage to get the rest of Taiwan to agree to its demands.

China's recent harsh words came at a sensitive time, with Taiwan preparing to hold its second direct presidential election on March 18. During the first presidential vote in 1996, China tested nuclear-capable missiles near Taiwan's two largest ports.

Campaign buntings and flags provide the few bursts of color against the backdrop of crumbling courtyard homes made of brick and stone. All three of the top candidates have visited Kinmen and have promised development for the military outpost of 50,000 people.

Kinmen remains heavily fortified. The few beaches open to the public still have metal spikes jutting out of the waters, and many areas along the coast are still protected by barbed wire signs that read ``Danger Mines.''

A makeshift stage has been set up in downtown Kinmen to receive ruling party candidate Vice President Lien Chan, and taxi drivers fly pennants of independent candidate James Soong.

Many polls in Taiwan report a growing reluctance for reunification with mainland China, but for residents like Ni chen-kuo, a 47-year old cleaner at Kinmen's harbor, the future lies with the thriving southern Chinese city of Xiamen across the Taiwan Strait.

Direct air links from Taiwan to Xiamen would bring more tourists and more jobs, Ni said.

``This place is so small, there are so few ways to do business. We really hope the government can start direct links to over there,'' says Ni, pointing to the waters beyond Kinmen harbor's concrete military watchtower.

To appease the many businessmen chafing at the restrictions of the ban on direct links with China, Lien has proposed setting up a peace zone in Kinmen and another outlying island, Matsu, to allow direct shipping links with the mainland. But this all depends on China giving Taiwan ``concrete signs of goodwill,'' which Lien hasn't further defined.

Legal links with the mainland could make life easier for Mu Chi-lin, 37, but she thinks the elections ``won't bring any new changes.'' Business is on the minds of local residents, and one candidate ``is just the same as the other,'' she said.

``Life is hard here. China is the topic of every election, but as long as the streets are quiet, we really don't care,'' said Mu, standing beside pears and grapes smuggled from mainland China.

----

China Cites U.S. Double Standard

March 16, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-China.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is hypocritical to preach arms control while pursuing a missile defense program that will spread dangerous technology and promote missile development in other countries, a Chinese diplomat said Thursday.

The accusation leveled by He Yefei, minister-counsel at the Chinese Embassy, was dismissed by the State Department spokesman James P. Rubin as ironic and wrong.

Rubin said China had spread dangerous technology around the world and that the antimissile defense under consideration within the Clinton administration involves technology that would not be used for offensive weapons.

Meanwhile, Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering summoned the Chinese ambassador Li Zhao Xing and urged Beijing to exercise ``patience and prudence before, during and after'' elections in Taiwan.

Pickering took the action after Prime Minister Zhu Rongji warned the Taiwanese not to vote for a pro-independence presidential candidate, saying China would invade before allowing Taiwan to declare itself a separate country.

A Republican House leader said Taiwan faced an uncertain future because the Clinton administration had embraced ``a level of appeasement'' toward China more craven than Neville Chamberlain's attempts to placate Germany on the eve of World War II.

Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas said the administration has responded with ``thinly veiled disdain'' toward Taiwan despite seemingly daily threats directed toward the island from the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

DeLay, who is House Republican whip, commented in remarks prepared for delivery to a gathering at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private research group.

``Sixty-two years after Czechoslovakia, ethnic reunion has returned as an excuse for aggression,'' said DeLay, suggesting that China's desire to reinstate Taiwan under Beijing's tutelage is comparable to Hitler's designs on ethnic German sections of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

``Having learned nothing from the folly of Munich, the Clinton administration has embraced a level of appeasement that would have embarrassed Neville Chamberlain: A communist dictatorship becomes our 'strategic partner'; a small, peaceful democratic country becomes an irritant.''

Rubin, in response, said the U.S. policy on China had received support from successive administrations over the years, both Republican and Democratic.

Both parties felt it was good to work for China while maintaining support for Taiwan, he said.

Chinese diplomat He Yefei derided the U.S. antimissile policy at a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a private research group.

The Clinton administration said it had to consider basing weapons in space because of a potential attack by North Korea and other so-called ``rogue'' states. But He said they had only a few missiles at best and doubted they could reach the United States.

The diplomat also said the Clinton administration was undercutting a treaty with Russia that prohibits missile defenses. That treaty, He said, serves to restrain even countries that did not sign the 1972 accord.

------

On the Net:
Chinese Embassy in Washington:
http://www.china-embassy.org

State Department Background Notes on China:
http://www.state.gov/www/background--notes/china--899--bgn.html

-----------colombia

Colombian Military States Its Case Rights Advances Cited in Report

Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A22
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/224l-031600-idx.html

BOGOTA, Colombia, March 15-Assailed for human rights violations by the State Department, independent rights groups and the United Nations, the Colombian military put out its own report today, declaring impressive improvements in human rights observance and evenhandedness in pursuing armed groups on the left and right.

The report's statistics, to be delivered in Washington by Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez on Monday, were the first comprehensive tally released by the Colombian Defense Ministry. They offered a stark contrast to charges that the military has colluded with right-wing paramilitary groups that others hold responsible for the majority of human rights violations.

According to the military report, leftist guerrillas are responsible for nearly 85 percent of all violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Colombia in the past five years, with the paramilitary groups responsible for 13.3 percent. These findings run counter to the assessments of other groups inside and outside Colombia.

Ramirez told a news conference that "we are not trying to get into a controversy with other publications" or deny Colombia's problems. The military's objective, he said, "is to present all the statistics we have because sometimes not everyone has access to . . . everything that happens in Colombia."

As the Clinton administration's $1.6 billion anti-narcotics assistance package for Colombia has rushed its way through Congress, many members have harshly criticized the Colombian military, which is to receive most of the money. Today's report is an apparent effort by the military to counter such criticism, but it was immediately assailed by human rights groups.

"It's a step backward," said Jose Manuel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch, whose New York-based organization last month blamed the majority of human rights violations on the paramilitary groups and charged that half of Colombia's 18 army brigade headquarters were involved in their activities in varying degrees.

A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office here, which is about to release a new report criticizing President Andres Pastrana's government for not doing enough on human rights, noted that its figures had come from other government entities that seemed to disagree with the military's accounting.

By anyone's calculation, Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world, with assassinations, massacres, kidnappings for ransom and abductions, direct assaults on population centers and terrorist attacks on infrastructure targets. The military said that "at least 14,102 serious infractions of international humanitarian law" occurred here in the last five years.

Part of the difference between the military tally and others is due to the fact that while most outside groups assess blame based on numbers of deaths and what they consider more serious violations, the military report treats all violations equally.

While holding guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army culpable for the vast majority of kidnappings and extortion, terrorist and municipal attacks, it said the paramilitary groups were responsible for exponential growth in the number of assassinations, and for 74 percent of what it counted as 551 deaths during massacres of four or more people at a time in 1999.

According to the office of the independent human rights ombudsman appointed by the Colombian government, nearly 1,500 deaths occurred in more than 300 massacres last year. Due to release its own figures in a report Friday, the ombudsman's office attributes 165 massacres to the paramilitaries, 65 to the guerrillas, six to the armed forces and 71 to undetermined offenders.

While recognizing that "there is still much room for improvement in cleansing the state institutions in their capacity to guarantee the rights of citizens," the military report said that public complaints against the armed forces and police had decreased from more than 15 percent of all complaints in 1995 to 2 percent last year, a figure human rights groups do not dispute.

Special correspondent Steven Dudley contributed to this report.

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

Beating Swords Into Suburbs in East Germany's Bunker Capital

March 16, 2000
By JAN OTAKAR FISCHER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/home/031600swords-germany.html

WALDSTADT, Germany -- The train to Dresden makes a stop at Wünsdorf, a dot on the map 25 miles south of Berlin, now once again the German capital. When Werner Reisinger comes home from work each evening, he can see blocky Cyrillic letters on the derelict station. They read: "Wünsdorf-Moscow." Mr. Reisinger is again reminded that he lives on hard-won ground.

For most of a century, Wünsdorf led a secret double life: a sleepy Prussian village twinned with a forbidden city of soldiers. Now it is a city of civilians -- the site of the biggest settlement project in Germany, whose success may inspire similar projects throughout Eastern Europe.

Kaiser Wilhelm II cleared the land adjoining Wünsdorf for a firing range and infantry school. By 1914, the site was the biggest military base in Europe. In the chaotic years after World War I, the barracks were occupied by the right-wing Freikorps troops. After the Nazis took power in 1933, Hitler built a network of concrete bunkers, code-named Maybach and Zeppelin, where the invasion of Poland was coordinated in 1939.

The bunkers were the German Army's World War II nerve center, but to the end, the Allies did not know of their existence. In March 1945, American planes destroyed barracks but did not hit the bunker complex. A month later, as the Soviets drew nearer, the bunkers were evacuated in hours. Cups of coffee were left warm on the desks.

The 60,000-acre military sector was transformed into the inner sanctum of the Soviet forces in East Germany. The Zeppelin bunker became their secret communications center, from which they were prepared to direct a nuclear war against the West. Berlin was the front line of the cold war, and Wünsdorf was its field office, with perhaps 30,000 to 70,000 Russians soldiers and their families living in the military enclave. By September 1994, they were all gone.

The Brandenburg government established the Waldstadt Development Agency, under the direction of a young Berlin official, Jürgen Baumann, charged with nothing less than building a new city in a ghost town, where no one had ever lived without a uniform.

To the west of the train tracks, in the old town of Wünsdorf, little seems to have changed since the Berlin Wall came down. Almost 3,000 people live in traditional detached houses. The signs of prosperity are few: an occasional satellite dish, a rare new car.

East of the tracks, however, things are moving fast. The military zone has been integrated with the old municipality and rechristened Waldstadt, or town in the woods. Long three- and four-story dormitorylike buildings stand in formation. Most of them sport pastel-tone plaster facades and shiny red ceramic roof tiles. Interspersed are brand-new-looking prefabricated concrete apartment buildings, ringed by shady lawns.

From zero in 1996, the population of Waldstadt has grown to 2,500, and projections allow for 10,000 by 2005. If the growth rate is sustained, it will be one of Europe's highest.

Still, this is not a typical planned community. A tank tread sits on a restaurant terrace.

A flaking statue of an unknown jet pilot and a corroded figure of Lenin emerge from the trees, and so do huge rocket-shape concrete towers, their noses well above the neighboring buildings.

"Building a new community is an exciting and rare opportunity, and this site is more interesting than most," said Wolfgang Metz, an urban planner and a guiding force behind the efforts of the town to reinvent itself.

The inheritor of the Wünsdorf garrison, the Brandenburg state government, called on Mr. Metz to help coordinate the Russian evacuation of Wünsdorf. A deal was struck: Germany paid Russian troops a salary to decommission, and in return the material infrastructure was left mostly intact. The arrangement hastened the withdrawal, but left the Germans with more than they bargained for: 45,000 cubic yards of trash, 250 tons of toxic chemicals, 30 tons of spent munitions, 2,800 bombs and 98,000 rounds of ammunition. The cleanup took two years.

In 1996, the Waldstadt Development Agency hired Mr. Baumann. What did he have to work with? More than 1,000 buildings of every description -- barracks, administration buildings, factories, sports facilities, warehouses, villas, stables -- 700 of which were deemed fit for reuse. A territory of considerable charm, including dense forests and a wide lakefront, which had not been environmentally wasted. A fortunate site on a rail line and highway linked to Berlin. And history.

"Here, we are turning a place of war into a place of peace," Mr. Baumann likes to say.

The 1916 officers' headquarters building, imperial stables and bunkers became protected monuments. Investors bolstered the infrastructure with gas stations, banks and bakeries. The state government moved 1,000 government officials into offices in the old barracks, a crucial step in creating the core of an employment base in the town. The first grammar school was built before there were enough pupils to fill it. People had to be given reasons to come, to live, to work and to stay.

Petra Dittmer, 29, is a resettled employee of the state ministry, and on weekends she takes people down into the Zeppelin bunker. She grew up in the shadow of the Soviet base. "We had no idea about the bunkers or other things, but we sometimes saw the soldiers in town," Ms. Dittmer said. "Our shoemaker got a lot of business." The promise of a low-cost, sanitized apartment, and of a government job to which she did not have to commute, persuaded her to join Mr. Baumann's roster.

Most of the new residents of Waldstadt are like those who fill suburbs everywhere in Germany: young, middle-class couples with children who want affordable, modern amenities in the embrace of nature. Eighty percent are eastern Germans who may be seeking to escape their still crumbling hometowns.

Rental apartments in converted barracks range from studios to five rooms, from $250 for 390 square feet to $660 for 1,240 square feet.

"Converting barracks in this case was not the problem you might expect, since at Wünsdorf they had always been used by officers and their families," Mr. Baumann said.

The old barracks were laid out with three-room apartments. These buildings were gutted and then refitted with apartments of varying sizes, along with new bathrooms, linoleum floors, parking spaces, balconies and cable television.

The result is housing that to a large extent conceals its martial origins. Bright honey-color plaster walls and hanging plants, playgrounds, birches and private garages serve to disguise what are still unmistakably large and regimented structures. But they end up looking solid and conservative.

This is part of their appeal, if you can ignore history, because across from your bedroom window may be a 70-foot concrete air raid bunker or a hero of the Soviet Air Force.

Choosing Waldstadt was perhaps more of a challenge for two of its most recent arrivals, Werner and Hannelore Reisinger. Like thousands of their colleagues, they spent last summer moving all their belongings from Bonn, where Mr. Reisinger worked as chief librarian of the Labor Ministry.

"We did not want to live in the big city," Mr. Reisinger said.

They bought the first available lot for a three-bedroom detached house and then ordered wood-frame components from a builder. They paid about $175,000 for more than 1,160 square feet of living space. Nearly 700 one- or two-family houses are planned.

"In Berlin or even Bonn, we could only afford to rent in a two-family house, but here we could build our own," Mrs. Reisinger said. "And nature is at our doorstep. At night, we can hear the wild boar snorting around below our window."

The Reisingers have not yet been to see the bunkers, though they are visible less than 100 yards away. Mrs. Reisinger's father was killed fighting in Yugoslavia in 1943 -- she cannot bring herself to enter the chambers where his last orders were dispatched.

Not far below the surface lies another concern, common to most settlers from western Germany: fitting in to the east. There is still a suspicion among westerners that only the youngest people in the former East Germany show the motivation to make something of themselves (like turning a military base into a soldierless town); and that an urge to buy now dominates the "Ossie" (eastern) mentality, something the west got over decades ago.

From the other side, western Germans, or Wessies, are still thought of by many in eastern Germany as patronizing opportunists whose promises are no longer credible.

"We were a bit worried at first about being the new rich Wessies on the block, with an instant house and stay-at-home wife and all that," Mrs. Reisinger said. "But we have had no problems."

Mr. Metz has been busy luring transient visitors. One weekend, four years ago, he was traveling in Britain and stopped at Hay-on-Wye, the village near the Welsh border that has become a pilgrimage site for rare book collectors. There are 20 such towns worldwide, including Nevada City, Calif., and Mr. Metz immediately set about adding Waldstadt to the list. The former army bathhouse and post office were renovated to showcase the wares of a dozen German antiquarians.

The monolithic concrete and moldering relics of failed regimes exert a fascination for war tourists, several hundred strong each week. Hourly weekend tours take people into the chilly 107,000-square-foot recesses of the Zeppelin bunker, whose reinforced walls the Russians discovered were too thick to detonate.

Mr. Metz, the first civilian to become a resident of Waldstadt, is busy plotting the future from his office in the Book Town building (now the unofficial town hall). In 1998, he gave up his civil service job to form his own Book Town tourism company. The state of Brandenburg has pumped in $130 million worth of investment, while private investment stands around $160 million. Apartment rental prices are averaging 65 cents a square foot compared with $1 a square foot elsewhere in the region, so the space is rapidly filling.

And Mr. Baumann is finding new distractions: a steady stream of government officials from countries like the Czech Republic and Ukraine have been arriving, seeking conversion advice for their own tattered and abandoned infrastructure.

The Book Town is opening a fourth building this summer. Already 35,0000 tourists have had their dose of "books, beer and bunkers." One way Mr. Baumann wishes to foster community is to build up the cultural base. An artists' colony has been proposed for the old troop exercise yards, and the row of empty imperial stables is to become a military museum extension, art galleries, a printing plant and space for publishers. A couple of miles away, the officers' headquarters complex is waiting for the right investor to revivify the grand old Prussian spaces.

"Some kind of institution would be right, or a high-tech company campus," Mr. Metz said. Then he paused with a smile, "You don't happen to know Bill Gates, do you, or maybe Steven Spielberg?"

----------- india

Clinton to focus on deployable systems

The Hindu
03/16/00
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/03/16/stories/01160006.htm

WASHINGTON, MARCH 15. Even as the Clinton administration is concerned about the nuclear programme of India and Pakistan, neither of the countries has developed an operational deployed missile; and Washington would continue to press the two nations to refrain from going this route, says the White House.

Asked whether, in the context of Washington's failure to persuade both the countries against developing nuclear weapons, the American focus must now be on creating safer mechanisms for the deployment, the White House spokesman, Mr. Joe Lockhart, said, ``... we have talked at some time about our concern about the nuclear programme in both India and Pakistan, but neither side has developed an operational deployed missile. And that's what we're going to work with both sides to make the case they refrain from from doing that. We want them... to get... to non- proliferation standards. And that's one of the reasons why we are going to go and make this trip.''

Pressed for specifics how the U.S. would persuade them not to move to deployable systems for their nuclear weapons, he said the President, Mr. Bill Clinton, would make the case directly with the leaders of the two countries.

``... we have been working with the Indian and Pakistani Governments for some time now on our concern about their nuclear programme. We would make the case both in terms of non- proliferation and be making the case on the CTBT while we are there. The President would meet both the leaders.

In an interview to The Washington Post, the Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott, said there was no question of any Government in India reversing or abandoning the nuclear option. ``In the real world, neither this Indian Government, nor any imaginable Indian Government is going to reverse that decision.''

Talks on the various nuclear and security issues were ``worthwhile, but we haven't had what I would argue is breakthrough progress on any of these,'' Mr. Talbott said. On safeguarding the Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenal to prevent an accidental war, a senior Administration official has told The Post, ``We want to be very careful not to give them a user's manual''.

An unnamed senior administration official has been quoted in The Washington Times as saying that the Secretary of State's remarks on Pakistan during a speech at the Asia Society on Tuesday did not amount to a ``tilt'' towards India. Ms Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, bluntly asked Pakistan to respect the Line of Control and halt terrorism.

``But today the conflict over Kashmir has been fundamentally transformed. For, nations must not attempt to change borders or zones of occupation through armed force. And now that they have exploded nuclear devices, India and Pakistan have all the more reason to avoid armed conflict... And we can be sure of one more practical reality. Tangible steps must be taken to respect the Line of Control,'' Ms. Albright said.

Denying any ``tilt'', the senior official has said, ``Pakistan wants to change the border-not India. There have been indications of increased Indian activity along the Line of Control, so this is a warning to both sides. But it is Pakistan rather than India that is seeking adjustments''.

Denies report on funding

Meanwhile the White House has denies a media report that the President decided to include Pakistan in his South Asia itinerary because the First Lady, Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton, running for a Senate seat from New York, received $ 50,000 from a Pakistani- American political group during a fund-raising event last month.

``The decision was made by the President in consultation with his foreign policy team based on our interest in the subcontinent, our interest in that part of the world without regard to anyone's politics, including the First Lady's'', Mr. Lockhart said.

---

U.S. anti-nuclear agenda sure to fail in South Asia

Denver Rocky Mountain News
03/16/00
Holger Jensen mailto:hjens@aol.com
http://insidedenver.com/jensen/0316jense.shtml

Holger Jensen's Biography
http://insidedenver.com/news/columnists.shtml#jensen

President Clinton goes to South Asia next week hoping to persuade India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear ambitions, stop fighting over Kashmir and convince Pakistan's military ruler to restore democracy.

But he is likely to fail on all three counts.

On the nuclear question, Clinton's hand is considerably weakened by the Senate's refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In the words of one Indian official, "They killed the treaty. It's rather indecent to ask us to sign a dead treaty."

Kashmir has heated up considerably since last year's incursion by Pakistani-backed rebels across the "Line of Control" in the Kargil region. The general who directed that operation, Pervez Musharraf, has since overthrown Pakistan's elected government and shows no inclination to restore civilian rule.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee won't revive peace talks with Pakistan as long as it has a military regime. His coalition government, dominated by Hindu nationalists, is under intense pressure from the Indian army to avenge its humiliating inability to defend India's border.

As CIA Director George Tenet pointed out in a recent report to Congress, "Last spring the two countries narrowly averted a full-scale war in Kashmir, which could have escalated to the nuclear level. Recent changes in government in both countries add tensions to the picture."

Sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan after their tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998 failed to slow South Asia's arms race. In 1999 India test-fired a new medium-range ballistic missile, the Agni-2, and Pakistan tested both its medium-range Ghauri and the short-range Shaheen-2.

The Islamabad-based Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Center says India and Pakistan have increased their defense outlays by 14 percent and 8.5 percent respectively. It estimates they will spend $15 billion over the next 10 years to maintain their nuclear arsenals -- enough to feed and educate more than 37 million neglected children on the subcontinent.

The Institute for Science and International Security believes India has enough nuclear material to build up to 90 nuclear weapons and Pakistan about half that number. The Federation of American Scientists has published satellite pictures on its web site of Pakistan's nuclear bases and plans to do the same with India's.

The photos, obtained from Space Imaging Inc. of Thornton, Colo., show that "Pakistan has invested a tremendous effort in these facilities, and I don't think we're going to talk them out of building these weapons anytime soon," said John Pike, director of the federation's nuclear alerts.

India has already announced its intention to maintain a nuclear deterrent. An independent Task Force on U.S. Policy Towards South Asia, co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, warned Clinton that "any attempt to persuade India to eliminate its nuclear arsenal will fail, given Indian concerns about both China and Pakistan and the inclination of many Indians to associate nuclear weapons with great-power status."

An open letter to the president said: "It is essential to resist the temptation to place ambitious, nuclear weapons-related goals at the center of U.S. aims." It was signed by, among others, Robert Oaklay, a former ambassador to Pakistan, and Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to India.

Ignoring this advice, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has made it clear that U.S.-Indian friendship hinges on the nuclear issue. "We must accept that significant progress in this area is necessary before India and the United States can realize fully the vast potential of our relationship," she said in a speech to the Asia Society.

Her message to Pakistan was equally curt. Musharraf must call elections, giving the Pakistani people "the ability to choose their leaders sooner, rather than later."

Albright stressed that Clinton's visit to Pakistan in no way constitutes approval of the October coup. Rather, it was prompted by a desire to reduce tensions between two nuclear-capable foes.

Fighting between India and Pakistan always intensifies after the Himalayan snows melt in spring, when Muslim insurgents can again use mountain trails to infiltrate Kashmir. India claims the number of insurgents has doubled since the Kargil clash. And although both countries have promised not to "go nuclear," there is always a risk of miscalculation as their armies stand on hair-trigger alert.

Holger Jensen is international editor. E-mail: hjens@aol.com. His column also appears on the Internet at www.rockymountainnews.com/jensen/

March 16, 2000

---

Indian Army Warns of Rising Tension

Associated Press
March 16, 2000 Filed at 4:34 p.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-India-Pakistan.html

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Pakistani army officers have taken over the training of militants waging a secessionist battle in Kashmir and are helping them cross a cease-fire line that divides the Himalayan territory, senior Indian officers said Thursday.

An estimated 3,500 militants from Pakistan are now inside Indian-held Kashmir and an additional 5,000 are trained and ready to join them, said the officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

They said they anticipate an increase in fighting this summer and agreed with President Clinton's assessment that the India-Pakistan frontier was ``the most dangerous place in the world right now.''

