--------

April 13, 2000
Washington Times Daybook
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000413213526.htm

TODAY'S HEADLINERS

Anthrax vaccine hearing - 10 a.m. - Senate Armed Services Committee holds hearings to examine the Defense Department's anthrax vaccine immunization program. Location: 222 Russell Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3871.

SENATE COMMITTEES

10:30 a.m. - Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee holds a hearing on the fiscal 2001 foreign operations budget. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright testifies. Location: 192 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3471.

HOUSE COMMITTEES

10 a.m. - Appropriations foreign operations, export financing and related programs subcommittee holds a hearing on fiscal 2001 appropriations for foreign operations. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers testifies. Location: 2359 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-2771.

GENERAL AGENDA

Global economy conference - all day - American University holds a conference on "Global Challenges and Global Institutions" featuring panel discussions on the futures of the International Monetary fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and policy content in a post-Asia crisis world economy. Location: Kay Spiritual Life Center, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Contact: 202/885-5951.

Science and technology colloquium - 7:45 a.m. - The American Association for the Advancement of Science concludes its 25th Anniversary Colloquium on Science and Technology Policy. The luncheon speaker is Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Location: Omni Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert St. NW. Contact: 202/326-6431.

World Bank-International Monetary Fund news conference - 9 a.m. - The World Bank and International Monetary Fund hold a news conference. 11:30 a.m. - Release of "World Development Indicators 2000." Location: Room B-702, 700 19th St. NW. Contact: 202/473-1796, 202/473-6313 or 202/473-2243.

-------- good news

Resort's Post-Nuclear Future Luxury Homes Planned for Greenbrier

By Sandra Fleishman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page E01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/178l-041300-idx.html

With the threat of nuclear attack apparently safely behind us, the prestigious Greenbrier resort in West Virginia yesterday announced plans to develop an upscale residential community and sporting club on land kept off limits for 40 years because it shielded a top-secret Cold War bunker for Congress.

Development of most of the grounds of the legendary luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs, a 4 1/2-hour drive from Washington, was prohibited because of Defense Department restrictions. The bomb shelter was constructed surreptitiously from 1956 to 1962 under a wing of the main resort hotel. It was meant to house Congress and about 565 staff members in the event of a nuclear strike.

But in 1995 the Defense Department decommissioned and declassified the concrete-and-steel stronghold, whose existence had been revealed by The Washington Post three years earlier.

When the federal government canceled its lease, the management of the 200-year-old retreat was able to explore other options for the land, according to Ted Kleisner, longtime Greenbrier president and managing director.

The plans Kleisner announced yesterday call for developing 5,000 acres of the 6,500-acre Allegheny Mountain property with joint-venture partner Dolan, Pollak & Schram Development Co. of Savannah, Ga. The Greenbrier's parent company is CSX Corp., the railroad.

The plans call for 400 to 500 properties, from cottages to mountain estates, to be marketed over the next five years. Sales could total $300 million to $350 million.

The partners will build and sell about 100 houses that match the architectural style of the national historic landmark and will make available an additional 400 lots for $250,000 to $500,000 apiece. An architectural review board will examine house designs. The partners stressed that development would be historically appropriate and "carefully controlled" and leave "a huge amount of green space."

The other piece of the proposal is the Greenbrier Sporting Club. Property owners can become members--for a one-time $75,000 equity fee--of a club with a new outdoor lodge, a fourth golf course and other members-only resort facilities.

Whether the second- or third-home market is strong enough to draw buyers to the economically depressed West Virginia hills is unclear, but the developers cited the tradition and national draw of the Greenbrier, the strong second-home market nationally, and the pull of nearby attractions, including a hunting preserve and whitewater rafting.

"The people that . . . will find this attractive are those looking for a myriad of sporting activities, not just golfing," Kleisner said. "We don't want people to think of this as their father's resort."

"The Greenbrier is within a 250-mile radius of two-thirds of the population of the United States. There's got to be 500 people around who want to buy here," added developer Peter Pollak.

Kleisner said that among the reasons he chose the Savannah firm to handle the development was its reputation for building high-end properties on historically significant parcels.

DP&S is currently turning Henry Ford's winter estate outside Savannah into a luxury sporting colony. Two years ago the company righted a faltering effort to develop Bray's Island Plantation, a 5,200-acre resort near Beaufort, S.C.

Over the years, the Greenbrier has been rated as one of the nation's top resorts by several travel groups and enjoys a steady flow of high-profile visitors from Washington, New York and other East Coast cities among its 100,000 annual guests.

Since the first inn was built on the site in 1790, the clientele has included many of the nation's rich and famous. Twenty-six men who were or would become U.S. presidents have stayed there.

The Greenbrier still maintains a formal dress code and offers afternoon teas but also boasts a 30,000-square-foot spa, a bevy of shops and three 18-hole championship golf courses. Sam Snead--who shot the best round of his career there, a 59 in 1960--is the resort's golf pro emeritus, and Jack Nicklaus redesigned one of the courses.

The complex has 650 rooms,including 121 guest houses and estate houses and 33 suites. The daily rates run from $226 to $328 from April to October, and slightly less off season.

The stately white-columned main building dates to 1913, just after the C&O Railway bought the property. The original hotel was virtually rebuilt in 1930, at the start of the Depression. During World War II, several hundred German, Japanese and Italian diplomats were detained at the hotel until they could be exchanged for U.S. diplomats. Later the Army turned the entire hotel into a hospital for 20,000 wounded soldiers.

The 1992, revelations about the underground bunker generated new tourist appeal, and the warren of buried rooms opened for tours in 1995.

Greenbrier management's recent bid to turn the bunker into a casino generated new attention for the resort. While the state legislature approved the idea last year, subject to local voters' approval, an anti-gambling group is considering a court challenge. County commissioners recently put off until summer a decision on when to seek a referendum.

Community leaders and a representative of the anti-gambling group reacted positively to the Greenbrier's announcement yesterday, reflecting the important role the resort plays as the largest employer in Greenbrier County. About 1,600 workers serve the 1,200 daily guests.

The county's unemployment rate was 10.9 percent in February, compared with a state average of 6.6 percent, according to the West Virginia bureau of employment programs, and a national average of 4.1 percent.

The developers said the project would bring more than 400 jobs to the county in the first five years and $1.5 million a year in extra property taxes eventually. The county's budget this year is $4.2 million, said County Commission President Woody Hanna.

He said, "This is one of the greatest proposed economic shots in the arm that I have been involved with since I became a county commissioner."

-------- alternative energy

ANALYSIS - Offshore wind power swirls through Europe

NORWAY: April 13, 2000
by Jarle Samuelsberg
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6361

OSLO - European wind power producers are turning to gusty coastlines for future developments as public opposition grows to wind turbines in scenic rural areas.

Stronger and steadier flows of electricity from powerful sea winds will make up for the extra expense of building turbines offshore.

