True Humanitarians

Wednesday, April 12, 2000; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/12/009l-041200-idx.html

Re the March 24 news story "Payment Set for Ex-Slaves of Nazi Regime":

I noticed that the slave laborers who failed to die in the Nazi concentration camps will be paid (up to) a whopping $7,500, while the lawyers who negotiated the settlement will be paid almost $100 million.

Could The Post publish the names of the lawyers and their firms, along with the fees collected by each, so that the world may properly thank them for their tireless humanitarian efforts?

MASON STEWART
Potomac

-------- activists

NPT Briefing Document available on WWW

Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 10:58:52 -0400
From: "Ross Wilcock" rwilcock@execulink.com

A 24 page (420KB) NPT Briefing Document has been produced and is now available on the PGS website - Abolition 2000 menu or at the address www.pgs.ca/pages/a2/npt2000.pdf It can be printed optionally as needed.

PGS is printing copies to be provided to each UN Mission and to NPT Conference participants.

With thanks to PGS, Canada and Abolition Coordinating Committee members for contributions and advice.

Ross Wilcock Rwilcock@web.net

-------- china

Radar Sale Dominates Jiang's Israel Visit

April 12, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-israel-.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - President Jiang Zemin began the first visit to Israel by a Chinese head of state on Wednesday amid strong signs that Israel would sell advanced radar to China despite U.S. opposition.

The Chinese leader's visit showcased Sino-Israeli ties that have burgeoned as Israel has sold tens of millions of dollars worth of military hardware to Beijing.

Upon his arrival, Jiang issued a statement saying that China was interested in playing a role in Middle East peacemaking.

``China stands ready to make unremitting efforts to facilitate this process for further progress and positive results,'' the statement said.

Jiang and Israeli President Ezer Weizman held talks at the president's house in Jerusalem and the two sides signed agreements on technology, agriculture and economic cooperation.

Jiang said his talks with Weizman on the peace process were held in a ``friendly, candid and sincere atmosphere.''

At a joint news conference, neither leader mentioned an Israeli deal to sell Beijing a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 plane modified with an advanced airborne warning and control system (AWACS), which has sounded alarm bells in Washington.

Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy indicated earlier that Israel would go through with the sale over the objections of the United States, its main ally. He said European countries were sure to offer competing systems if Israel kills the deal.

``We will not do anything that will shake or harm our relations with the United States. On the other hand, we cannot tell the Chinese now ... that a signature is not a signature,'' Levy told Israel radio.

The United States is concerned that China could use the AWACS against Taiwanese and U.S. fighters in the event of a military conflict and has pressed Israel to scrap the sale.

``We need (to find) the golden path between the interests of Israel and the United States. It is clear that Israel won't endanger the lives of American soldiers,'' Levy told reporters following the Jiang-Weizman meeting.

CLINTON TELLS BARAK OF U.S. CONCERNS

The sale of the plane, which state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries estimated has a $250 million price tag, came up in talks that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak held with President Clinton at the White House Tuesday.

``The president once again shared our concerns about the sale with the prime minister,'' a U.S. official said. ``(Barak) indicated that he understood our concerns and that we would be discussing that further.''

An Israeli official briefing reporters on Barak's plane from Washington Wednesday said Clinton told Barak the sale concerns members of Congress who have traditionally been friendly to Israel.

Barak told Clinton Israel has an obligation to China, an important country, so ``it's not simple,'' the official said.

Israel says Beijing has indicated it wants to buy at least two more AWACS, capable of logging 60 targets simultaneously and operating in a range of up to 250 miles.

China's military arsenal is based mainly on hardware from the former Soviet Union, and Beijing has looked to the Jewish state for the technology to improve existing weapons.

Israeli arms sales to China began years before the countries established diplomatic relations in 1992.

The Palestinian part of Jiang's trip is limited to a single day in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town of Bethlehem.

During his visit to Israel, Jiang will spend five days touring sites ranging from Israel's parliament to a collective farm near the Dead Sea.

--------

China to Resume Arms Talks With U.S.

WORLD IN BRIEF
Compiled by Virginia Hamill
Wednesday, April 12, 2000; Page A19 ASIA
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59873-2000Apr11.html

BEIJING--China said yesterday it is ready to resume talks with the United States on nuclear nonproliferation, ending a freeze imposed after U.S. planes bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last May.

The announcement came one day after China's expression of strong dissatisfaction with disciplinary actions the CIA took against seven employees involved in the attack and the U.S. conclusion that it was an accident caused by outdated information and human error. The CIA fired one intelligence officer and reprimanded six managers for errors the agency said led to the attack.

China suspended talks over nonproliferation and human rights soon after the May 7 bombing, which killed three Chinese citizens, injured more than 20 others and created a rift in U.S.-China relations. The willingness to restart nonproliferation discussions was seen as a sign that Beijing wants to restore bilateral relations despite its continuing demand for further investigation and explanation of the bombing.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said Chinese officials decided to resume talks after U.S. national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger pushed for a resumption of dialogue during a visit to China two weeks ago. "The Chinese side has already expressed agreement" to Berger's request, Sun said at a news conference. "The two sides are now making preparations through diplomatic channels."

(Cindy Sui)

--------

Chinese Purge Scholars They Accuse of 'Westernization'

By John Pomfret Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 12, 2000 ; A01
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58722-2000Apr11.html

BEIJING, April 11 -- The Internet posting of an essay by one of China's most prominent academics calling for political reform has prompted the Chinese government to undertake an old-fashioned purge of officials believed to support Western liberal values and privatization.

The campaign has so far resulted in the dismissal of four top academics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. And in what looks like a throwback to the political struggles of several decades ago, two attacks have been published against the officials, accusing them, without naming them, of "Westernization" and failure to follow Marxist tenets.

One of the attacks was a speech given April 2 by President Jiang Zemin and subsequently published in the People's Daily newspaper. The second was an editorial on April 3 in the Guangming Daily, which played a key role in the political campaigns of the Cultural Revolution 30 years ago, calling for study of Marxism as the basis for all "economic and other types of work."

The purge seems unusual in the China of 2000. Although authorities strike hard at any hint of political challenge--insisting on control over even such organizations as churches or the Falun Gong spiritual movement--the government itself has set in motion the social loosening and economic reform that targets of the current purge were championing.

But it is an indication of how threatened the Communist Party feels by the breathtaking changes that have occurred in China. Over the last two decades, for instance, 60 percent of industrial production has moved outside state-owned firms. It also is an example of Jiang's attempt to reembrace Marxism as a way to avoid the political reform that many in China feel should be the next step toward modernization.

Chinese sources said the recent campaign was kicked off after an essay by Li Shenzhi was posted anonymously on a Chinese Web site in December. Li, who was the first victim of the purge, is the retired vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the president of the China Society for American Studies and one of China's leading intellectuals. He once worked for the late premier Zhou Enlai.

Li's essay, "50 Years of Panic, Trials and Tribulations: Lonely Nighttime Thoughts on National Day," was a response to the triumphalism of China's Oct. 1 celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Communist state. In it, he opined that only North Korea would possibly be envious of the legions of goose-stepping soldiers and cherubic schoolchildren who filed through Tiananmen Square.

Li wrote that he was a young, idealistic Communist Party member of 26 when China held its first National Day, on Oct. 1, 1949. "I recalled being unable to put my feelings into words," Li wrote. "But one man succeeded. He was Hu Feng in a poem published over several days in the People's Daily. It was called 'Time has begun.' "

Li then wrote that a few years later, Hu was jailed for more than 20 years as the alleged chief of an anti-party clique. A few years later, Li was branded a "rightist" and sent to labor camps off and on for years.

Li's essay went through a litany of political campaigns--the anti-rightist campaign, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution--the Communist Party carried out over the years, stressing that its current concern for stability is curious given that the party has been China's leading cause of instability since 1949. But speaking openly about these tragedies is banned, he said.

"So living amidst lies, with no real theories, how are we supposed to reform?" Li asked.

Li's essay appeared on the Internet in December and since then has been sent by e-mail to thousands of Chinese. Sources said Li did not post it.

Chinese sources said that after Li's document appeared, Jiang responded by making a strong speech on Jan. 17, warning that Western powers were seeking to divide China. At Jiang's prompting, a decision was made to dismiss several liberal academics, including Li. Party investigators were told to justify the purge by labeling the group a "branch of opposition within the party," sources said.

In addition to Li, party investigators singled out Liu Junning, a professor at the academy's Political Science Research Institute, as a member of the "liberal political wing" of the group. Chinese sources said Liu was specifically criticized for meeting with Chinese dissidents during a trip to the United States last year. Officials within his research institute wrote reports about his "improper thoughts" to party authorities, sources said.

Liu's books have been both widely popular and routinely banned. In a 1998 essay, since banned, he attacked China's failure to provide its people with a modern political system.

"Perhaps Chinese people are very intelligent and wise, but the sad thing is for many years, very few people have taken this wisdom and intelligence and concentrated it on creation of an intelligent political system," he wrote.

Two of China's most famous economists, Mao Yushi and Fan Gang, were branded as members of the "liberal economic wing" of the group and dismissed from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as well. Mao and Fan, who now run consulting firms, have called on China to speed up economic reforms.

Li and Mao are retired but their dismissal from the academy bars them from publishing and teaching. For Fan and Liu, the sanctions also meant loss of their jobs at the academy.

To some Chinese, the campaign is a sign of what they say is an approaching crisis facing the Communist Party, a signal of its inability to change with the times. "It gives an air of the end of a dynasty," said one prominent intellectual. "We have so many problems-- corruption, strikes, farmer's unrest, education problems, infrastructure issues--and the party is worried about the Western thinking?"

To others it is an incongruous exercise that has so little to do with what is happening on China's streets as to almost be laughable. While Jiang inveighed against "Westernization," they point out, it is fast occurring in cities and towns all over China. Divorce rates are skyrocketing; pirated Hollywood movies are for sale on street corners in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu; bright children dream of studying in the United States, Canada, Australia or Europe.

While Jiang vowed that China will never embrace privatization, private business is by far the most vibrant part of the economy. Collectives, joint ventures with foreign companies and private enterprises produce more than half the country's industrial output. In addition, billions of dollars in state assets have been privatized in cities and towns throughout China.

Jiang also emphasized the importance of studying Marxism, a topic rarely brought up in casual conversation anymore. "Marx?" said a Beijing University student when asked about the campaign. "Yeah, we have to study him a little bit, but everybody reads magazines during that class."

But the purge reflects the party leadership's concern with keeping a tight hold on the political reins. As party elders such as Jiang jockey for influence in the run-up to the next major party congress in 2002, and younger officials seek to succeed them, the theme of political discourse is toughness, domestically and in foreign affairs.

However, the purge also underscores a problem for the Communist Party as it leads China into the 21st century. The party seems to fall back on old tools--purges, editorials and campaigns--to deal with new problems, such as the Internet and the role it is playing in creating space for public debate.

Last year, for instance, Jiang ordered a massive but traditional crackdown on the Falun Gong sect. That campaign, which continues today and has resulted in the jailing of thousands of practitioners, did nothing to deal with the root causes of Falun Gong's widespread popularity: a sense of spiritual vacuum following the collapse of a Communist value system that had been imposed by the state.

-------- columbia

Colombia to use U.S. drug aid to fight rightist guerrillas, too

April 12, 2000
By Ben Barber and Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-2000412221041.htm

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Colombian President Andres Pastrana said yesterday that a proposed $1.6 billion U.S. drug package would fight paramilitary death squads as well as communist guerrillas in the Andean nation.

The U.S. aid, now pending in Congress, would include dozens of Black Hawk helicopters and other military assistance to help Colombia's government win back some of the more than 30 percent of the country held by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia known by the Spanish acronym FARC.