The army said the briefing, given to foreign media just four days before Clinton's scheduled arrival in India, was intended to pressure Pakistan to withdraw its assistance to the militants.

In Islamabad, Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi accused India of stepping up the rhetoric in advance of the Clinton visit.

``There couldn't be bigger lies,'' he said of the Indian officers' claim. ``The Indians have been constantly trying to pin all the blame for whatever wrong is happening in India or in Kashmir on Pakistan.''

India and both claim all of Kashmir, an Islamic area that has sparked two wars between the two countries since British colonialism ended a half-century ago. Now both sides have nuclear weapons capability and tensions in Kashmir are on the rise.

India claims Pakistan trains and funds militants. Pakistan maintains its aid is limited to moral and diplomatic support.

The Indian officers said that in December 1998, the training of the militants was transferred from the Pakistani intelligence wing to regular army officers.

Clinton has offered to mediate over Kashmir, but only if both sides request his involvement. India has rejected any outside involvement.

China also claims part of eastern Kashmir. Chinese Ambassador Zhou Gang expressed hope Thursday that Clinton's visit would soothe tensions in South Asia.

-----

Kashmir Hopes Clinton Brings Peace

MARCH 16, 13:32 EST
By LAURINDA KEYS
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS738IHAO0

SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Rolling out thin, spicy, biscuit dough onto a charcoal-heated hot plate, baker Nazir Ahmad Runga was worried. As he sat in his wooden shack on a Kashmir street of shuttered shops, he wondered: Where will the next shooting or explosion be?

``We never know from which side blood will flow,'' said Runga.

But, he said, he believes everything should be all right after President Clinton comes to India for a visit beginning March 20 and follows it with a brief stop in Pakistan.

``He will decide our fate so we will leave this hell,'' said the 40-year-old baker in his soiled tunic. ``He is the only one who can.''

It seems a bleak hope.

Clinton has said the 1972 cease-fire line that bisects the mountainous Kashmir region between India and Pakistan is ``the most dangerous place in the world right now.'' He has offered to mediate, but only if both countries ask - which India has said it won't do.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, which both sides claim, has been the spark for two of the three wars between the two countries since British colonialism ended a half-century ago. Now both sides have nuclear weapons capability, and tensions in Kashmir are high again.

The root of the latest dispute is a Muslim fundamentalist-led uprising that began in Indian Kashmir in 1989, prompting the Indian army to deploy there. More than 25,000 people have died in the fighting.

India says Kashmir is a bilateral problem that could be resolved if Pakistan stopped supporting guerrillas who cross the border to set bombs and kill security forces.

Pakistan says it gives moral and political support, but no money, weapons or training, to the Kashmiri militants who shelter within its borders. Pakistani leaders want the international community to get involved and implement a 1948 U.N. resolution calling for an eventual plebiscite in Kashmir.

The sides fought battled on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas last summer. India says it was battling the Pakistani army. But Pakistan says it was local guerrillas holed up in stone bunkers who fought off India's jets, artillery and infantry for nearly three months.

The years of fighting have taken their toll on both combatants and civilians.

Indian forces here are fighting guerrillas who can hide an automatic rifle under the traditional long woolen cloak that most Kashmiri men wear. They can place a land mine in a vegetable market or slip up to an off-duty soldier in a crowded lane and kill him at point-blank range.

Frustrated and frightened troops and police are sandbagged in bunkers every few hundred yards along the highways and city streets. Kashmiris complain that they retaliate against civilians by burning shops and houses and raping, beating and humiliating entire villages in all-day roundups and identity checks.

``We want independence,'' says Azi Begum Fatima, beating her breast in a courtyard of a mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. ``We are living in a miserable way under the ruthless Indian occupation.''

Maj. Gen. John Mukherjee, the regional Indian army commander, acknowledged some human rights abuses but said many complaints were unproved.

``No people anywhere would like to see this sort of activity taking place,'' he said, commenting on the house searches and identity checks. ``Which army wants to do this sort of job?''

Tension and violence are increasing as Clinton's visit approaches. Mukherjee said 42 militants were killed between Oct. 22 and Feb. 15. At least 15 civilians were killed by either guerrillas or security forces in February.

Eleven years of bloodshed have changed the Kashmiri character, says local writer Ali Imran.

``We have a saying that even the skies weep when an innocent is killed,'' he said. ``Now, there can be a blast and I hear it, but I drive on down the other road without caring. It has changed me, our society.''

Although there is no formal curfew, Kashmiris try to get home before sunset. If they can't, they drive with the lights on inside their cars so they can be seen by increasingly trigger-happy soldiers or police.

All Kashmiris ``want is peace and stability,'' says Gen. Mukherjee. ``There is never more than 5-10 percent of the people who really support terrorists and insurgents.''

Police and army leaders believe guerrilla groups are planning a spectacular event to draw attention to Kashmir while Clinton is in India. Members of the largest legal separatist group say they plan protests, although most of their top leaders are in preventive custody.

For Runga the baker, Clinton is the best hope to make India and Pakistan resolve their dispute. He speaks of the power of the U.S. leader in messianic terms - as do many Kashmiris, illiterate or educated, in anticipation of the first American presidential visit to India in 28 years.

``Clinton should tell India to withdraw from Kashmir,'' says Mohammad Jusuf Qurashi, giving a Koran lesson in the mosque courtyard in Srinagar.

``He is a superpower in the world,'' said Qurashi. ``He can do anything.''

During Clinton's visit, Imran said, ``The people will be looking with wide open eyes toward New Delhi to see if the gentleman on whom they have pinned so many hopes is talking about them or not.''

----

Clinton To Press India, Pakistan

MARCH 16, 17:40 EST
By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS738M5G80

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton said Thursday he will press India and Pakistan next week to curb their nuclear weapons programs. But the White House said he would not try to mediate their bitter dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

With India opposed to outside help, Clinton simply will urge the two sides to exercise restraint over Kashmir and resume dialogue, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.

Clinton said he will not accept India's and Pakistan's current situation over nuclear weapons, as others want him to do. ``I will make clear our view that a nuclear future is a dangerous future for them and for the world.''

The president leaves Saturday for a week-long stay in South Asia, a troubled region often ignored by the United States and home to 40 percent of the world's poor. He will visit Bangladesh, spend five days in India and conclude his trip with a brief stop in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, Clinton will urge that deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif be spared execution if he is convicted on charges of hijacking, terrorism, kidnapping and attempted murder, Berger said. He also said Clinton will be given an opportunity for a live television address to press for a return to democracy after last year's military coup and raise concerns about terrorism and tensions over Kashmir.

It will be the first presidential visit to India in 22 years, the first to Pakistan since 1969 and the first ever to Bangladesh.

India and Pakistan, the world's two newest nuclear powers, have fought two wars over Kashmir and clashed again last summer with more than 1,000 casualties.

The bitterness escalated after a military coup in Pakistan last October by Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet last December by Kashmiri militants.

Clinton, in a videotaped address to a Carnegie conference on nonproliferation, said India and Pakistan have legitimate security concerns but that a nuclear competition endangers the world.

``And I'll stress that narrowing our differences on nonproliferation is important to moving toward a broader relationship,'' Clinton said.

Both India and Pakistan have pledged to no further nuclear tests, Berger said, but neither country has endorsed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by more than 150 countries - but rejected by the U.S. Senate last year.

Berger said Clinton would encourage them to sign the treaty and exercise restraint in their nuclear programs. Further, he said the president would press them to stop production of fissile material, the fuel for nuclear weapons, and to join in negotiations for a fissile material cutoff treaty. And, he said, the president would urge them to impose serious export controls on nuclear material.

A major objective of the trip is to establish better relations with India, clouded by years of mutual suspicion during the Cold War.

``For 50 years, America's relationship with India has been viewed through the prism of the Cold War and its aftermath,'' Berger said. ``President Clinton has been determined to get this partnership on track for the benefit of Indians and Americans alike. We want to deepen ties between our governments, our private sectors, our scientists, our citizens.''

India shares that objective, said Naresh Chandra, the Indian ambassador to the United States.

Chandra, in a briefing on Clinton's visit, said it will ``emancipate our mind, help us to get out of the Cold War attitudes and see things afresh and anew. Not that you can wipe the slate clean.''

----

Indian Army Warns of Rising Tension

MARCH 16, 16:34 EST
By ARTHUR MAX
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS738L6K00

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Pakistani army officers have taken over the training of militants waging a secessionist battle in Kashmir and are helping them cross a cease-fire line that divides the Himalayan territory, senior Indian officers said Thursday.

An estimated 3,500 militants from Pakistan are now inside Indian-held Kashmir and an additional 5,000 are trained and ready to join them, said the officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

They said they anticipate an increase in fighting this summer and agreed with President Clinton's assessment that the India-Pakistan frontier was ``the most dangerous place in the world right now.''

The army said the briefing, given to foreign media just four days before Clinton's scheduled arrival in India, was intended to pressure Pakistan to withdraw its assistance to the militants.

In Islamabad, Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi accused India of stepping up the rhetoric in advance of the Clinton visit.

``There couldn't be bigger lies,'' he said of the Indian officers' claim. ``The Indians have been constantly trying to pin all the blame for whatever wrong is happening in India or in Kashmir on Pakistan.''

India and both claim all of Kashmir, an Islamic area that has sparked two wars between the two countries since British colonialism ended a half-century ago. Now both sides have nuclear weapons capability and tensions in Kashmir are on the rise.

India claims Pakistan trains and funds militants. Pakistan maintains its aid is limited to moral and diplomatic support.

The Indian officers said that in December 1998, the training of the militants was transferred from the Pakistani intelligence wing to regular army officers.

Clinton has offered to mediate over Kashmir, but only if both sides request his involvement. India has rejected any outside involvement.

China also claims part of eastern Kashmir. Chinese Ambassador Zhou Gang expressed hope Thursday that Clinton's visit would soothe tensions in South Asia.

-------

Albright addresses Clinton's India trip

USA Today
3/16/2000
Washington DC
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/nc1.htm

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Thursday discussed President Clinton's trip to the Indian subcontinent next week, addressing the difficulty he may have persuading either India or Pakistan to cut back on nuclear weapons programs. Clinton arrives in India - the world's most populous democracy - on Sunday for a week-long South Asia trip that will also include shorter visits to military-ruled Pakistan and Bangladesh. Earlier this week, Albright said ''significant progress'' was needed by India in curbing weapons and exports of military technology ''before India and the United States can realize fully the vast potential of our relationship.'' The Clinton administration puts pressing for a scaling-back of nuclear programs high on the trip's agenda.

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

U.S., Japan Reach Pact on Incinerator Tokyo Will Pay to Stop Pollution at Nearby American Naval Base

Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A18
By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/272l-031600-idx.html

TOKYO, March 16 (Thursday)-The U.S. and Japanese governments agreed today to settle a burning dispute over a commercial incinerator that has been spewing smoke and toxic fumes over a U.S. Navy base in Japan, a senior U.S. defense official said.

The accord calls for the Japanese government to pay "hundreds of millions of dollars" to end the pollution, which infests the Atsugi Naval Air Facility 25 miles west of Tokyo and has prompted complaints from U.S. personnel and their families, said the official who is accompanying Defense Secretary William S. Cohen on a visit to Vietnam, Japan and Korea.

Among other things, Japan has agreed to pay for the construction, beginning immediately, of a 330-foot-tall smokestack at the Shinkampo incinerator, the official said. The Navy said its studies show the current incinerator's discharges contain the highest levels of the carcinogen dioxin ever found in the air in Japan.

The Japanese government will also provide free housing to Navy personnel affected by the incinerator, and round-the-clock monitoring of the emissions, the official said.

He said there is an unwritten understanding that if these steps do not resolve the situation, Japan will consider ways of shutting down the incinerator altogether. The incinerator is privately owned, and U.S. officials say its owner has ties to the Japanese underworld.

The U.S. government plans to seek an injunction, likely within the next few months, to force the incinerator to cease operations. The Japanese government has agreed to provide technical support for the lawsuit, the U.S. official said.

The pollution dispute has simmered for 10 years, during which the base's Japanese neighbors have also complained of noise from jets taking off and landing. U.S. officials say the key to the agreement will be how quickly it is implemented.

"I am totally committed to resolving the issue of that facility," Cohen said after viewing the incinerator earlier in the day. "It either has to be cleaned up or shut down."

Cohen also discussed with Japanese officials whether Japan will continue the $5 billion it pays annually to support the U.S. military presence here, the U.S. official said. The figure is negotiated in five-year increments and the current agreement expires next year. In addition, the official said, Cohen reviewed the state of negotiations involving North Korea, South Korea, Japan and the United States.

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

Official: N.Korea Engagement Working

MARCH 16, 17:32 EST
By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS738M2300

WASHINGTON (AP) - A top State Department official said Thursday the United States continues to take ``very slow, small steps forward'' in its quest to bring stability to the Korean Peninsula through engagement with North Korea.

Rejecting the argument of skeptics that the exercise is futile, Ambassador Wendy Sherman highlighted North Korea's agreement to freeze plutonium-producing nuclear facilities at two sites in 1994 and to renounce tests of long-range missiles.

``This is no small action,'' Sherman said. ``It's very hard to continue a program if you don't test.''

Sherman, a top State Department aide on North Korea policy, testified at a meeting of the House International Relations Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., was decidedly pessimistic about the administration's engagement policy.

He noted that a CIA analysis found that, despite the missile test moratorium, North Korea is continuing to develop the Taopo Dong II intercontinental ballistic missile and could launch it later this year if it decides to do so.

Gilman also alluded to CIA estimates that the missile would be capable of delivering a several-hundred kilogram payload anywhere in the United States. The agency concluded that Pyongyang is the world's major supplier of ballistic missiles and technology, he noted.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Sam Gejdenson, of Connecticut, said he supports administration efforts to reach out to Pyongyang but added that North Korea must realize that ``there is a limit to the patience of the U.S. Congress and the American people.''

The hearing was held a day after the United States and North Korea ended a week-long round of talks in New York, primarily on the planned visit of a high-level North Korean official to Washington in early spring.

Gilman interpreted the inability of the two sides to set a date as a ``breakdown'' but Sherman said the two sides intend to reconvene the discussions shortly after consultations with their respective capitals.

Sherman also pointed out that North Korea agreed in New York to convene talks on American concerns over North Korea's missile program and on implementation of the U.S.-North Korean 1994 nuclear agreement.

She said that agreement ``continues to be our best means of capping and eventually eliminating the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons.''

Had the North's plutonium production not been frozen, Pyongyang ``would be well on its way to having a nuclear program capable of producing dozens of nuclear weapons,'' Sherman said.

In addition, she said North Korea also has agreed to allow a second U.S. inspection of a site where U.S. analysts believed North Korea may have been producing nuclear weapons in secret. The first inspection was held a year ago and yielded no evidence of any such activity.

---

On the Net:

CIA director statement:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public-affairs/speeches/dci-speech-020200.html


----------- pakistan

Pentagon regrets spread of nuclear weapons

The News International Pakistan
Thursday, March 16, 2000 -- Zil'Haj 09, 1420 A.H.
By Amir Mateen

After his attention was drawn to photographs of Pakistan's nuclear facilities, details of which were distributed here besides being put on the internet, the Pentagon's Admiral Quigley, whose attention was drawn to this development at his regular briefing on Tuesday afternoon, regretted the spread of nuclear weapons.

He was asked if the US should "start to engage the Indian and Pakistani government to help them develop nuclear weapons in a way that is safe, transparent and not threaten the planet with nuclear war."

In response, the Pentagon spokesman said the US had made it fairly clear in months preceding the public exposure of these photographs that "we regret the spread of nuclear weapons to any nation or additional nations on the earth."

He said it was constructive to "facilitate engagement and dialogue between nations "that do have nuclear weapons, do possess nuclear weapons, so that there is no surprises."

He said during the Cold War years, despite deep and wide philosophical differences between the Soviet Union and the United States, there was still engagement at a variety of levels, between the governments and the militaries of the two countries.

"Transparency and dialogue take away mystery and ease concern, if you have a greater understanding. So that is something that the US would very much be in favour of, not only with those two nations, but with other nations of the world, as well. Now, as far as the specific proposal that may or may not be made tomorrow, we'll just have to take that as it comes and see what happens."

"Our desire is for both countries to walk away from their nuclear programmes. Other countries have done it, such as Argentina and Brazil," he said.

He said the US was committed to doing whatever it could to stop additional nations from developing nuclear weapons and

"we are very strongly in favour of signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."

Satellite images of Pakistan's nuclear facilities in Khushab and alleged missile facility in Sargodha were distributed besides putting on internet for everybody to see here in Washington on Wednesday.

Announcing at a Press conference at the Press Club, a spokesman of the Federation of American Scientist which runs the Public Eye project to make public the armament sites of proliferants worldwide, once again warned that Pakistan is in danger of having most of its nuclear eggs in one basket, which would be a tempting target.

The Federation has already put investigative details of Indian installations in Pokhran, Trombay and Tarapur on web, besides summary of its missile related projects in Chandipur, Hyderabad and Wheeler Island.

-----------

World More Nuclear Bombs For Pakistan

CBS News March 16, 2000
David Martin National Security Correspondent.

(CBS) The U.S State Department has evidence Pakistan is reprocessing fuel produced at a nuclear reactor to make weapons-grade plutonium, Martin reports Pakistan is escalating the nuclear arms race. Recent air samples taken secretly by U.S. intelligence near a Pakistani nuclear reactor contain traces of a gas called Krypton-85, which to scientists is a dead give away that plutonium is being reprocessed.

"That fact, that they're reprocessing is very significant," said nuclear expert David Albright. "That clearly says that the purpose of this is to make nuclear weapons."

The report comes only days before President Clinton travels to Pakistan and its regional rival, India.

Clinton said Thursday he will urge India and Pakistan to reverse their nuclear arms race, calling it "dangerous for them and the world."

U.S. intelligence estimates that Pakistan already has 30 to 50 nuclear bombs made of uranium. According to Albright, making plutonium weapons, which are smaller and more powerful, accelerates the nuclear arms race with India.

"The smaller the weapon, the easier it is to deliver both by aircraft and by missile,"Albright said.

Other analysts agree.

"A lightweight plutonium bomb could be put on top of the mobile M-11 missiles they've gotten from the Chinese," said David Pike of the Federation of American Scientists. "There'd be a lot of incentive for India to try and destroy all of those missiles while they're still on the base rather than waiting for them to disperse into the field."

The Chinese-made missile can be transported on the back of a truck.

When not in the field, the missiles are parked in garages at a Pakistani air base, making a tempting target for India.

U.S. intelligence estimates that reprocessing fuel from the reactor in question will give the Pakistanis enough plutonium to build two nuclear weapons a year.

India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in May 1998. The two countries, once part of the same British colony, have fought three wars since gaining independence in 1947. This summer, the rivals skirmished over the disputed Kashmir region.

The United States, Russia, China, Britain and France are acknowledged nuclear powers. Israel is widely considered to also have the bomb.

------

Scientists warn of nuclear temptation

Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 16/03/00
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0003/16/text/world10.html

Washington: Pakistan has "laid the groundwork" for a force of dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles that could strike India, a non-profit group of US scientists says.

The Federation of American Scientists based its statement on newly released satellite images of Pakistan's two most important special weapons facilities.

The federation was founded in 1945 by members of the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb. Its goals are nuclear disarmament and prevention of the use of nuclear weapons.

The public policy group posted photos of North Korea's Taepodong missile test facility on its Web site in January. It sparked debate over the seriousness of the North Korean missile threat because the facilities appeared to be fairly primitive.

It now plans to put pictures of Pakistani nuclear and missile facilities on the Internet only days before President Bill Clinton visits Pakistan on a trip to Asia.

The photographs, bought from a Colorado company, Space Imaging, are of spy-satellite quality, Mr John Pike, director of the group's space policy project, said. The scientists' federation was set to unveil the images on its Web site, www.fas.org.

Mr Clinton's Asian tour, during which he will also spend a day in Bangladesh, comes amid increased tension between India and Pakistan, historic rivals over the Kashmir region. Washington is concerned about a potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan.

The images show that the construction of the Khushab plutonium production reactor is almost complete, the group said. Plutonium from that reactor could be used in lightweight nuclear warheads for M-11 missiles that Pakistan bought from China in the early 1990s.

The missiles are housed at the Sargodha medium-range missile base, where Pakistan has built a dozen garages for mobile missile launchers and other vehicles, the statement said. The photo does not include missiles, but shows that the installation is "a full-scale missile base".

"Pakistan has laid the groundwork for a force of dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of striking Indian cities and military bases," Mr Pike said.

"But Pakistan is in danger of having most of its nuclear eggs in one basket, which would be a tempting target for a pre-emptive Indian attack in a time of crisis.

"The United States needs to work with India and Pakistan to reduce this temptation for launching disarming attacks. With Pakistan and India apparently moving ahead with deploying nuclear forces, the danger of such attacks will grow."

Mr Pike said that in the past US policy focused on preventing India and Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons. "In the future, American policy needs a new focus on initiatives to reduce the risk that these weapons will be used."

The Federation of American Scientists has ordered satellite photos of similar facilities in India.

Space Imaging launched a satellite late last year that can take pictures nearly as close to the ground as spy satellites do. It charges $US2,000 ($3,260) per photo. Previously such images were obtainable only by government employees with security clearances.

---

Pakistan makes nuclear headway Satellite images show key steps, activists say

San Jose Mercury News
Thursday, March 16, 2000,
BY JOHN DIAMOND
Chicago Tribune
http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/nukes16.htm

WASHINGTON -- As President Clinton prepares for his trip to India and Pakistan, an arms-control group using commercial satellite imagery said Wednesday that Pakistan is developing the tools it will need to arm medium-range missiles with nuclear warheads.

The Federation of American Scientists commissioned the imagery from the Ikonos satellite, which approaches the level of accuracy of U.S. spy satellites. The pictures show Pakistan advancing more rapidly and extensively than previously known to develop its own plutonium-production capability near a vastly expanded mobile missile base. In one key finding, the satellite images captured the location of a heavy-water-production plant, a key element for producing plutonium-based weapons.

The information was not news to U.S. national security officials or to India. Their reaction not only confirmed the interpretation of the satellite photographs but underscored the new role of commercial satellites in opening up an area previously the exclusive province of the intelligence community.

The Ikonos satellite was launched last year by Space Imaging, a company headed by the former chief of the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. intelligence arm in charge of the nation's spy satellites. Ikonos can take digitized photographs and transmit them to receiving stations on Earth, producing images in which objects as small as 3 1/2 feet across can be distinguished. Although other commercial satellites with ground-imaging equipment have been in service for years, Ikonos is the first to approach the level of a spy satellite in accuracy.

India and Pakistan rocked the world two years ago with nuclear weapons tests. The two countries have fought several wars and continue to skirmish in the disputed Kashmir region. But weapons experts said at the time of the 1998 tests that neither country was particularly advanced in its ability to turn a nuclear explosive into a deliverable weapon. Both are believed to have fashioned some nuclear bombs deliverable by aircraft, but neither is yet known to be able to mount nuclear weapons atop a missile.

Although that picture remains largely unchanged, Pakistan has been pressing to improve its weapons capability at a greater pace than known publicly, according to the federation, an arms-control advocacy group.

The photos show a functioning nuclear reactor at Khushab, in east-central Pakistan, capable of producing plutonium, the synthetic heavy metal that is the key ingredient in the most sophisticated nuclear weapons. They also show a nearby facility for the production of heavy water, a key component of plutonium-producing reactors. Other images collected by the same satellite show what the federation says is a large base for mobile missile launchers.

There is no evidence yet that Pakistan has produced a warhead that it can mount on a missile.