"We will build most of our new windpower in large parks offshore mainly because wind resources are better than on land," Joern Lemming, a wind power specialist at the Danish Energy Ministry told Reuters.

Denmark, a world leader in wind power, plans to develop 750 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind power by 2008 in addition to 1,755 MW installed on land today.

Lemming said Denmark's shallow coasts were well suited for wind power development as the water is not more than 10-20 metres deep as far out as 30 kilometres from land.

Offshore wind turbines are built on large concrete platforms or drilled down in the seabed. Costs are estimated at 50-90 percent above the investment needed for land developments.

The extra investment is worth it as strong sea winds mean the turbines are more efficient and generate much more electricity than those on land, said Lemming.

Per Krogsgaard, an analyst at Danish wind power consultancy BTM Consult, said shallow waters around most of the North Sea were well suited for wind power.

There are plans for projects in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and also in England and Ireland.

Development in Norwegian waters, however, is difficult as the country has a rocky coastline with deep waters making it hard to find suitable sites.

Despite the growing interest in offshore wind, land-based projects will dominate as the investment is less than for sea schemes and few countries in the world have suitable coastlines for turbines, said Krogsgaard.

"Countries with the required water facilities are becomming aware of the potential in offshore wind power, but in a global perspective, land based wind energy will still be dominating," he said.

INCREASING RESISTANCE TO WINDMILLS

As well as enjoying stronger winds offshore projects will also escape opposition to the visual impact from up to 100-metre tall wind turbine towers.

Danish lobby group Neighbours to Windmills says it does not oppose wind power in general but wants less development near populated areas.

"We protest against the impact windmills have on surroundings," says Jan Boedker, Neighbours to Windmills leader.

"Denmark has become so crowded by windmills that you can hardly go anywhere in the landscape without eyeing wind turbines," he said. Denmark has more than 6,000 wind turbines around its flat landscape, he added.

Boedker said windpower resistance had become more evident around Europe and similar groups were formed in other countries.

Growing opposition against wind turbines in the Netherlands, for example, has also led to its government assessing locations offshore.

"We have a notable resistance to windmills, and it is becoming more difficult to erect windmills onland," said Marjoleim Wester, a spokeswoman at Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

"Studies show that we have great potentials for exploiting wind resources off the coast, and we will build a 100-MW test park off town Egmont aan Zee by 2002 to investigate the possibilities," she said.

Wester said the studies had outlined a potential for developing as much as 5,000 MW wind energy from offshore production sites.

"The potential is biggest offshore, but we also target to develop up to 1,500 MW windpower on land," she said.

FRESH IMPETUS IN GERMANY

Germany, the world's biggest wind power producer with a capacity of 4,447 MW installed by the end of 1999, is planning large wind power in the North Sea.

"We are working on a planned 1,000 MW windpark near island Helgoland, but the project is at an early stage and windmills will likely not be erected until 2006" said Heino Mengers, deputy leader of the Energy department in Schleswig Holstein County.

He said a new law guaranteeing German wind power producers fixed prices from April 1, this year had brought new optimism to the industry.

"Wind power is acceelrating in Germany but far more projects are land-based since we have a limited coastline," he said.

Story

-------- arms sales

Patriot Missile Costs Will Be Higher

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2000; 2:39 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000413/aponline143907_000.htm
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS73R18LO0

WASHINGTON -- Fielding a new, more sophisticated version of the Patriot missile that gained acclaim in the 1991 Gulf War will cost $2.3 billion more than previously estimated, the Pentagon said Thursday.

That is about a 30 percent increase, to a total of $10.1 billion, for the version known as Patriot PAC-3.

About half of the added cost reflects an increase in the number of missiles the Army plans to buy, from 560 to 1,012. The Army hopes to expand the number even more, perhaps to about 1,300, if the cost can be covered.

The other portion of the extra cost is due to a higher estimate of engineering costs and a decision to buy the new missiles over a longer period of time. Some manufacturing efficiencies are lost in a longer buy period.

The new Patriot system is expected to be ready for use in limited numbers next year and will eventually replace the air defense missiles now deployed with U.S. troops in South Korea, Germany and the Persian Gulf. The current Patriot system also has been sold to Japan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.

The Patriot is the only weapon now available to U.S. forces for shooting down ballistic missiles like the Scud missiles that Iraq launched against Saudi Arabia and Israel during the Gulf War. The Pentagon believes an increasing number of countries hostile to the United States will acquire ballistic missiles in the future.

Last month the Army disclosed that it had to hurriedly replace hundreds of Patriot missile systems in the Gulf and South Korea because of a glitch that raised questions about whether they would work in combat. The glitch appeared related to the fact that Patriot missiles have been on high alert there for long periods.

The new PAC-3 system has upgraded its radar and the firing station in which troops operate the system. It also has a newly designed missile that destroys its target by ramming into it at high speed. The current Patriot missile uses a fragmentation warhead that explodes near the target. The newer system, known as "hit-to-kill" technology, is supposed to be more effective against enemy missiles armed with nuclear, chemical or biological warheads. It also is capable of hitting low-flying cruise missiles.

The higher estimated cost of fielding the PAC-3 system was included in a longer Pentagon report released Thursday on several major weapons programs. Among other program cost increases reported were:

- The Crusader artillery system. Development costs increased by nearly $1.4 billion, to $4.3 billion. This was attributed mainly to changes in the program resulting from the Army's decision last year to "transform" itself into a lighter, more mobile and more easily deployable force for war as well as peacekeeping.

- The Navy's new-generation destroyer, designated the DD-21. Development costs jumped by $2 billion, to $5.2 billion. The Navy has estimated the total cost of building 32 of these destroyers will be $25 billion.

- The Pentagon's national missile defense project. A little over $1.5 billion was added to reflect the decision made last year to buy 100 missile interceptors instead of 20. This and other cost increases recently acknowledged by the Pentagon have pushed the total program cost to $20.2 billion. The Pentagon hopes to have it ready for use by 2005.

-------- britain

Britain's Cook backs aid over Ukraine's Chernobyl

UKRAINE: April 13, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Story by Christina Ling
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6364

KIEV - British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on Wednesday pledged London's backing for completion of two new nuclear reactors at power stations in Ukraine's western regions if the troubled Chernobyl plant closes this year.

Cook, on a one-day visit to Kiev, also said Britain supported Ukraine's economic reforms and its hopes for closer European and Western ties.

"We fully understand the appalling legacy that Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union. Chernobyl stands as a grim monument to the neglected safety and environment in the days of the Soviet Union," Cook told a news briefing.

He later told reporters after meeting President Leonid Kuchma that Britain would give 10.5 million pounds ($16.6 million) to help build a new shelter over the rubble of the fourth reactor, which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.

"We are also willing to help fund the reactors to replace Chernobyl...But the basis of our agreement is that Chernobyl must close in the interests of the world and in the interests of Ukraine as well."