The regions under FARC control, mostly in southern Colombia, supply most of the cocaine and much of the heroin flowing into the United States.

Mr. Pastrana and Mrs. Albright told reporters at the State Department the aid will also be turned against the rightist paramilitary squads, who also protect the cocaine and heroin trade.

Mr. Pastrana said the U.S. aid would be invested "in the north and the south, the east and the west."

"We don't want to fracture the country." Mrs. Albright concurred. "The paramilitaries are part of the problem, not part of the solution."

For years the Colombian military has allowed paramilitary groups to operate with impunity. So long as they fight guerrillas, authorities tend to look the other way as paramilitaries murder and terrorize suspected rebel sympathizers.

The administration's new military aid package, which the House has passed but is stalled in the Senate, will provide help to anti-drug police and army units that protect police from the heavily armed FARC, Mrs. Albright said.

Those army units must be vetted to be sure they do not include officers who commit human rights abuses - a U.S. legal precondition for American aid.

Separately, the U.S. drug policy chief, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, said yesterday that the paramilitaries have decided to kill Mr. Pastrana in revenge for his efforts to rein in their operations, long believed sanctioned by the Colombian army.

"The paramilitary forces responded with an assassination plot to kill President Pastrana," Gen. McCaffrey told journalists after meeting with the Colombian president.

"There is no question that the so-called paramilitary . . . may be the most vicious and violent group in Colombia today," he said, adding that the rightist fighters had recently stepped up their campaign against leftist guerrillas operating in the country.

They are trying to "regain control of their illegal commerce and also terrorizing innocent civilians," Gen. McCaffrey said.

Gen. McCaffrey said he was assured by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, of Mr. Lott's "absolute support for the [Colombia aid] bill and the purpose of the bill."

Gen. McCaffrey said the proposed $1.6 billion aid package will protect the United States, where drugs "kill 52,000 Americans a year."

"We are calling upon Congress to support this plan, which we now have in front of Congress," he said.

The aid plan will also deal with some root causes of Colombia's political and drug problems, he said.

A senior Colombian official recently told The Washington Times that no health care is provided to much of the rural population.

It is those people who have fallen under the sway of the guerrillas or the paramilitaries, often sensing they owe little allegiance to the government in Bogota, the official said.

Mr. Pastrana said the U.S. aid, along with billions more he hopes to raise in Europe and from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, would go "not just to fight drugs but for health, structural reforms, strengthening institutions, human rights" and other social purposes.

-------- imf

Protests Vs. IMF, World Bank Held

Wednesday April 12 2:26 AM ET
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000412/bs/world_finance_protest_10.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - Protesters with grievances against global capitalism are turning their attacks on one of the top priorities of the Clinton administration, granting China permanent normal trade relations.

The AFL-CIO, which is leading the charge against the China legislation, was hoping to attract 10,000 demonstrators to the U.S. Capitol today for a rally aimed at showing labor's strong opposition to the measure.

``We will tell members of Congress: 'No blank check for China,' a country that has violated every trade agreement it has signed with the United States in the past 10 years and continues its repudiation of human rights in China,'' said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

However, business groups lobbying heavily in support of permanent trade relations, were mounting a counteroffensive with newspaper and radio ads hoping to sway lawmakers to their view that the United States will benefit from greatly increased access to China's huge market if Congress scraps its annual review of China's trade privileges.

``Out ads point out the truth about trade with China. Free trade will bring greater opportunity for American workers and farmers,'' said U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.

The China protest was one of a weeklong series of events anti-globalization forces are staging around the spring meetings of the 182-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The IMF preliminary sessions were to get under way today with release of the institution's updated world economic outlook.

Acting IMF Managing Director Stanley Fischer told reporters last week that the outlook would depict a world economy that looks ``much stronger than we would have dared predict'' a year ago, as many countries were struggling to pull out of the 1997-98 global currency crisis.

Fischer said IMF would predict in its new forecast that global output will rise by more than 4 percent this year.

The protest activities are being coordinated by a coalition called the Mobilization for Global Justice, composed of many of the same groups that successfully disrupted meetings last December of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, forcing authorities to declare a state of emergency and call out the National Guard.

The protest groups are hoping to use human chains and other tactics employed in Seattle to block intersections on Sunday and keep finance ministers from attending the opening IMF sessions.

But District of Columbia Police, backed up by federal authorities, have studied tapes of the Seattle demonstrations and hope to avoid the mistakes of authorities there.

Police on Tuesday kept a watchful eye as several dozen demonstrators marched from the U.S. Capitol to the World Bank in an ``Economic Way of Cross'' to demand debt relief for the world's poorest countries.

The demonstrators carried white crosses with the names of countries and the amounts of their foreign debt burden.

Both the IMF and World Bank, under pressure from the United States and other rich donor countries, have instituted programs to forgive a greater portion of the debt of the world's 40 poorest nations, but the demonstrators contend that the effort has so far provided too little in the way of debt relief.

A separate small band of protesters marched from the residence of the Colombian ambassador to the United States to a local office of the giant mutual fund company Fidelity Investments to protest international support for Colombia as the country's president, Andres Pastrana, arrived in Washington for an official visit.

The protesters targeted Fidelity because of its ownership of stock in Occidental Petroleum, which is locked in a standoff with a native Indian tribe in Colombia over oil drilling rights.

Police said there were no arrests made at either protest. Seven demonstrators had been arrested on Monday outside of the World Bank building. Police said five were blocking traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue and two others were arrested trying to scale the building to drape a protest banner.

----

Cops clamp down as protests rise

April 12, 2000
By Clarence Williams
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/default-2000412222915.htm

Metropolitan Police yesterday stepped up security measures as activists stepped up protests against international financial agencies meeting here next week.

Police officers took positions on bridges spanning the Potomac River and at key city buildings, including city hall, where officers carefully checked identification cards.

Meanwhile, about 50 demonstrators yesterday morning marched from their warehouse headquarters on Florida Avenue NW to join 100 others in a protest at the Colombian Embassy.

They accused Colombian President Andres Pastrana, who arrived in Washington this week, of using U.S. aid to augment his army.

Moreover, the activists said U.S. corporations would profit from Colombian oil-drilling rights at the expense of the environment.

"We want our dollars to support the peace process in Colombia," said Stephen Kretzmann of Amazon Watch, one of several groups protesting this week as a part of the Mobilization for Global Justice.

The protesters' so-called "Days of Action" demonstrations will continue this week and culminate Sunday and Monday, when as many as 10,000 activists will use "large-scale, nonviolent direct action" in an attempt to shut down scheduled meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Streets around the World Bank and the IMF - 19th Street NW between G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and H Street NW between 18th and 20th streets - remained closed yesterday. Police on Tuesday closed the streets until further notice.

Police plan to expand the street closings to 19th and I streets NW and to H and 17th streets NW.

Only pedestrians and authorized vehicles will be allowed in the area. No pedestrians will be allowed in front of the World Bank or IMF buildings. Police yesterday checked the identifications of pedestrians at the buildings.

D.C. police made no arrests yesterday, said Metropolitan Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile.

Yesterday's protests outside the Colombian Embassy focused on a bill before the Senate that would give more than $1 billion in aid to the South American nation.

Mr. Kretzmann said the aid package would benefit only the Colombian military and Occidental Petroleum, a U.S. corporation in a battle for oil-drilling rights against the U'wa indigenous tribe.

"The general theme is human rights, not corporate wrongs," Mr. Kretzmann said, as protesters prepared their march down Florida and Connecticut avenues and 20th and U streets - taking up one lane of traffic, with two-thirds of the District's police cruisers in tow.

Police wearing helmets stood on one side of 20th Street NW near the IMF as a lone officer videotaped the protest. Demonstrators stood across the street holding signs and with bandannas across their faces.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Mr. Pastrana said yesterday the aid package would be used to fight paramilitary death squads as well as communist guerrillas.

The administration's new military aid package, which the House has passed but is stalled in the Senate, will provide help to anti-drug police and army units that protect police from the heavily armed Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said Mrs. Albright.

About 100 activists with Jubilee 2000/USA and other groups peacefully protested in front of the World Bank yesterday afternoon with white crosses.

"We were kneeling and sitting here, and then the metal rails went up," said John Mateyko, regional coordinator for Witness For Peace. "We took that as their answer to our request to talk to the president of the bank."

A rally is planned at midday today at the U.S. Capitol to stop the expansion of the World Trade Organization and to lobby Congress to "Keep China on Probation."

U.S. Capitol Police are expecting about 15,000 to gather at the West Front of the Capitol, which could hinder noon traffic around Capitol Hill.

Several thousand Teamsters with semis will rally against the WTO on the north side of the Capitol today at 11 a.m. At noon, the AFL-CIO will rally to oppose normal trade relations with China on the west side of the Capitol.

Groups opposing the World Bank and IMF represent a variety of causes: the environment, labor, human rights, peace, anti-global capitalism and debt-reduction for poor nations.

Demonstration organizers have met with police officials and assured them their activities will be peaceful, but police are concerned that "fringe groups" may cause disruptions.

Protest targets in Washington include the World Bank and IMF buildings, the White House, Capitol Hill, the State Department and the Treasury Department.

Activists said they would use tactics like human barricades and sit-ins to prevent delegates from reaching the meetings, much like the protests last year in Seattle during WTO meetings. Those protests erupted into violence; more than 580 people were arrested and more than $10 million worth of property was destroyed.

D.C. police officials have said they wouldn't be overwhelmed like Seattle police, who imposed a curfew and broke up protests with clubs, rubber bullets and tear gas. Hundreds of Seattle police, 200 National Guard troops and 600 state troopers were needed to restore order after rioting erupted.

The protests provide a test for local police officials, who said they have learned the lessons of the Seattle riots. Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper resigned in December, taking full responsibility for the violence that disrupted the WTO meeting.

Extra security was in place yesterday at One Judiciary Square, the District's city hall at Third Street and Indiana Avenue NW, with extra police protection and increased security checks of everyone entering the building. Everyone was required to show identification cards before being allowed into the building.

"They were checking everyone's ID and belongings. There were about 30 police cars on Third Street, but there was not a protester in sight," said a D.C. Council staffer. "I don't know if there was a threat or not. Maybe they were afraid someone would throw some goat blood or something."

A police source said they had a rumor the IMF demonstrators were going to protest, but no one showed up.

"Why would they go to the mayor's office? He has nothing to with that," the police source said.

• Ben Barber, Jim Keary and John Drake contributed to this report.

----

The Business of Demonstrators As Protests Begin, Some Batten Down, While Others See Customers Coming

By David Montgomery and Linda Wheeler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 12, 2000; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/12/085l-041200-idx.html

A scattering of small, peaceful protests popped up across the city yesterday, while the impact of planned demonstrations against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund was being felt downtown.

Some offices announced plans to close, and some building owners began boarding up windows while Metro rerouted bus lines in Foggy Bottom to skirt streets closed by police. Other establishments figured the demonstrations might be good for business and planned to stay open.

Standing just inside Kinkead's restaurant, at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave., assistant general manager George Ronetz pointed to his left, then his right, saying, "The World Bank is there, the IMF is over there, and we're right in the middle of the battleground." The restaurant plans to close Sunday and Monday.

But Freddi Szilagi, general manager of Tower Records, said: "We're kind of treating it like snow. . . . We're going to see what happens. Barring molotov cocktails thrown at us or windows being smashed, it might be a good business opportunity."

He said the protesters may have a point about global capitalism, but "we're just hoping they don't see us as another corporate leeching organization."