Pakistan's nuclear weapons program to date has been based on weapons-grade uranium as the key active ingredient. Plutonium bombs can be made smaller and lighter, and are, therefore, easier to mount atop a missile, such as the Chinese-built M-11s Pakistan bought in the early 1990s.

International security and weapons proliferation experts are concerned that if missile capability emerges in India and Pakistan, the chance for a misunderstanding, or the rapid escalation of a conflict to the nuclear level, will increase alarmingly.

The arms-control community advocates greater openness in terms of the weapons facilities potential nuclear rivals have, arguing that a clearer understanding of an adversary's capabilities will reduce tension. The federation had ordered up satellite photographs of Indian nuclear facilities as well, but clouds obscured the key location

---

THE MIDDLE EAST
Pakistan Bans Public Rallies

Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A20
WORLD IN BRIEF
Compiled from news services
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/231l-031600-idx.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan--Days before President Clinton's first visit here, Pakistan's army rulers have banned all public rallies and strikes, saying they fear they will turn violent and "portray Pakistan as an irresponsible state." Clinton's visit was not mentioned in the announcement, and there was no indication of how long the ban will last.

The announcement, circulated by Pakistan's state-run news agency, said indoor political meetings can proceed, but without the use of loudspeakers. In Pakistan, political rallies traditionally include long processions and fiery speeches roared over loudspeakers.

"There are reports that elements working against the interest of the state are preparing and planning hostile acts to create chaos and portray Pakistan as an irresponsible state," the Associated Press of Pakistan said, quoting an Interior Ministry statement. "The country cannot afford the luxury of agitation and violence-prone politics, which disrupts the normal public life."

The announcement also comes a week before the Pakistan Muslim League--the political party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom the army toppled in October--was to hold a public rally March 23 in the eastern Punjab capital of Lahore.

---

Group Says Photos Show Pakistani Arms

March 16, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/00/03/16/news/world/pakistan-photos-rts.html

WASHINGTON, March 15 -- A public policy group said today that it had obtained satellite photographs showing that Pakistan has built a dozen garages that can be used to house mobile missiles.

The Federation of American Scientists, which bought the photos from a Colorado-based company, Space Imaging Inc., said other images showed that a nuclear reactor at Khushab, near the Sargodha base where the garages are located, is nearly complete and may be capable pf producing plutonium for nuclear warheads.

The pictures, posted on the group's Web site, www.fas.org, did not show any actual missiles or transport vehicles.

The group, which opposes the spread of nuclear weapons, released the photos as President Clinton is preparing to visit South Asia with stops in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

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

Russia Criticizes U.S. Law Linking Funding to Iran Policy

Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A18
By David Hoffman Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/240l-031600-idx.html

MOSCOW, March 15-Russia today criticized a bill signed by President Clinton this week that would halt contributions to Moscow to help finance the International Space Station if Russian firms are found to have helped Iran develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

The new law is aimed at pressuring Russia to halt proliferation, which Moscow has long insisted is not occurring. The United States has imposed sanctions on Russian firms or institutes 10 times because of suspected leaks of nuclear weapons technology to Iran.

Western experts say the proliferation is often taking place at lower levels, primarily at Russia's many hundreds of state-owned scientific and defense institutes.

The law bars "extraordinary payments" to Russia's space agency for the space station unless Washington confirms that Moscow has not transferred such technology to Iran in the previous year. The Clinton administration had proposed paying an additional $650 million for Russia's work on the space station.

Yevgeny Adamov, the Russian minister for atomic energy who has championed Russia's cooperation in building a nuclear power station in Iran, reiterated Moscow's position that it would not be in its own interests to leak the technology.

Saying that Russia realizes it would be imprudent to supply a southern neighbor with nuclear weapons, Adamov asked, "Why are we considered fools?" The Interfax news agency quoted him as saying that selling such technology to Iran would be like "giving your neighbor a grenade with a pulled-out pin" that could be "hurled back at us."

Adamov said the U.S. legislation was related to its presidential campaign. "Now that the election campaign is in progress, nothing is impossible," he said. "When elections are over in the United States, they will calm down and, I think, will start retreating."

In a meeting Tuesday, Ilya Klebanov, a deputy prime minister who oversees Russia's military industrial complex, also protested the new law to Vice President Gore's foreign policy adviser, Leon Fuerth, who is visiting Moscow this week.

In another development, Russian officials announced this week that they will continue selling conventional weapons and spare parts to Iran despite a 1995 agreement between Gore and then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to halt the deliveries by this year.

Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the Kremlin Security Council, told reporters that Russia is "not going to conclude any new agreements with Iran . . . for the time being," but "we continue to implement the contracts" signed before the 1995 agreement. Ivanov claimed that Russia has "reached virtually full mutual understanding" with the United States on the continued sales.

---

Russia Communist Seek Votes

MARCH 16, 14:42 EST
By ANGELA CHARLTON
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS738JIBO0

CHELYABINSK, Russia (AP) - Usually stiff and stern, Communist presidential candidate Gennady Zyuganov flirted with students and took the stage at a comedy contest Thursday as he sought the youth vote 10 days ahead of elections in which he runs a distant second.

Retirees nostalgic for Soviet-era stability make up Zyuganov's core electorate and are expected to turn out in large numbers for him in the March 26 voting, although pre-election polls show him far behind acting President Vladimir Putin.

But the 55-year-old Communist Party chief appears determined to expand his support base, and lavished attention on the under-30 crowd during a campaign tour of Chelyabinsk, a Ural Mountains industrial city 930 miles east of Moscow.

``Good for you for choosing such a difficult profession,'' he said, patting the shoulder of a young medical resident testing laser equipment at the regional cancer hospital.

``Hello beautiful,'' Zyuganov said with a grin every time he passed a female medical student.

Irina Sharupova, a 22-year-old student, blushed when Zyuganov passed by.

``He's sweet. But I don't think I'll vote for him. His ideas are dying ideas. We don't need more dying,'' she said.

Years of Soviet-era nuclear tests in the Chelyabinsk region exposed people in dozens of towns to high radiation, causing a high cancer rate. Zyuganov promised wage increases for the hospital's doctors, who earn $28 to $42 a month.

Zyuganov has criticized Putin for the acting president's failure to state a detailed program for addressing the country's complex economic ills. But Putin appears a shoo-in, with a poll released Thursday showing him with 58 percent support against 21 percent for Zyuganov, his nearest challenger.

Later Thursday, Zyuganov attended a contest for college comedy troupes and said he had performed in a similar group at school.

``So if you want to become a presidential candidate you must do this, too,'' he said, climbing on stage with an awkward bounce.

Zyuganov bellowed with laughter and his face turned as red as his tie when he was targeted by the skits.

The students seemed excited and bemused. Some said they would consider voting for him, after seeing him in person.

He also toned down his hard-line rhetoric at most of the day's events.

``We will use normal, democratic means to improve the situation in the country,'' he said in an interview on local television.

But Zyuganov did not abandon his loyal supporters. In a two-hour speech in a theater bulging with several hundred people - few of whom were under 60 - he extolled Soviet industrial might and said Russia should be grateful to dictator Josef Stalin for the Soviet victory over the Nazis.

Zyuganov also pledged to shore up Russia's nuclear industry. The Chelyabinsk region housed top Soviet nuclear research centers, which have sharply curtailed their operations for lack of funds since the end of the Cold War.

Zyuganov lost the presidential runoff in 1996 to Boris Yeltsin, getting 40 percent of the vote.

The poll released Thursday by the All-Russia Opinion Research Center showed none of the other candidates anywhere near Putin and Zyuganov. It showed the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, with 5 percent of the vote, and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 3 percent. None of the other eight candidates received more than 2 percent. The poll of 1,600 people gave a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

-----------

Russia Nixes Actor's Mir Mission

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press Writer
MARCH 16, 15:57 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS738KLF00

MOSCOW (AP) - Actor Vladimir Steklov was supposed to blast off to the Mir next month to portray a renegade cosmonaut who won't leave the space station, but now Russia won't let him get off Earth, a space official said Thursday.

The space movie in which Steklov was to have starred was another in a series of unorthodox proposals for resuscitating the dormant space station with private money.

But Konstantin Kreidenko, a spokesman for the Russian Aerospace Agency, said that Steklov ``will not go to Mir as earlier planned because of the failure to meet the terms of the contract.'' Kreidenko declined to give details, but it appears that Steklov's producers couldn't pay for his ticket.

Although producers of the movie, tentatively titled ``The Last Journey,'' claimed they made an initial payment to get the project under way, Russian space officials complained they haven't even been paid for Steklov's training, let alone the multimillion-dollar bill for the flight.

Steklov complained that his investment of time for training came to nothing. ``Now I am a jobless actor, a hobo,'' he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The movie was to have told the story of a renegade cosmonaut who refuses to leave Mir, insisting he'll orbit the Earth for the rest of his days. Ground controllers decide to send up a woman to lure him back.

In real life, cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kaleri are tentatively set to blast off to Mir on April 4, he said. The station has been unmanned since August.

Zalyotin and Kaleri are expected to spend 45 days on board Mir. They will take a movie camera with them and possibly shoot some footage for the movie, Kreidenko said.

The state-controlled RKK Energia company that built and owns the 14-year old station has made frantic efforts to keep it aloft by raising private funds.

Russia's cash-strapped government had said it would abandon the station this month unless private investors came up with funds.

But the government changed its mind and kept Mir in orbit after the Amsterdam-based MirCorp agreed to pay between $10 million and $20 million - the price was not disclosed - for the rights to offer rides to space tourists, provide satellite repair and produce products in weightlessness.

Ownership of the station remains with the Russian government, and Acting President Vladimir Putin has already pledged to keep Mir alive.

The government has ruled that Energia can use booster rockets and cargo ships for the Mir which had originally been earmarked for the International Space Station project.

The reapportioning has angered the U.S. space agency NASA; the ISS already is far behind schedule because of Russia's failure to provide a key module.

Russia, in turn, is annoyed about a law signed by President Clinton this week that would cut U.S. payments to Russia for the ISS project if Russian companies are found to have helped Iran develop nuclear arms.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday called the new U.S. measure ``yet another attempt to give internal U.S. legislation an extraterritorial nature, which goes completely against international law.''

----------- taiwan

Taiwan: Crisis in the Making?
Experts Differ on Whether Rising Tensions Will Lead to a U.S.-China Clash

By Robert G. Kaiser and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A22
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/248l-031600-idx.html

When Taiwan held its first democratic presidential election four years ago, China fired ballistic missiles over the island 100 miles from its coast. The United States responded with its biggest show of force in Asia since the Vietnam War, sending two aircraft carriers and 14 other warships to Taiwan.

As Taiwan prepares to vote again Saturday, there have been threatening missives, but no missiles; a war of words, but no warships. Yet, senior U.S. officials are bracing for the possibility that Taiwan's election of a new president could bring a period of high tension with China and compel the United States to make difficult choices.

For half a century, the United States has dealt with China's territorial claim to Taiwan by "exporting the problem to the future," in the words of Morton Abramowitz, a former diplomat and Pentagon official. But rising nationalism in China and Taiwan, the widening gap between China's ossified communist political system and Taiwan's vigorous new democracy, Chinese military modernization and reciprocal moves in the U.S. Congress to defend the island are pushing the Taiwan question into the present.

"We're heading toward a collision course on this now," said former defense secretary William J. Perry, who dispatched the carrier battle groups to Taiwan in 1996.

Policymakers in Washington once hoped that an evolving China, after opening up to the world, would be able to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Taiwan. Many now see the mainland of 1.2 billion people and the island of 22 million drifting further apart.

"Democracy in Taiwan has changed the whole situation in ways that are inadequately appreciated," said Paul Wolfowitz, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior official in the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Some senior officials believe a crisis could come soon. In little-noticed testimony to Congress last month, CIA Director George Tenet said the agency saw a "high potential" that Saturday's election could be "the catalyst" for "another military flare-up across the Taiwan Strait."

Others, however, believe a military confrontation is unlikely, at least in the short term. Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of U.S. Pacific forces, testified in Congress last week that "at the current time, the rhetoric is more heated than the military moves."

National security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said in an interview that the Taiwan situation is potentially dangerous and "could get worse, but I don't think that's the only scenario." Berger plans to visit Beijing soon after the election, and will urge China to remain calm.

Nonetheless, interviews with more than three dozen U.S. officials and academic experts found a broad consensus that the next three to five years will be a period of heightened tensions and potential crises.

"There is going to be a military confrontation," predicted Chas. W. Freeman Jr., a former assistant secretary of defense and retired American diplomat with long experience in China. While the clash may not be imminent, Freeman said, "it's very likely the U.S. and China are going to have a war over this issue."

Abramowitz was less gloomy. "This is not like Serbs and Kosovars--none of the parties wants any part of going to war," he said.

Allen Whiting, a professor at the University of Arizona who has studied the Chinese military for four decades, said that although he sees "a risk of war" if the Taiwan issue is not resolved, serious trouble is at least three years away. "There's quite a window here" to make a deal, Whiting said.

If there is a clash over Taiwan, China will enjoy military options it never had in the past. Beijing has already placed 200 ballistic missiles along its side of the Taiwan Strait and is adding 50 more missiles per year, U.S. officials said. China also has more than 40 advanced Russian fighter jets and has taken delivery of the first of two Russian-built destroyers equipped with sea-skimming missiles designed to penetrate U.S. naval defenses.

But none of the government analysts and scholars interviewed for this article predicted that China would try to conquer Taiwan by force. According to a U.S. official responsible for monitoring China's military, China has little capacity to mount an amphibious landing on Taiwan. Moreover, an unprovoked attack on the island would turn China into an international pariah, undermining its primary goal of economic development.

American analysts believe the aim of China's military buildup is, rather, to induce a sense of insecurity that will bring Taiwan to the negotiating table. One important calculation is whether the United States would hesitate to come to Taiwan's aid in a crisis.

When Perry dispatched the U.S. armada to Taiwan in 1996, intelligence agencies assured him that China's military did not pose a threat to the ships and would not even know they had arrived "until you announce them on television," according to one official. If the current defense secretary, William S. Cohen, proposed sending carrier task forces to Taiwan this year, U.S. officials said last week, the intelligence analysis would be different--and in five years it will be very different.

China recently announced another increase in its defense budget. U.S. analysts discount the official Chinese figures but believe the increase is substantial and estimate it will bring China's annual defense spending to roughly $45 billion. The U.S. defense budget this year is $291 billion.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, pressure is building to provide compensatory military and political support to Taiwan. The island's success in transforming a martial-law dictatorship into a thriving democracy has won it many new friends, particularly among liberal Democrats who used to denounce the old regime in Taipei. The House recently gave overwhelming approval to the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, a bill intended to strengthen U.S. ties with Taiwan's military.

On two recent occasions, President Clinton also has tipped his hat to Taiwan's democratization by saying--to the delight of Taiwan supporters--that the differences between the island and the mainland must be resolved peacefully and "with the assent of the people of Taiwan," a new formulation of U.S. policy.

Soon the United States will have to decide how to respond to Taiwan's latest requests to buy American weapons, including destroyers with Aegis anti-missile defenses. China has reacted angrily to the proposed sales, but the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act requires the administration to give Taiwan the means to protect itself. "Unquestionably, there will be additional sales this year," Berger said.

After the return of British-run Hong Kong in 1997 and Portuguese-run Macau in 1999, Taiwan is the last reunification issue on Beijing's agenda. It's also a cause that appeals to Chinese nationalism and could rally popular support for the leadership: "It's a life and death issue for the Chinese regime," said one U.S. official.

In a formal "white paper" last month, the Chinese government threatened to use force if Taiwan refuses indefinitely to discuss reunification. But the same document also said China would be willing to indulge Taiwanese autonomy for many years, as long as Taiwan accepted the principle that there is only "one China."

Thomas Christensen, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in Chinese foreign policy, said he fears that officials in Beijing may convince themselves that a dramatic show of force would compel Taiwan to accept China's offer of reunification based on the notion of "one country, two systems," with virtual autonomy for Taiwan.

Some old China hands see the white paper, along with yesterday's blunt warning against Taiwanese independence by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, as evidence that Chinese leaders often don't appreciate the impact of their rhetoric outside their own country.

Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger said he worries that China and the United States will drift into hostility without a real strategic reason for doing so. "We are talking ourselves into becoming each other's principal enemy," he said.

----

Taiwan Stocks Plunge on China Words

MARCH 16, 14:19 EST
By WILLIAM FOREMAN
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS738J79G0

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - The grimacing face of a Chinese leader wagging his finger and threatening to attack this island greeted Taiwanese in newspapers Thursday and many reacted by dumping their stocks ahead of Saturday's election.

The panic seemed to be the goal of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, who in a raised voice warned Taiwan on Wednesday that electing a pro-independence president could bring war.

Zhu's harsh language, which he punctuated with a pointed finger, was replayed throughout the day on Taiwan's TV newscasts and covered extensively in newspapers.

Some analysts said the scowling Zhu's remarks and gestures could backfire, sending voters to Beijing's least favorite candidate: Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party.

Although Zhu did not name a candidate, his remarks were clearly directed at Chen and his party, which believes Taiwan should permanently break away from China.

The youthful, former Taipei mayor has a good shot at winning the winner-take-all election, according to most polls. Chen and two other main candidates were in a statistical tie in most surveys when a government blackout on the publication of poll results took effect March 8.

In the final days of the campaign, Chen has been getting key endorsements and attracting large, enthusiastic crowds at rallies - signs that he has the greatest momentum. Election results were expected Saturday.

The two other candidates vying to replace retiring President Lee Teng-hui are populist independent James Soong and Vice President Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party. Both have never supported independence and are widely believed to be moderates preferred by Beijing.

Most Taiwanese have grown up hearing threats of war from China and they often shrug them off as communist rhetoric. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing has repeatedly warned that it would use its massive military against Taiwan if it sought independence.

Pan Li-fan, an export firm manager, said Thursday he thought that Zhu was just putting on a ``political show'' and China wouldn't attack. He agreed with many military experts who say China lacks the warships and planes to take the heavily fortified island.

``When your rascal neighbor comes to disturb you, you should simply ignore him and go on with your life,'' Pan said.

But the electronic board at the Taipei stock trading room where Pan was checking his investments seemed to be evidence that many Taiwanese were taking China's threats seriously.

Investors began selling their shares as soon as the stock market opened Thursday, sending the index plunging by as much as 4.5 percent. The market rebounded and blue chips closed up 0.5 percent after government funds stepped in and started aggressively buying shares.

The jitters in the market could spread to the voting booth, prompting some of the large number of undecided voters to support Soong or Lien, said Hung Yung-tai, director of the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University.

But many of the voters who would be frightened by China probably wouldn't have considered voting for Chen anyway, Hung said.

``He only needs to attract a little more than one-third of the vote to win, so maybe he's not worrying about these people,'' Hung said, adding that Zhu's threats could anger swing voters and send them to Chen.

Chen is not part of the hard-line, pro-independence wing of his party, and he has softened his position on the issue in recent months, saying he would only declare independence if China attacked. He has also said he wouldn't change the flag or Taiwan's official name, the Republic of China.

At a Thursday news conference, Chen urged China to be a responsible global power and not create instability in Asia by threatening Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Lien criticized China for trying to interfere in Taiwan's election. ``Today the two sides have a new era, a new century and a new government. We should have new thinking,'' Lien told reporters.

But both Soong and Lien continued to paint Chen as someone who would ignite a conflict with China.

The Nationalists began running a new TV ad, showing a Chinese submarine and listing the mainland's nuclear weaponry. The commercial ends with the sound of a bomb exploding and a message urging voters to support Lien.

At a campaign stop, Soong told supporters, ``If you vote for Chen, there will be no peace across the Taiwan Strait.''

During Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996, China lobbed nuclear-capable missiles near the island's two major ports. The United States sent two aircraft carriers and other warships to the region to end the crisis.

So far, Taiwan's military said things seem calm in the 80-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan from China.

---

On the Net:
Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party, www.dpp.org.tw

Independent James Soong, www.soong.org.tw/global/

Nationalist Vice President Lien Chan, www.yes2000.org.tw/english/

----------

TODAY'S HEADLINERS

Washington Times
March 16, 2000
Daybook
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000316214424.htm

Taiwan elections - 10 a.m. - The Brookings Institution holds a panel discussion on the Taiwanese elections. Location: Chinese Room, Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, 1127 Connecticut Ave. NW. Contact: 202/797-6105.

---

Mostly Business as Usual for Taiwanese in Beijing

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
March 16, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/031600china-taiwan.html

Related Articles
China Fires Off Warning to Taiwan Voters
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/031600china-taiwan-warn.html

The Threat From China Makes Campaign Fodder for Taiwan Presidential Candidates
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/031600taiwan-election.html

BEIJING, March 15 -- This week at the Great Hall of the People, Chinese leaders threatened military action against Taiwan, warning that China "would not sit idly by" if the island it claims as its own moved toward formal independence.

But it was business as usual here at the Purple Vine, an elegant Taiwan-style teahouse run by a businessman from Taipei that is snuggled between the Great Hall and China's leadership compound -- and counts many mainland officials as loyal customers.

"The political tension hasn't had the slightest impact on me," said Zha Fuhua, the owner, as he carefully choreographed the preparation of oolong tea, a Taiwanese favorite.

"Sure there's been lots of angry talk," he said, "but I think it's just mouthing off. I'm not the least bit worried. I don't think war is possible, because there's too much to lose. The essence of the relationship between China and Taiwan is economic development, not battle."

It might be easy to imagine that Beijing's tens of thousands of residents from Taiwan live a bizarre existence, members of a divided family in the heart of the enemy camp. There are occasional vexations: enduring an occasional cabbie's harangue about the need to bomb Taiwan into submission, and wondering how to respond when a teenage son is invited to join the Communist Youth League.

But most Taiwanese here say they are happy and feel at home in China, living with a language and culture that they for the most part understand. They are mostly small-business people, and they blend in well with Beijing's increasingly affluent middle class. They have Chinese neighbors and Chinese business partners, and they often send their children to Chinese schools.

And so with only days to go before the Taiwan presidential election, which has prompted Beijing's most recent saber rattling, Taiwanese here seem largely oblivious to the arrows flying above them in political space, convinced that business interests and brotherhood will somehow ensure the peace.

"We're all used to this kind of talk by now, and it's not something that impacts us greatly," said Lin Yen-hung, the manager of a cooking oil company on the outskirts of Beijing, who has lived here for eight years.

Taiwan's government relaxed its ban on citizens' contacts with the mainland in 1987, and an estimated 60,000 Taiwan companies now operate directly or indirectly in China, according to the Beijing Association of Taiwanese Entrepreneurs.

At least several hundred thousand people from Taiwan now live in the People's Republic, the overwhelming number of them business people drawn by the opportunities of its fast-growing market.

In Beijing they are sprinkled throughout the city and integrated into the community.

"We express our views in an appropriate way, but in general we avoid the topic of reunification," said Chen Kuo-yuen, who owns a cafe and a leather goods factory. "Business is business and politics is politics. But our relationship with the mainland community is extremely close."

He pointed to his cafe, filled with Chinese business people having power lunches on glass-topped tables enclosing seaside dioramas evocative of Taiwan. "My customers are Beijingers," he said. "My partner's from here too. If I tried to do it myself I'd be quickly shut down."

The many business relationships that have evolved in recent years have various roots. Taiwan business people want to make money. The Chinese partners have benefited from the managerial and technical skills the Taiwanese bring. And the Chinese government, which has established special concessions for Taiwanese businesses, believes that such ties will help reel the island, separated from the mainland since 1949, into the fold.

Although Taiwan and mainland figures differ, by both accounts Taiwanese trade and investment here are growing fast. Bilateral trade amounted to $14.045 billion in the first seven months of 1999, a 9 percent increase over the comparable period in 1998, according to Taiwan's figures. In 1998 there was nearly $3 billion in direct investment from Taiwan to the mainland, according to the China Statistical Yearbook.