Ukraine has still not set a definite date for closure of the plant's remaining reactor, although Kuchma told reporters he had repeated Ukraine's pledge to close Chernobyl this year in line with promises to the Group of Seven top industrial nations.

Ukrainian officials complain the G7 has not made good on promises to help fund completion of two new reactors at its Rivne and Khmelnitsky stations to make up for capacity lost by closing Chernobyl's last functioning reactor.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is spearheading the funding drive, said last month it could not loan any money until Ukraine met key financing terms.

SUPPORT FOR EUROPEAN CHOICE

Cook also vowed to step up bilateral ties with Ukraine, strategically located between Russia and its former satellites in eastern and central Europe, and to support its drive for closer integration with European structures.

He said he was optimistic Ukraine's ambitious reform programme would boost British investment and trade, and said both countries had an interest in friendly ties with Ukraine's neighbour Russia under new President Vladimir Putin.

Later this week, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will also visit Ukraine. Putin himself plans to make a stopover in Kiev early next week after a short trip to Britain.

Putin's tough military campaign in breakaway Chechnya has drawn sharp criticism in the West, but leaders like British Prime Minister Tony Blair are also keen to establish a good working relationship with a man they expect to dominate Russian politics for the next few years.

"I have already made clear the wish of Britain to build a constructive partnership with Russia," Cook said.

"But it must be a partnership that enables us to both have a working relationship in areas of common concern such as the Balkans and also enables us to talk frankly...when we have issues on which we disagree."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk said the two had discussed plans for Kuchma to visit Britain, but gave no further details. Kuchma also announced a new permanent working group to be headed by Britain's Blair aimed at boosting ties.

----

TD questions Blair's 'collusion' with Sellafield

By Miriam Donohoe, Political Reporter
Thursday, April 13, 2000
http://www.ireland.com:80/newspaper/front/2000/0413/fro1.htm

The Taoiseach has been asked to seek urgent clarification from the British Prime Minister about the "level of collusion" between the British government and the operators of the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The request has come from the independent TD for Wicklow, Ms Mildred Fox, following an exchange of letters between her and Mr Tony Blair. She has documents which reveal that a reply to a letter she sent to the Prime Minister expressing concerns about Sellafield was cleared by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) in England and Dublin.

Ms Fox has discovered that her letter to Mr Blair, sent on May 19th, 1997, was forwarded from the Prime Minister's office to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which subsequently sent it to BNFL.

In a memo to the DTI on June 11th, 1997, BNFL's government relations manager, Mr Rupert Wilcox-Baker, said: "Thanks for letting us see the Mildred Fox correspondence. In reply to an Irish TD, we believe that it is important to be assertive and not to be appearing to justify or apologise for the UK nuclear industry."

It went on: "Mildred Fox is one of a handful of independent TDs and so I think the reply should come from a more junior minister than the President of the Board of Trade. Therefore may I suggest some alternative words."

Mr Wilcox-Baker also wrote on June 11th, 1997, to BNFL's public relations representative in Dublin, Mrs Veronica McDermott, enclosing a copy of the DTI draft reply. He said: "Please see the attached letter from Mildred Fox to Tony Blair!! The date is interesting - pre-election stunt?"

The letter continued: "Are you happy with the DTI's reply? It seems reasonable to me in that it is from HMG (Her Majesty's Government), not us. I wonder if it should be signed by a more junior minister and if they should invite her to visit Sellafield or say they have asked BNFL to contact her? Any thoughts."

Details of the correspondence will be revealed tonight in a Channel Four Dispatches documentary, The Nuclear Files. Ms Fox has been interviewed for the programme, which is investigating the relationship between BNFL and the British government.

Ms Fox wrote to the Taoiseach yesterday asking him to contact the British government to see if it has a policy of responding to Irish TDs in a manner different from members of parliament in other states.

The Wicklow TD told The Irish Times that the attitude of the British government to Irish public representatives on Sellafield was "insulting" and "derogatory".

The eventual reply to Ms Fox came on June 26th, 1997, and was signed by a junior minister at the DTI, Mr John Battle. He said the British government and BNFL were committed to maintaining the highest safety standards.

A spokesman for BNFL said it was not surprising that DTI officials used information supplied by BNFL when answering queries.

-------- canada

[In a typical bait-and-switch operation, US DOE just announced that they are quintupling the amount of weapons grade plutonium shipped from Russia to Canada at the behest of the United States. Anyone for five million dead people? Francis A. Boyle - fboyle@law.uiuc.edu]

Canada may accept more plutonium than initially agreed to WebPosted

CBC Radio News
Thu Apr 13 13:25:41 2000
http://cbc.ca/clips/ram-audio/mclauchlin_wr000413.ram

MONTREAL - An American official says there is more plutonium from Russia on its way to Canada - five times more than originally expected.

The weapons-grade plutonium is to be processed at AECL's nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ontario. It's part of an experiment involving Canada, the United States and Russia.

The U.S. department of energy is paying Canada to take in plutonium that would have been destined for American or Russian nuclear weapons to see if it can be disposed of as reactor fuel.

The American shipment arrived in January, 120 grams of plutonium. The terms of the agreement call for the same amount to be shipped in by the Russians, 120 grams.

Now the head of the American office in charge of the program, Laura Holgate, says Russia will ship not 120 grams, but five times that amount.

"I don't have the total figures but it's roughly 600 grams of plutonium," Holgate said.

But that's not the figure Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is using.

Company spokesperson David Lyle says, "It's not going to be significantly different from the shipment that occurred from the U.S."

But it is a significant difference, according to the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Theresa McClennahan is legal counsel for the association. She says the increase in the amount of plutonium

is illegal.

"We would say no, it's not legal to amend the plan in this way. And this decision to take so much more fuel is also an extremely significant change to the original plan."

McClennahan says the changes to the plan should be the subject of public discussion, or at least parliamentary debate.

She says this apparent increase in the amount of fuel increases the hazard to which Canadians will be exposed and she expects some interested group will want to challenge it in court.

----

Canada Urges U.N. Rights Forum to Press Russia, Sudan

April 13, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-rights-.html

GENEVA (Reuters) - Canada urged the main U.N. human rights forum Thursday to call on Russia to carry out a thorough investigation of ``all allegations from all sides'' in the Chechnya conflict.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy also condemned abuses in Sudan's brutal civil war, including bombings of schools and hospitals, abductions of women and children and the use of landmines against civilians.

He was addressing the United Nations Commission on Human Rights which is holding its annual six-week session in Geneva.

Canada has joined the European Union (EU) in co-sponsoring resolutions on both Chechnya and Sudan at the 53-member body, which is due to vote on the texts next Tuesday.

Axworthy also met U.N. human rights commissioner Mary Robinson to discuss the situation in Chechnya, where she had undertaken a fact-finding mission earlier this month, and in Sudan.