The quiet and sometimes prayerful gatherings at the Capitol, Dupont Circle and outside the World Bank all focused on aspects of the global economy, which protesters say is rigged against poor families and workers. The protesters' busy daily schedule--published on the Internet--also included a noon rally at One Judiciary Square in support of poor D.C. renters facing eviction.

The longest rally wound from the Capitol to the World Bank building. "The message has to be heard," said Sharon Delgado, 51, a United Methodist pastor from Santa Cruz, Calif., who helped lead a group carrying white crosses bearing the names of impoverished countries and the amount of debt they owe Western creditors. "I am prepared to do whatever it takes peacefully."

Acting on advice from police, some Foggy Bottom establishments were battening down as if for a storm.

Workers bolted hard plastic shields outside the windows of George Washington University's law school, across the street from the IMF. The windows of another campus building were plastered with large X's made of silver duct tape to prevent any shattered glass from flying.

The decision by Kinkead's to close Sunday and Monday will cost about $45,000 in sales. But Ronetz said he didn't fear violence by the protesters. Rather, he said, police are strongly urging people to stay away and customers will be deterred.

"I think the demonstrators have a good cause," Ronetz added, though he also praised police precautions. "It's just too bad businesses have to suffer."

Police also have asked businesses to consider shutting down, and thousands of office workers were being told not to come to work Monday. Some will have Friday off as well.

Potomac Electric Power Co. will close its headquarters at Pennsylvania Avenue and 20th Street NW Friday through Monday, idling more than 1,100 employees, except for an undetermined number of essential personnel who will work out of other locations.

Kaiser Permanente will close its eight-story West End clinic in the 2100 block of Pennsylvania Avenue Saturday through Monday. Employees will be reassigned to other clinics. Patients with appointments or those needing urgent care should call the medical appointment desk to be rescheduled or referred to another clinic, said spokeswoman Susan Simon.

"It probably isn't the place you want sick people coming anyway," she said.

Thousands more employees will have days off, including the staff of one of the city's largest private employers, George Washington University, which will be closed Saturday through Monday, as well as employees at the World Bank and IMF not involved in the spring meetings that are the objects of protest.

Then there are numerous small offices, such as that of Howard Osterman, a podiatrist, in the 1700 block of I Street NW, who is closing Monday, a day that he had 30 appointments scheduled. "I love working in D.C., and this goes with the territory: demonstrations and free speech," he said. "It is part of the charm of working in the District."

To encourage caution, if not closure, police and landlords are showing merchants video clips of some of the unruly action during the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in the fall, which inspired the Washington demonstrations. A small faction of Seattle demonstrators resorted to vandalism.

John Faison, general manager of T.G.I. Friday's, said his landlord showed him scenes of demonstrators throwing patio furniture through plate-glass windows. He's planning to bring all his furniture inside by the weekend.

But he isn't closing the restaurant. He pointed to the 50 or 60 police officers having a lunch break yesterday afternoon. He expects a lot of police business for the duration of the protests. "When 50 leave, 60 more come in," he said. "So we feel very secure."

Nearby streets that were closed Monday by police, though, forced Metrobus to reroute six bus lines, including the 80 and S1. Potomac and Rappahannock Transit Commission routes C, D, L and M also were rerouted. The detours are expected to remain in effect at least through Monday, or until the roads are reopened.

Metro plans to keep all subway stations open and is preparing for crowds at the four stations closest to the IMF headquarters: Foggy Bottom, Farragut West, Farragut North and McPherson Square. Transit officials will enforce rules against carrying large items, such as coolers or signs affixed to sticks.

Sunday poses a tricky problem for the Rev. H. Donald Smith, senior pastor of the United Church at 1920 G St. NW, close to the IMF.

Even though it is Palm Sunday, the church will be closed. Services will be held instead at a church on River Road NW.

"It's a little bit inconvenient," he said. "But these are the kinds of issues we like to see surfaced and talked about."

Members of religious groups took part in one of the largest displays yesterday, with the white crosses. About 100 people gathered on the steps of the Capitol at noon and took up the crosses. The group called for the cancellation of debt owed by poor countries to the bank and the IMF.

Leaving the Capitol, the group made 14 stops, fashioned after traditional Roman Catholic stations of the cross, at federal agencies. At each stop, prayers were read referring to the role of the particular agencies.

The procession ended at the bank and the IMF, where some demonstrators had hoped to be able to trespass and be arrested, but they could not draw near because police had blocked surrounding streets.

They also were not allowed to take a statement inside to bank President James D. Wolfensohn, but his assistant came outside and offered to schedule an appointment.

Marie Dennis, a leader of the group, had told those gathered at the Capitol, "We can taste the unending drudgery, and we know that its institutional roots are painfully close to home."

Washington resident Chris Girardi was out for a run yesterday when he ran into protesters walking and praying their way up Pennsylvania Avenue. After pausing to read a handout, he dumped the exercise plan, picked up a 50-pound white cross that was offered him and led the line of marchers for the rest of the day.

Girardi, 21, was on a day off from his clerking job at a Georgetown clothing store. He didn't know there would be a protest yesterday, he said, and when he picked up the cross he was brand-new to protesting.

"I read the Bible, and the Bible talks about righteousness," he said. "This day was the right day for me to do the right thing."

Staff writers Lyndsey Layton, Sylvia Moreno and Arthur Santana contributed to this report.

Security Measures Increase

A number of streets around the World Bank building have been shut down until further notice in response to this week's protests of the bank and the International Monetary Fund. In addition, the Postal Service has removed 69 mailboxes from the surrounding area until April 18, to prevent anyone from planting a bomb within blocks of the two buildings.

----

IMF releases report amid D.C. protests

04/12/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed03.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The world economy, after being staggered by a global financial crisis, regained its footing in 1999 and will grow this year at the fastest pace in more than a decade, the International Monetary Fund forecast Wednesday.

But the IMF also cautioned that a sudden plunge in the U.S. stock market and a ''hard landing'' for the U.S. economy is one of the leading risks to its forecast.

The release of the IMF's economic outlook marked the start of several days of preliminary events leading to the formal opening of the IMF and World Bank's spring meetings Sunday. Thousands of protesters are already moving into Washington to air a variety of complaints against the bank, the IMF and U.S. trade relations with China.

The IMF, which had been forced by the 1997-98 currency crisis to consistently lower its forecasts, said it is now in the pleasant position of boosting its estimates, largely because of the continued unexpected strength in the United States.

The IMF predicted that global output will expand by a strong 4.2% this year, the best showing since 1988, with growth continuing at a still-strong 3.9% in 2001.

The IMF also revised upward its estimate for how much output increased last year, now saying the global economy expanded by 3.3%. That is up sharply from the 2.5% increase of 1998, when the currency crisis that began in Asia was spreading to Russia and Latin America and posing a real risk of a global recession.

''The picture for global growth is a strong and quite positive one for the year 2000 and beyond,'' Michael Mussa, the IMF's chief economist, told reporters at a briefing.

But Mussa said that there are downside risks, particularly that the United States, the world's largest economy, will grow more strongly than expected in coming months, forcing the Federal Reserve to move so aggressively to increase interest rates that it could push the United States into a mild recession starting in 2001.

The IMF also mentioned threats from a sudden plunge in the U.S. stock market that would shake consumer confidence and the country's huge and growing trade deficit.

''There are important risks going forward,'' Mussa told reporters. He stressed that the IMF believes the most likely outcome is not a ''hard landing'' and recession in the United States but a ''soft landing'' in which the Fed, which has already boosted interest rates five times in less than a year is successful in slowing the economy to a more sustainable pace that keeps inflation under control.

Anti-globalization groups, hoping to repeat the success they had in disrupting the World Trade Organization meetings last year in Seattle, are staging their own preliminary events, including a protest rally at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday where the AFL-CIO hoped to attract 10,000 demonstrators against one of the Clinton administration's top priorities, granting China permanent normal trade relations.

Thousands of union members have rallied at the Capitol and lobbied lawmakers to protest a bill that would give permanent normal trade status to China instead of annual reviews.

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa told some 5,000 cheering demonstrators that corporations supporting the deal have lost their ''moral compass,'' and pledged to mobilize union members ''to keep jobs in this country.''

Speakers ranged from Rep. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an independent liberal, to conservative Reform Party presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan. Chinese dissident Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in prison in China, also spoke as did Joylyn Billy, a Teamster whose Mr. Coffee plant in Glenwillow, Ohio, is to close next month with jobs moving to Mexico.

''We will tell members of Congress: 'no blank check for China,' a country that has violated every trade agreement it has signed with the United States in the past 10 years and continues its repudiation of human rights in China,'' said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.

Demonstrators have pledged to strike unexpectedly throughout the week to try to make their points against global capitalism. Wednesday, one of the targets was The Washington Post.

At selected newspaper boxes, people got something extra with their daily paper, a one-page parody called The Washington Lost that was wrapped around the regular newspaper. It featured a photo of former IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus getting hit with a pie in the face and headlines such as ''Besieged IMF Plans Meaningless Cosmetic Changes; Ad Campaign, Jingle Unveiled.''

A building near the World Bank-IMF headquarters was evacuated Wednesday because of a car fire in a basement garage. A District of Columbia fire spokesman said it appeared to be accidental. Police were stationed along the bridges bringing traffic from suburban Virginia into the capital to prevent any effort to slow or block the traffic.

The protest activities are being coordinated by a coalition called the Mobilization for Global Justice, composed of many of the same groups that successfully disrupted meetings last December of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, forcing authorities to declare a state of emergency and call out the National Guard.

The protest groups are hoping to use human chains and other tactics employed in Seattle to block intersections on Sunday and keep finance ministers from attending the opening IMF sessions.

But District of Columbia Police, backed up by federal authorities, have studied tapes of the Seattle demonstrations and hope to avoid the mistakes of authorities there.

--------

Protesters don't want global democracy

04/12/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/ncguest1.htm
By Lester C. Thurow

Week-long protests are under way in Washington against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). If all goes well - at least, by the activists' standards - the demonstrations will culminate in a massive protest rally Sunday as world finance ministers gather in downtown Washington for the spring meetings of the two financial institutions.

Now is the right time to think about the forces these demonstrators represent.

Anything radically new always creates fear. In this case the new is globalization.

Better communications and transportation technologies are in the process of dissolving national economies and replacing them with a global economy. This is not occurring because governments or citizens want it to happen. It is happening because business firms can make a lot of money by searching the world for the cheapest places to make their products and the most profitable places to sell their products.

In the rest of the world, globalization is often seen as a dangerous invasion of traditional American culture and business practices. It isn't. It is the creation of a new set of global practices, much of it made in the United States, but just as strange and alienating to many Americans as it is to many of those outside of the United States.

That is why both those Americans who protested against the World Trade Organization (WTO) last year in Seattle and those who are in Washington now are so upset. Decisions that directly affect their lives are being made outside of the United States and without reference to what they would like. Their traditional practices are being uprooted just as much as those in France, which is home to the most vocal objectors to the exportation of those "American" practices.

Globalization is similar to what happened a century ago when electricity and the things that went with it (the telegraph, the telephone, the radio) replaced the local-regional economies that had existed in America with a new national economy. The difference then, of course, is that we already had a democratically elected national government standing by to step in to regulate this new national economy. Today, there is no democratically elected global government ready to regulate this new global economy. Not only does it not exist, but also national governments oppose its creation.

National governments do not want to give up their power to control to some higher authority. But at the same time, they are gradually losing their controlling powers to a global economy. If a company does not like the regulations of some specific country, for example, it simply moves out and services that market from an offshore production base. The largest drug company in the United Kingdom recently promised to do so if the U.K. did not change some of its attitudes regarding genetically modified drugs.