But that probably vastly underestimates the magnitude of Taiwanese involvement, Mr. Chen said, since many Taiwanese invest in China through a third region, like Hong Kong. And he said there was also a good deal of "invisible" investment, including his own cafe, in which money is invested in the name of a mainland partner, since, strictly speaking, it is illegal for a foreigner to own that type of business in China.

Taiwanese here say the advantages of doing business in a familiar culture and language far outweigh the somewhat daunting prospect of dealing with a Communist bureaucracy, one that spends vast amounts of time and effort maligning the leaders of their island home.

"When I first came to the mainland in 1992, I felt some terror toward the Communist Party," said Mr. Lin, of the Tongyi Edible Oil Company. "But I easily became accustomed to how things work here, and I think it's because we share many habits and customs."

And so in the last few years, Taiwanese have continued to rush in.

People were far more nervous in 1996, when China fired missiles near Taiwan during the last presidential election campaign, the Taiwanese here say. Then, tens of billions of dollars left Taiwan in one week and many Taiwanese, including Mr. Zha, the teahouse owner, started making preparations for their families to emigrate to the West.

But today the atmosphere is far more relaxed, they say, in part because of increasing communication and familiarity between the two sides.

Last year tourists from Taiwan made more than 2.5 million visits to the mainland, up from about 500,000 a decade before.

"Three years ago if you got in a taxi and revealed you were from Taiwan, the driver would start ranting," said Mr. Zha, who moved to coastal China to start a seaweed business in 1987. "But there are so many Taiwanese here now that there's more contact and communication, so there's also more understanding."

"Generally people don't bring it up," he said. "And anyway, if people ask, 'Where are you from?' I say, 'Jiangxi,' " the southern Chinese province where his ancestors lived.

In general it is easy for Taiwanese to live a life of "strategic ambiguity" by avoiding political discussions -- an easy maneuver in a country where the ruling Communist Party now has little obvious direct influence on everyday life. Still, there are times when they feel forced to show their colors.

Mr. Lin said his teenage son grappled this year with whether to accept an invitation to join the Communist Youth League, a group that most teenagers join as much for its social as its political function. (He didn't.)

And on the first day of school, Mr. Lin's 6-year-old son found himself onstage being introduced by the principal, who proceeded to lecture the students about the inevitability of Taiwan's return to the motherland.

Mr. Zha said his in-laws visiting from Taiwan in the mid-1990's were horrified when his son, then 5 years old, spoke fondly of Mao Zedong, referring to him as "Uncle Mao."

The boy now lives in Taiwan with his mother, but mostly because life in Beijing is "too hard" compared with Taiwan, Mr. Zha said.

Taiwanese cannot cast ballots from the mainland, but those in Beijing appear split among the three leading presidential candidates, just like Taiwanese voters at home.

And on the question of Taiwan independence, most seem to favor the status quo, something resembling independence without a formal declaration. Some predict reunification with the mainland at some point in the distant future, and all reject a quick bid for independence as too damaging for business.

The Chinese government, "from top to bottom," has guaranteed Taiwan businessmen here that "Taiwanese business wouldn't be affected by political tension, that there can be no threats or personal threats to business people here," said Mr. Chen, the cafe owner and general secretary of the Beijing Association of Taiwanese Entrepreneurs, which frequently meets with local and national leaders.

Still, he said, the question of reunification is difficult for people like him, whose loyalties are split.

"The vast majority of business people here would oppose any move to independence," he said, "because it would immediately bring threats from the mainland. But at the same time, they also oppose pressure from the mainland." Then he added, with an apologetic look, "I know that's a cautious answer, but under the circumstances it's the best I can give."

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

USEC Completes Historic Highly Enriched Uranium Dilution Program for the U.S. Government

March 16, 2000 03:37 PM
http://moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/webquote.dll?

PIKETON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2000--The United States Enrichment Corporation's Portsmouth Uranium Enrichment Plant this week concluded a historic program that diluted 14 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) stockpiled by the U.S. Government for defense purposes. The project began on December 15, 1994, with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) by U.S. Department of Energy and USEC.

The program consisted of two parts. The first part involved downblending, or diluting, 14 metric tons of HEU at the Portsmouth plant. The downblending was completed in July 1998. The second part consisted of cleaning the cylinders that contained HEU. On March 12, 2000, the last cylinder containing a residual amount of HEU was cleaned at the plant.

"Completion of this program is a significant milestone for USEC as well as for the U.S. Government," said Morris Brown, Portsmouth Plant General Manager. "This was one of the first U.S. initiatives in the `Swords to Plowshares' program after the end of the Cold War," said Brown. The project was also included as one of the International Atomic Energy Agency inspection sites agreed to by an international treaty signed by the U.S. Government.

The United States Enrichment Corporation is a subsidiary of USEC Inc., the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. A global energy company, USEC has its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and operates production plants in Kentucky and Ohio.

CONTACT: USEC, Inc. Angie Duduit, 740/897-2457 Elizabeth Stuckle, 301/564-3399

---

radioactive lipstick?

From: "Scott D Portzline" happen@pipeline.com
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 15:16:09 -0500

Rhombic Corporation Sponsors Nuclear Research Project At The University of Illinois Vancouver, British Columbia

Friday February 25, 8:25 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Rhombic Corporation via BCE Emergis e-News Services

Rhombic Corporation, (U.S. OTC BB ``NUKE'') announces that work has begun at the University of Illinois on the Company's Disperse Composite Materials (``DCM'') technology to develop a low cost method to neutralize radio active wastes, especially the long lived nuclides which can be converted into stable nuclides. The DCM technology is a method of manufacturing a high efficient disperse deposit material or dust plasma, that is made up of a homogeneous interior covered with a thin and strong connective coating. The DCM plasmas can be produced as catalysts, as abrasive wear-resistant grinding materials of high strength, and as intermediate material for soldering or welding of various ceramic and other nonmetal items with metals such a solder for the junction of high temperature superconductors and electric current leads.

Among a large number of other applications of Disperse Composite Materials is the reduction of costs in the production of high quality lipsticks and other pigments, and the production of metal alloys with new kinds of mechanical properties.

The research underway on the DCM is based on patent rights assigned to Rhombic Corporation by Russian, German and American scientists, including Dr. Vladimir Fortov, former Russian Minister of Science, and Dr. Reinhard Hopfl, a German physicist.

The work at the University is supervised by Dr. George Miley of the Department of Nuclear Engineering, and Dr. Heinrich Hora of the University of New South Wales, Australia. Dr. Hora is a developer of the DCM technology assigned to Rhombic Corporation and consultant an the progress of the work.

Statements in this news release looking forward in time involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may be materially different. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include activity levels in the securities markets and other risk factors.

For further details, call the Company's Public Relations office at 888-821-6607 or 604-421-5543. The Lawrence Adams Ltd. phone in New York, NY, is 212-736-4800; Or view the Rhombic website www.rhombic.com

SOURCE: Rhombic Corporation

------- arizona

Genocide at Big Mountain:
The Extermination of the Traditional Dineh Sheepherders

by John Steinbach (703) 369-7427 <jsteinbach@igc.org>

They hold the earth with their feet and keep it with their hands. The earth feeds them. On Black Mesa, she is thirsty, and thin. Her heart beats black with coal, her heart is laid open but the people hold her. They sing her to live-- their hands would heal her still. (Carol Snyder Halberstadt)

From South America to Canada, the campaign of oppression against the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, begun over 500 years ago, continues unabated. Indian People are under attack on many fronts: "sportsmans rights" clubs; multinational corporations; federal, state and local governments; a dying nuclear industry- the list is long. The rights of Indian People, such as economic and cultural rights, land rights, hunting and fishing rights, and sovereignty rights are being destroyed by a corporate system which represents the antithesis of land-based peoples' values. The example of the traditional Dineh (Navajo) sheepherders of Black Mesa/Big Mountain is emblematic of the numerous threats facing indigenous peoples worldwide.

Traditional Dineh and Hopi Indians living in the Navajo/Hopi Joint Use Area(JUA) are resisting Public Law 93-531, which orders the forced removal of over 12,000 traditional Dineh (and over 100 Hopi) from their ancestral lands, and Public Law 104-301, written by Senator John McCain(R. AZ), which authorizes their final expulsion by February 1, 2000. According to anthropologists, such relocations of indigenous peoples have never succeeded and are tantamount to cultural and physical genocide. Dr. Thayer Scudder, internationally respected authority on indigenous people, says: "Such removals are literally life threatening, with drastically increased rates of alcoholism and mental illness.... Indeed this forced removal of over 12,000 Native Americans is one of the worst cases of involuntary community resettlement that I have studied throughout the world over the past forty years." Leon Berger, former Executive Director of the Navajo-Hopi Resettlement Commission resigned in protest saying: "The forcible relocation of over 10,000 Navajo people is a tragedy of genocide and injustice that will be a blot on the conscience of this country for many generations." Expulsion of the Dineh from their ancestral lands, the nation's largest relocation of indigenous people since the 1800s, is being carried out to pave the way for the expropriation of vast deposits of low sulfur coal(estimated in excess of 18 billion tons), oil and natural gas, ground water and other valuable resources buried beneath Black Mesa.

Roberta Blackgoat, a Black Mesa Clan Mother in her 80s, lives in a traditional way taught by her mother and grandmothers. Like her ancestors she is a sheepherder- shearing , cleaning, carding and spinning the wool, and collecting herbs to create natural dyes. She hand weaves the best Navajo rugs in the world, her only means of subsistence. The trees, animals, springs and mountains are sacred to her. Her umbilical cord, like those of her grandparents and grandchildren, is buried on the land. Her way of life is being systematically destroyed.

If they come and drag us all away from the land, it will destroy our way of life. That is genocide. If they leave me here, but take away my community, it is still genocide. If they wait until I die and then mine the land, the land will still be destroyed. If there is no land and no community, I have nothing to leave my grandchildren. If I accept this, there will be no Dineh, there will be no land. That is why I will never accept it ... I can never accept it. I will die fighting this law." (Roberta Blackgoat, elder matriarch).

A History of Genocide

For hundreds of years, the Dineh and Hopi have been oppressed by European colonizers, first by Spaniards seeking gold and silver, and later by American settlers seeking land. As more and more land was stolen from the Indians, tensions mounted and the U.S. Calvary was instructed to put down the resistance. In 1864, following a three year "war" reminiscent of the scorched earth campaigns carried out against the people of Central America, Colonel Kit Carson crushed the Dineh. After destroying all livestock, crops and structures, Carson cornered the approximately 8,000 starving survivors and forced them 400 miles eastward, across the New Mexico desert in the dead of winter, on 'The Longest Walk.' The Dineh were confined under deplorable conditions for four long years in a Fort Sumner concentration camp, and in 1868, were driven back west and assigned a Navajo Reservation that included only a small fraction of their former lands.

In 1882, the Hopi Reservation was created just east of the Navajo Reservation. Artificial boundaries having little meaning to traditional peoples, the Hopi and Dineh continued to live peacefully side by side, just as they had for hundreds of years. Soon Mormon settlers became a ubiquitous presence on and near the reservation, expropriating the best land for their settlements and literally kidnapping Indian children in order to 'civilize' them. "From 1949 to 1976 over 20,000 Indian children were taken into white families to live during the school year, going back to their reservation homes during the summer, and often returning to the same "foster" families each year." (From Paul Bloom's Sundance Report -- July 30, 1999) This process of cultural genocide, in slightly different form, continues to this day.

Resource Exploitation of Native Lands

When oil was discovered on the Navajo Reservation in 1921, the federal government attempted unsuccessfully to 'negotiate' oil leases through its puppet 'chiefs,' but the Dineh refused to permit what they considered desecration of Mother Earth. The BIA was then instructed to form a Navajo Tribal Council that would agree "to vote broad authority to lease the land" for oil drilling. After several years of futile search, a small group of Navajo men were found who agreed to permit oil drilling. The federal government immediately recognized the new Navajo Tribal Council, whose first official action was to delegate all mineral leasing authority to the BIA. Despite overwhelming opposition from the Dineh people, this power grab became the model for the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act(IRA), which mandated the creation of Tribal Councils for all federally recognized tribes. Most of these new Tribal Councils were(and still are) dominated by 'assimilated' individuals, themselves often the victims of BIA and Mormon schools, who, in the opinion of many traditional Indian leaders, have more in common with their oppressors than with the people. Despite high sounding rhetoric about 'democracy' and 'tribal independence,' the IRA institutionalized federal control and signaled a new era in the exploitation and expropriation of Indian Lands.

The newly formed Navajo Tribal Council wasted little time throwing open the the doors to resource exploitation. Under the BIA's thumb, the Council negotiated petroleum leases, followed by coal, water and uranium leases. The Hopi Tribal Council was less successful because of resistance by the traditional Hopi, and soon ceased to function. In the early 1950s, coal was discovered on Hopi lands and John Boyden, a lawyer for Peabody Coal and Archbishop in the Mormon Church(a major Peabody shareholder), reconstituted the Hopi Tribal Council, which immediately proceeded to sign leases for strip mining and high tension rights of way. Boyden handled all the Hopi Tribal Council's coal lease negotiations through the 1970s, raking in millions of dollars while working simultaneously for Peabody Coal. Foreseeing the impending environmental disaster, traditional Dineh and Hopi opposed their Tribal Councils' energy policies.

Environmental Catastrophe

The Four Corners region of the southwest, once a pristine semi-desert high plateau with a great diversity of plants, qnimals and indigenous cultures, today is one of the most polluted areas in the nation. Located within the region are: a network of high tension lines passing directly over the ancient Hopi villages; the nation's only coal slurry pipeline, operating without a permit and sucking 3 million gallons of irreplaceable aquifer water each day; the Four Corners electrical power complex, spewing 350 tons of sulfur compounds and 250 tons of nitrogen compounds each day; Four gigantic coal strip mines, including the nation's largest; and numerous abandoned uranium mines and mills, leaving millions of tons of radioactive and toxic tailings to blow in desert winds.

The well documented health and environmental consequences of such ecological abuse have been devastating. The birth defect rate among the Navajo is higher than on other reservations, and, despite a low smoking rate, the incidence of lung cancer in Navajo uranium miners is among the world's highest. There have been other serious health problems observed on the Navajo and Hopi reservations including high rates of infant mortality and spontaneous abortions, respiratory, heart, diabetes and other degenerative diseases, and premature aging and death. Environmental effects include vast areas of land permanently denuded of vegetation by strip mining; poisoned water; radioactive contamination of land, air and water; rapidly dropping water tables which especially threaten the Hopi farming villages situated high atop the mesas; and air pollution often worse than major urban areas.

The intensive resource exploitation of arid regions in the west such as Black Mesa, the Black Hills(the sacred Paha Sapa of the Lakota), and the Northern Crow Reservation, has had severe environmental consequences. In 1974, the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) warned of the dangers of strip mining in such environmentally fragile regions. The NAS cautioned that mineral extraction in such areas would cause irreversible environmental damage, resulting in de facto "National Sacrifice Areas," most of them situated on Indian land. The litany of health and environmental effects suffered by the Navajo and Hopi people is repeated for Pine Ridge and many other Indian communities. The mineral resources being carved from Indian lands are not being used for the benefit of Indian People. To the contrary, profits from the exploitation of Four Corners and other Indian lands have accrued to the multinational corporations. The electricity generated at Four Corners supplies cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix, while thousands of Dineh do without electricity, running water and telephones. The land and economic base of Indian People inexorably is being destroyed.

Relocation / Extermination

During the mid-twentieth century, the expropriation of Indian Lands accelerated. The Indian Claims Commission Act declared that stolen Indian lands could never be recovered, and compensated victimized tribes with pennies on the dollar. In 1936, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes established grazing districts on the Hopi and Navajo reservations, expanding the Hopi Reservation and effectively creating the Navajo-Hopi Joint Use Area(JUA). In the mid-1950s, Boyden persuaded the Hopi Tribal Council to file suit for control of the entire JUA, and, when that strategy failed, successfully pursued a partition strategy through Congress. In 1974, Congress passed the Navajo Hopi Relocation Act, PL 93-531, physically dividing the 1.8 million square acre JUA with a 300 mile barbed wire fence. More than 12,000 traditional Dineh were purged from the Hopi Partition Land(HPL), but over 100 families comprising several thousand individuals continue to resist. In 1996, Congress authorized their final expulsion by February 1, 2000.

Relocation has been carried out under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. Originally estimated to involve 3,500 people and cost $30 million, relocation estimates have ballooned to over 15,000 people and a cost of $2 billion. According to Big Mountain News; "The result of the relocation has been to convert proud, happy self-sufficent people into bewildered, miserable refugees." Former Relocation Commissioner Roger Lewis resigned in disgust saying, "The Commission is as bad as the people who ran the Nazi concentration camps in World War 2." In March, 1985, the House Appropriations Committee released a scathing indictment of the relocation. Among its findings were:

• Dineh still on the land suffer "intolerable conditions;" • The Reservation is already "overcrowded and overgrazed," leaving no room for relocatees; • Relocatees are often defrauded when they sell their new homes; • Relocatees are often forced off the Reservation into hostile border towns, "no matter the given slim chance of success;" • Relocation counseling programs have never been implemented • No amount of counseling can enable traditional Dineh to adapt; • Relocation Commission reports are often contradictory and misleading; • Traditional Dineh relocatees "have no logical place to go."

Despite this report, Congress remains woefully ignorant, depending for their information on 'fact sheets' from the BIA.

The forced expulsion over the past quarter century is continuing and accelerating. Ninety percent of the sheep and livestock, the sole economic base of traditional Dineh culture, have been confiscated and in 1999 the BIA, for the first time, has been authorized to confiscate all livestock. There is a ban on all new construction or repairs, forcing some families to live in underground bunkers. Firewood collection is prohibited without a permit, and is being confiscated during the winter. The Hopi Rangers and BIA Police have been stockpiling and training in SWAT weapons and tactics in preparation for the impending final solution. During 1999, BIA police and Hopi rangers prevented supporters from delivering supplies to the Black Mesa resisters, and shut down the 16th Annual Sun Dance. In a letter to longtime resister Ruth Benally, Hopi Tribal Council Chairman Wayne Taylor, Jr. declared: "the entire Hopi Reservation is closed to all access, except as authorized by the Hopi Tribe. All individuals entering and remaining on Hopi land without authorization of the Hopi Tribe will be subject to exclusion, assessment of penalties, and prosecution under the laws of the Tribe." This physical and economic coercion continues to have a devastating effect.

Many of the Dineh who relocated have lost everything and now live in squalor, dependent on government handouts. Lacking basic survival skills, thousands were forced into border towns such as Gallup, NM, where most soon lost their new homes, becoming ensnared in a cycle of "homelessness, welfare, alcoholism and suicide." Thousands more have been relocated to "the New Lands," a desert region on the Puerco River totally unfit for sheep herding. In 1979, a uranium tailings dam broke sending 100 million gallons of radioactive water hundreds of miles down the Puerco and Little Colorado Rivers, inundating the New Lands. According to a report released in June, 1999 by Robert Webb, hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey "The surface water of the Puerco River has at times been between 10 and 100 times beyond the maximum allowable level for radioactivity." Chris Shuey, Coordinator of the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, NM said, "The government is forcing Navajos off their land to an area where there is not adequate safe water available... The water quality of the Rio Puerco is characterized by concentrations of radioactive materials and heavy metals that exceed federal and state drinking water standards up to 100 times higher than Arizona maximum limits." Dineh children playing in and around this unremediated Superfund site they call home are continually exposed to uranium, thorium, radon and other radioactive elements, as well as a toxic soup of heavy metals.

John McCain and Bill Clinton

In 1996, after more than 20 years of unsuccessful relocation efforts, the Hopi Tribal Council prevailed on Senator John McCain(R-AZ) to draft legislation authorizing the forced expulsion of all Dineh from the Hopi Partition Land by February 1, 2000. PL 104-301 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton . The law contained an "accommodation agreement" provision which permits the Dineh to live under a 75 year 'lifetime lease' in their own houses with three acres of land. This provision strips them of all political rights, leaving them at the tender mercy of their Hopi Tribal Council tormentors. Not allowed to vote or participate in the legal system(except as a defendant), government regulations strictly control every aspect of their personal lives. Permits are required for everything from collecting firewood and digging wells, to practicing their religion and burying their dead according to traditional ways. Permits for grazing sheep and livestock, are allocated according to a priority list(up to a maximum of 25 sheep, far fewer than subsistence level) thus ensuring the Black Mesa Dineh can never be economically self-sufficient.

In order to obtain signatures on the 'lifetime leases,' Congress provided the Hopi Tribal Council a $25 million grant if it succeeded in obtaining the signatures of 85% of the Dineh resisters(95 out of 112 families). This bribe inevitably resulted in a campaign of fraud and coercion carried out by the Hopi Tribal Council and the BIA. Dineh people were told that they would be arrested and evicted in the middle of the night, signatures were forged, and death threats made. Still many of the families refused to sign, and the expulsion campaign has escalated during the past year. An example is the family of Rena Babbitt Lane who like most of the resisters lives without electricity, phones and running water, raising her sheep, weaving rugs and gardening. On Tuesday, September 21, 1999, BIA agents raided her home and confiscated 17 sheep, 3 goats, and 6 cows. When she protested, she was served with papers informing her that on September 28, the remainder of her livestock would be confiscated without compensation, leaving her to face the brutal Black Mesa winter destitute. Rena, in her late 70s, has a heart condition which requires her to wear a pacemaker and has a seriously broken hand as a result of a previous BIA impoundment altercation. Her terrifying experience undoubtedly will be repeated again and again in a final extermination campaign. April 22, 1999 John McCain wrote: "I write to urge the Departments of Justice and Interior to proceed carefully in the coming months to settle the relocation of remaining Navajo families in a timely and orderly process... I understand that the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation sent 90-day notices to the remaining Navajo families who have not signed the Accommodation Agreement... I ask that you submit in writing to me the actions that the Department of Justice will take in the coming months to ensure compliance with P.L. 104 301."

Media Disinformation

Most media reports about the Big Mountain/Black Mesa atrocity describe the issue as 'Indian Vs. Indian,' and report that the U.S. Government is merely mediating a longstanding dispute between the Hopi and Navajo. Typical press accounts read as if written by a press agent for the BIA. The reality is much more complex and sinister, involving a cast of characters that includes the federal government, the Tribal Councils, Peabody Coal, the Mormon Church, surrounding state governments fighting over water rights, and most importantly the traditional Hopi and Dineh. The modern myth of Hopi Vs. Navajo was invented by the Hopi Tribal Council and its corporate allies in order to justify the campaign to physically partition the JUA. On July 21, 1975, the Washington Post published an expose of the phony 'range war' fabricated during the early 1970s by the Hopi Tribal Council, their lawyer, John Boyden, and a Salt Lake City public relations firm Evans and Associates, which also represented W.E.S.T., a consortium of 22 energy and resource corporations. To this day, most press accounts treat the 'Navajo/Hopi dispute' as a reality, while ignoring the well documented role played by Peabody Coal and its allies.

The mainstream press downplays the vibrant role of traditional Dineh culture, and the impact of forced expulsion. Unlike western culture which emphasizes private property rights, Dineh culture emphasizes respect and stewardship for the land; the culture and religion interwoven with the land and animals. According to activist Bill Sebastian, This land ethic "...is the key to the people being able to maintain a fiercely independent lifestyle living in remote areas without electricity, running water, telephones, or assistance from the government." Pauline Whitesinger, a Dineh Elder and resistance leader declares, "In the Dineh tongue, there is no word for 'relocation,' to move away means to disappear and never be seen again."