In her report to the U.N. rights forum last week, Robinson called on Russia to carry out a credible national investigation into alleged mass killings, executions, torture, arbitrary detention and other abuses in the rebel republic.

``We remain convinced that human security cannot be restored in that troubled region without an open and inclusive investigation of all allegations from all sides,'' Axworthy said.

``To that end, Canada would strongly support the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry and emphasize the importance of participation by international experts in its work,'' he added.

The EU-Canadian draft resolution calls on Russia to establish ``a national, broad-based and independent commission of inquiry'' to probe allegations and bring perpetrators to justice.

But the EU and Russian diplomats are negotiating on the five-page resolution, according to diplomats. The text could be watered down and emerge as a ``chairman's statement,'' a milder form of rebuke adopted by consensus, they added.

Canada's foreign minister said that the Security Council had failed to take up proposals to support peace efforts to end the brutal armed conflict in Sudan and address huge suffering there.

``Canada believes we must use every means possible to ensure that this ongoing conflict that has killed millions and produced the highest number of internally displaced persons in Africa receives more, not less, scrutiny from the international community,'' added Axworthy, whose country serves as president of the Security Council this month.

``For this reason, it is imperative that the Commission on Human Rights take a firm stand and express the deep concern of the international community.

``Canada has co-sponsored a resolution which condemns bombings of schools and hospitals, the use of landmines against civilians, forced displacements, abduction of women and children, killing of humanitarian personnel and denials of access for humanitarian organizations,'' he said.

The Islamist-led government in Khartoum has been fighting since 1983 against rebels dominated by the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

-------- china

Deal for Early-Warning Plane Hangs Over Jiang's Arrival in Israel

April 13, 2000
By WILLIAM A. ORME Jr.
http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+114627+57+wAAA+%22april%7E13,2000%22

JERUSALEM, April 12 -- President Jiang Zemin of China flew into Israel and a storm of controversy today as United States opposition to a planned Israeli arms deal with his country overshadowed the first official visit by a Chinese leader here.

Mr. Jiang, arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport several hundred yards from a rusting hangar that is home to an advanced aircraft at the center of the controversy. For a year, technicians from Israel Aircraft Industries have been outfitting a Chinese-owned Ilyushin-76 with its advanced Phalcon airborne early warning system. Crowned with an Awacs-style radar pod and crammed with espionage gear, the droop-winged jet can monitor the movement and communications of planes, ships and ground troops across 250 miles.

Mr. Jiang is to hold talks on Thursday with Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is flying home from a meeting at the White House, where President Clinton reiterated Washington's objections to the sale. In a suggested compromise that promises to satisfy neither Washington nor Beijing, Mr. Barak is said to have told the Americans that Israel would provide the Chinese with just one of the advanced planes, although it had agreed to give them an option to purchase at least three more.

Congressional leaders in Washington have threatened to cut military aid to Israel in retaliation for the sale, which Pentagon officials say could endanger United States forces in case of a Chinese confrontation with Taiwan.

Israeli officials have adopted an almost defiant stance, pointing to legal and ethical commitment to contracts. They also noted that Washington did not object when Israel formally notified it of the pending sale four years ago.

A State Department official stressed that Washington was concerned not just by the Phalcon transaction, but also by the entire "developing defense relationship" between Israel and China. American officials cite China's new J-10 jet fighter, which defense experts say is based on an Israeli prototype developed with United States aid.

The Israelis continue to argue that a closer relationship with the Chinese military can help Israel dissuade Beijing from supplying sophisticated weaponry to Iraq and Iran, despite persistent reports that some Israeli-assisted Chinese arms technology may have already indirectly found its way to Iran.

Mr. Jiang's visit is planned as the culmination of a long courtship, intended to open China to Israeli commerce and pry Beijing from its once-staunch support for Israel's adversaries in the Arab world. In a weeklong stay interrupted by day trips to Egypt and Palestinian-governed Bethlehem, Mr. Jiang will visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, and the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

----

China Says Arms Talks Hinge on U.S. Ties

WORLD IN BRIEF
Compiled by Patricia E. Gaston
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page A21
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/212l-041300-idx.html

BEIJING--China backpedaled yesterday on an earlier announcement that it was ready to resume nuclear nonproliferation talks with the United States and end a moratorium imposed after a NATO warplane bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

A Foreign Ministry official said a resumption of talks will depend on how well bilateral relations develop this year.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said Tuesday that China had already agreed to resume arms control discussions when U.S. national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger requested renewed dialogue during a visit last month.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing expressed confusion over the contradictory statements. It was unclear whether Sun had made a mistake or whether Beijing had a change of mind.

China suspended talks over nonproliferation and human rights after the May 7 attack in Belgrade, which killed three Chinese citizens, injured 20 others and severely damaged U.S.-China relations. The United States has said the bombing was a mistake caused by outdated data and human error.

(Cindy Sui)

----

Beijing delivered missile technology to Libya, U.S. says

April 13, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000413231544.htm

China is providing assistance to Libya's long-range missile program and made its latest technology transfer to the North African nation last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, outlined the transfer in a classified report sent March 2 to senior U.S. government officials.

Disclosure of the NSA report on the missile cooperation follows announcement Tuesday that the United States and China will resume talks on the spread of weapons of mass destruction and missiles to rogue states. The talks were suspended by Beijing following the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade last year.

Officials familiar with the NSA report said the missile technology transfer followed other intelligence reports in December that China had agreed to supply Libya with a hypersonic wind tunnel. The wind tunnels will be used for modeling and simulation, key elements of missile development.

Officials discussed some aspects of the China-Libya missile trade on the condition of anonymity.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright is expected to be questioned about the China-Libya missile cooperation during an appearance today before the Senate Appropriations Committee, according to congressional aides.

According to the intelligence officials, the missile cooperation began in March 1999 between the state-run China Precision Machinery Import-Export Co. and the Libyan government. The deal involves help in developing Libya's long-range Al-Fatah missile program.

But Chinese technicians have been linked in intelligence reports to the Al-Fatah missile program as early as June 1998, the officials said.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said during a speech Feb. 5 in Germany that Libya is seeking long-range missiles. In calling for national missile defenses, Mr. Cohen said, "Libya has chemical capabilities and is trying to buy long-range missiles."

Rogue states like Libya, Iraq and Iran are not trying to build the missiles for regional conflict, he said.

"They want long-range missiles to coerce and threaten us - the North American and European parts of NATO," Mr. Cohen said.

The defense secretary provided no other details.

An administration official said he was unaware of the NSA report but noted that "We've made it clear we think it is important for China to strengthen its controls over missile-related technology." A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment.

Other defense officials said the missiles sought by the Libyans are North Korea's 600-mile-range No Dong missile system, or possibly the longer-range Taepo Dong missile.