If a global democracy were to be organized, most of the world's citizens would probably vote against it. Very few are willing to live in a world where 6 billion people get to vote and their own ethnic group is just a small minority.

But some regulation is necessary. Global capitalism requires rules about property rights (intellectual and otherwise), the enforcement of contracts, equal access to markets and a host of other issues. Concerns about the environment, human rights and labor standards are so intertwined with global economic rules and regulations that no one can separate them.

It is not possible to say that the WTO should handle global trade while some other agency (usually left unspecified) handles these other legitimate concerns. The WTO, the IMF and the World Bank are not global organizations. They are international organizations, creatures of the national governments that created them. If they want to implement their policies, they have to ask local governments to enforce their rules and regulations. They have no powers independent of those national governments. But today we are using these international organizations to make decisions that logically ought to be made by a democratic global government that could enforce its decisions without reference to national governments.

The situation raises lots of anxiety and fear. Steelworkers don't like the idea that an Asian financial crisis and the IMF's imposed austerity policies can cost them their jobs. For many Americans, something isn't working right when the inflation-corrected wages of the median male full-time full-year worker go down 3% from 1989 to 1998 (the last year for which we now have data) despite a booming American economy.

The WTO makes decisions that make it impossible for those who love dolphins to protect them (Mexican tuna captured in nets that kill dolphins cannot be kept out of the U.S. market). The WTO makes decisions that make it difficult for those who wish to stop child labor or those who wish to enforce labor safety standards to do so. In the WTO's view, those aren't legitimate concerns for negotiations. Yet if safety standards aren't enforced abroad, they cannot be enforced at home without risking American jobs.

Put simply and bluntly, global trade looks as if it is starting a race to the bottom as far as these other issues are concerned.

The fears and anxieties of many Americans aren't imaginary. Yet while the demonstrators in Seattle and Washington talk about democracy, or the lack of democracy, in the decision-making at the WTO, the IMF or the World Bank, they don't really believe in global democracy. The United States has less than 0.3 billion of the 6 billion people in the world. A global democracy would not be an American-dominated democracy. Instead, Americans would be a small minority.

What they want is "stop the world, I want to get off" - but that is the one thing they cannot have.

The tide of globalization is rolling in. Whatever the fears of drowning in the deluge, everyone has to learn to cope with it.

Lester C. Thurow, a professor of economics and former dean of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

-------- April 12, 2000

U.S. Labor on Offensive Against China Trade Deal

By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/12cnd-wto-china.html

WASHINGTON, April 12 -- Worried that doing business with China will crowd American workers out of the global economy, thousands of union men and women flocked to Capitol Hill today to condemn the idea of normal trade relations with Beijing.

"Don't give China a blank check" was one of the more popular slogans of the day, appearing on many signs carried by steelworkers, auto workers, government workers, teachers and others who congregated on a sunny but brisk day.

Full-trade status with China would allow that country's goods to come into the United States as do goods from many other countries: without high tariffs. In return, China would be obliged to open its markets to a multitude of American goods.

But as he rallied his troops, Teamsters President James Hoffa sneered at the notion that China can be trusted.

"As long as they imprison Chinese labor leaders, we say no to this agreement," he said. "Let's keep China on probation. They've got blood on their hands."

Michael Kozikowski, a 48-year-old millwright at a Saturn plant in Wilmington, Del., agreed. "We think it downright stinks," he said.

"They're taking our highly skilled, highly paid jobs and moving them to countries where they can take advantage of a low-skilled, low-paid work force."

But not everyone was concerned about strictly bread-and-butter issues.

"We're worried that we won't be able to impose protection on animals, because it will be considered a trade barrier," said Carrie Reulbach, 25, who was dressed as a sea turtle. "No matter what animal is traded, we can't protect the species the way we want to."

The union leaders and their followers hoped to pressure the very lawmakers who do the people's business in the sprawling complex behind them. Two Democratic members of Congress were scheduled to speak: Representatives David Bonior of Michigan and Nancy Pelosi of California.

"Free traders are traitors," one sign read.

"Hell no W.T.O.," read a T-shirt, a reference to the World Trade Organization, whose meeting in Seattle last year spawned violent protests. China's entry into the W.T.O. is vehemently opposed by the people who protested at the Capitol today.The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, two other symbols of the worldwide economy, have also been the targets of protests in Washington this week.

At the Capitol today, the union sympathizers were cheerful and smiling, photographing one another like ordinary tourists, using the gleaming Capitol dome and the Washington Monument as backdrops. Capitol police officers chatted affably with the protesters and had to use their authority only to shoo jaywalkers back to safety or chase picture-takers off perilous perches.

"We're here to help their exercise their First Amendment rights," one sergeant said without sarcasm.

Those rights were invoked today by union leaders and members of the rank-and-file who fear that normalizing trade relations with China, as the Clinton administration would like to do, would cost the United States jobs and self-respect. Among other things, the demonstrators said, the Chinese would flood American markets with cheap goods turned out by prison laborers and exploited workers toiling for next to nothing.

Rally organizers had hoped for a crowd of 15,000. It was difficult to get a good estimate on the vast Capitol grounds as people came and went, chanting union slogans, but there were enough people to fill a small stadium.

For all the anger and anxiety vented today, anyone with a sense of history could find reasons to take heart. The unions' cause drew men and women, young and old, workers of light skin and dark skin -- in other words, people not always united beneath the same banner in years past.

But there was poignancy as well in the chill air, as personified by Mike Orange, a steelworker from Grove City, Pa. A trustee of his union local, Mr. Orange has been making and shaping steel for 44 years.

Now, his working days are winding down, and maybe it's just as well, he said. The plant where he's worked all these years is a lot quieter than it was in the old days, thanks to spin-offs and downsizing and other features of the new economy.

"When I started there, it had about 2,400 workers," he reminisced.

And now? "About 25."

--------

Unions to Hit the Street in Washington

April 12, 2000
By JOSEPH KAHN with STEVEN GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/041200imf-union-rally.html

WASHINGTON, April 11 -- American labor unions, worried that the world economy is destroying many good jobs, are descending on Washington to mount street demonstrations against a China trade bill and to lend support to students, environmentalists and religious groups protesting globalization.

The aggressive effort comes as labor's leadership has hardened its opposition to liberalized trade, and its ties with the Clinton administration have frayed. President Clinton's trade policies have done serious damage to American workers, they argue, adding that all new trade initiatives should be rejected unless they seek to improve working conditions around the world.

Capitalizing on last year's anti-trade demonstrations in Seattle, union leaders have also forged alliances with some environmental and student groups gathered this week in Washington to protest against actions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The "blue-green" alliance is unusual for labor, which until five years ago largely avoided ties with such groups.

The labor campaign kicks off on Wednesday with a rally on Capitol Hill and will continue in Washington and key Congressional districts during the next 10 days.

Labor pressure has also caused problems for Vice President Al Gore, the likely Democratic nominee for president. Mr. Gore, who has long supported free trade initiatives, has tiptoed around the China trade measure because of unexpectedly strong labor opposition. Mr. Gore won an early endorsement for his presidential candidacy from unions this year, and has told union leaders that he would take a different approach to trade than Mr. Clinton.

The Clinton administration is asking Congress to extend permanent trade ties to China, a step that would allow United States companies to benefit fully from market-opening measures China agreed to take as the price of admission to the World Trade Organization. Unlike some other trade deals that labor unions have opposed, this one does not require the United States to open its market wider to foreign-made products.

Many analysts say that the China measure could help close American's gaping trade deficit with that nation by allowing companies to export more goods there, a situation that would presumably be good for American workers. Separately, union officials are opposing another Clinton administration trade initiative that would grant lower tariffs to many of the poorest African countries, a measure that has support from many Democrats.

Union officials insist that they have not become knee-jerk protectionists, a reputation they worked hard to shed in recent years. But they do say that they are now opposed to trade accords unless they raise labor standards in foreign nations. That stance leaves them in opposition to almost all trade liberalization measures around the world these days.

Some union officials now even argue that increased export opportunities are ultimately bad for American workers because multinational companies exploit every market opening to shift union jobs to less heavily regulated nations.

Unions are taking out advertisements this week citing a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a union-oriented policy group, that predicts hundreds of thousands of job losses even if China joins the World Trade Organization and American companies get new export and investment benefits. Clinton administration officials call those predictions baseless.

"Globalization works only for multinationals, not for workers," said George Becker, president of the United Steelworkers of America and one of the most active labor leaders in rallying workers against China trade. "The main reason companies are interested in the China market is the repressed labor and low environmental standards there."

Mr. Becker said that many unions, especially since the Seattle demonstrations, have found common cause with some nongovernment organizations and college students who want to rewrite he rules of globalization to protect the environment, upgrade labor standards and alleviate poverty abroad.

"We are not traditional allies," Mr. Becker said. "But when I saw those kids in Seattle who knew that something was wrong in the world, I knew we should stand together in the trenches."

Mr. Becker, whose union is based in Pittsburgh, said he is staying in Washington through Sunday so that he can speak at an rally against the World Bank and I.M.F. that day. John J. Sweeney, president of A.F.L.-C.I.O. umbrella union, spoke at a rally in favor of forgiving third world debt last Sunday and announced an alliance with the Sierra Club, an environmental group, on Monday.

The United Auto Workers, the International Association of Machinists, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have are also busing in members for the rally and lobbying effort against China trade, which may draw 20,000 protesters. Many say some of their members will stay on through the weekend to join the protest against the financial institutions.

Labor's broad campaign against 1990's-style globalization is deeply worrying for Democrats. Labor is perhaps the party's single most active political constituency. Its heavy lobbying effort against the China trade measure has split the party and hindered its efforts to present a moderate, united front in this year's presidential elections. Especially in seeking money and votes from high-tech workers, Democrats are eager to present an internationalist image, not a protectionist one.

"It puts Democrats in a tough position because they have to break ranks with a key constituency or risk hurting our leadership on an important issue," said Representative Calvin M. Dooley, a California Democrat who is among a minority of his party's caucus in the expected to vote in favor of permanent trade ties for China. "I think labor has demagogued so much on the trade issue that even when we get one that's clearly in the U.S. interest, they can't get comfortable with it."

Thea Lee, an international economist with the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said labor's opposition to the China Trade bill is principled, asserting that trade should not be normalized with China because it is known for violating human rights, workers' rights and many past trade agreements that have been signed.

How much political power labor can bring to bear is debatable. But in an era of low voter turnout, many Democrats are persuaded that labor proven get-out-the-vote efforts can make the difference between victory and defeat.

Largely because of labor pressure, no top Democratic leader in the House has publicly supported the China trade bill. Some in the party fear that stance will cost them business donations and possibly hurt their chances of winning back the House this year.

-------- india / pakistan

Dhanush test- fired

http://www.indiaserver.com:80/thehindu/2000/04/12/stories/0112000c.htm

CHANDIPUR-ON-SEA, APRIL 11. An indigenously developed missile Dhanush with a strike range of 150 km Dhanush was today test- fired from a Naval carrier close to the Orissa coast, defence sources said.

With the successful test-firing of Dhanush, India has joined a handful of nations capable of firing ship-to-ship missiles.

-------- israel

Israel Attacks U.S. Over China Arms

April 12, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Israel-China-US.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel will not cancel the sale of a sophisticated early warning plane to China despite a ``steamroller'' of U.S. pressure aimed at edging Israel out of the international arms market, the deputy defense minister said today in an unusually blunt statement.

Shortly after deputy minister Ephraim Sneh spoke, Chinese President Jiang Zemin arrived in Israel for a historic state visit.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was en route back from a 19-hour trip to Washington, was reportedly urged by President Clinton to cancel the deal. The chairman of the House Foreign Aid Committee threatened last week to deduct Israeli earnings from the sale of the planes from U.S. aid to Israel.