For hundreds of years, long before the European invasion, Dineh and Hopi lived together as neighbors, and like all neighbors have sometimes had disagreements. But according to the traditional elders, the two peoples have always settled their differences peacefully, trading together, intermarrying, and holding festivals together. Martin Gashweseoma, Keeper of the Hopi Fire Clan Tablets, stated "We want everyone to know that the Navajos are not the ones taking our land, but the United States. The Hopi and the Navajo made peace long ago, and sealed their agreement spiritually with a medicine bundle.... the illusion of a conflict has been created on the basis of the false modern concept of land title." The so called 'dispute' really boils down to resource corporations pitting elite Navajo and Hopi Tribal Councils against each other to the detriment of the people.

Resisting Genocide

It is critical that widespread public opposition to the genocide at BigMountain/Black Mesa be continued and escalated after the February 1 deadline. The strategy of the government and its corporate allies is to continue the current harassment and coercion, maintaining and increasing economic and psychological pressure, while assuring the public that there will be no forced removals. The ongoing struggle for Black Mesa will be fought in Congress, the courts, and increasingly in the streets. The Indian People of the United States were driven to the brink of extinction by 500 years of European invasion and corporate exploitation; they need and deserve the full support of all people working for a more just and peaceful world.

The Dineh people themselves are leading the Big Mountain struggle. Elders like Roberta Blackgoat and Pauline Whitesinger have traveled around the world in an attempt to educate people about the terrible injustice being perpetrated at Black Mesa. In 1988, Jenny Manybeads filed suit in U.S. Federal Court under the Freedom of Religion Act claiming that forced relocation is in violation of the land centered Dineh religion. In 1994, the Sovereign Dineh Nation made the nation's first Environmental Justice complaint. In 1996, Judge Ramon Child ruled that Peabody Coal had to shut down their largest strip mine because it impacted on the Dineh People of Black Mesa without their permission. He was subsequently forced into "early retirement" and his landmark decision was overturned, with the Navajo and Hopi Nations intervening on the side of Peabody. In February, 1998, Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, Special Rapporteur for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, visited the Dineh resisters in preparation for a forthcoming special report on human rights violations in the United States. Many supporters have traveled to Black Mesa, providing supplies and material support, while thousands more, worldwide, demand a halt to the relocation.

Traditional Hopi support their Dineh neighbors. To them, the Dineh are the guardians of the Hopi mesas and ancestral ways. Hopi have traveled around the world with the Dineh grandmothers, speaking out against the genocide at Black Mesa. Europeans have much to learn from the Dineh and Hopi, who often refer to them as "our younger sisters and brothers." People of conscience must support the Dineh resisters, not just to prevent the eradication of these ancient cultures, but because land based peoples like the Hopi and Dineh provide a key to the creation of a world based on respect for human dignity, and honor for Mother Earth. "The Black Mesa region is the last traditional (Dineh) stronghold and must he preserved... The Navajo traditionalists view their land as representing the essence of their being. In other words, they view themselves as an integral part of the environment- the mountains, the vegetation and the animals that share the land. Everything has a name, a place, a sex and role within the Navajo frame of reference. All of these things are part of what is considered sacred and occupies a place on the sacred land and contributes to the balanced ecological, cultural niche." (From the First Session of the International Peoples' Tribunal on Human Rights & the Environment)

There is a pressing need for phone calls, letters to the President and Congress, especially to Senator McCain. You can help the Big Mountain Resistors by contacting the following individuals and offices and demanding an immediate halt to the relocation.

The Hon. William Jefferson Clinton President of the United States The White House Washington D.C. 20001 Fax: (202)456-2461 comment line: (202) 456 1111

Senator John McCain U.S. Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Phone: (202) 224-2235 Fax: (202) 228-2862 E-mail: senator_mccain@mccain.senate.gov

The Honorable Janet Reno Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice Constitution Avenue & 10th Street, N.W. Washington. D.C. 20530

The Honorable Bruce Babbitt Secretary, U.S. Department of Interior 1849 C Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20240 E-mail: Bruce_Babbitt@ios.doi.gov Website: http://www.doi.gov

Howard Carson, President Peabody Western Coal Company 1300 South Yale Flagstaff, AZ 86001 Phone # 520/774-5243 Fax # 520/773-4596

Kevin Grover, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Indian Affairs 1849 C St. NW Washington DC 20240 (202) 208-7163 (202) 208-6334 fax Website: www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html

Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Chair Senate Committee on Indian Affairs United States Senate 838 Hart Office Building Washington, DC 20510 (202) 224-2251 http://www.senate.gov/~scia/

Big Mountain/Black Mesa Resistance Resources:

Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) P.O. Box 23501 Flagstaff, AZ 86002 Voicemail: (520) 773-8086 E-mail: granmonta@hotmail.com Web Site: www.blackmesais.org

Sovereign Dineh Nation P.O. Box 1968 Kaibeto, AZ 86053 Cellular phone: (520) 674-4479 E-mail: dinetah29@aol.com Web Site: www.theofficenet.com/~redorman/pagea~1.htm

Northern Arizona Indigenous Peoples Legal Defense Fund 20110 Rockport Way Malibu, CA 90265 -5340 310-456-3534 E-mail: steve@saveourplanet.org Web Site: http://www.solcommunications.com/dldf/dldfmainpage.html

Black Mesa Weavers for Life & Land A nonprofit enterprise of the weavers of Black Mesa. The weavers receive a fair price for their work, and buyers can make a tax-deductible contribution. P.O. Box 543 Newton, MA 02456 E-mail: carol@migrations.com Web site: www.migrations.com/blackmesa/blackmesa.html

The League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere LISN, Post Office Box 131, Accokeek, MD 20607 (301)490-1879 and (301-932-0808) Web Site: www.lisn.net

----------- new mexico

Los Alamos Lab Tests Security Upgrade

WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Compiled from reports by staff writer Walter Pincus, the Associated Press and Reuters
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page A09
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/16/249l-031600-idx.html

Los Alamos National Laboratory is testing a $90 million security system that would prevent anyone with access to its classified supercomputer from copying secret files and downloading them to portable tapes, a lab official testified before Congress.

The security measures are aimed at preventing a repeat of scientist Wen Ho Lee's downloading of nuclear secrets to tapes, seven of which are missing. Lee is awaiting trial on 59 counts of mishandling classified information.

----------- ohio

USEC Completes Historic Highly Enriched Uranium Dilution Program for the U.S. Government

Excite News
March 16, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/bw/000316/oh-usec

PIKETON, Ohio (BUSINESS WIRE) - The United States Enrichment Corporation's Portsmouth Uranium Enrichment Plant this week concluded a historic program that diluted 14 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) stockpiled by the U.S. Government for defense purposes. The project began on December 15, 1994, with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) by U.S. Department of Energy and USEC.

The program consisted of two parts. The first part involved downblending, or diluting, 14 metric tons of HEU at the Portsmouth plant. The downblending was completed in July 1998. The second part consisted of cleaning the cylinders that contained HEU. On March 12, 2000, the last cylinder containing a residual amount of HEU was cleaned at the plant.

"Completion of this program is a significant milestone for USEC as well as for the U.S. Government," said Morris Brown, Portsmouth Plant General Manager. "This was one of the first U.S. initiatives in the `Swords to Plowshares' program after the end of the Cold War," said Brown. The project was also included as one of the International Atomic Energy Agency inspection sites agreed to by an international treaty signed by the U.S. Government.

The United States Enrichment Corporation is a subsidiary of USEC Inc., the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. A global energy company, USEC has its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and operates production plants in Kentucky and Ohio.

Contact: USEC, Inc. Angie Duduit, 740/897-2457 Elizabeth Stuckle, 301/564-3399

----

$400 million bond package aimed at cleaning up sites

Thursday, March 16, 2000
BY James Bradshaw and Randall Edwards
Columus Dispatch Staff Reporters
http://www.dispatch.com/n
From: "Vina Colley" vcolley@earthlink.net

A bill to put a $400 million bond package on the Nov. 7 ballot

for cleaning up abandoned industrial sites and expanding "green space'' and clean-water projects will be introduced in the Ohio House today.

The mixed-bag approach -- $200 million supported from liquor profits for reclaiming polluted plant sites and $200 million backed by the state's general fund for protecting open space, farmlands and waterways -- has created some enthusiasm but also skepticism among environmental groups.

The fear is that the green-space appeal of half the issue will carry weight with voters but the other $200 million might provide tax-supported bailouts for corporate polluters.

Gov. Bob Taft's office and Rep. James P. Mettler, R-Holland, insist that is not the case.

Taft introduced the proposal in January in his State of the State address.

Mettler, who is to introduce the legislation today, said, "It absolutely doesn't let anybody off the hook.''

He said his bill is only authorization to put the bond issue before voters. But if the issue passes, he has been assured none of the money would be used to spare known polluters the cost of cleanups.

Half the money would help urban areas clean up abandoned plant sites, called "brownfields,'' and half would benefit rural and suburban areas, Mettler said.

"I think this really has a lot of potential for Ohio.''

Using Toledo in his district as an example, Mettler said many plant sites have been abandoned by bankrupt and defunct companies. Even where the former owner is known, the legal process to force cleanups can take years, he said.

The bond money would allow local governments, nonprofit organizations or public-private partnerships to clean up such areas for redevelopment while court actions continue to seek payment from those who created the problems, he said.

The promises might not sway some critics in environmental groups, who say Ohio's brownfield cleanup rules are too lax.

"We are adamantly opposed to the Ohio brownfields program, so I doubt that we will support something that funds it,'' said Marc Conte, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club's Ohio chapter.

Conte said the group has not taken a formal position on the bond issue, but "we still have problems with the current brownfields program and the standards they have for cleaning up the sites.''

If state officials want to give new life to urban areas, they should set growth boundaries on urban areas and invest in transportation, Conte said.

Taft's spokesman, Scott Milburn, said if voters approve the bond package, the administration will work with lawmakers to adopt safeguards for releasing the money.

"The money doesn't go to industry,'' Milburn said.

"We're looking at 'orphan' sites largely. We're not looking at all to let industries off the hook for what they've done.''

Milburn said Taft shares environmentalists' concern that known polluters be held accountable.

The cleanup money, to be awarded in low- interest loans or in grants requiring local matching funds, would bring urban "wastelands'' back to productive use faster, he said.

"By turning an empty plot of land into a factory, you're going to create jobs where they're needed. You're doing more than cleaning up the environment; you're putting people to work.''

Taft has dubbed the proposal "Ohio's Conservation and Revitalization Fund,'' which he said can provide a permanent, renewable source of money for eradicating urban brownfields and increasing open space without any additional taxes.

"They're two separate programs, but we're using a single ballot issue,'' Milburn said.

The Nature Conservancy, which has stayed out of the debate over brownfields, has supported the open-space portion of the bond issue.

"We are pleased that the governor is moving forward,'' said Denise King of the conservancy.

"It's an opportunity to preserve Ohio's natural heritage and some of the landscapes that are very important to us as Ohioans.''

----------- south carolina

SRS health shockers

Mar. 16, 2000
Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
http://augustachronicle.com/stories/031700/opi_240-4694.shtml

So far this year there have been two health-related issues affecting the Savannah River Site.

One was the federal government's stunning announcement in January that many workers who built America's nuclear weapons during the Cold War years -- including those at SRS -- are likely to become ill (if they haven't already) due to exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals.

This marked a historic reversal by the government, which had always maintained there were no connections between work at the weapons plants and later illnesses.

The other shocker came last month when the U.S. Department of Energy told the SRS Health Effects Subcommittee that, due to budget shortfalls, the agency was reclaiming at least $3 million slated for health studies at SRS and other DOE-owned nuclear weapons complexes.

This isn't just a bad public relations move -- it's a bad move, period.

Imagine if you or your loved ones are veteran SRS employees, who had been assured for years there was nothing to fear, and you're suddenly informed by the energy secretary that there's plenty to fear after all. Small wonder many Americans don't trust the government.

This is so sadly typical of government. In April taxpayers will send more than $1.5 trillion to Washington, yet out of all that money the government can't find a few million dollars to help nuclear weapons plant workers better understand and fight sicknesses that the government now admits it caused.

------ utah

The Skull Valley toxic dump proposal pits Goshute against Goshute in a struggle over sovereignty.

by Mark Gerard Hengesbaugh,
Salt Lake City Weekly,
March 16, 2000
http://www.avenews.com/editorial/no/cw/feat/feat_000316.cfm

The desert west of Salt Lake Valley is where we dump what we want to forget. That's how the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation ended up there in 1912. That's how our next-door neighbor, Tooele County, became a hazardous waste sacrifice zone and No. 1 in the nation for toxic emissions.

We do forget, but nothing disappears. In fact, everything spreads. "When the wind blows onto our reservation from the north, it brings a yellow-brown mist from MagCorp's factory," says Leon Bear, tribal chairman of the Skull Valley Goshutes, whose reservation sits in Tooele County. "When wind blows from the south, it brings smog from the Intermountain Power plant near Delta."

The things we buy and consume every day create toxins as they're made, we forget. Mass production means large concentrations of lasting poisons accumulate. These toxins should be isolated from people, but even setting them in vast, lonely Tooele County can't contain them. So we all end up eating, drinking and breathing industrial waste that's hazardous to our health. Some people, like the Skull Valley Goshutes, shoulder more than their share of this health risk.

We forgot about the Tooele County Goshutes-a small band of American Indians surrounded by dangerous enterprises over which they have no control-until May 1997. That's when Salt Lakers learned the Goshutes agreed to store 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive nuclear power plant waste just 50 miles upwind of the city.

The big money offered to them may be irresistible. The Goshutes signed a lease with Private Fuels Limited Liability Company (PFS), a consortium of eight nuclear utilities worth a combined $100 billion, which is desperate to find a place to store spent nuclear fuel rods. Estimates are that each Skull Valley tribe member would receive between $100,000 and $1.5 million dollars if the PFS project goes through.

But it's not a done deal.

The governor's office-which ho-hums Utah's most-polluted-state-per-capita status, welcomes tons of other states' hazardous garbage here, and drags its feet on monitoring industrial toxins in Tooele County-surprised many by declaring the Skull Valley nuclear waste storage project "an unnecessary risk to the health and safety of Utahns." Threats and lawsuits haven't worked, however. The Goshutes are shielded from state political interference by their status as a sovereign nation.

Can Utah drop the stick and offer the Goshutes a carrot? The tribe itself is divided over the nuclear waste storage issue and can still back out. But wealthy electric utility owners are playing Who Wants To be a Millionaire? with the Goshutes.

Is "yes" their final answer?

Salt Lake may be Happy Valley, but Tooele County is where the bodies are buried. The near-extermination of Goshutes by white settlers in the 1800s is one disgraceful bit of local history with evidence quietly entombed in the west desert. "When whites first arrived here, Goshute territory stretched from the Wasatch Front west all the way to the Goshute Mountains, which is in eastern Nevada today; and from the Great Salt Lake, south to where Delta is now," says tribal Chairman Bear. "It was 7.3 million acres. We had an estimated population of 20,000."

At the time, Goshutes had been hunter-gatherers for thousands of years. They made seasonal rounds on the high desert and lived off a hearty buffet of plants, animals and insects.

But to white newcomers, Goshutes were in the way. "These trespassers put a bounty on Goshutes," Bear says. "Mormons hunted Goshutes, and used other ways to systematically exterminate us."

By packing serious firepower and by poisoning springs, white settlers nearly succeeded in eliminating them. Only about 150 Skull Valley Goshutes survive today, and fewer than 20 people in Nevada and Utah speak the language fluently. In 1912, the U.S. government purchased 17,700 acres of remote Skull Valley ranch land for a reservation; it's a postage-stamp remnant of their former domain.

Today, this Skull Valley Goshute reservation sits on the edge of Tooele County's Hazardous Industries Zone, with its two state-licensed hazardous waste incinerators and two landfills. Envirocare's there, the nation's primary low-level nuclear waste dump. Just north lies MagCorp, the nation's largest single emitter of toxic chemicals. To the east is Tooele Army Depot, storing and incinerating chemical warheads. South of the reservation is Dugway Proving Grounds, with its history of open-air testing of biological weapons.

"This is my home, a neighborhood that's deemed to be a hazardous waste zone-and the state's making money off it," says Bear, who is one of 25 Goshutes currently living on the Skull Valley reservation. To him, the decision to go into the radioactive waste business is an economic one. In this location, the reservation has trouble attracting any kind of industry, he says. They invested in a recycling plant; it went bankrupt. Then, they ran into the state of Utah's opposition to opening a casino. "But we're just trying to minimize our anger and maximize our income."

Still, the decision to lease reservation land for a huge, high-level nuclear waste dump was not unanimous within this small tribe. A group of 15 Skull Valley Goshutes brought a lawsuit last year against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and PFS to halt the project. Now, powerful forces on either side of the nuclear waste issue tug at this tear in the tribe's solidarity.

On one side is the state of Utah, which, having no legal standing to intervene on its own, is bankrolling the dissident Goshutes' legal fees. Utah taxpayers have shelled out $50,000 so far, and another $200,000 has been requested. On the other side, PFS dumped an undisclosed sum of dollars into tribal coffers when the Goshutes signed their lease. Cash dividends from this PFS money are going only to those Skull Valley Goshutes who sign a resolution supporting the nuclear waste storage project.

Margene Bullcreek, who also lives on the reservation, is one of the members suing to stop the nuke storage project. "We're a tribe, not a corporation, and all this money coming into the reservation is causing members to forget our traditions," she says. "This land is all we have. What about our health and the health of future generations?"

What Bear and the tribal leadership are doing amounts to bribery, Bullcreek says. "Only 19 members signed the resolution supporting the PFS lease during the original meeting when the lease was discussed and voted on. Bear got the rest of the signatures from members by promising them dividends if they would sign. Each one has gotten about $10,000 so far." About three-quarters of adult tribal members have signed on now, she says.

Bear is not even the legitimate tribal leader, says Duncan Steadman, attorney for Bullcreek and the 14 other dissident Goshutes. "Very few members show up for tribal meetings, and that sparse attendance is a vote of no-confidence in Bear. In small Indian communities, if issues get hot, rather than go to war with their neighbors people just get up and leave. It's called voting with your feet, and it's worked for small Native American communities for thousands of years," Duncan explains.

"Bear hasn't had a quorum at a tribal membership meeting in the past five years. That means that none of the actions he's taken-including the PFS lease-are legal," Steadman says. "And you can't exclude certain members from cash dividends, like Bear is doing. Each Skull Valley Goshute is a vested owner. PFS is just buying votes."

Tribal dissidents say they haven't been given enough information to make an informed decision about the lease. "Only three members have read the entire PFS lease. The rest have no idea if it's a good thing," Steadman says. "How would you like it if I put your name on a mortgage you had no chance to read?"

But Bear counters those arguments. "All the terms of the PFS lease were discussed in the tribal membership meeting." It was the members who decided not to distribute copies of the lease to individuals because it contains confidential business information. Likewise, he says, "It was the membership who decided if you didn't sign on to the resolution supporting the PFS lease, you wouldn't get a cash dividend. As tribal officials, we're just an arm of the membership. They tell us what to do."

The dissidents' lawsuit also alleges Bear is spending tribal money as if it were his own, and that he doesn't properly account for it. But Bear denies that. "I do know it's all tribal money-and it's all in the bank."

Because the Skull Valley band of Goshutes consists of just a few extended families, each member is related in some way. Long-smoldering family disputes flare up in the PFS debate. "The only reason Leon Bear is in charge is because the Bear family is large and powerful," Bullcreek says.

But Danny Quintana, attorney for the tribe, disagrees. "Margene Bullcreek ran her car into the tribal graveyard fence years ago," and got docked for the cost. "Since then, she's fought every project the tribe has proposed."

In any case, do Robert's-Rules-of-Order-type expectations have a bearing on how the Goshutes' tribal government should run? Not really, Quintana says. "The tribe is acting as their laws allow. They have been dealing with problems for thousands of years and they have a very rational process."

"The real danger here is not radiation," Quintana warns. "The danger is that a small tribe is being split apart by politicians who have their own agendas. Gov. Leavitt is using the Skull Valley Goshutes and this issue to deflect attention from his own failed policies on roads, education, child abuse and crime."

In fact, western American Indian tribes are frequently targeted for controversial and divisive projects that no one else wants, such as storing radioactive garbage. It's a bitter struggle for these impoverished communities to say "no" to lucrative deals, but most do. At one time, 16 tribes received U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grants to consider becoming temporary storage sites for the nation's high-level radioactive nuclear waste. One by one, they dropped out, except for the Mescalaro Apaches of New Mexico and the Skull Valley Goshutes.

Then, in 1996, the Mescalaros went through a meltdown of their own over a proposed $2 billion nuclear waste storage project. The membership first voted the project down, but the tribe's leadership put it up for vote again just six weeks later-and it passed. In the climax of a bitter three-year struggle, the Mescalaro membership ousted their leaders and slammed the door shut on nuclear storage for good.

The consortium of 33 nuclear utilities that targeted the Mescalaros spent an estimated $750,000 trying to smooth the way within the tribe for the project, but still, in the end, couldn't sell it.

That leaves the nuclear power plants in a tight pinch today. They'll run out of space to stash spent fuel rods on-site soon, and their own neighbors are reluctant to let them expand to store more. Because of that, some nuclear power plants face shutdown within a few years.

It wasn't part of the original business plan. From the beginning of commercial nuclear power, the federal government promised to provide a permanent storage site for the spent fuel rods, which are dangerous for 10,000 years. For decades, the fed's proposals died because no one wants to keep highly radioactive waste in their back yards. The DOE is currently pushing Yucca Mountain, Nev.-90 miles northwest of Las Vegas-as a permanent repository. But it is controversial, and years away from completion in any case. In the meantime, the nuclear power industry needs a temporary dump, quick.

Bear insists the Skull Valley Goshutes have studied the problem and know what they're doing. "We didn't rush into this. In 1990, we got a grant from the DOE to look at whether to put a nuclear waste repository on our reservation. At the time, we were trying to understand why the government was having such a difficult time finding a place for it. We were also concerned-given our history-that this was a scheme to get us to take something that wouldn't be good for us.

"We visited several countries that use nuclear power and discovered that nuclear waste storage is not dangerous. It's simple, off-the-shelf technology. We don't unload raw radioactive material; it's all sealed in casks," Bear explains.

"It is safe. I have a wife, a grandchild and family out here. I wouldn't tolerate any risks to them," Bear says.

Ironically, many arguments the state makes against storing highly radioactive waste in Tooele County can also be applied to the other hazardous garbage and toxic emission industries the state welcomes there-and from which it collects licensing fees. Connie Nakahara, director of Gov. Leavitt's high-level nuclear waste storage opposition, says, "Utah doesn't generate high level nuclear waste, so it's unfair for its citizens to take the risk of storing it."

That's double talk, Bear says. "The Intermountain Power Project doesn't generate electricity for Utah, but we get the air pollution from it. And why doesn't out-of-state hazardous waste stay where it is instead of coming to Utah's Hazardous Waste District where the state collects fees from it?"

Another weak argument-given the state's lax regulatory history-is its professed desire for safety oversight of the Skull Valley nuclear storage facility. A group of Tooele County residents had to hound the state's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for two years to get MagCorp tested for dioxin emissions, an obvious possibility given the nature of MagCorp factory emissions. When finally tested, Utahns learned MagCorp produces the notorious toxin in levels far exceeding the U.S. Center for Disease Control's cleanup and prevention standards. Similarly, Utah's DEQ shrugs off federal Environmental Protection Agency studies showing Utahns are exposed to 30 pounds of toxic air pollution per person per year, compared to the national average of just six.

Arguably, exposure to dioxin and tons of other state-approved toxic pollution is as much of a health risk to Utahns as is the possibility of a leaky nuclear waste cask. But, because Utahns are nuclear downwinders, radioactivity sets off alarms.