The missile buying effort appears to be relatively recent. The CIA's public report on missile threats released in September made no mention of Libya's missile program or its efforts to acquire long-range systems.

Intelligence officials said despite numerous sensitive reports on the program few details are known about Libya's long-range missile program. The Chinese technology and assistance may be for the indigenous Al-Fatah missile, which is believed to be in the late stages of development, but which has not been flight tested. The Al Fatah is expected to have a range of about 600 miles.

The Chinese assistance also may involve training for Libyan military personnel to operate imported North Korea missiles in the future, or the indigenous Al Fatah.

A U.S. spy satellite last year photographed Libyan efforts to enlarge a missile test facility as part of the development program, the officials said.

The same day the NSA reported the missile technology transfer China's official Xinhua news agency announced that Beijing had reached an agreement with the Libya government to build a railroad system as part of "broad railway cooperation."

Some intelligence officials said the rail agreement will provide cover for the secret missile cooperation.

Further evidence of Libya missile development efforts surfaced yesterday. Authorities in Switzerland announced arrest of a Taiwanese businessman who was charged with trying to smuggle Scud missile components to Libya.

And British authorities intercepted a shipment of missile parts in November that were bound for Libya. The parts appeared to be components for Scud-type missiles and may have originated in North Korea, according to U.S. officials.

Swiss police said in 1996 they also intercepted a container from China marked "machine components" that had come from North Korea and were being shipped illegally to Egypt.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has said he plans to develop long-range missiles capable of attacking the United States, according to congressional panel on missile threats headed by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

According to the Rumsfeld Commission report, Col. Gadhafi said of his adversaries in a 1990 speech: "If they know that you have a deterrent force capable of hitting the United States, they would not be able to hit you. If we had possessed a deterrent - missiles that could reach New York - we would have hit it at the same moment [as the 1986 U.S. air strike on Libya]. Consequently, we should build this force so that they and others will no longer think about an attack."

Then in late 1995, Col. Gadhafi said "As things stand today, I would attack every place from where aggression against Libya was being planned. I would even be prepared to hit Naples, where there is a NATO base."

----

Poising for strike at Taiwan

April 13, 2000
Edward Timperlake / William C. Triplett II
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000413165141.htm

Very methodically, the Chinese People's Liberation Army is putting in place the building blocks that will allow it to seize Taiwan by force. Defense Secretary William Cohen says the strategic balance in Asia is at risk. We agree.

The PLA's strategy rests on four pillars, the first of which is the elimination of the United States as an intervening factor. Recently, the PLA Navy took delivery of its initial Russian Sovremenny-class destroyer. A second one will arrive in the fall, and there are ongoing negotiations for perhaps four more.

These ships were designed to be aircraft carrier "killers" as the PLA's principal newspaper noted on March 22. More ominously, the PLA's paper quietly confirmed that the SS-N-22 missiles carried aboard the Sovremenny can be "nuclear capable." Each of the eight on-board missiles would then pack a nuclear punch approximating 20 times the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

In an environment that contains our Los Angeles-class submarine, a Chinese Sovremenny would have an exciting but short existence. However, it is our judgment that in the event of hostilities over Taiwan, China will declare these ships to be "Strategic Nuclear Assets" in defense of their homeland. When a Strategic Nuclear Asset is threatened, the world is on the edge of a nuclear exchange. China will count on this understanding among declared nuclear powers to ensure that the United States Navy stays well clear.

If the USN is ordered into harm's way around Taiwan, it will face an ominous battle situation. On March 15 newspaper close to Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin bragged that the Sovremennys' missiles, plus more missiles on the Russian SU-30MK strike aircraft being sold to China and the Israeli Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) scheduled to arrive in China this summer will give the PLA Navy the upper hand in the Western Pacific. The AWACS will be able to locate and target the Americans and the Russian missiles will kill them. It is unlikely anyone aboard an American carrier battle group would survive a nuclear surprise attack under these circumstances.

The PLA's second pillar of its Taiwan strategy is what the Pentagon calls "precision strike," missiles aimed at critical targets, mostly military. That would include Taiwan's navy, particularly if it is tied up in port on the weekend. Military airfields, radars, command and control systems, and other strategic points would be targeted by the hundreds of modern, mobile ballistic missiles now rolling off PLA assembly lines. Jamestown Foundation analyst Richard Fisher recently noted the PLA is setting up a wall of Russian ground-to-air missile sites along the Chinese coast, blocking Taiwan's highly capable Air Force from a pre-emptive strike.

Third, there is information warfare, sometimes known as cyberwarfare. In a 1998 report to Congress, the U.S. Department of Defense said, "The PLA has shown exceptional interest in information warfare and has begun programs to develop IW capabilities at the strategic, operational and tactical levels as part of its overall military modernization effort." Taiwan's critical civilian infrastructure -nuclear power plants, refineries, telephone system, transport and finance systems - would all be vulnerable to computer network attack from the mainland.

Finally, the PLA is working on special operations techniques that will make it unnecessary for them to conquer the entire island at once. Originally designed by the American Strategic Air Command in the 1950s to handle B-52s, CCK airbase in Central Taiwan has very long runways and extensive fortified hangers. In Western China, there is an exact duplicate of CCK airbase, 1 inch to 1 inch, against which PLA special operations troops have been conducting mock assaults. If the PLA can seize and hold a piece of territory on Taiwan, they could use it as a rallying point for a Quisling government.

If the PLA could gain the initiative through a surprise attack and American military paralysis, they would be at the mopping-up stage within 72 hours.

The PLA's successful military conquest of Taiwan would be a disaster for the world democratic alliance as well as the people of Taiwan. Most importantly, we would lose the laboratory for Chinese democracy that Taiwan has become in recent years. Japan and South Korea would be isolated politically, economically and geographically in Northeast Asia and would inevitably re-examine the nuclear option. There are indications that China intends to turn its aggression on the South China Sea after it successfully absorbs Taiwan.

Tyrants around the world would be encouraged by the obvious defeat of the United States.

Under the terms of 1979's Taiwan Relations Act, the administration and the Congress share responsibility for seeing that Taiwan can purchase the defensive weapons it needs to make the PLA's job impossible. If the American government fails this challenge, it may not get a second chance.

Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II are the co-authors of "Red Dragon Rising," Regnery 1999.

----

Jiang visits Israel; U.S. warns Barak on arms deal

April 13, 2000
By Dina Kraft
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200041322331.htm

JERUSALEM - Israel welcomed Chinese President Jiang Zemin to the Jewish state yesterday on a historic visit that came amid U.S. pressure to cancel a lucrative arms deal with China.

The high-profile recognition of Israel by one of the world's major powers 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 the United States, its strongest ally, and a powerful new friend.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak welcomed Mr. 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.

Mr. 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.