Sneh, a retired general, scoffed at arguments that the sale of the PHALCON airborne surveillance system to China could pose a threat to Taiwan, a U.S. ally. He said one early warning plane cannot change the military balance in Asia.

Sneh said that when Washington sold similar early warning, or AWACS, planes to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, it assured Israel that they are purely defensive. Sneh said he did not believe the aircraft had changed its character today.

``Every elected representative, whether he is in the American Congress or in the Israeli Knesset tries to protect the jobs of his voters,'' the deputy minister said.

Sneh said the U.S. presidential campaign was also a factor. Noting that the Israel-China deal was signed three years ago, Sneh said: ``Now, of all times, the issue has become hot, to no small degree because the entire Chinese issue has become a burning issue in domestic American politics.''

Sneh said that in the past the United States has ``brutally thrown Israel out'' of other international arms markets.

``In this market of the defense industries of the world, in this competition, there are no friends,'' he told Israel radio. ``Everyone is competing without mercy against everyone.''

Israel is completing production of one early warning plane for China, and the Chinese have an option on three to seven additional planes.

Sneh also accused the United States of applying one standard to Israel and a different one to other friendly countries, such as Britain and France, which also competed for the Chinese contract, but were beaten by the Israeli bid.

``I'm not sure that Britain, for example, was subjected to the steamroller which is being applied to us today,'' Sneh said. ``They (the Americans) don't have the leverage on Britain which they have on us.''

Sneh said Israel would honor its contract to deliver the first plane to China but would ``take account'' of American sensibilities with regard to additional planes.

---

Israel Welcomes Chinese President

April 12, 2000
By DINA KRAFT, Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/000412/18/int-israel-china

JERUSALEM (AP) - Under U.S. pressure to cancel a lucrative arms deal with China, Israel welcomed Chinese President Jiang Zemin on a historic visit Wednesday to the Jewish state, cementing ties first forged in secret nearly two decades ago.

The high-profile recognition of Israel - the visit is the first by a Chinese president - was seen as strong proof here that the days of diplomatic isolation are over for good. However, the new status also brought new problems for Israel, such as juggling the divergent interests of its strongest ally and a powerful new friend.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak welcomed Jiang less than 24 hours after meeting at the White House with President Clinton, who urged the Israeli leader to cancel the planned sale of a sophisticated airborne surveillance system to China.

Clinton expressed deep displeasure and warned that the deal, potentially worth $2 billion, could undermine Israel's standing in the United States, said an Israeli official who attended Tuesday's White House summit. Danny Yatom, Barak's top policy adviser, said the U.S. Congress was "very worried" about the sale.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, said Israel was committed to selling at least one surveillance plane to China, which reportedly has the option to order three to seven more. Israeli officials have suggested that after the first plane is sold, the deal could be frozen indefinitely to appease the United States.

Sneh said that in the competitive international arms market, "there are no friends." Describing U.S. pressure on Israel as a "steamroller," he scoffed at U.S. complaints that the sale could upset the military balance in Asia and pose a threat to Taiwan, a U.S. ally.

Jiang arrived in Israel on Wednesday afternoon for a six-day visit. The countries established diplomatic relations in 1992, but secret ties go back to the early 1980s when Israel began selling arms to China.

His first stop was a reception by Israeli President Ezer Weizman. Describing Israel and China as ancient nations, Jiang said it was important to "strengthen the historical friendship between us ... and to promote friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields between the two countries."

Israeli and Chinese officials on Wednesday signed agreements on education and industrial technology research and development.

During his visit, Jiang will hold talks with Barak and Israeli lawmakers, visit Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, and tour two communal farms in the Negev Desert to inspect agricultural projects. On Saturday, he will meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

A planned visit to Israel Aircraft Industries, which is outfitting a Soviet transport plane with the new PHALCON surveillance system, has reportedly been canceled to avoid drawing more attention to the deal.

Barak faces a difficult dilemma over the sale.

He needs Clinton's goodwill at a critical stage in the peace talks with the Palestinians and a planned Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, due by July.

However, Barak also has to protect Israel's defense industry. About 70 percent of the military equipment produced in Israel is exported, and China has emerged as a major client, said Gerald Steinberg, an expert on the Israeli defense industry.

Sneh told Israel radio that in the past the United States has "brutally thrown Israel out" of other international arms markets.

Sneh said that that when Washington sold similar early warning, or AWACS, planes to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, it assured Israel that they are purely defensive. Sneh said he did not believe the aircraft had changed their character today.

Sneh said the U.S. presidential campaign was a factor in the dispute. Noting that the Israel-China deal was signed three years ago, Sneh said: "Now, of all times, the issue has become hot, to no small degree because the entire Chinese issue has become a burning issue in domestic American politics."

In an apparent admonishment to the United States to stay out of Israeli-Chinese affairs, Jiang said that with the end of the Cold War, super powers no longer controlled world affairs.

"It has become increasingly difficult ... for the very few big powers or blocs of big powers to monopolize international affairs and control the fate of other countries," he said during a state dinner.

Last week, the chairman of the House Foreign Aid Committee threatened to deduct Israeli earnings from the sale of the planes from U.S. aid to Israel.

The U.S. State Department has said cutting aid was not the answer, but has expressed concern about the budding defense relationship between Israel and China.

One Israeli commentator warned that Israel wasn't powerful enough to play one superpower against the other.

"Israel has placed itself in a dubious position - right in the middle of an elephant path used by two superpowers, the United States and China. On a path like that you run the risk of being crushed under the foot of a passing elephant," wrote military expert Zeev Schiff in the respected Haaretz daily.

-----

Israeli Secret Service Under Fire

April 12, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Israel-Torture.html http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/000412/20/int-israel-torture

JERUSALEM (AP) -- A former Israeli attorney general told a newspaper in comments published Wednesday that the Shin Bet security service should be stripped of its right to interrogate suspects because it has inappropriately used force against them.

Michael Ben-Yair said that when he was attorney general from 1993 to 1997, the Shin Bet abused authorization he granted to use mild physical force in specific circumstances.

Instead, he said, the Shin Bet used physical force against Palestinian suspects ``routinely, every day and all the time.'' Ben-Yair confirmed the comments reported in the Israeli Haaretz daily.

He said the Shin Bet should be restricted to gathering intelligence, while interrogation of suspects should be conducted only by the police.

His statements follow a September 1999 Supreme Court decision banning any use of force by secret service interrogators. The Shin Bet had previously been allowed to use ``moderate physical pressure,'' with permission from the attorney general, to extract information from a suspect about an impending attack.

The pressure included sleep deprivation, violent shaking and forcing the prisoner to sit in excruciatingly uncomfortable positions for long periods. Human rights activists maintained that these methods amounted to torture.

Ben-Yair said in 1994, after he granted permission to use mild force to investigate a bus bombing in Tel Aviv, then-Shin Bet chief Carmi Gilon began using force routinely.

Ben-Yair said he turned against any use of force in 1995, when Palestinian suspect Abdel Samad Harizat died after being subjected to violent shaking.

``My feeling was that the Shin Bet had led me by the nose,'' Ben-Yair said.

-------- korea

Fire Shuts S. Korea Nuclear Plant

April 12, 2000
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/000412/09/int-skorea-forest-fires

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Tens of thousands of South Koreans were ordered to evacuate their homes, and factories and schools were shut down Wednesday as forest fires spread along the eastern coast, officials said.

Two people have been killed and four injured in the weeklong fires, which also destroyed about 700 homes. The hardest-hit cities were Kangnung, Tonghae and Samchok, all along the coast.

Thousands of soldiers and government officials were mobilized, but they had difficulty extinguishing the fires amid seasonal dry weather and strong winds, officials said.

A nuclear power plant that was forced to shut down for 13 hours after raging forest fires threatened its power transmission lines was reopened Wednesday.

The French-made plant in Uljin, 155 miles east of Seoul, was able to reopen after firefighters and villagers managed to extinguish the flames. Three other nuclear power plants in the area, all French-made, were unaffected by the fire and stayed open.

South Korea's four major cement factories were forced to suspend operations Wednesday because fire knocked down their power supplies.

Television footage showed old villagers weeping over blackened livestock and smoking debris of what used to be the homes of farmers who cultivated mountain slopes.

-----

Korea Summit Reportedly to Touch on Arms Reduction

April 12, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-t.html

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Kim Dae-jung is expected to propose a mutual arms reduction to North Korea during a planned summit in June, local newspapers reported.

The Korea Times said in its Thursday edition distributed on Wednesday night President Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il would seek a pact highlighting inter-Korean non-aggression and on establishing liaison offices in each other's capital.

``If the two Koreas agreed to arms reduction and spend the money for productive purposes, it will be a great boost to revitalizing the economy both in the South and North,'' the English-language newspaper quoted a presidential aide as saying.

He was also quoted as saying the liaison office would facilitate inter-Korean economic cooperation and the reunion of separated family members.

The two leaders could agree on the formation of a unified team for the Sydney Olympics, to be held this September, and the 2002 World Cup final, the newspaper said.

South and North Korea are due to hold their summit in the North's capital Pyongyang on June 12-14.

In a speech in Berlin in early March, the South's Kim proposed government-to-government assistance, reunions of families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War, dialogues between North and South officials, and reconciliation to end the state of war on the Korean peninsula.

--------

Fire Shuts S. Korea Nuclear Plant

APRIL 12, 09:57 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS73Q81PG0

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Tens of thousands of South Koreans were ordered to evacuate their homes, and factories and schools were shut down Wednesday as forest fires spread along the eastern coast, officials said.

Two people have been killed and four injured in the weeklong fires, which also destroyed about 700 homes. The hardest-hit cities were Kangnung, Tonghae and Samchok, all along the coast.

Thousands of soldiers and government officials were mobilized, but they had difficulty extinguishing the fires amid seasonal dry weather and strong winds, officials said.

A nuclear power plant that was forced to shut down for 13 hours after raging forest fires threatened its power transmission lines was reopened Wednesday.

The French-made plant in Uljin, 155 miles east of Seoul, was able to reopen after firefighters and villagers managed to extinguish the flames. Three other nuclear power plants in the area, all French-made, were unaffected by the fire and stayed open.

South Korea's four major cement factories were forced to suspend operations Wednesday because fire knocked down their power supplies.

Television footage showed old villagers weeping over blackened livestock and smoking debris of what used to be the homes of farmers who cultivated mountain slopes.

--------

GE Seeks N. Korea Protection

APRIL 12, 13:54 EST
By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=BUSINESS&STORYID=APIS73QBGSG0

WASHINGTON (AP) - The General Electric Co. is asking the U.S. government to pay legal claims in the event of a disaster at civilian nuclear power plants being built in North Korea.

That could cost the government, and ultimately American taxpayers, huge sums of money if there were a nuclear accident of Three Mile Island proportions.

General Electric has a contract of nearly $30 million to provide steam turbines and some other equipment for two light-water reactors. South Korea is paying most of the cost of the project.

Louise Binns, a GE spokeswoman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that indemnification ``is a normal part of this kind of deal.''

She said the company was asking South Korea to be responsible for liability in the highly unlikely event of a nuclear disaster and that the United States would be the insurer only of last resort.

``It's a normal requirement of projects,'' she said by telephone from Fairfield, Conn.

The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday disclosed the proposed U.S. guarantee in a column by Jim Mann. He began it: ``Warning to American taxpayers: without knowing it you may soon take on responsibility for what could be billions of dollars in liability.''

The reactors are a key element in a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea, which froze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for civilian reactors and energy contributions.

This has led to a warming of relations between North Korea and the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Charles Kartman, special envoy for Korea at the State Department, confirmed GE had made a proposal on indemnification for its participation in the project.