If the state's record on protecting the health and safety of Utahns is suspect, the fed's safety record on radiation is alarming, says Steve Erickson, of Utah Downwinders. "The governor is right to worry. We learned long ago not to trust the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission [which will regulate the Skull Valley Goshute nuclear waste site]. The NRC is beholden to the nuclear industry.

"Another worry is, will they ever move the nuclear waste out of Skull Valley once it's there?" Erickson asks. It would be constructed as a temporary facility, but given the federal government's failure to provide a permanent storage site to date, the waste may stay in Skull Valley for good.

And how safe is it to transport this highly radioactive material by road or rail? "The probability of an accident may be small," says the state's Nakahara, "but the consequences of an accident are enormous."

Erickson goes further: "Given the quantities of spent fuel rods they're talking about moving and the laws of probability, there will be accidents." And it's not necessary to transport them in the first place, he maintains. "Pressure to move the fuel rods is political. The nuclear industry says they're running out of space, but that just means they have to construct more space-and they can. They just don't want to shut down. They want to keep going, even though nuclear power plants are no longer competitive producing electricity in the deregulated marketplace."

Both the state of Utah and Goshute Chairman Bear agree that storing the highly radioactive spent fuel rods on-site at the power plants where they're produced would be the best way to avoid transport and solve the problem. "It would be a good idea," Bear admits. "But the states won't let nuclear power plants expand to store more fuel rods."

Even if a permanent storage facility for nuke waste is built at Yucca Mountain, Utahns aren't off the hook. Nevada officials, who are fighting the Yucca project, say up to 90 percent of the nation's spent fuel rods would travel through Utah if Yucca Mountain were built.

There's much more radioactive garbage on the state's chiseled horizon, too. Envirocare is applying for permission to dump the ruins of decommissioned nuclear power plants-everything but the spent fuel rods-into Utah's west desert, Erickson says. Many of the nation's 109 nuclear power plants are nearing the end of their 20-40 year life spans and need to be decommissioned. "All that radioactive concrete and rubble has to be isolated. The Three-Mile Island nuclear power plant is already being broken up and sent to a site near Idaho Falls," Erickson notes.

Where will the rest go?

Because the state of Utah treats the west desert as an environmental sacrifice zone for other types of hazardous waste, it can't mount a philosophically credible defense against dumping high-level radioactive debris there as well. The nuclear industry, on the other hand, has urgent motives to dump its waste in our back yard, and lots of money to grease the skids for it.

There are reasonable solutions to the immediate problem. Utah could invest with the Goshutes in a clean-industry alternative to nuclear waste storage on their reservation. Or, the state could enlarge the Skull Valley reservation with tracts of its own land to increase the area's economic potential, and in return get a no-nukes pledge. In any case, the state could propose a joint Utah-Goshute Environmental Protection Agency to measure the amount of pollution spreading onto the reservation and to honestly assess the health effect of these toxins on the Goshutes.

The alternative is not good for anyone. "Let's not brush it under the rug and say someone else is going to fix it," said Shoshone leader Corbin Harney, at a recent Salt Lake City hearing on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site proposal. "Many of my people and many of your people have suffered and died at the hands of the nuclear industry. It's up to us. If we don't stand up for future generations, who will?"

-------

Nuclear Goes Tribal
Eight utilities unite to store spent nuclear fuel.

By Latayne C. Scott for Office.com
March 16, 2000
http://www.office.com/global/content/article/printme/1,3232,16724,00.html

The remote 18,000-acre reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians belongs to 124 enrolled members, all but 30 of whom live elsewhere. Northwestern Utah's Tooele County, where the reservation is located, has designated parts of it as a "hazardous waste industries economic development corridor," and the tribe has made lemonade of the lemon the U.S. Government deeded it when it gave them land full of sagebrush and dry soil. The reservation is to be the home of a new, temporary storage dump for spent nuclear fuel.

Consortium Members Unite to Store Fuel Skull Valley is the focus of a national consortium of eight electric utilities who are in danger of shutting down their nuclear power plants if they can't provide storage for their spent fuel, and have formed Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS). The owner companies involved in the planning, construction, and operation of this dump will likely be joined in the future by other utilities who will sign service agreements to pay PFS to also store their spent fuel canisters at Skull Valley. Those owner utilities are American Electric Power (Ohio); Consolidated Edison (New York); Genoa Fuel Tech Inc. (Wisconsin); GPU Nuclear (New Jersey); Illinois Power (Illinois); Northern States Power (Minnesota); Southern California Edison (California) and Southern Nuclear Operating Co.

"So this poor little old rural electric co-op is paying millions of dollars a year to keep that plant mothballed when they could otherwise decommission it and use the site for another purpose, or restore the site to what it originally was." - Jim Norvell, manager of corporate communications Virginia Power

The proposed facility will provide storage for 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel. "That's approximately half of the spent fuel that is expected to be generated by the nuclear power industry if all the plants operating today run through the end of their license lifetime," explains Scott Northard, project manager for PFS.

A recent Nuclear Regulator Commission safety evaluation concluded the consortium's proposal complies with federal requirements related to financial backing and ability to train workers and carry out disaster plans. An environmental impact report will be issued later this spring, and public hearings will begin in June. PFS hopes for licensing in 2001 with the plant becoming operational in 2003.

Tribe's Participation "The lease agreement is broken out into two steps," explains Northard. "One is a 25-year period initially that allows for a five-year period ahead of time to get the facility licensed and then 20 years of operation. The tribe has negotiated an option for an additional 25 years should it be needed. That provides for an additional 20 years of operation and then a five-year period for decommissioning and site restoration."According to Northard, the Goshute tribe was one of 26 entities that applied for consideration to host the site. The tribe's Web site contains enthusiastic advocacy for the facility (including the fact that 60 local jobs will be created - a factor tribal leaders hope will lure members back to the reservation) and sophisticated answers to objections that might be raised.

Other Fuel Storage Of course, utilities storing their own fuel is not a new idea - Virginia Power's Surry Power Station has had its own used-fuel dry storage facility in operation since 1986 when it began as a test project with the Department of Energy.

"Others come to us to see how we do it since we have the longest track record of doing it in this country," says Jim Norvell, Virginia Power's manager of corporate communications. Since it would be a violation of Virginia Power's NRC license to store any other utility's spent fuel, Norvell says there's no consortium in his company's future as spent fuel piles up elsewhere across the nation with no permanent storage site date on the calendar. "But we are all looking for answers to get this moving forward."

Northard believes that the storage facility's approval by the NRC will not impact just the large utilities that own PFS but also smaller utilities that own minority portions of nuclear plants.

"For those utilities that own a portion of a nuclear plant, it allows those plants to continue operating if they're economic to operate, but it also allows them to decommission on their schedule, instead of having to wait for the spent fuel to be removed from the site," explains Northard. "Case in point: The Dairyland Power Cooperative plant in LaCrosse, Wisc., that's owned by a rural electric co-op, is a very small nuclear power plant and was shut down in 1985."

"So this poor little old rural electric co-op is paying millions of dollars a year to keep that plant mothballed when they could otherwise decommission it and use the site for another purpose, or restore the site to what it originally was. So it's an important issue for any of the co-ops that have an interest in nuclear power plants."

See an artist's conception of the proposed facility at Skull Valley Goshutes.

Take a tour of the world's nuclear power plants at the Virtual Nuclear Tourist.

-------- washington

Cleanup budgets could fall far short of 2002 obligations

Hanford News
March 16, 2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar25.html

Hanford's cleanup budgets likely will fall $357 million short of their legal obligations if no additional money is appropriated from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2002.

By comparison, the predicted shortfalls for the previous years are $30 million for fiscal 2000 and $72 million for fiscal 2001.

The Department of Energy's Richland office and Office of River Protection unveiled those figures Wednesday in the first public rundown of its preliminary budget calculations for fiscal 2002, which begins Oct. 1, 2001. DOE's actual 2002 budget request to Congress likely will be unveiled in February 2001.

"We'll still have more work than the money is going to cover," said Doug Sherwood, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Hanford site manager at the Richland briefing. The EPA and the state of Washington have taken tough stances - including threatening lawsuits - to enforce Hanford's legal cleanup obligations.

Wednesday's figures are preliminary and are expected to change as they are recrunched between now and February 2001.

But Wednesday's figures also show a collision between the federal government's past and future budget philosophies regarding Hanford's cleanup.

DOE's nationwide philosophy - from the late 1990s and potentially through 2006 - has been to keep its cleanup budgets about level at Hanford and elsewhere, with only very slight increases. In recent years, that has meant preparations to tackle future projects often were delayed so more immediate legal cleanup obligations could be met. Meanwhile, increased cleanup obligations always loomed in the early 21st century.

And now, the past's undone preparations are about to meet the future's increased requirements. If cleanup budgets remain level through 2006, the shortfalls in meeting those legal obligations will grow larger, according to DOE's calculations.

DOE's two Hanford offices plan to push the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters to request that Congress provide enough money to meet all of 2002's legal obligations.

"We're going to fight for every dollar we need," said Bob Tibbatts, chief financial officer for DOE's Richland office.

However, DOE in Washington, D.C., has asked Hanford for preliminary figures for a level budget and for a budget increase of 10 percent - both which fall short of meeting Hanford's obligations.

DOE's major Hanford reorganization in 1999 splits the site's annual budget into three major pieces. One piece is mostly salary and administrative costs controlled by DOE's Washington, D.C., headquarters and likely will hover around $100 million.

The Office of River Protection manages the tank farms, and DOE's Richland office manages the rest of Hanford. Here is how the Office of River Protection's and the Richland office's preliminary figures looked Tuesday.

The Office of River Protection

This office manages two contractors under two different contractual and budgetary set-ups - BNFL Inc., which plans to build and operate waste glassification plants, and CH2M Hill Hanford Group, which runs the tank farms and is to prepare the wastes for BNFL.

BNFL operates under the concept that it won't get paid until it actually glassifies wastes - theoretically by 2007. Therefore, Congress gets asked to set aside money each year - separate from the standard cleanup budget requests - to pay BNFL's huge bills at that time.

For 2000, Congress set aside $106 million. But monster-sized increases are needed to stash away enough cash to pay BNFL in 2007. Therefore, DOE requested $450 million to be set aside for 2001, a request Congress has not acted on. And DOE's preliminary figures call for a $690 million set-aside request for 2002.

Meanwhile, CH2M Hill's budget falls under a traditional year-by-year congressional appropriation. The company received $338 million for 2000, and DOE has requested $382 million for 2001 - both meeting Hanford's legal obligations.

Dick French, Office of River Protection manager, plans to contest the level-budget scenario and push for a $508 million budget for CH2M Hill in 2002, said Steve Wiegman, the office's assistant manager for storage and retrieval. "We're approaching this as a project that cannot be practically level funded," Wiegman said. A steady $382 million budget for 2002 would fall $126 million short of the tank farms' legal commitments to the state and federal governments.

Increased preparations to send the right wastes in the right conditions to BNFL is leading to more construction work, which translates to needing more money.

A complicating factor is that BNFL won't submit it's designs and financing plan to DOE until April 24, and DOE won't decide whether to go with BNFL until June 24. If DOE approves BNFL's plan, it has the rest of the summer to convince Congress to do likewise.

DOE's Richland office

This operation received $720 million for 2000 and has requested $723 million for 2001, which would fall $72 million short of its legal commitments.

If the budget stays steady at $723 million in 2002, it would fall short by $231 million. If DOE's Washington, D.C., headquarters allows a 10 percent increase to $807 million, that would lead to a $147 million shortfall.

DOE's Richland office's preliminary calculations for 2002 would fully fund its top two projects - the K Basins and the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Other projects would be fully funded or fall short by varying degrees under the various possible budget scenarios.

A major wrinkle is DOE's Hanford Manager Keith Klein is seriously looking at drastically accelerating the cleanup and demolition of the 300 Area - possibly moving that area's completion date from about 2030 to 2010. However, that move, which would significantly rearrange the 2002 budget if approved, still is being studied, including how to internally shift Hanford's money to accomplish this.

---

Glassification deadline resolution put off 2 weeks

Hanford News
March 16, 2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar24.html

The state has extended by two weeks a deadline to resolve a dispute over a legally enforceable construction timetable for a proposed Hanford waste glassification operation.

The Department of Energy and Washington's Department of Ecology have been deadlocked for more than 18 months on setting interim construction deadlines for the glassification plant in the Tri-Party Agreement.

If the deadlock remained unresolved by Wednesday, Tom Fitzsimmons, the state ecology department's director, was to have been allowed to set the interim deadlines without DOE's agreement.

But Fitzsimmons instead decided Wednesday to extend the talks until March 29.

The basic issue focuses on DOE teetering on the brink of hiring BNFL Inc. to design, build and operate plants to turn Hanford's radioactive tank wastes into glass.

The Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing Hanford's cleanup, requires that construction begin in 2001 and the first glass be produced in 2007.

There are no deadlines between 2001 and 2007.

The talks are stalled on setting two interim construction deadlines between 2001 and 2007 so the state can hold a legal hammer over DOE if BNFL falls behind on building the plants.

The state wants to set strictly enforceable deadlines. DOE wants to set more flexible deadlines after August, which is when it hopes to sign the glassification contract with BNFL.

Gov. Gary Locke and state Attorney General Christine Gregoire planned to meet Feb. 28 with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in Washington, D.C., to resolve the matter.

But Richardson got tied up on a trip to the Middle East and had to cancel at the last minute.

Early Wednesday afternoon, DOE submitted an offer that the state turned down, said ecology spokeswoman Sheryl Hutchison. Then the state officials huddled to prepare the interim deadlines.

Richardson's staff subsequently called Fitzsimmons' staff late Wednesday afternoon to request an extension because DOE wants to prepare a new offer to the state.

State officials huddled again and decided DOE was sincere in wanting to prepare a new offer - and granted the extension, Hutchison said.

On Feb. 28, Locke and Gregoire wanted to approach Richardson about giving the state the legal authority to halt the impending importation of outside DOE radioactive wastes to Hanford over the next several years if the glassification plant construction falls behind schedule.

The waste importation issue was included in Wednesday's decisions.

----

Radiated inmates to share $2.4 million in settlement

Hanford News
March 16, 2000
By The Associated Press and the Herald staff
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar23.html

Scores of Washington state prison inmates whose genitals were bombarded with radiation in Cold War experiments will receive portions of a $2.4 million settlement.

U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley approved the mediated settlement Tuesday to end a 1996 lawsuit by four of 64 inmates who participated in the X-ray experiments. After attorney fees are subtracted, the inmate volunteers will split $1.1 million.

"This is a very, very good settlement," Whaley said. "The manner in which we treated our incarcerated citizens should have been brought to the fore."

The Atomic Energy Commission - forerunner to today's federal Department of Energy - wanted to know how radiation would affect male fertility in nuclear war, outer space and nuclear plant work. Prisoners in Washington and Oregon were used in the experiments that ran from 1963 until they were halted in 1971 for being "Nazilike."

Battelle inherited a technical support role in this project in 1965 when it took over Pacific Northwest Laboratory from General Electric. Battelle voiced qualms about the project at that time. A 1962 Hanford radiation flash that contaminated three workers raised questions about radiation's effects on male reproductive organs. That incident helped lead to the experiments.

In the experiments, prisoners' gonads were bombarded by radiation equivalent to thousands of chest X-rays. Most then underwent vasectomies.

Robert White of Spokane and the three other original plaintiffs each will receive $43,750 from the settlement. But White, 59, who left prison in 1968, said he lives with daily pain from scarring the experiments caused.

"It wasn't about money," he said. "I'm happy with the settlement because it says we have rights as human beings."

White was 22 and serving a sentence for assault when he agreed to participate in the experiments. Documents show he received a dose of radiation equivalent to 50,000 chest X-rays. Another lead plaintiff, Donald Byers, died of heart failure in January, only a few weeks after his release from the Airway Heights Corrections Center, where he served a term for armed robbery.

Of the original 64 men who participated in the experiments, 40 have died.

As many as 32 inmates, their survivors or estates will receive payments averaging $30,000. The 15 who agreed to be named plaintiffs will receive an additional $5,000.

The remainder either were unable to be found, or declined to join the lawsuit. Attorneys who brought the case will receive $1.3 million in legal fees and costs.

The money will come from a $2.4 million settlement fund deposited by the defendants, who include Dr. Alvin Paulsen, a University of Washington medical professor who conducted the experiments; former state Penitentiary Superintendent Robert Rhay; and Dr. William Conte, former director of the state Department of Institutions, who authorized the experiments.

---

Federal consortium recognizes PNNL for technology transfers

Hanford News
March 16, 2000
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar22.html

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is being recognized for its success in moving technology out of the laboratory and into the marketplace.

The Federal Laboratory Consortium named Bill Madia the 1999 Laboratory Director of the Year, recognizing his economic development work that led to 42 new Mid-Columbia businesses in 40 months. Madia served as director of the Department of Energy's lab in Richland until November, when he left to serve as director of DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The laboratory also continued its winning streak for transferring individual technologies to industry, collecting three of the 25 Federal Laboratory Consortium awards given out this year.

The awards go to government laboratories that move technologies from the experimental stage to the marketplace. PNNL, a Department of Energy lab in Richland, has collected 44 of the awards since 1984. That's more than any other federal lab.

In the four years Madia spent in Richland, he worked to establish ties with industry and launched the lab's Economic Development Office, a central resource for technology transfer programs.

"We were very impressed by his leadership and interest in getting involved with private industry, economic development of the region and overall commitment to technology transfer," said Jagdish Mathur, chairman of the consortium's National Advisory Council, in a prepared statement.

Programs launched under Madia's tenure allowed staff members to pursue entrepreneurial interests but still receive employee benefits such as insurance coverage, and to work in state-of-the-art laboratories that new technology businesses need but may not be able to afford. The lab also started a program to provide technical assistance to companies relocating to the Tri-City area.

Among the technology transfer successes that impressed the consortium was the creation of Mundo Communications in Kennewick, which sells pre-paid phone cards and other telecommunication services to the growing Hispanic community, and Integrated Environmental Technologies, which has commercialized a technology for recycling waste.

PNNL also received a technology transfer award this year for its work with that spin-off company.

Madia shares his honor with three colleagues from DOE, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Department of Agriculture facilities, which are among more than 700 eligible for the award.

The three awards PNNL also received this year for technology transfers were for the following:

Plasma-enhanced melter.

Integrated Environmental Technologies of Richland is producing plasma-enhanced melters that can recycle household garbage, hazardous chemicals, medical trash, tires and nuclear waste into useful products. The technology uses a plasma arc and glass melter to "cook" trash into iron, glass or a clean-burning, hydrogen-rich gas.

The system can accept many kinds of wastes mixed together, increasing its practical applications. For instance, medical waste can be shipped sealed in containers that don't have to be opened and sorted but can be dropped directly in the melter.

PNNL officials say it's a more environmentally friendly alternative for municipal waste treatment than incineration and holds promise for cleaning up government waste sites.

Superplastic forming.

General Motors Corp., MARC Analysis and Kaiser Aluminum are using a superplastic forming process that PNNL worked to improve.

The process stretches metal up to 1,000 percent and molds it into almost any shape or part. Using the technology can help develop cars with lightweight aluminum parts so the cars use less fuel and are more environmentally friendly.

PNNL developed accurate models that have reduced the time needed to form a complex part, making superplastic forming practical for manufacturing.

Molecular science software suite.

This is the first general-purpose software that provides chemists with access to high-performance, massively parallel computers for a wide range of applications, according to PNNL officials.

The software is used by 40 universities and supercomputing centers, 15 industries and 14 national laboratories and federal agencies. It allows scientists to quickly and economically solve complicated environmental problems in the atmosphere, underground and in aquatic systems.

It also will be used to search for new drugs, increase farm production and help scientists understand how organisms work at the molecular level, according to PNNL officials.

----------- us nuc politics

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/3/17/1.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release March 16, 2000

VIDEOTAPED REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO CARNEGIE NONPROLIFERATION CONFERENCE

THE PRESIDENT: I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Carnegie Endowment's Annual Nonproliferation Conference. I thank you for coming together again to focus on the crucial task of curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. All of you know how serious this challenge is; from North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, to ongoing risks that sensitive materials and technologies will spread from the former Soviet Union, including to Iran, to the imperative of bringing China into global nonproliferation regimes, to the continuing need for vigilance against Saddam Hussein.

Stemming this tide has been a critical priority for me for seven years now, and it will be for this year as well. In a few days, I'll travel to South Asia. There are those in the region who hope we will simply accept its nuclear status quo and move on. I will not do that. India and Pakistan have legitimate security concerns. But I will make clear our view that a nuclear future is a dangerous future for them and for the world. And I'll stress that narrowing our differences on nonproliferation is important to moving toward a broader relationship.

I know there are some who have never seen an arms control agreement they like -- because rules can be violated, because perfect verification is impossible, because we can't always count on others to keep their word. Still, I believe we must work to broaden and strengthen verifiable arms agreements. The alternative is a world with no rules, no verification and no trust at all.

It would be foolish to rely on treaties alone to protect our security. But it would also be foolish to throw away the tools that sound treaties do offer: A more predictable security environment, monitoring inspections, the ability to shine a light on threatening behavior and mobilize the entire world against it. So this year, we will work to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. We'll increase momentum for universal adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And as to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I am determined that last year's unfortunate Senate vote will not be America's last word.

With the leadership of General Shalikashvili, we will work hard this year to build bipartisan support for ratification. I will continue to call on other nations to forgo testing and join the treaty. We must not lose the chance to end nuclear testing forever. We must also take the next essential step: A treaty to cut off production of fissile material.

I know this conference will assess the potential impact of our program directed at emerging missile threats, such as from North Korea, Iran and Iraq. I've stressed that a U.S. decision on a limited missile defense will take into account not only the threat, feasibility and cost, but also the overall impact on our security and arms control.

The ABM Treaty remains important to our security. Today, dealing with dangerous new missile threats is also vital to global security. So we will continue to work with Russia on how to amend the treaty to permit limited defenses while keeping its central protections, and we'll continue to seek a START III treaty that will cut our strategic arsenals to 20 percent of their Cold War levels.

Let me conclude by wishing you a productive meeting. I value your advice, I count on your dedication, and I thank you for all you're doing to build a safer world.

-------- us nuc weapons

Remarks by Clinton to Nonproliferation Conference

US Newswire
16 Mar 11:51
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0316-117.html

Videotaped Remarks by the President to Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference To: National Desk Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2100

WASHINGTON, March 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is the text of videotaped remarks by the president to the Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference:

THE PRESIDENT: I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Carnegie Endowment's Annual Nonproliferation Conference. I thank you for coming together again to focus on the crucial task of curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction. All of you know how serious this challenge is; from North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, to ongoing risks that sensitive materials and technologies will spread from the former Soviet Union, including to Iran, to the imperative of bringing China into global nonproliferation regimes, to the continuing need for vigilance against Saddam Hussein.

Stemming this tide has been a critical priority for me for seven years now, and it will be for this year as well. In a few days, I'll travel to South Asia. There are those in the region who hope we will simply accept its nuclear status quo and move on. I will not do that. India and Pakistan have legitimate security concerns. But I will make clear our view that a nuclear future is a dangerous future for them and for the world. And I'll stress that narrowing our differences on nonproliferation is important to moving toward a broader relationship.

I know there are some who have never seen an arms control agreement they like -- because rules can be violated, because perfect verification is impossible, because we can't always count on others to keep their word. Still, I believe we must work to broaden and strengthen verifiable arms agreements. The alternative is a world with no rules, no verification and no trust at all.