In a press conference late last year, Mr. Clinton expressed fears that U.S. technology may be involved in the sale. Israeli officials subsequently said that the deal includes no U.S. military technology.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, said yesterday his country was committed to selling at least one surveillance system 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.

Mr. 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.

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

Mr. Jiang's first stop was a reception by Israeli President Ezer Weizman. Describing Israel and China as ancient nations, Mr. 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 yesterday signed agreements on education and industrial technology research and development.

During his visit, Mr. Jiang will hold talks with Mr. 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, reportedly has been canceled to avoid drawing more attention to the deal.

Mr. Barak faces a difficult dilemma over the sale.

He needs Mr. 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, Mr. 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.

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

Mr. Sneh said that when Washington sold similar early warning, or AWACS, planes to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, it assured Israel they are purely defensive.

Mr. Sneh said he did not believe the aircraft had changed their character today.

Mr. Sneh said the U.S. presidential campaign was a factor in the dispute. Noting that the Israel-China deal was signed three years ago, Mr. 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."

Last week, the chairman of a House committee that oversees foreign aid threatened to deduct Israeli earnings from the sale of the planes from U.S. aid to Israel.

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

Israel came under fire in 1990 after the CIA reported that it had improperly transferred U.S. Patriot anti-missile technology to China, The Washington Times reported at the time.

Last year, the Defense Intelligence Agency stated in a classified report, obtained by The Times, that it suspected Israel of improperly sharing restricted U.S. laser weapons technology with China.

-------- depleted uranium

URANIUM GETS THE BULLET

THURSDAY APRIL 13, 2000
THE GUARDIAN

From: "Dan Fahey" <mtpdu@dclink.com>, Carole Gallagher

The use of depleted uranium weapons is once more causing concern. The people of Kosovo have been alarmed to discover that the conflict there has left radioactive contamination, just as it did in Kuwait nine years ago.

Why do the US and the UK continue to use a waste product of the nuclear industry in weapons? Some commentators allege that it is a conspiracy between the military and the nuclear industry to dispose of dangerous waste in hostile countries. The real reasons are more complex.

Metallic uranium occurs naturally in tiny quantities. In its native state it is a mixture of highly radioactive uranium-235 and less active U-238. U-235 is used in reactors and atomic weapons; once it is extracted, the remainder is depleted uranium. It is a poisonous heavy metal like lead or mercury but only slightly radioactive. You could hold a piece of DU for days without serious exposure to radiation, but swallowing or inhaling it is more dangerous. Experts are still arguing about how long uranium stays in the body; the longer it remains, the greater the chance that the radioactivity will cause cancer.

To understand why DU makes a good anti-tank weapon you have to enter the Alice-In-Wonderland world of high energy collisions. When metal meets metal at five times the speed of sound strange things happen. Hard ened steel shatters like glass. Metal flows like putty, or simply vaporises. A faster shell does not necessarily go through more armour, but, like a pebble thrown into the water, it makes a bigger splash.

Armour penetration is increased by concentrating the force of a shell into as small an area as possible, so the projectiles tend to resemble giant darts. The denser the projectile, the harder the impact for any given size. DU is almost twice as dense as lead, making it highly suitable. The other metal used for anti-tank rounds is tungsten, which is also very hard and dense. When a tungsten rod strikes armour, it deforms and mushrooms, making it progressively blunter. Uranium is "pyrophoric": at the point of impact it burns away into vapour so that the projectile stays sharp. This results in what the military describes as "behind armour effect". When it breaks through, the burning DU turns the inside of a vehicle into an inferno of white- hot gas and sparks.

Normal uranium is not as hard as tungsten. But a classified technique allows it to be hardened. This is believed to involve alloying it with titanium and cooling so that it forms a single large metallic crystal rather than the usual chaotic mass of tiny crystals. This monocrystalline structure is very strong and produces an improvement like the difference between a brittle pencil lead and a carbon-fibre tennis racket. The final advantage of uranium is cost. Machined tungsten is expensive, but governments supply DU more or less for free.

As with most weapons, depleted uranium is not as deadly as its proponents - or its critics - claim. One tank was hit four times with no causalities. Twenty US vehicles took penetrating hits from DU weapons during the Gulf conflict. Thirteen crew members were killed, but 113 others - almost 90% - survived. The survivors are being monitored for long- term adverse effects, and the arguments continue over the dust produced when a DU weapon strikes a target. Estimates of the risk range from "negligible" to a 7% chance of developing cancer for anyone living in an area contaminated by DU. There is also the question of whether uranium dust plays a part in Gulf War Syndrome.

These arguments are likely to continue indefinitely. But it is likely that DU will be phased out, not for health reasons but for military ones. It was introduced as an engineering solution to the problem of breaking through heavy armour. As with other areas, heavy machinery is being superseded by computer technology. Tank armour is concentrated mainly at the front, facing the main threat; it is thinner on the sides and thinner still on top. If the entire vehicle was clad in thick armour it would be too heavy to move. Instead of brute force, the clever approach would be to attack the weakest point.

After decades of development and several false starts, a new generation of anti-armour weapons is being fielded. These "brilliant" weapons find their own targets, unlike mere smart bombs which have to be directed.

One example is Sadarm - Seek And Destroy ARMour. It is fired like a normal artillery shell into the target area, where it ejects two submunitions which descend by parachute. As they fall, Sadarm scans the ground with radar and infra-red sensors. Targets are identified and the most important selected - a Scud launcher in preference to a tank, a tank rather than a truck. Sadarm attacks by firing a slug of molten metal at the selected target. The slug takes on an aerodynamic shape as it travels through the air, ideal for piercing armour. Though less powerful than a DU shell, the explosively formed projectile can break through the top armour of any tank.

Engagements between tanks are fought face-to-face, at a maximum distance of about four kilometres. Munitions like Sadarm can be lobbed at an enemy 20 kilometres away. Missiles carrying brilliant munitions can range out to 100 kilometres or more; the only limitation is the ability to locate enemy tank formations. Depleted uranium weapons will be used as long as they are useful; indications are that this will not be for many years more.

Sadarm and other brilliant weapons do not use radioactive uranium. They use tantalum, an exotic heavy metal for which very little data is available. It appears to be highly toxic, especially when vaporised. We will probably discover the full effects only after another Gulf War.