GE's proposal is under review, and no decision has been made, Kartman said.

In 1995, North Korea agreed to ensure that a there was a legal and financial way to meet any claims there. Also, North Korea has to secure nuclear liability insurance to protect the contractors against claims from outside the country.

``All along, we have understood there was going to have to be an indemnification scheme in place for the company to participate,'' Kartman told The Associated Press.

He said contractors were asked to participate even while liability arrangements were pending. ``If they are not satisfied later, they will be able to opt out,'' he said.

North Korea has about four years to provide liability protection.

--------

Koreas' Summit Rekindles Hopes For Reunions

By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 12, 2000 ; A18
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59822-2000Apr11.html

SEOUL, April 11 -- It's odd, said the old woman. She can no longer remember the faces of her parents or recall the voices of her brothers and sisters. The years have hollowed out her memories but left the ache. Half a century later, she still misses them.

"I just want to see their faces--even if it's a picture. I just want to know what happened to them. I want to know if they're dead or alive. I want to know what the end was, before I die."

Park Kun Mook, 70, has not heard from her family since she fled North Korea to the South before the start of the Korean War in 1950. She listened Monday, with the doubt earned through years of disappointment, to the news that the leaders of North and South Korea will hold a summit for the first time. "I don't think it will happen," she said with a scoff. "There's been too many lies, too many times we thought something would happen, and it didn't."

The meeting scheduled for June 12-14 between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang is likely to focus on people like Park. Uncounted families were split when Korea was torn apart after World War II with the birth of the Cold War. Communists and the "East" took up arms in North Korea, and capitalists and the "West" barricaded the border in South Korea.

The division boiled over into bloody fratricide in the 1950-53 Korean War, and the estrangement has been so total ever since that most separated families have heard no news of their relatives, much less seen them in person.

About 4.5 million people in the South fled the North during or before the war, according to Daein Kang, who has headed one of several reconciliation programs. The countries are split by the world's most heavily armed border. Some families have made their way to China or third countries to be reunited, but such undertakings are difficult, often dangerous and costly. South Korean officials say they hope the summit will result in the start of family reconciliations or at least open a channel between North and South for news of lost relatives.

Kim Dae Jung, even while accepting world plaudits today after the surprise announcement of the summit, cautioned his countrymen not to pin too many hopes on the meeting. "National issues that have been divisive for a half-century cannot be resolved overnight," Kim said. But he pronounced the summit "one big step forward in our national history and in the move toward peace."

His caution seemed designed to dampen expectations and reduce the risk of failure, one member of his party acknowledged today, but it is also grounded in realism: North Korea has a long history of raising and then dashing hopes in negotiations. "The danger of having a summit is that if nothing happens after the meeting, how do you start again? It's a risky business," said H.K. Kim, an expert on the Koreas at American University.

Kim Dae Jung's political opponents continued to assert today that North Korea agreed to the summit to try to influence Thursday's parliamentary elections in the South and that it will raise new demands to forestall the meeting or limit its success. "I think this is all political, and in the end Kim Jong Il will not meet with Kim Dae Jung," said Lee Sa Churl, a leader of the opposition Grand National Party.

But the Seoul government is confident North Korea will go through with the summit because it urgently needs aid. Analysts predict the summit will include a limited agenda that involves food aid and economic assistance sought by North Korea, and family reconciliation sought by the South. Still to be made clear is how much economic assistance North Korea expects. South Korean officials have said they may donate food and fertilizer and embark on an ambitious construction program to rebuild the North's shattered infrastructure.

Much of this is too speculative for Park, who comes daily to an open-air market to sell clothes with another refugee from North Korea, Lee Jung Wook, 69. Both have put their names on various government lists when there has been talk of exchange of family information with North Korea, but nothing has ever come of it. "I tried to find my family, but I couldn't," Park said.

After so many years, she said, it is becoming difficult for her to remember the fear that gripped her in the days after Japanese troops surrendered control of Korea in 1945 and the Soviet occupying forces and Korean Communists became more and more demanding of her family's property. "They started taking away people's land and money. The soldiers came to our house to collect all our goods. I said, 'Just don't kill me, please don't kill me. Take what you want.'

"After they left, my parents said, 'You go first,' and they said they would pack up and follow. But it was too late," said Park. In the chaos, she separated from her two brothers and two sisters and headed south, where she paid a guide to sneak her into South Korea. She was about 19.

"I guess my mother and father are gone by now," she speculated. "With all the famine they've had up north, maybe everyone is gone. Maybe nothing from my past is still there. I just have no idea."

(c) 2000 The Washington Post Company

-------- kosovo

NATO Says Up to 25,000 Serbs May Return Soon to Kosovo

April 12, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-yugosla.html

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Up to 25,000 Serb civilians who left Kosovo after NATO's bombing campaign drove Serbian forces out last year could return to their homes in the coming months, a NATO official said Wednesday.

He said the figure was an estimate from various NATO sources and could be on the optimistic side. But he said the alliance was keen for Serbs to return to the province and its peacekeeping troops were ready to guarantee their safety.

Up to 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo from June onwards last year, fearing violent revenge by ethnic Albanians.

The NATO official said some 18,000 more ethnic Albanians were also expected to return home in coming months.

Most of the hundreds of thousands of Albanians forced out by Serb persecution before and during last year's war have already returned. According to Serb groups, Serbs now make up no more than 100,000 of Kosovo's population of around 1.8 million, most of whom are ethnic Albanians.

``Many Serbs left out of justifiable fear of reprisals but many others have nothing to feel guilty about and a lot left without actually experiencing ethnic Albanian intimidation,'' the NATO official told reporters in a briefing.

He added that many Kosovo Serbs had a less than welcome reception in Serbia and would prefer to return to Kosovo ``and put their faith in the international community and the economic liftoff which will eventually happen.''

NATO sources said the alliance would be careful to check which Serbs were seeking to return, on the lookout for bogus returnees or ``people controlled by Belgrade.''

The NATO official conceded that arranging for the smooth return of Serb families to Kosovo communities where ethnic relations remain tense would be difficult.

``It's going to be less than ideal, yes,'' he said. ``But we can't delay this forever or until everything's perfect. We have got to start somewhere.''

Under an agreement concluded between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and NATO to end the alliance's 78-day bombing campaign, Serbia can return around 1,000 officials to Kosovo to protect monuments and officiate at borders.

Belgrade has pressed for this to go ahead but NATO says the time is not yet right.

----------

Exhumation in Kosovo To Continue

April 12, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-War-Crimes-Kosovo.html

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- War crimes investigators will resume exhumations of some 300 suspected mass grave sites in Kosovo next week after halting operations for the winter, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said witness accounts and intelligence sources indicate that 11,334 people are buried in a total of 529 common graves as a result of the conflict between ethnic Albanians and Serbs backed by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

``We have a very ambitious schedule to uncover 300 suspected sites over the coming months,'' said prosecution spokesman Paul Risley.

During five months of investigations last year after a NATO bombing campaign that drove out Serb forces, forensics experts exhumed 2,108 bodies, mostly ethnic Albanians.

NATO has suggested that up to 10,000 victims may be buried in common graves, but retrieving evidence to prove that could be hard due to tampering and the decision by some families to dig up some sites in search of missing relatives.

During the 78 days of NATO bombing, violence between Muslims and Serb forces escalated, triggering the exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

The investigators will mainly gather evidence to support the tribunal's case against Milosevic and four other prominent Serb officials who were indicted last May for war crimes in Kosovo.

-------- russia

Duma appears to accept nuclear accord

April 12, 2000

RUSSIA: Russian deputies appeared set yesterday to ratify the START II nuclear disarmament accord in their first debate on a landmark accord delayed by years of haggling and stonewalling.

But leaders in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, indicated ratification on Friday would be in part tied to respect by the US of a Cold War-era treaty which bans national antimissile defence systems.

Washington wants to build a missile shield to protect against the perceived threat of so-called rogue states but concedes doing so would breach the 1972 AntiBallistic Missile Treaty.

Intense horse-trading animated the Duma's corridors yesterday, with 235 deputies from the proKremlin Unity bloc, People's Deputies, Fatherland-All Russia, Union of Rightist Forces and Yabloko set to back the treaty.

The Communists' 93 deputies vowed to vote against, along with some deputies from the left-wing Agrarian Party.

The ultra-nationalist bloc of Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky has yet to state how it will vote.

"There should be enough votes, both for START II and the protocols for the ABM treaty," said Mr Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the Duma's international affairs committee, confirming that the first hearing would be held on Friday.

"We should make a political statement along with the ratification of START II, where the position of Russia should be clear in the event that the Americans abandon the accord," he said.

The statement would aim to lock the US into the ABM treaty.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II, signed in 1993 and ratified by the US Congress three years later, foresees the reduction of the US nuclear arsenal to 3,500 warheads, with 3,000 for Russia.

Left-wing and nationalist deputies complained the treaty would force Russia to give up its multiple warhead missiles and replace them with more expensive single-warhead rockets.

But legislative elections last December weakened parties opposed to the treaty and boosted those allied to President Vladimir Putin.

- (AFP)

----

Russia Communists Oppose Arms Treaty

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press Writer
APRIL 12, 17:16 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS73QEF480

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's Communist Party leader said Wednesday that ratifying the START II arms treaty would amount to treason, but his party isn't expected to muster enough support to block the pact when it comes to a vote this week.

With President Vladimir Putin pushing for approval, the State Duma, or lower house, agreed to debate the treaty on cutting nuclear arsenals Friday. Most lawmakers and analysts expect swift passage of the 1993 treaty, which was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996.

The upper house, the Federation Council, will discuss the treaty if the Duma ratifies it, said the chairman of the council's foreign affairs committee, Mikhail Prusak, according to the Interfax news agency. The upper house, which must also approve the treaty, has in the past has generally voted in accordance with the government.

The Communists and their hard-line allies, who dominated the old parliament, repeatedly rejected the START II treaty, and the failure to ratify was an irritant in U.S.-Russian relations. But the Communists lost control of the Duma in elections last month. They have about 130 seats in the 450-seat Duma, not enough to block ratification, which requires a simple majority of 226 votes.

Nonetheless, Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov maintained his harsh rhetoric.

``START II wouldn't just tilt the balance, but would completely ruin strategic parity and the national security,'' Zyuganov said.

He called the treaty tantamount to ``national treason'' because it envisages dismantling Russia's most powerful missiles and would force the cash-strapped nation to build new weapons it can't afford.

``They want to fully undress our already tattered country,'' Zyuganov told reporters.

He argued that without its heavy missiles, Russia would have to take orders from the United States.

The treaty's supporters insist that many Russian strategic missiles are past their service lifetime and will have to be scrapped soon anyway. Zyuganov dismissed that argument, saying that the old missiles could be maintained.

He accused Putin of kowtowing to the West and trying to win its approval by ratifying the treaty just weeks after his election.

``Putin is trying to quickly push the treaty through parliament so that lawmakers don't realize what is going on,'' Zyuganov said.

The treaty would halve U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to 3,000-3,500 warheads each. Officials say ratification would help Russia seize the initiative in arms talks and strengthen its case against the United States' modifying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The United States wants to amend the ABM Treaty to allow construction of a limited missile-defense system to protect from possible missile attacks from rogue nations, but Russia says the move could trigger a new arms race.

----

Putin: Outlines Russian Space Plan

April 12, 2000
By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/000412/06/int-russia-space

MOSCOW (AP) - On the 39th anniversary of the Soviet Union's launching the first man into space, President Vladimir Putin said today that Russia will keep up its commitment to the long-delayed International Space Station.