It would be foolish to rely on treaties alone to protect our security. But it would also be foolish to throw away the tools that sound treaties do offer: A more predictable security environment, monitoring inspections, the ability to shine a light on threatening behavior and mobilize the entire world against it. So this year, we will work to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention. We'll increase momentum for universal adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And as to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I am determined that last year's unfortunate Senate vote will not be America's last word.

With the leadership of General Shalikashvili, we will work hard this year to build bipartisan support for ratification. I will continue to call on other nations to forgo testing and join the treaty. We must not lose the chance to end nuclear testing forever. We must also take the next essential step: A treaty to cut off production of fissile material.

I know this conference will assess the potential impact of our program directed at emerging missile threats, such as from North Korea, Iran and Iraq. I've stressed that a U.S. decision on a limited missile defense will take into account not only the threat, feasibility and cost, but also the overall impact on our security and arms control.

The ABM Treaty remains important to our security. Today, dealing with dangerous new missile threats is also vital to global security. So we will continue to work with Russia on how to amend the treaty to permit limited defenses while keeping its central protections, and we'll continue to seek a START III treaty that will cut our strategic arsenals to 20 percent of their Cold War levels.

Let me conclude by wishing you a productive meeting. I value your advice, I count on your dedication, and I thank you for all you're doing to build a safer world.

-0- /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ 03/16 11:52

---

Daybook

Washington Times
March 16, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000316214424.htm

10 a.m. - Armed Services' special oversight panel on Energy Department reorganization holds a hearing on the national Nuclear Security Administration. Location: 2216 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-4151

GENERAL

Nonproliferation conference - all day - The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace holds the annual Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference. The speakers include Gen. John Shalikashvili, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Location: Washington Marriott, 1221 22nd St. NW. Contact: 202/939-2294 or 202/261-9812.

---

Deterrence

Boston Phoenix
03/16/00
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/movies/00/03/16/DETERRENCE.html

It's the year 2008 -- an election year -- and Saddam Hussein is a global nuisance no more. The bad news is that his son now runs the show and has an even bigger hard-on for Kuwaiti and Saudi oil. President Emerson (Kevin Pollak), the first non-elected official to reach the Oval Office (following a death and a scandal), is hunkered down in a Colorado diner during the mother of all snowstorms when Saddam's offspring invades Kuwait. Iraq now has the bomb, and as with the Cuban Missile Crisis, things quickly escalate into a nuclear pissing match. Worse, the Iraqis won't negotiate with Emerson because he's a Jew.

For a low-budget thriller, Deterrence does a decent job of maintaining its credibility, though there is something horribly wrong -- if just physically -- in the spectacle of Pollak as the American president. At least Timothy Hutton and Sheryl Lee Ralph are perfect as the presidential political advisers who crack the diner into a hi-tech command post. What lifts Deterrence is the smartly engineered yet preposterous final solution -- an unlikely fusion of John Kennedy and Isaac Asimov. At the Kendall Square and in the suburbs.

-- Tom Meek

-------------

G.O.P. Leader Says Clinton Administration Bends to China's Will

March 16, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/00/03/16/late/16china-us.html

WASHINGTON -- A Republican House leader said today Taiwan faces an uncertain future because the Clinton administration has embraced "a level of appeasement" toward China more craven than Neville Chamberlain's attempts to placate Germany on the eve of World War II.

Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas said the administration has responded with "thinly veiled disdain" toward Taiwan despite seemingly daily threats directed toward the island from the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.

DeLay, who is House Republican whip, commented in remarks prepared for delivery to a gathering at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private research group.

"Sixty-two years after Czechoslovakia, ethnic reunion has returned as an excuse for aggression," said DeLay, suggesting that China's desire to reinstate Taiwan under Beijing's tutelage is comparable to Hitler's designs on ethnic German sections of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

"Having learned nothing from the folly of Munich, the Clinton administration has embraced a level of appeasement that would have embarrassed Neville Chamberlain: A communist dictatorship becomes our 'strategic partner'; a small, peaceful democratic country becomes an irritant."

The Clinton administration has sharply criticized perceived Chinese threats toward Taiwan, particularly recent statements suggesting the possible use of force against the island if reunification is put off indefinitely.

Beijing's threats could complicate efforts by the Clinton administration to persuade Congress to permanently normalize trade relations with China and could build support among lawmakers for increasing U.S. military ties with Taiwan.

DeLay said the more aggressive Chinese policy toward Taiwan coincides with the island's preparations for elections this Saturday. On Wednesday in Beijing, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji warned Taiwanese not to vote for a pro-independence presidential candidate, saying China would invade before allowing Taiwan to declare itself a separate country.

Delay said he supports granting China permanent normal trade relations, consistent with the U.S.-China agreement last fall that will be voted on by Congress, probably in June.

"I strongly support expanded trade as a basic component of American economic freedom," he said. "But trade is not a moral imperative superior to all other considerations. Trade cannot come at any price to our nation and to our freedom."

He added: "Should the day arrive when our trade with the People's Republic of China serves more to fuel communist expansion than nurture democracy, more to support oppression than to export American values, we will be compelled to subordinate our desire to access markets to the cold, hard realities of national defense.

"We should never be fooled into cheering higher profits while communist China harnesses that prosperity to construct an arsenal of tyranny."

He said China's military buildup includes the acquisition of nuclear-capable surface ships from Russia that have "one purpose and one purpose only: To kill American sailors and Marines aboard our aircraft carriers and Aegis cruisers."

He added that China's military modernization is backed by an increasingly sophisticated espionage and political influence effort aimed at the United States and its allies.

----

On the road to South Asia

EDITORIAL
March 16, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-200031619637.htm

When President Clinton visits India and Pakistan next week, he's not in for a ticker-tape parade, and he knows it. For months, the White House stalled on whether Mr. Clinton should go to Pakistan, a decision that would put his own security at risk in the military-ruled country and incite anger in neighboring India, with whom Pakistan has been in conflict over the disputed Kashmir region.

But for all the royal treatment he may miss overseas, the five-hour Pakistan visit is already paying off on this side of the Atlantic. At a Feb. 22 fund-raiser dinner, Pakistani-Americans who wanted Mr. Clinton to visit their homeland raised $50,000 for Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate race, the New York Times reported Tuesday. While Mr. Clinton was still deciding whether he should visit Pakistan, the organizers moved the dinner to a date before Mr. Clinton's trip. The White House is saying Mrs. Clinton had nothing to do with his decision to visit the country, though Mrs. Clinton spoke about her desire for him to go at the event, the report said.

Regardless of why Mr. Clinton has decided to visit the dual nuclear powers now, a pleasure tour for the outgoing president this is not. A left wing party in India's parliament said it would boycott Mr. Clinton's speech there and rally their Marxist-Leninist supporters to stage protests during his visit, declaring the first day to be a "national day of protest against U.S. imperialism." A week before his visit, violence along the Indian-Pakistani border in the Kashmir region - where Mr. Clinton had hoped to bring peace - left blood on the ground as a warning. Indian shelling on Pakistani border villages left two 8-year-old girls dead and 11 others wounded.

Diplomacy with the Pakistanis will be a delicate matter as well. This is a country where the elected leader, Nawaz Sharif, his brother and aides have been imprisoned by the ruling military dictator, and the leading defense attorney of the former prime minister was murdered in his office as he sat at his desk Friday. It is a country whose Interservice Intelligence Agency is training and arming militants, and inciting violence in India's northeast region. It is the same country that registered treason cases Sunday against Mr. Sharif's wife and 16 leaders of his political party. If convicted, they could spend life in prison. Their crime? Making "provocative statements."

How much can Mr. Clinton really say in such an environment? He is prepared to talk about terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation and restoring democracy in Pakistan. But Pakistan, at least on some fronts, is not yet ready to listen: "Pakistan has its own laws," Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said about banning the Harkat-ul Mujahideen, an armed Pakistani group the United States lists as a terrorist organization.

In India, trade, nuclear nonproliferation, the environment and terrorism top the agenda for discussion. Here, too, the visit may be more about extending an initial handshake rather than forging any conclusive initiatives.

Sounds like the Clintons got started early with the handshakes - with the Pakistanis at least. Five hours in a country for 50 grand isn't a bad deal, even if it will be a little dangerous. Though it is probably too much to hope for, with the shared Kashmir region experiencing ongoing conflict and terrorism in both countries a continuing threat, it is a pivotal time for the United States to encourage peace.

-----

Lawmakers seek Defense security probe

03/16/00-
By Edward T. Pound,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed10.htm

WASHINGTON - The chairmen of the Senate and House armed services committees, concerned about the Defense Department's troubled security-clearance program, are pressing the Pentagon's inspector general to undertake "a thorough and detailed" investigation of the program.

In a letter this week to Acting Inspector General Donald Mancuso, Sen. John Warner, R.-Va., and Rep. Floyd Spence, R.-S.C., said they were "deeply troubled" by reports in USA TODAY that documented how clearances had been granted to convicted felons and others with criminal backgrounds.

"Although the (Defense) Department initially denied clearances for some of these individuals," the lawmakers wrote, "the clearances were subsequently approved by the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA)," a Pentagon agency. DOHA issues clearances to employees of defense contractors.

Warner and Spence asked Mancuso to review the operations of DOHA and another Pentagon agency, the Defense Security Service. The Defense Security Service conducts background investigations of military and industry personnel who must have clearances for access to classified information. Those investigations serve as the basis on which DOHA and other Pentagon agencies issue clearances.

Congressional aides said Warner and Spence requested the inquiry because they want to make sure that the Pentagon fixes the troubled program. One aide said some lawmakers believed the Pentagon had yet to come up with adequate solutions.

The Defense Security Service has been mired in controversy since last summer. Its director was replaced, and the agency was reorganized. Congressional investigators found that the agency had performed slipshod work on background reviews and was faced with a daunting backlog of more than 500,000 cases.

In February, Warner, expressing concern about potential espionage by foreign powers, said his committee would conduct a broad investigation of the clearance program. He said hearings would be held later this year.

In an interview, Mancuso said his office already was reviewing the clearance program. He said he will issue four reports in the coming months, including one that will focus on the size of the backlog. He said he will discuss with the staffs of the Senate and House armed services panels "whether additional work needs to be planned."

In their letter, Warner and Spence said various Pentagon agencies might not be applying government guidelines for granting clearances in the same way. They asked Mancuso to review "the consistency of application" of the guidelines, which President Clinton established in 1997.

-----

Hillary's fund raising sparks new questions

March 16, 2000
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200031623442.htm

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign raised $24,000 at a Washington fund-raiser in December organized by a Pakistani lobbyist shortly after her husband announced he would not visit Pakistan during an upcoming trip to India.

The Washington event was followed in February by a New York fund-raiser organized by Pakistani-American businessmen, during which $50,000 was raised for the first lady - an event reported Monday by the New York Times.

Last week, President Clinton reversed himself and said he would visit Pakistan during his weeklong India trip, which begins Saturday. Pakistani-Americans had encouraged Mr. Clinton to visit the country to find solutions to the war in Kashmir, a territory claimed by both Pakistan and India.

Both fund-raisers were legal and there is no evidence to suggest Mrs. Clinton influenced her husband's last-minute decision to stop in Pakistan. But the fund-raisers have raised political questions of whether campaign donations to the first lady are a factor in influencing Clinton administration policies.

Mrs. Clinton, who has said publicly she supported a visit by her husband to Pakistan, denied this week that campaign contributions to her Senate race had any influence on White House policy.

"If anybody thinks they can influence the president by making a contribution to me, they are dead wrong, and I think there is no evidence of that," she said.

The White House also rejected concerns that Mr. Clinton decided to visit Pakistan in part because his wife received campaign donations from Pakistani-Americans.

"The decision was made by the president in consultation with his foreign policy team based on our interest in the subcontinent, our interest in that part of the world, without regard to anyone's politics, including the first lady's," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

The New York fund-raiser was organized by the Pakistan Political Action Committee, known as Pak-Pac, the political arm of the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA). The Washington fund-raiser was organized by Lanny J. Davis, a lawyer at the D.C. law firm of Patton and Boggs.

Mr. Davis, former White House special counsel who defended the Clinton administration in various scandals, represents Pak-Pac on a $22,500-a-month contract. Patton and Boggs also handles the official Pakistani government account.

According to Federal Election Commission records, 37 lawyers from Patton and Boggs attended the Washington fund-raiser, contributing $24,000 to the first lady's senatorial campaign. The contributions ranged from $250 to $1,000 per person.

Mr. Davis, as a lobbyist for the Pakistani government, acknowledged in an interview that he encouraged the president to add Pakistan to the India trip, but denied any relationship between the Washington fund-raiser and Mr. Clinton's ultimate decision to visit that country.

"I wish I could say I had the influence and had applied the right pressure for the president to visit Pakistan, but I didn't, so I can't," he said. "What really happened was that the president made his own decision and remained faithful to his legacy in bringing people together in tension situations around the world."

Mr. Davis added that the money donated by the Pakistanis was "minor" compared with the amount of cash being given by Indian-Americans to various campaigns, including lobbying efforts against the Pakistani visit. He described the Washington fund-raiser as a gathering of individuals looking to make contact with a political candidate "just like every other group."

Those who attended the New York fund-raiser said Mrs. Clinton told them she hoped her husband would visit Pakistan, which has been ruled by a military government since a coup last October. They also said the Clinton campaign required a minimum of $50,000 in donations in exchange for her appearance at a fund-raiser.

"I cannot deny the fact that she's the president's wife makes a difference," Dr. Asim Malik, a Long Island physician, told the New York Times. "But also as a woman, she can feel more pain for the victims of Kashmir, the women and children."

Mr. Davis, the Pak-Pac lobbyist, also attended the New York fund-raiser.

The White House has said Mr. Clinton's visit to India and Pakistan is aimed at easing tensions between the two countries.

Having exploded nuclear weapons in May 1998, India and Pakistan battled in Kashmir, and India downed a Pakistani reconnaissance plane along the Arabian Sea coast. Months of patient diplomacy by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott failed to prevent the South Asian fighting or roll back the nuclear weapons development.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said there was "great danger" a war could begin over the disputed region of Kashmir, but he hopes Mr. Clinton's visit might ease the tension.

But Indian Foreign Minister Jasawant Singh said Mr. Clinton would not be asked to mediate the Kashmir dispute, which India has long insisted must be settled between the two Asian countries themselves.

------ us military

Gulf War Syndrome cited in autopsy of former soldier

By Chantal Escoto /
The Leaf-Chronicle
http://www.tennessean.com/sii/00/03/18/clarkgulf18.shtml">http://www. tennessean.com/sii/00/03/18/clarkgulf18.shtml</A>

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. -- A medical examiner in Texas says Gulf War Syndrome was a contributing factor in the death of a former Fort Campbell soldier, a finding that could be the first of its kind to blame a death on the mysterious illness.

Joye M. Carter, chief medical examiner for Harris County, Texas, wrote in an autopsy report that after an extensive evaluation of former soldier Michael Ingram, "it seems proper to include the Gulf War Syndrome as a contributory cause of death."

Carter's report listed heart disease as the primary cause of death, and alcoholism was also a contributing factor. He was 47.

Ingram served in Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s and was attached to the 528th Medical Detachment as a sergeant and Green Beret with the Army's 101st Airborne Division.

"Many times we're on the forefront and, if we don't document it, then how do we start?" said Carter, who once served as medical examiner for the U.S. Air Force.

The state commissioner of veterans affairs, retired Army Brig. Gen. Wendell Gilbert, and Gulf War veterans advocate Paul Lyons said Ingram's case was the first they had heard of in which Gulf War Syndrome was named as a cause of death.

Lyons, who suffers from Gulf War Syndrome and is a board member of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, insisted Carter's conclusion is a significant step toward forcing Pentagon officials to look at the disease more seriously.

"This is the first one I've ever seen. Now we actually have some proof that service in the Gulf during the war is hazardous to your health."

About 4,000 soldiers who served with the 101st in the war have claimed to have symptoms related to Gulf War Syndrome, Lyons said.

Some 15,000 troops from Fort Campbell were deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Some of the common medical problems reported are short-term memory loss, chronic fatigue, nerve damage, light sensitivity, periodic rashes, stiff joints, birth defects and sterility.

A Department of Defense official questioned Carter's findings and was concerned it may open the floodgates for other medical examiners to list Gulf War Syndrome as a death factor when it hasn't been fully researched.

"I'm not a doctor, and I don't know what she saw, but to list it as a contributing factor is kind of hard to define," said Austin Camacho, special assistant for Gulf War illnesses. "Gulf War Syndrome is not a particular illness, but a number of different illnesses that we haven't been able to define. We're fighting very hard to help the folks get the care they deserve and have so far put $140 million toward research on finding causes and treatments."

Gilbert said he couldn't comment further on the autopsy report without seeing it for himself, but did say the Veterans Administration is dedicated to ensuring those with the malady are adequately compensated.

"I'm very anxious that we do right by the victims of the Gulf War."

-----

Report: Pentagon overpaid for spare parts

03/16/00- Updated 02:42 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu05.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon paid nearly triple the fair and reasonable price for a part that keeps the propellers on C-130 Hercules transport planes from icing over, according to government officials familiar with an internal military audit.

The audit has not been publicly released. But Robert Lieberman, the Pentagon's assistant inspector general for audits, described its basic findings - that the military is paying too much for many aviation spares - at a congressional hearing Thursday.

However, Stan Soloway, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for acquisition reform, told the panel the audit is ''questionable.'' ''I'm not at all convinced the prices are unreasonable and unfair,'' he said.

A Defense Department agency last year bought 1,803 ''propeller blade heaters'' from United Technology's Hamilton Standard - now Hamilton Sundstrand - at a cost of roughly $555 apiece, when the fair price was closer to $200 each, according to two other government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Defense Logistics Agency, which runs military stockpiles, managed the contract.

As a result, the military paid just over $1 million for the parts, instead of about $365,000, said the officials.

In testimony before the House Government Reform subcommittee on government management, Lieberman called the propeller heater prices an ''egregious'' example of overpricing. He did not go into detail.

The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Steve Horn, R-Calif., is looking at a list of issues about Pentagon spending.

Under a new way of doing business adopted in the 1990s, the Pentagon is paying companies not just for parts but for providing a range of services the military used to do itself, from supply management to inventory to warehousing, the Pentagon's Soloway said

The arrangement is, on balance, saving the government money even if some parts cost more, he said.

''That would be fine if you really need those services,'' Lieberman said, but in many cases, the government doesn't need a ''middle man'' to manage spares. Notwithstanding Soloway's defense of the arrangements, Lieberman pointed out, the Pentagon has already agreed that the arrangement needs to be changed.

Soloway said the audit report, which remains ''for official use only'' within the Pentagon, ''is a matter that has been under significant discussion and debate between us and the inspector general for some months now.''

----

First Atomic Bombardier Dies at 81

MARCH 16, 18:21 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS738MOU80

WINDERMERE, Fla. (AP) - Thomas Wilson Ferebee, the bombardier who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in World War II, died Thursday. He was 81.

Ferebee was 26 on Aug. 6, 1945, and already a major and a veteran of 64 missions when the B-29 Enola Gay took off for Japan with the first nuclear weapon ever deployed.

Ferebee, who retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1970, said he never felt guilty but was sorry the bomb killed so many.

``I'm sorry an awful lot of people died from that bomb, and I hate to think that something like that had to happen to end the war,'' he said in a 1995 interview on the 50th anniversary of the bombing.

``Now we should look back and remember what just one bomb did, or two bombs,'' he said. ``Then I think we should realize that this can't happen again.''

America's bombing of Hiroshima and the blast at Nagasaki three days later left more than 100,000 dead and led to the end of the war.

The only other man who has dropped a nuclear bomb in war, Nagasaki bombardier Kermit Beahan, died in 1989. Japan surrendered on Aug. 14, 1945, five days after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped.

The Enola Gay's pilot, retired Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, had hand-picked Ferebee for his crew and called him ``the best bombardier who ever looked through the eyepiece of a Norden bomb site.''

Ferebee's death leaves only four surviving members of the Enola Gay's crew: Tibbets, navigator Ted Van Kirk, weapons officer Morris Jeppson and radio operator Richard Nelson.

Ferebee also participated in the first U.S. bombing raid on Nazi occupied France in 1942 and was the lead bombardier for the Allies' first 100-plane daylight raid in Europe.

After World War II, he served as a deputy commander for maintenance in several B-47 Stratojet bomber wings. He flew aboard B-47s during the Cold War and B-52s during the Vietnam War. His decorations included the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Bronze Star....

----------- world spying

A tale of two defectors

March 16, 2000
James Hackett
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000316213945.htm

The best information you can get from a closed society is that brought out by defectors. Such information may also be faulty. But it is interesting that defectors from North Korea and Iraq, two of the most anti-American countries, recently have appeared with stories of missile developments that confirm what the intelligence community has been saying.

North Korea is the least transparent country in the world today, so it is a major event when a missile expert escapes. The South Korean press has reported the defection of Lim Ki-song, a 59-year-old North Korean senior missile scientist, his 31-year-old son, and a 32-year-old nephew, an officer in the North Korean army. According to the bizarre story, they made an elaborate escape that included faking their deaths by burning their house with two corpses inside. The authorities thought they were dead, giving them time to cross the border into China late last year.

With the help of contacts in China they assumed false identities and by mid-January had made their way to Shanghai. There they reportedly applied for asylum in the United States and because of their intelligence value were quickly flown to this country. Press reports say Mr. Lim studied missile technology in Russia in the 1960s, worked for years on North Korea's missile programs, and in the mid-1990s was sent to a Chinese missile base where he observed operations for launching ballistic missiles at Taiwan.

During his recent stay in Shanghai, Mr. Lim reportedly said North Korea's intentions to develop nuclear weapons have not changed at all, despite promises to the U.S. to the contrary. He also said development has been completed on a missile with a range in excess of 6,000 kilometers (3,720 miles - presumably the two-stage version of the Taepo Dong-2), adding that missiles of that range "are ready to be launched with the push of a button." He boasted that North Korea's missiles already are "world class," adding that the country can produce as many as it wants. "The poor economy," he said, "is the only holdback."

These claims confirm recent statements by U.S. officials that North Korea can conduct a flight test of the Taepo Dong-2 at any time. The Moscow daily Izvestiya reported the Taepo Dong-2 was ready for launch on Feb. 16 to celebrate the 58th birthday of leader Kim Chong-il, but it was canceled at the last minute. The Taepo Dong is of concern because the two-stage model can reach Alaska, while a three-stage version could carry a nuclear warhead all the way to the U.S. mainland. And in a test flight 18 months ago, North Korea showed that it has three-stage missile technology.

The main source of the defector story, Seoul daily Chosun Ilbo, cites contacts in Beijing as saying North Korea is seeking large-scale economic aid from the United States, Japan and South Korea by appearing to be cooperative, while actually continuing to develop missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.

The story of the defector from Iraq, by correspondents Marie Colvin and Uzi Mahnaimi, ran last month in the London Sunday Times. The 37-year-old soldier, whose name is being withheld at his request, spent 20 years in the Iraqi army, mainly in a special security unit. In 1990, shortly before Desert Storm, he says he helped load four trucks with chemical weapon warheads and drove them to a ballistic missile launch site, but they were never used. He said in recent years his unit has been concerned mainly with hiding weapons from U.N. inspectors.

The defector trained with chemical weapons as recently as last summer, when he picked up six warheads at a remote desert location where chemical weapons personnel loaded them with sarin and GF nerve gas. In the exercise, he delivered the warheads to the Baghdad region and the next day returned them to the remote location. He said he was told they were binary weapons and for safety reasons the ingredient that turns the chemicals into poison gas is added just before launch. The authors cite an expert who read the defector's testimony and said he is both knowledgeable and credible.