----

Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 15:55:05 -0500 From: Doug Rokke drokke@jsucc.jsu.edu To: "Bill Smirnow smirnowb@ix.netcom.com,

USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM: A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Doug Rokke. Ph.D. Jacksonville State University

The recent (March 20-23, 2000) Plowshares vs. Depleted Uranium trial in Baltimore County court involved individuals who protested the continuing use of depleted uranium munitions and callous disregard of health and environment as continuously demonstrated by U.S. Department of Defense officials. The Courts refusal to admit testimony regarding DU effects is yet again additional evidence that U.S. officials will avoid acknowledging adverse health or environmental effects for political and economic reasons. The United States deliberately used depleted uranium munitions in Iraq, Kuwait, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Puerto Rico, Okinawa, and within the United States. United Nations documents verify that over 31,000 DU rounds (over 10 tons) were fired in Kosovo. Yet, neither medical care nor environmental remediation has been completed. Thousands of individuals have been exposed and, today, many are sick or dead. DU is a health hazard if it is inhaled, ingested, or gets in wounds. U.S. Department of Energy documents released January 29, 2000 verify the hazards of uranium exposures. Respiratory and skin protection must be worn by everyone within 80 feet of any DU-contaminated equipment. DU contamination will make food and water unusable. Today, irrefutable evidence suggests that adverse health and environmental effects occur unless all contamination is removed! This evidence was willfully suppressed during the recent trial.

Depleted uranium (U-238) is made from uranium hexaflouride, which is the non-fissionable by-product of the uranium enrichment process completed at facilities in Tennessee, Ohio, and Kentucky during which fissionable U-234 and U-235 are removed to make bombs and reactor fuel. DU is used in munitions, counterweights, shielding, and now commercial concrete (DUCRETE). DU munitions include the: 7.62 mm, 50 cal., 20 mm (180 grams), 25 mm (200 grams), 30 mm (280 grams), 105 mm (3500 grams), and 120 mm (4500 grams) penetrators and the ADAM and PDM cluster bombs. DU munitions, in contrast to previous reports, are neither tipped nor coated with DU but are solid uranium 238 with approximate masses as listed above. Upon impact, radioactive and heavy metal poison U-238 fragments and dangerous oxides are created that must be removed to prevent further exposures.

Even though medical care, environmental remediation, and DU training are required by law, and by DOD regulations, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) is still refusing: 1) to provide medical care for all DU casualties 2) to complete environmental remediation 3) to provide thorough DU training 4) to disseminate DU contamination management procedures.

During the "Plowshares versus Depleted Uranium" trial conducted in Towson, U.S. Air Force officials admitted under oath that they had not completed the required DU training. The U.S. Government Accounting Office Report: "Understanding of Health Effects From Depleted Uranium Evolving but Safety Training Needed" (GAO/NSAID-00-70, page 18) states that "the Air Force requires general awareness DU training for all personnel subject to mobilization and deployment and as a part of basic training". Therefore, the GAO document verifies that the U.S. Air Force personnel maintaining the A-10's are willfully violating laws and regulations. These same individuals did not provide adequate security to prevent the defendants from approaching and damaging an A-10 combat aircraft.

Today, verification of adverse DU health effects is difficult because DOD officials not only deny, but delay, medical treatment. Dr. Bernard Rostker (DOD) wrote on March 1,1999, that physicians and health physicists decided during 1991 that medical screening for uranium exposures was not required. Official DOD documents written during 1991 refute that claim. Reported and verified health effects of radioactive and heavy metal poison include: reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones, chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation, night vision losses, gum tissue problems, lymphoma and other forms of cancer, neuro-psychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction, birth defects in offspring, and death. Adverse effects will continue to occur as long as U.S. Department of Defense, or other governmental officials, are permitted to: 1) ignore emerging evidence, 2) deny medical treatment to all DU exposed individuals, 3) refuse to complete environmental remediation , and 4) delay DU training by suppressing scientific and medical evidence. The Deputy Secretary of Defense ordered medical care for everyone that inhaled, ingested, or has wound contamination on June 8, 1993. Headquarters Department of the U.S. Army on October 14, 1993 ordered it, again. However, medical care and environmental remediation still are refused for political and economic reasons. President Clinton announced on April 12, 2000 that individuals exposed to radioactive materials while employed by the U.S. Department of Energy at Oak Ridge, Pudacah, and other similar sites who are sick would receive compensation and medical care. This same courtesy should be extended to all individuals exposed to depleted uranium as part of official duties. .

The United Nations forced U.S. officials to finally acknowledge deliberate use of DU in Kosovo on March 22, 2000, almost one year after initial use. Yet, U.S. officials immediately denied there were any adverse health or environmental effects on March 23, 2000 even though official documents and medical evidence refute their claims. Everyone should consider whether they want thousands and thousands of radioactive heavy metal poison bullets in their own backyard. If not, then those bullets should not be left anywhere in the world where children, or any human being, may be exposed! The response to this crime against God and humanity is clear: 1) All individuals who may have inhaled, ingested, or had wound contamination must have medical care 2) All depleted uranium fragments, contaminated equipment, and oxide contamination must be removed and disposed of properly. 3) Use of depleted uranium munitions must be banned.

Author information: Dr. Doug Rokke is the former ODS DU Team health physicist and the former U.S. Army DU Project Director. Currently, he is a professor of environmental science at Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, Alabama.

--------

From: Dennis092@aol.com
Try these.

DU Bullet image (41k) http://antenna.nl/wise/uranium/img/dbull.jpg

Munitions website. http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/ammunition/index.html

WarWeapons http://www.fraktuell http://www.fraktuell.de/english/401/t401010.htm

Radioactive Residue, Environmental Fallout, Photo: U.S. Air Force Malignant Bullets: The A10 Warthog fighter plane fires rounds made of toxic depleted uranium. http://www.metroactive.com:80/metro/gifs/uranium9919.jpg

Photo Warthog Low and slow-flying U.S. A10 aircraft such as this one are firing depleted uranium rounds at Serb forces, a Pentagon official said. A10 Warthogs earned a reputation as tank killers during the 1991 Gulf War. (AP Photo/ U.S. Air Force, Senior Airman Jeffrey Allen) http://abcnews.go.com/media/US/images/apr_warthog990503_h.jpg

A10: Can fire depleted uranium shells April 9, 1999 BBC World: Europe, By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_315000/315396.stm

A10 http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/315000/images/_315396_plane.jpg

Apache. Clinton: Apaches not likely to be used 5/18/99 USA Today 06:22 PM ET http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso661.htm

Officers: Apaches Not So Vulnerable Associated Press, May 19, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/APApacheMissiles.html

TASK FORCE HAWK, Albania (AP) The Army's Apache attack helicopters were designed specifically to defeat Sovietmade antiaircraft weapons and are capable of dealing with everything Serbia could throw at them, American officers say. Facts, figures on the Apache May 18, 1999 USA Today, 7:39 p.m. http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/koso663.htm

Apache Helicopter If NATO elects to escalate its war against the Serbs, U.S. Apache attack helicopters would play a key role against tanks and ground troops. USA Today, May 19, 1999 http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/apache/apache.htm

Photo/drawing http://usatoday.com/news/index/kosovo/apache/img/main.gif

Tomahawk Cruise Missile. Navy Fact File: Tomahawk Cruise Missile Updated: 28 January 1999 http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/weptoma.html

Navy proposes new version of tactical missile US Navy, September 4, 1997 http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/tacttom.html