Putin told cosmonauts and space officials that Russia will keep its international commitments but that "national production has to be our priority."

The remark looked like a bit of diplomacy aimed at the supporters of the Mir space station, Russia's aging spacecraft that just received a new crew after eight months of unmanned flight while Russia decided whether to scrap it.

In the end, Putin decided to keep the Mir aloft, adding to skepticism that Russia will be able to meet its obligations for the International Space Station, a multinational project that is months late because of Russia's failure to build key components on time.

Putin also used the occasion to touch on one of his key priorities - restoring Russia's greatness after years of economic and political decline.

"The space sector is not only a prestigious sector which makes our country a great power, but it is also linked to economic and scientific development," Putin said.

It's not clear where Russia will get the money to honor all its space commitments. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia drastically scaled back its space program, and so far the government has only earmarked about $120 million to the program this year.

Putin said the Russian Security Council would meet soon to discuss financing the space program.

On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union stunned the world by putting the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space. Since then, Russia has celebrated April 12 as Cosmonauts' Day.

Putin accompanied cosmonauts and space officials today to lay flowers at the site on the Kremlin wall where Gagarin's remains are interred.

----

Ranks of Russian Draft Dodgers Swelling

April 12, 2000
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/041200russia-conscripts.html

MOSCOW, April 11 -- The number of young men who have dodged the draft has soared since fighting broke out in Chechnya, leaving the Russian military without enough new conscripts, a senior general said today.

"The number of draft dodgers increased by almost 50 percent last fall," said Col. Gen. Vladislav N. Putilin, the chief of the mobilization department of the Russian General Staff. "For the first time in four years, the armed forces will experience a shortage of manpower."

The Russian military has long had difficulty attracting qualified personnel. Low pay, hazing and service in an institution that is no longer revered by much of the society have prompted many young men to shun the military.

But the war in Chechnya, which has led to the deaths of more than 2,000 Russian soldiers and more than 6,000 wounded, seems to have turned draft avoidance into a semi-legitimate national pastime.

The problem is so severe that the Russian military has relaxed its standards for military service in Chechnya. In September, the government decreed that soldiers had to have served at least a year before they could be dispatched to Chechnya. Now, the requirement is six months.

With so many Russians using student deferments, the educational level of Russian military has also fallen. About 30 percent of Russian draftees have not finished the ninth grade. In contrast, 90 percent of recruits in the United States' all-volunteer military have high-school diplomas. The result seems to be that the soldiers sent to Chechnya may be greener, less literate and more vulnerable.

Former President Boris N. Yeltsin had vowed to create an all-volunteer military by the year 2000. But the government has done virtually nothing to advance that goal. The military needs to draft 192,000 men between the ages of 18 and 27 years this spring to meet its overall quota. So many Russians have claimed deferments that the armed forces will have to process about a million young men to try to meet this target.

Educational deferments are a definite way to avoid Army service. So are health problems. And when all else fails, young men simply refuse to show up when summoned for military service. General Putilin said 49,000 men dodged the draft last fall, just under a fifth of the number were eventually conscripted.

The problem is starkly evident in the Moscow region, where the military expects to draft only 5,500 young men. "I regret to say that our big industrial centers and regions produce more than 60 percent of the draft dodgers," General Putilin said. "These are Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod and the Krasnoyarsk Territory."

Last year alone, in fact, 88 percent of people eligible in the St. Petersburg region were deferred.

The use of deferments, loopholes and outright bribes to draft board has led to a manifest sense of unfairness. The poor, less-well connected and least educated shoulder an increasingly large share of the burden.

Although a relative lull in the Chechnya war has set in during recent days, the ongoing conflict is still putting heavy pressure on the military to conscript new soldiers. About 90,000 soldiers and Interior Ministry troops are now in Chechnya, and today the military said that many of the troop were busy trying to fortify the borders of the breakaway republic fearing a rebel resurgence as spring approaches.

In an effort to encourage soldiers to join the cause, the military counts every day spent fighting in Chechnya as two days of military service. That means that many soldiers are nearing the end of their tour of duty, prompting the need for more and more conscripts.

--------

Chechens Ambush Russian Patrol

April 12, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Chechnya.html

NAZRAN, Russia (AP) -- Chechen rebels ambushed a Russian border patrol Wednesday deep in the mountains near the Georgian border in the latest demonstration of their guerrilla skills and determination to fight numerically superior federal forces.

Rebels fired on the patrol in the Argun Gorge, the site of heavy fighting in recent months, the Interfax news agency said, citing federal officials. One soldier was wounded, and the rebels retreated when a helicopter opened fire on the militants.

Fighting has subsided in recent days, and indications have appeared that the Kremlin may be looking for a political solution.

Russia insists that it will not enter negotiations unless the rebels are completely disarmed and their leaders arrested, but a spokesman said Wednesday that Russia had kept in contact with Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov through intermediaries.

Maskhadov ``was informed, among other issues, about Moscow's view on what is to be done in the transition to some political process,'' Sergei Yastrzhembsky, presidential spokesman on Chechnya, said Wednesday, according to Interfax.

Even that admission indicates a change in Russia's position. Previously, Russia had labeled Maskhadov a criminal, while on Wednesday, Yastrzhembsky spoke in softer terms, not equating him with other rebel leaders whom he said should be killed or imprisoned.

Russian jets flew 19 missions in the last 24 hours, the federal command said Wednesday. Attack helicopters flew an additional 40 sorties.

The ongoing low level of fighting has made many Chechen refugees afraid of returning to their homes. Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya to the west, still had 210,000 refugees as of Wednesday, an Ingush government spokesman said.

Also Wednesday, news agencies reported that criminal proceedings had begun against a Russian colonel who allegedly tried to help five Chechen rebels flee the combat zone.

The reports, which identified the colonel only by the last name Savchenko, said the rebels allegedly paid him $25,000 to be taken out of the zone in his car.

The car was stopped at a roadblock for a check and shooting broke out, in which three of the rebels were killed, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. It also said the rebels had paid the colonel in bills that turned out to be counterfeit.

Russia sent ground troops into Chechnya in September. The campaign came after rebels invaded neighboring Dagestan, and the rebels are also blamed in apartment building blasts in Russia that killed about 300 people.

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Russian Parliament Tones Down Chechnya Response

April 12, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-russia-.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's parliament backed away Wednesday from its initial furious response to the West's most stinging rebuke of Moscow's military campaign to crush separatism in Chechnya.

But fresh criticism was in store over allegations of human rights abuses in Moscow's six-month-old drive in the region.

Russia pressed on with attacks from the air on rebel strongholds despite suggestions the Kremlin might be considering a negotiated end to the conflict.

The State Duma or lower house of parliament, by 384 votes to three, denounced as unacceptable and a ``unilateral diktat'' last week's vote by the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly proposing to suspend Russia's membership of the body.

The text was watered down twice after a lively debate in which senior deputies argued in favor of a moderate reaction.

The final text omitted an initial decision to stay away from further assembly debates in the French city of Strasbourg. It said Russian participation in the assembly could be resumed ''only after it backs down from this discriminatory position.''

It also approved the decision of most members of the Russian delegation to walk out of the session last week.

The Council of Europe, a body concerned with human rights and other issues, wields little power but has considerable moral authority in ex-communist countries.

The Duma's Communist speaker, Gennady Seleznyov, said before the start of Wednesday's debate that the parliamentary assembly ``has to correct all the errors it has committed.''

FORMER PM PRIMAKOV ADVISES MODERATION

But Yevgeny Primakov, former prime minister and foreign minister, said later that moderation was the correct tactic.

``We needn't complicate the situation,'' he told reporters. He said it was apparent from statements by other officials from the Council of Europe and the more influential European Union that there was no broad movement to exclude Russia. Human Rights Activist Sergei Kovalyov, who accused Russia of excesses in a previous 1994-96 Chechnya war, told the Duma he stood by his decision to break ranks with Russia's delegation.

``I believe the decision adopted was fair and most useful,'' he said in remarks shown on television. ``Useful for the world community and above all for my own country.''

Russia's chief spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, speaking in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, also discounted any suggestion Russia might pull out of the Council of Europe.

Yastrzhembsky had suggested Tuesday that the Kremlin was moving toward a negotiated solution in the region, from which Russia withdrew in 1996 after a two-year war with separatists.

President-elect Vladimir Putin, who built his reputation mainly on a tough stance in Chechnya, has made no suggestion himself that any negotiations are on the cards.

In Geneva, the European Union, whose decisions carry far more weight, submitted a resolution at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights forum calling on Russia to investigate alleged mass killings of civilians and other serious abuses in Chechnya.

But the 15-nation EU left open the door for Russia to join discussions on its resolution, which could be watered down into a ``chairman's statement,'' a milder form of rebuke, according to Western diplomats. Accounts of talks in Luxembourg this week said EU foreign ministers were restrained in criticizing Moscow.

OSCE DELEGATION DUE IN MOSCOW

A new Western delegation, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was due in Moscow to discuss Chechnya with officials and will later travel to the region.

Military accounts said Russian aircraft had flown 12 missions against rebels in mountains near Nozhai-Yurt in eastern Chechnya and Vedeno, further south. Itar-Tass news agency said up to 4,000 rebel fighters were in the two districts.

Russia said weeks ago it had seized the last rebel stronghold in the mountains, but has suffered high losses in ambushes of convoys and in fighting in distant villages.

Interfax news agency said the headless bodies of two Russian servicemen had been found in Grozny. It also said a senior officer had been arrested on suspicion of offering to transport rebels to safety for large sums of money.

----

Russia Says NATO Meeting Planned For June 9

Apr 12, 2000
Agence France Presse
http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=150537

MOSCOW, The Russian and NATO defense ministers have scheduled a Brussels meeting for June 9, ITAR-TASS reported Wednesday citing a top Russian military source.

"The principal topic of discussion will be Kosovo and UN resolution 1244, but a wide range of problems tied to European security will be included such as NATO's strategic concept and Russia's military doctrine," said the unnamed source.

Russia has accused the alliance of failing to implement resolution 1244, adopted in July 1999 to end the Kosovo conflict, which reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia while calling for substantial autonomy in Kosovo province. It also stipulated the detention of ethnic Albanian separatists threatening Yugoslavia's territorial integrity.

The announcement of the Brussels meeting comes a day after NATO's parliamentary assembly cut all contacts with the Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, following what it denounced Tuesday as "unacceptable" remarks by the body's president.

The assembly's permanent committee announced in a statement that it viewed a letter sent by the Duma chief Gennady Seleznyov on the subject of Yugoslavia as "inappropriate and unacceptable."

Seleznyov had declared that a meeting planned for mid-April between the Duma and the NATO assembly was "premature," and that ties between the bodies could not be renewed until the alliance's policy on Yugoslavia "evolves in the right direction," the NATO statement added.

The statement argued that Seleznyov's remarks contradicted those by the Russian government, which agreed to renew ties with the alliance in March.

If NATO and Russia go through with the meeting in June, it will be the second session of the Permanent Joint Council since the resumption of contacts severed during the alliance's air campaign against Yugoslavia last year.

The PJC was created in 1997 as the first act of cooperation between Russia and NATO after nearly half a century of Cold War.

Since last year, cooperation between Russia and NATO has been limited to the two international peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, where 1,350 Russian soldiers are deployed, and Kosovo, where the number of Russian troops is 3,300.

----

Superpower phobia

April 12, 2000
Helle Bering
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2000412185651.htm

As varied as U.S.-Russian relations have been in recent years, what clearly emerged from last week's meeting of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America in Boston is that National Missile Defense remains an area of huge and hurtful difference. It is not the only one. Be the topic peacekeeping, NATO expansion, or missile defense, Russians tend to find an American plot aimed specifically at them - and this though the participants at the meeting from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to historians, politicians and academics, are among those who wish to see Russian relations with the United States improve.