This defector's statements tend to confirm the comment in the January CIA report to Congress on weapons of mass destruction that Iraq may be hiding chemical munitions, perhaps in the thousands. The firsthand account also strengthens the belief that Iraq has been producing new chemical weapons since throwing out the U.N. inspectors in December 1998. Just last week Iraq's vice president again said Baghdad will accept no new U.N. inspectors.

The only logical conclusion to draw from these reports is that missile defenses, both for this country and for U.S. forces and allies abroad, are needed as soon as possible.

James T. Hackett is a contributing writer to The Washington Times based in San Diego.

-----------

Wind power cheapest for Sweden after tax

SWEDEN: March 16, 2000
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6011

STOCKHOLM - Wind power is the cheapest form of electricity produced in Sweden costing 0.21 Swedish crowns ($0.024) per kilowatt hour after tax, Elforsk, the research organ for Sweden's energy firms, said yesterday.

The second cheapest is hydro power with a cost of 0.23 SKR/kWh after tax followed by combined heat and power from biomass costing 0.31-0.50 crowns, it said in a report.

The most expensive power production was combined heat and power from gas turbines costing 0.78 SKR/kWh.

Before tax and subsidies hydro power was the cheapest with a cost of 0.24 crowns compared to 0.41 for windpower.

Elforsk forecast there would be no new construction of power plants in the next 10 years based on calculations indicating continuing low electricity prices.

Prices on the Nordic power market have nearly halved in the last two years following deregulation in line with a European Union directive.

Tougher competition and shrinking profit margins would further hamper incentives to invest in new technology, it concluded in the report.

Sweden produced 155 terawatt hours (TWh) in 1999 of which 0.5 TWh came from wind power.

Hydro power constitutes 48 percent of all the electricity produced in Sweden and 46 percent comes from nuclear power, with six percent from other energy sources.

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

-----------older

Hanford to study quick cleanup of 300 Area

Hanford News
March 15, 2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar21.html

Hanford officials are about to begin brainstorming whether they can accelerate cleanup of the 300 Area so only a "brown field" remains by 2010.

The questions of "if" and "how" should be at least partly answered by June, said Jay Augustenborg, the Department of Energy's deputy assistant manager for planning and integration.

He told the Hanford Advisory Board's environmental restoration committee on Tuesday that DOE and its contractors plan to study the idea this spring.

The proposal came from DOE Hanford Manager Keith Klein telling the site's contractors to look for ways to speed up cleanup efforts. Of the ideas that surfaced, this looked the most promising, and it ties in with Klein setting riverside cleanup as one of Hanford's top priorities, Augustenborg said.

Currently, 300 Area cleanup is expected to be done around 2030.

The 300 Area - visually dominated by the stripped-down dome of a defunct experimental reactor - is the built-up part of Hanford nestled next to north Richland and next to the Columbia River.

Dating back to 1943, this was where the Manhattan Project assembled uranium fuel rods to be irradiated in Hanford's reactors to produce plutonium for the first atomic bombs.

Since then, the 300 Area's several dozen buildings have housed six test reactors, fuel fabrication facilities, numerous labs, including huge cells where radioactive materials could be handled by remote control, and many storehouses, including five that hold 1,207 tons of leftover Cold War uranium. Also, there are machine shops, offices, isotope extraction facilities and training mockup sites.

Today, several corporations run various lab, industrial and cleanup operations scattered throughout the 300 Area. The area runs about six-tenths of a mile from east to west and runs between a half-mile and 1.2 miles north and south.

Radioactive tritium and uranium plumes are in the ground water beneath the 300 Area - mostly in the eastern and northern portions.

The most contaminated spots are Buildings 324 and 327, which contain several highly radioactive chambers that are being cleaned out.

The outline of the acceleration idea is to divide the 300 Area into several zones and clean them up above-ground and underground one by one from 2002 through 2008 or 2010, Augustenborg said. The cleanup would include demolishing the buildings, many of which have contaminated interiors.

Destroying buildings should save long-term cleanup costs because DOE would not have to pay to maintain those structures, Augustenborg said.

Estimates on costs vs. long-term savings have not been calculated yet.

A big unknown is how much extra money would be needed from 2002 to 2004, when an accelerated cleanup would begin, plus how the 300 Area cleanup money and Hanford's overall cleanup money would be reallocated.

Another question is where the 300 Area cleanup should be on a list of sitewide cleanup priorities. The effort may not be guaranteed a top priority on Hanford's list of things to do, Augustenborg warned.

And there is the question of whether Hanford can get extra 300 Area money from Washington, D.C., because other DOE sites also are clamoring for additional cleanup money.

Augustenborg said Hanford officials will look at "alternate financing" to speed up the 300 Area cleanup, but he declined to elaborate.

A major issue to resolve is which companies and operations should move out of which 300 Area buildings and which should stay, Augustenborg said. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has several labs in the 300 Area, and the private company Richland Specialty Extrusion uses a giant extruder press in Building 333.

Demolition also should aid efforts to develop the 300 Area as an industrial site, Augustenborg said. Now, it is difficult to attract a new industrial tenant into an area that is a hodgepodge of contaminated buildings, he said.

"There're also intangibles," Augustenborg said. "In getting the 300 Area cleaned, the (contaminated part of the Hanford) site will no longer border the Tri-City area."

-----------

Nuclear reaction

Washington Times
March 14, 2000
Inside the Beltway John McCaslin
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway-2000314221925.htm

A memo distributed last week at one of the Energy Department's nuclear-weapon facilities suggests to some bureaucrats that Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, a vice presidential prospect, is eager to make amends with the Asian-American community in the wake of DOE's handling of the Wen Ho Lee case.

The former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee was indicted several months ago on 59 felony counts of illegally downloading more than 800,000 pages of top-secret computer codes.

Since his arrest, high-profile members of the Asian-American community have rallied behind the nuclear scientist, raising thousands of dollars for his defense while blasting his prosecutors.

"It seems that Asian Americans working for DOE have made known their feelings of hurt," says one source at Energy. "This is the third so-called stand-down, the first two being hastily called and ill-prepared stand-downs that were to be used to supposedly enhance the security consciousness of DOE laboratory personnel."

The memo from DOE headquarters doesn't mention Asian Americans by name, only that a two-part mandatory nationwide Diversity Stand-Down training program - featuring an appearance by Mr. Richardson - is scheduled for April 5.

Mr. Richardson will address bureaucrats through a variety of methods, according to the memo, including satellite downlink, PC-TV, teleconferencing and conference call.

"Each federal and contractor supervisor will be called upon to certify that all individuals in his/ her organization have received diversity training - including viewing the national program - by a certain date," the memo adds.

John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or by e-mail at mccasl@twtmail.com.

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Loose ends remain in K Basins cleanup

Hanford News
March 13, 2000
By John Stang Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar19.html

A proposal to speed up the K Basins cleanup has tentative support in Hanford circles, but some loose ends and questions remain unresolved.

"Exactly how to make it acceptable still has to be worked out," said Doug Huston, an Oregon Department of Energy official who also is vice chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board's waste management committee.

Phil Loscoe, K Basins project director for the U.S. Department of Energy, said: "It's a work in progress. ... Some questions still remain to be answered."

DOE expects to decide late this month whether to approve Fluor Hanford's plan to cut a year off the K Basins cleanup by removing sludges from the two indoor pools earlier than planned.

On Wednesday, federal officials from DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency and HAB committee members discussed Fluor's proposal to move the current 2005 completion date to 2004.

The K Basins are two leak-prone, water-filled pools near the Columbia River that hold 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel. They also contain about 55 cubic meters of radioactive sludge, mostly in the K East Basin.

Hanford's master plan is to move the fuel canisters to a safer central Hanford underground vault. The project has been plagued with numerous cost increases and schedule extensions. Its cost estimate doubled to $1.6 billion, and the completion date slipped from 2001 to 2005.

Last month, Fluor proposed to:

-- Complete sludge removal by August 2004, a year ahead of the previous plan. Meanwhile, DOE and EPA already agree with an earlier Fluor proposal not to send the sludge to the underground tanks, but instead store it in T Plant and eventually ship it to a storage site in New Mexico.

-- Start preparations for sludge removal and for work at T Plant immediately instead of waiting until October, as previously proposed.

-- Begin the K West sludge removal this November, as planned previously, but move the completion date from April 2003 to December 2002.

-- Delay starting K East's fuel removal from December 2001 to January 2003 - and to delay completion from December 2003 toJuly 2004.

HAB committee members, Loscoe and Doug Sherwood, the EPA's Hanford site manager, all like Fluor's basic idea, partly because the original plan would move fuel simultaneously for 16 months from both basins. That would lead to a steep hiring increase, followed 16 months later by heavy layoffs. Fluor's new proposal would keep employment steady at K Basins.

The proposal's biggest attraction is that it could cut one year off the project, and possibly trim the $1.6 billion price tag that has diverted money from other cleanup projects.

On Wednesday, Loscoe said Hanford's best chance to trim the $1.6 billion significantly is to shorten the length of the project - and he views Fluor's proposal as the best opportunity. How much could be trimmed is unknown, he said.

Meanwhile, DOE and EPA officials and HAB members noted many details still need to be tackled.

One major question focuses on Fluor wanting to begin preparation immediately to move the sludge and to fix T Plant to store it. There is no Hanford money allocated for this work in fiscal 2000 - and no one knows where DOE could dig up that cash, Loscoe said.

"We need to address the budget status and impacts - especially in the out years (of 2001 and beyond)," said HAB member Harold Heacock, who represents the Tri-City Industrial Development Council.

Another big unknown is the bits of nuclear fuel expected to flake and chip off into the pools as the fuel canisters are moved. That would contaminate the pools' sludges more than they are now and perhaps change the chemical composition of the sludge.

That poses questions about what extra measures need to be taken and what extra costs could surface.

This is expected to be a major problem in the K East Basin where the fuel containers are heavily corroded and are already falling apart.

Hanford plans to take its first good look at those questions this summer, Loscoe said.

This summer, 29 of the K West Basin's 3,800 fuel canisters will be moved underwater to a "washing machine" in the same pool. There, each canister is to be opened by remote control and the fuel inside agitated - like clothes in a washing machine - to knock radioactive chips and gunk off the rod-like fuel assemblies inside.

This is a step to make the canisters safer to remove from the pool. Loscoe hopes this summer's test will provide more information on how fuel movement will affect the sludge.

Another loose end is whether the Tri-Party Agreement deadlines should be changed to reflect a new K Basins schedule.

Sherwood and Loscoe so far are reluctant about doing that because of unforeseen pitfalls.

However, Sherwood said the EPA wants to approach DOE about negotiating an enforceable deadline in the Tri-Party Agreement on when T Plant should be ready to accept the sludge if DOE approves Fluor's proposal.

---

Water right may delay shuttle project at Hanford

Hanford News
March 13, 2000
By Chris Mulick Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2000/mar20.html

OLYMPIA - State officials believe the development of the next generation of space shuttles will be delayed by at least a year.

That's good news for those hoping a never-finished nuclear power plant at Hanford will play a role in the program. The state Department of Ecology says the site does not have a water right, a critical element for any development. And a delay in the project might just be what local interests need.

"That gives us time to work the water issue," said Ben Bennett, executive director of the Port of Benton.

Lockheed Martin is developing the spacecraft, called the VentureStar, and is looking for two possible space ports. Washington is pitching the Grant County Airport in Moses Lake. On the side, it believes the defunct Plant No. 1 could be used as an autoclave for the development of composite metal fuel tanks.

But Lockheed, bogged down as it tries to arrange for the launch of a half-scale prototype this year, is considering using aluminum tanks for that vessel. Still, nothing has been agreed to that would include or exclude the possibility of using Plant No. 1 should Washington's proposal be selected.

"Nothing has been said or even implied," said Bill King, director of aerospace programs for the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.

Already, a bill headed to Washington Gov. Gary Locke's desk would allow the site to be transferred from Energy Northwest to local governments. But a provision that would have allowed the transfer of the site's existing water right was taken from the bill.

That could effectively neutralize attempts to market the facility.

"It's a consensus that water is the critical item," said Dave Fraley, who manages the site for Energy Northwest. "It would be the kingpin of a site transfer."

Ecology sees two problems with transferring the water right. First, because the water right never has been used, it effectively would draw more water from the Columbia River than what already is being taken.

"We have significant endangered species issues there," said Ecology spokeswoman Mary Getchell.

Second, there may be no water right to transfer in the first place. The state requires the relinquishment of all water rights not used for five straight years.

"The water right they have isn't really in existence," Getchell said. "There isn't a right to be discussing."

Instead, Ecology may help local governments find a water right for the site. It also could get some water as part of a request by Richland, West Richland, Kennewick and Pasco for an additional water right for future growth.

Whatever happens, state and local officials say they'll need a water right in hand to offer a serious proposal to Lockheed. Otherwise, they'd be pitching something they didn't have, Bennett said.

"You don't ever do that in a proposal," he said.

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THE MAJOR CAUSE OF CANCER--PART 1

RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #691
March 16, 2000 erf@rachel.org
http://www.rachel.org
[Rachel's will be published next on April 13.]

When Wilhelm Roentgen first discovered X-rays, in 1895, "doctors and physicians saw the practical potential of X-rays at once, and rushed to experiment with them."[1,pg.7] Many physicians built their own X-ray equipment, with mixed results: some home-brew X-ray machines produced no radiation whatsoever, others produced enough to irradiate everyone in the next room.

The ability to see inside the human body for the first time was a marvelous, mysterious and deeply provocative discovery. Roentgen trained X-rays on his wife's hand for 15 minutes, producing a macabre image of the bones of her hand adorned by her wedding ring. Roentgen's biographer, Otto Glasser, says Mrs. Roentgen "could hardly believe that this bony hand was her own and shuddered at the thought that she was seeing her skeleton. To Mrs. Roentgen, as to many others later, this experience gave a vague premonition of death," Glasser wrote.[1,pg.4]

Within a year, by 1896, physicians were using X-rays for diagnosis and as a new way of gathering evidence to protect themselves against malpractice suits. Almost immediately -- during 1895-96 -- it also became clear that X-rays could cause serious medical problems. Some physicians received burns that wouldn't heal, requiring amputation of their fingers. Others developed fatal cancers.

At that time, antibiotics had not yet been discovered, so physicians had only a small number of treatments they could offer their patients; X-rays gave them a range of new procedures that were very "high tech" -- bordering on the miraculous -- and which seemed to hold out promise to the sick. Thus the medical world embraced these mysterious, invisible rays with great enthusiasm. Understandably, physicians at the time often thought they observed therapeutic benefits where controlled experiments today find none.

At that time -- just prior to 1920 -- the editor of AMERICAN X-RAY JOURNAL said "there are about 100 named diseases that yield favorably to X-ray treatment." In her informative history of the technology, MULTIPLE EXPOSURES; CHRONICLES OF THE RADIATION AGE, Catherine Caufield (see REHW #200, #201, #202), comments on this period: "Radiation treatment for benign [non-cancer] diseases became a medical craze that lasted for 40 or more years."[1,pg.15] "...[L]arge groups of people [were] needlessly irradiated for such minor problems as ringworm and acne.... Many women had their ovaries irradiated as a treatment for depression."[1,pg.15] Such uses of X-rays would today be viewed as quackery, but many of them were accepted medical practice into the 1950s. Physicians weren't the only ones enthusiastic about X-ray therapies. If you get a large enough dose of X-rays your hair falls out, so "beauty shops installed X-ray equipment to remove their customers' unwanted facial and body hair," Catherine Caufield reports.[1,pg.15]

Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895 led directly to Henri Becquerel's discovery of the radioactivity of uranium in 1896 and then to the discovery of radium by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898, for which Becquerel and the Curies were jointly awarded the Nobel prize in 1903. (Twenty years later Madame Curie would die of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.)

Soon radioactive radium was being prescribed by physicians alongside X-rays. Radium treatments were prescribed for heart trouble, impotence, ulcers, depression, arthritis, cancer, high blood pressure, blindness and tuberculosis, among other ailments. Soon radioactive toothpaste was being marketed, then radioactive skin cream. In Germany, chocolate bars containing radium were sold as a "rejuvenator."[1,pg.28] In the U.S, hundreds of thousands of people began drinking bottled water laced with radium, as a general elixir known popularly as "liquid sunshine." As recently as 1952 LIFE magazine wrote about the beneficial effects of inhaling radioactive radon gas in deep mines. Even today The Merry Widow Health Mine near Butte, Montana and the Sunshine Radon Health Mine nearby advertise that visitors to the mines report multiple benefits from inhaling radioactive radon,[2] even though numerous studies now indicate that the only demonstrable health effect of radon gas is lung cancer.

Thus the medical world and popular culture together embraced X-rays (and other radioactive emanations) as miraculous remedies, gifts to humanity from the foremost geniuses of an inventive age.

In the popular imagination, these technologies suffered a serious setback when atomic bombs were detonated over Japan in 1945. Even though the A-bombs arguably shortened WW II and saved American lives, John Hersey's description of the human devastation in HIROSHIMA forever imprinted the mushroom cloud in the popular mind as an omen of unutterable ruin. Despite substantial efforts to cast The Bomb in a positive light, radiation technology would never recover the luster it had gained before WW II.

Seven years after A-bombs were used in war, Dwight Eisenhower set the U.S. government on a new course, intended to show the world that nuclear weapons, radioactivity and radiation were not harbingers of death but were in fact powerful, benign servants offering almost-limitless benefits to humankind. The "Atoms for Peace" program was born, explicitly aimed at convincing Americans and the world that these new technologies were full of hope, and that nuclear power reactors should be developed with tax dollars to generate electricity. The promise of this newest technical advance seemed too good to be true -- electricity "too cheap to meter."[3]

The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 created the civilian Atomic Energy Commission but as a practical matter the nation's top military commanders maintained close control over the development of all nuclear technologies.[4]

Thus by a series of historical accidents, all of the major sources of ionizing radiation fell under the purview of people and institutions who had no reason to want to explore the early knowledge that radiation was harmful. In 1927, Hermann J. Muller had demonstrated that X-rays caused inheritable genetic damage, and he received a Nobel prize for his efforts. However, he had performed his experiments on fruit flies and it was easy, or at least convenient, to dismiss his findings as irrelevant to humans.

In sum, to physicians, radiation seemed a promising new therapy for treating nearly every ailment under the sun; for the military and the Joint Commmission on Atomic Energy in Congress it unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars, a veritable flood of taxpayer funds, most of which came with almost no oversight because of official secrecy surrounding weapons development; and for private-sector government contractors like Union Carbide, Monsanto Chemical Co., General Electric, Bechtel Corporation, DuPont, Martin Marietta and others -- it meant an opportunity to join the elite "military-industrial complex" whose growing political power President Eisenhower warned against in his final address to Congress in 1959.

Throughout the 1950s the military detonated A-bombs above-ground at the Nevada Test Site, showering downwind civilian populations with radioactivity.[5] At the Hanford Reservation in Washington state, technicians intentionally released huge clouds of radioactivity to see what would happen to the human populations thus exposed. In one Hanford experiment 500,000 Curies of radioactive iodine were released; iodine collects in the human thyroid gland. The victims of this experiment, mostly Native Americans, were not told about it for 45 years.[6,pg.96] American sailors on ships and soldiers on the ground were exposed to large doses of radioactivity just to see what would happen to them. The military brass insisted that being showered with radiation is harmless. In his autobiography, Karl Z. Morgan, who served as radiation safety director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Clinton, Tennessee) from 1944 to 1971, recalls that, "The Veterans Administration seems always on the defensive to make sure the victims are not compensated."[6,pg.101] Morgan recounts the story of John D. Smitherman, a Navy man who received large doses of radiation during A-bomb experiments on Bikini Atoll in 1946. Morgan writes, "The Veterans Administration denied any connection to radiation exposure until 1988, when it had awarded his widow benefits. By the time of his death, Smitherman's body was almost consumed by cancers of the lung, bronchial lymph nodes, diaphragm, spleen, pancreas, intestines, stomach, liver, and adrenal glands. In 1989, a year after it had awarded the benefits, the VA revoked them from Smitherman's widow."[6,pg.101]

Starting in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, thousands of uranium miners were told that breathing radon gas in the uranium mines of New Mexico was perfectly safe. Only now are the radon-caused lung cancers being tallied up, as the truth leaks out 50 years too late.

In retrospect, a kind of nuclear mania swept the industrial world. What biotechnology and high-tech computers are today, atomic technology was in the 1950s and early 1960s. Government contractors spent billions to develop a nuclear-powered airplane -- even though simple engineering calculations told them early in the project that such a plane would be too heavy to carry a useful cargo.[4,pg.204] Monsanto Research Corporation proposed a plutonium-powered coffee pot that would boil water for 100 years without a refueling.[4,pg.227] A Boston company proposed cufflinks made of radioactive uranium for the simple reason that uranium is heavier than lead and "the unusual weight prevents cuffs from riding up."[4,pg.227]

In 1957, the Atomic Energy Commission established its Plowshare Division -- named of course for the Biblical "swords into plowshares" phrasing in Isaiah (2:4).[4,pg.231] Our government and its industrial partners were determined to show the world that this technology was benign, no matter what the facts might be. On July 14, 1958, Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the H-bomb, arrived in Alaska to announce Project Chariot, a plan to carve a new harbor out of the Alaska coast by detonating up to six H-bombs. After a tremendous political fight -- documented in Dan O'Neill's book, THE FIRECRACKER BOYS[7] -- the plan was shelved. Another plan was developed to blast a new canal across Central America with atomic bombs, simply to give the U.S. some leverage in negotiating with Panama over control of the Panama Canal. That plan, too, was scrapped. In 1967, an A-bomb was detonated underground in New Mexico, to release natural gas trapped in shale rock formations. Trapped gas was in fact released, but -- as the project's engineers should have been able to predict -- the gas turned out to be radioactive so the hole in the ground was plugged and a bronze plaque in the desert is all that remains visible of Project Gasbuggy.[4,pg.236]

In sum, according to NEW YORK TIMES columnist H. Peter Metzger, the Atomic Energy Commission wasted billions of dollars on "crackpot schemes," all for the purpose of proving that nuclear technology is beneficial and not in any way harmful.[4,pg.237]

The Plowshare Division may have been a complete failure, but one lasting result emerged from all these efforts: A powerful culture of denial sunk deep roots into the heart of scientific and industrial America.

[To be continued April 13.]

Descriptor terms: radiation; nuclear weapons; nuclear power; x-rays; cancer; carcinogens; karl z. morgan; downwinders; nevada test site; hanford;

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

[1] Catherine Caufield, MULTIPLE EXPOSURES; CHRONICLES OF THE RADIATION AGE (New York: Harper & Row, 1989). ISBN 0-06-015900-6.

[2] Jim Robbins, "Camping Out in the Merry Widow Mine," HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Vol. 26, No. 12 (June 27, 1994), pgs. unknown. See http://www.hcn.org/1994/jun27/dir/reporters.html. And see http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/MTBASradon.html

[3] Arjun Makhijani and Scott Saleska, THE NUCLEAR POWER DECEPTION; U.S. NUCLEAR MYTHOLOGY FROM ELECTRICITY "TOO CHEAP TO METER" TO "INHERENTLY SAFE" REACTORS (New York: The Apex Press, 1999). ISBN 0-945257-75-9.

[4] H. Peter Metzger, THE ATOMIC ESTABLISHMENT (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972). ISBN 671-21351-2.

[5] Michael D'Antonio, ATOMIC HARVEST (New York: Crown Publishers, 1993). ISBN 0-517-58981-8. And: Chip Ward, Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West (New York: Verso, 1999). ISBN 1859847501.

[6] Karl Z. Morgan and Ken M. Peterson, THE ANGRY GENIE; ONE MAN'S WALK THROUGH THE NUCLEAR AGE (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999). ISBN 0-8061-3122-5.

[7] Dan O'Neill, THE FIRECRACKER BOYS (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994). ISBN 0-312-13416-9.