Nothing rankles like missile defense, though, a topic to which the conversation constantly reverts, like the head of Charles II in "David Copperfield." As one American participant put it, "It's nine years after the Cold War ended, and I can't believe we are discussing MIRVed missiles again." That would be Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles. A Canadian volunteers that "this could set us back into the Cold War era."

The depth of Russian emotions, rising undoubtedly out of a sense of Russian national humiliation, comes as somewhat of an eye-opener when one is used to discussing missile defense as a rational reaction to a changing world in which nuclear proliferation is moving apace, and in which the threat of terrorism counts as one of the most serious for American national security. If one nation ought to feel singled out for special consideration in this context, it is probably the Chinese, whose missiles threaten Taiwan, an old friend of the United States.

It may even be that the prevailing lack of concern for Russian reactions helps fuel the Russian sense of frustration and neglect. "During the Cold War everybody had their assigned role," says a former Soviet foreign minister. "Today, we don't know what our role is." Precipitating a feeling of crisis is the fact that President Clinton is to set a date for decisions on NMD for sometime this summer or fall. It is a moment many Russians as well as Democrats and moderate Republicans dearly wish to avoid, at least for the time being.

There is currently a movement in Congress, led by Sens. Chuck Hagel, Gordon Smith and Joseph Biden to urge Mr. Clinton to postpone the decision till after the election. You can count Mikhail Gorbachev among those who articulates the wait-and-see approach. "Let's not rush to a decision here. Let's give time to the Russian government to consider it," he says.

Technology is pushing the issue he says, interestingly comparing NMD to the installation of the SS-20s in the Urals in the late late 1970s, a decision made by befuddled Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev who almost inadvertently (in this version of history) gave approval to a major upgrade of old rusty missiles already there. "It started an incredible chain of events," Mr. Gorbachev says, which is true because a new Reagan administration decided to counter this new threat to the capitals of Europe with Pershing II and Cruise missiles.

It appears that the new Russian government has already done some thinking on the subject, which may be a sign of superior coolheadedness on the part of Russian President Vladimir Putin. There is reason to believe that within the next 6-10 weeks, a deal will be announced between the Russian and the American administrations on revisions to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, to allow a very limited American NMD deployment, in return for a better deal for Russia in the upcoming START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) III negotiations.

Mr. Putin has already promised to push the Russian Duma for ratification of START II, much to the delight of the U.S. president who spies an opportunity for an arms-control presidential legacy heaving into view. If the Russian president thinks this is an acceptable idea, in order to prevent the United States from scrapping the treaty altogether, the U.S. Senate will have to read those revisions with a very fine magnifying glass.

The fact is that Russians simply do not believe that Americans are serious when they talk about protecting the continental United States from nuclear terrorism or rogue state attack. In their view, the missile programs of North Korea, Iran and Iraq are no more than a pretext for U.S. nuclear domination. Right now, Russia at least has the distinction of being the only country that can threaten the national existence of the United States. However, an American NMD and a deteriorating Russian nuclear arsenal may soon put an end to that. Rather than a Third World nation with nuclear weapons, Russia will then just be a Third World nation. And at the bottom of it all there is that ever-nagging fear of the world's "sole super power" rising roughshod over the rest.

"For a while it looked to us like no one could stop the United States," says a Russian participant. "Russia, China, India meant nothing. Europe and Asia were told to stay on the sidelines." All of which seems almost unrecognizably distorted when compared to the policy debate here in Washington, where lurking American isolationism rather than rampant global ambitions are what many worry about. Meanwhile, though, we need to get on with the business of protecting Americans against missile attack - even if Russian feelings get hurt.

-------- us military

Macedonia Cops Detain 30 US Troops

April 12, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Macedonia-Americans.html

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- Drunk U.S. soldiers clashed with locals and police early Wednesday, leading Macedonian authorities and NATO military police to detain 30 of them, the Macedonian Interior Ministry said.

NATO and U.S. military officials confirmed disturbances in three separate instances involving American troops in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, but said only five were temporarily detained by Macedonian police, who later turned them over to U.S. military authorities. All the Americans were from Kosovo and were on leave in Skopje, they said.

But later, in a statement released by the public affairs office at Camp Bondsteel -- the headquarters of U.S. forces in Kosovo -- officials said two soldiers had been held by Macedonian authorities.

``U.S. soldiers on a three-day pass were involved in altercations that resulted in two soldiers being detained by ... (Macedonian) police, and four being detained by U.S. military police,'' the statement said, adding that there were no serious injuries.

One U.S. military spokesman suggested that in least two of the cases, the U.S. soldiers did not initiate violence but reacted to being provoked.

Ed Loomis, a public affairs officer at U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said that in one incident, ``an American soldier was spit on by a Macedonian, the soldier reacted to that and was detained by Macedonian police.'' In another, Loomis said, two American soldiers reacted to foil a Macedonian trying to steal the belongings of one of the soldiers.

In the third incident, ``four soldiers at a restaurant were in some type of verbal altercation with the staff at the restaurant and possibly police,'' he said. All four were detained.

Loomis called the report of 30 soldiers being detained ``a fabrication.''

The Macedonian Interior Ministry statement said the soldiers, members of NATO-led peacekeeping troops stationed in Macedonia, were detained in connection with ``indecent behavior, violation of public order, harassment of citizens and a fight involving a policeman.'' Some were drunk, the statement said.

After a disturbance in a local cafe in downtown Skopje, the soldiers clashed with a group of citizens, injuring a police officer who tried to intervene, the statement said.

In Kosovo, U.S. Maj. Debbie Allen said, ``there were eight U.S. soldiers involved in three minor incidents.'' She said ``there are reports of alcohol being involved, and there were altercations.''

All five were back in Kosovo and were being investigated by military authorities before a decision on whether to file charges, Allen said.

Macedonia serves as a staging ground and a supply route for international peacekeepers in Kosovo. Speaking in Skopje for KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force, Capt. Andreas Reinecke said KFOR ``deeply regrets these incidents.''

``We would like to make this very clear that this kind of behavior does not reflect the attitude that we expect from our personnel,'' Reinecke said.

-------- us politics

Export control mismanagement

April 12, 2000
Frank Gaffney Jr.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000412183434.htm

Today Sen. Fred Thompson's Governmental Affairs Committee will take a much-needed look at a part of the Clinton legacy that is likely to haunt this country for years to come: The administration's deliberate "take-down" of COCOM (the Coordinating Committee on Export Controls) - and the belated introduction in its place of a Potemkin initiative known as the Wassenaar Arrangement.

It turns out that this one-two punch was more than just an isolated phenomena that resulted in the liquidation of a relatively effective multilateral mechanism for factoring security considerations into decisions about the overseas sales of sensitive "dual-use" technologies - and, for that matter, in the gutting of much of the domestic U.S. export control apparatus, as well. In hindsight, we can now see that the impulses driving these ill-advised actions are but a microcosm of the Clinton-Gore administration's dismal stewardship of the larger foreign policy portfolio.

Consider the following themes underpinning the decisions that destroyed COCOM and the establishment in the Netherlands city of Wassenaar in 1996 of an "arrangement" intended to contribute, in the words of its charter, "to regional and international security and stability, by promoting transparency and a greater responsibility in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies":

• "The Cold War is over" and "It's the economy stupid": These cliches have been the leitmotifs of what might loosely be described as the Clinton-Gore administration's guiding philosophy. By the first, the president and his subordinates sought to justify their disdain for and disregard of virtually every traditional instrument and practice of U.S. security. With the fervor of the counterculture activists many of them were at formative stages of their lives, these officials have inflicted grievous harm on the armed forces, the intelligence community, law enforcement, even the rule of law itself.

Arguably none of these instruments was wielded with greater effect during the Cold War - nor suffered more at the hands of the Clinton team - than the multilateral, voluntary organization called COCOM and the U.S. government mechanisms that supported national security-minded export controls. People entrusted with top policy-making responsibilities in this area were appointed by President Clinton despite, if not because of, their records of hostility to such controls and the institutions that promoted and policed them. Not surprisingly, the wrecking operation was most evident at the Defense Department where the senior leadership and Defense Technology Security Administration once represented formidable impediments to ill-advised technology transfers.

The application of the principle that there is no longer any appreciable threat to American security - and its corollary that economic interests should supersede all others - has greatly exacerbated the government's mistakes. Effectively encouraged to "see-no-evil" in a world in which it still abounds, corporate leaders have responded by focusing narrowly and parochially on shareholder concerns about the quarterly bottom line.

• Sacrificing U.S. sovereignty and its ability, where necessary, to exercise influence through unilateral action. The Clinton-Gore administration has seemed to share the hostility others around the world have felt toward American power. Instruments of that power - like COCOM, which once enabled this country effectively to block its allies' ability to export dual-use technologies - were especially resented. In the absence of leadership in Washington determined to adapt but preserve this vital mechanism, its fate was sealed.

Two years after COCOM was formally interred in 1994, the Clinton-Gore administration finally cobbled together a very different sort of "arrangement." Under Wassenaar, "the decision to transfer or deny transfer of any item will be the sole responsibility of each Participating State." Now, if we are lucky, we may be forewarned that a "participating state" is going to effect technology transfers we consider to be unwise. But we have lost - for the moment at least, if not permanently - the ability to interpose definitive objections.

• "The Russians are our strategic partners." The same is often said of China as well, by those who fail to appreciate that neither the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin nor the Forbidden City of Jiang Zemin can be counted upon to see their interests as coincident with ours. To the contrary, the available evidence suggests they perceive a shared interest in acting as each others' strategic partners, at the expense of this country.

In keeping with the Clinton-Gore administration's potentially fatal conceit about the nature of today's world, the Wassenaar Arrangement includes Russia and two other, smaller-scale but problematic nations, Ukraine and the Slovak Republic. Having as members countries that regard as clients those we call "rogue states" assures that this "Arrangement" will be as ineffectual in the future as it has been to date in slowing the hemorrhage of strategic technologies to the cabal of bad actors former Undersecretary of State William Schneider has dubbed "Club Mad."

• Phony security mechanisms are better than none. In the area of export controls, as elsewhere, the Clinton-Gore administration has tried to obscure a dangerous policy failure with a multilateral fig leaf. Unfortunately, as in Wassenaar and various unverifiable arms control agreements, it has promoted to "prohibit" chemical and biological and nuclear weapons tests, such Potemkin exercises can induce a false sense of security. The soporific effect of this illusion is to compound damage done when a relatively effective multinational endeavor like COCOM is replaced with a regimen that was designed to fail.

The stakes associated with this sorry legacy are very high - both in the export control arena and in the larger security policy context of which it is a small, but important, part.

Next week, thoughts about what the nation can do now to try to mitigate the damage inflicted by the Clinton-Gore administration.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times. This column is adapted from testimony he will provide today before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

-------- us nuc

Atomic Veterans Ignored by Compensation Plan

U.S. Newswire
12 Apr 18:49
http://www.usnewswire.com:80/topnews/Current_Releases/0412-152.html

WASHINGTON, April 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) is outraged and appalled that veterans exposed to ionizing radiation are being ignored by the federal government which today announced plans to offer compensation to thousands of contract workers for illnesses resulting from exposure to toxic and radioactive substances.

The DAV has long urged Congress to enact legislation to make it easier for veterans exposed to atomic radiation in the service to receive disability benefits and much-needed health care. Only about 50 claims have been approved by the VA out of more than 18,000 claims filed based on exposure to ionizing radiation.

The Clinton Administration plan announced July 15 would provide compensation for illnesses connected to rad