USAF Fact Sheet AGM86B/C Missiles http://airforce.dtic.mil/news/factsheets/AGM_86B_C_Missiles.html

Photos: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/weapons/missiles/tomahawk/tlam.gif http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/tlam3a.gif

Tomahawk demonstrates land attack capability April 2, 1998 http://www.dcmilitary.com/navy/tester/apr2/tst_d4298.html

RELATED: Weapons: The Tomahawk Missile [One wonders whether there was depleted uranium ballast?] http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/082198missile.jpg.html

For Information on whether this particular Missile contains or contained DU please search in "Janes Missiles & Guided Weapons" -"Technical Information" [Navy & Airforce]

Jane's Defence Weekly Read more with images at: http://jdw.janes.com

Searchable sites on Depleted Uranium civilian & Military usage. http://nbnews.com/wire/807002.htm http://leb.net/IAC/edge.html http://web.fie.com/htdoc/fed/doe/fsl/pub/text/any/anno24.htm http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/caldicott.htm http://www.excite.com/search.gw?lookdefault&collectionweb&searchDEPLETED+URANI http://www.osti.gov/html/osti/opennet/document/press/pc19.html http://chain.highlands.com/Indian_Point_Project/_Congressonal_Hearing_on_Depleted_Uranium_Weapons.htm http://www.gulfwar.org/GWVA/mhonarc/msg00389.html http://www.uilondon.org/uiabs95/patton.html http://www.armytechnology.com/projects/abrams/index.html http://www.ead.anl.gov/duf6eis.html http://www.labyrinth.net.au/%7Egjackson/gulf.html http://users.cybercity.dk/%7Eccc11401/home.html http://www.io.com/%7Emaniac/environ.html http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/r/rrmasri/www/IAC/index.html http://www.gslink.com/%7Earison/gws.html http://www.dtic.dla.mil/defenselink/news/Oct96/b102296_bt59896.html http://www.armytechnology.com/projects/challenger2/index.html http://www.dtic.dla.mil/defenselink/news/fact_sheets/f950304_gwi_fact.html http://www.iacenter.org/ http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/talkpoliticsguns.progunfaq.part2.html http://aepi.gatech.edu/publications.html http://www.ha.osd.mil/cs/pgulf/ccep10k1.html http://pnsjph.pns.anl.gov/ipnsupgr.htm http://spacsun.rice.edu/%7Epww/mechardf.html http://www.dtic.dla.mil/defenselink/pubs/di95/di1027.html http://members.aol.com/AFFFDEW/index.html http://www.va.gov/vasmr.htm http://www.ead.anl.gov/uranium.html http://www.ccnr.org/index.html http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB7405/index.html http://www.ramausa.org/du.htmhttp://www.uic.com.au/pmine.htm http://www.foto.com/foto/news/may1997/5_5_97/7uranium.htm http://www.sddt.com/files/librarywire/97wireheadlines/05_97/DN97_05_06/DN97_05_06_1aad.html http://antenna.nl/wise/uranium/diss.html http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~seac/action/act19.html http://www.bookmasters.com/marktplc/00189.htm http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~dtn307/du2.html http://www.ead.anl.gov/~web/duf6/fact_sht/glossary.html http://www.ieer.org/ieer/fctsheet/uranium.html

-------- imf

D.C. police step up security after arrest

04/13/00
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu05.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Washington police stepped up security Thursday following the arrest of seven World Bank protesters and confiscation of equipment they allegedly planned to use for blockades.

Police made the arrests Wednesday night after stopping two vehicles filed with ''lock boxes,'' lengths of PVC pipes that demonstrators can use to lock arms and make it difficult to break a ''human chain.''

Officials said they knew in advance the vehicles would be entering the city from Landover, Md. Police also confiscated chicken wire and duct tape in addition to the pipes, also known as ''sleeping dragons.''

The seven were charged with possession of implements of crime.

An increased police presence - even for security-conscious Washington - was evident on bridges spanning the Potomac River, at downtown street corners and near office buildings, particularly in blocks surrounding the World Bank headquarters.

Buses filled with police rumbled down streets and groups of uniformed police gathered in small groups in the downtown area Wednesday. Police officers on bicycles cruised around buildings and up and down sidewalks patrolling for trouble.

The World Bank-International Monetary Fund complex has been blocked off for vehicular or pedestrian traffic. ''Can I see your ID please?'' one uniformed policeman asked a reporter Wednesday as he stood on a street corner looking at the building. ''You can never be too careful,'' the officer commented as he walked back behind a barricade.

The protest activities are being coordinated by Mobilization for Global Justice, a coalition of groups with wide ranging complaints about the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's lending practices. They complain that too often these loans go to projects that harm the environment and hurt the poor. They also want debt relief for developing nations.

Many of those same groups successfully disrupted meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in December, forcing authorities to declare a state of emergency and call out the National Guard.

On Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators were being given intense training in nonviolent tactics, including ways to form a human chain that is difficult to break without using pepper spray or tear gas.

Trainees were asked to pledge they would avoid the violence that marred the WTO demonstrations.

The nation's capital over the years has seen many marches, protests and demonstrations. But the events in Seattle have left police more guarded and a little bit on edge, District of Columbia Police Chief Charles Ramsey acknowledged.

''Everyone's kinda anxious about that, not knowing whether or not the groups that are bent on destroying property and so forth are actually here and intend to do the same thing,'' Ramsey said Wednesday.

Most of the organizations say they plan peaceful and nonviolent protests. Earlier in the week a group of environmental demonstrators blocked a street and triggered a confrontation with police. Seven were arrested.

Several dozen people gathered outside the Colombian ambassador's residence on Wednesday, then peacefully marched several blocks, to protest a $1.6 billion emergency assistance proposal for the South American country. A line of policemen watched as the march proceeded.

At the U.S. Capitol, police on foot and on motorcycles watched closely as the AFL-CIO brought 5,000 people to Washington to protest a bill that would give permanent normal trade status to China instead of annual reviews.

''We know that the big days are Sunday and Monday so no one's being lulled to sleep because it's slow here,'' said Ramsey.

''We're hoping that it stays peaceful and nonviolent and no one is of a mind to create any property damage or anything like that, but if they do choose to do that, we'll take whatever actions we need to stop it,'' he said.

Officers are working 12-hour shifts through Monday and while police are in their regular uniforms, riot gear is always kept close by, he said. The police department has spent $1 million on new helmets and body armor.

----

From A16 Legal Manual at http://www.a16.org/a16manual.html

Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 13:19:09 -0400
From: Carol Moore <CarolMoore@kreative.net>

6. A Few Common Charges Resulting From Protest Activities

The promise of capitalism is choice, and the police and prosecutors have the resources to select from a vast menu of criminal charges. The same action often can result in very mild or severe charges, at the discretion of the prosecutor. We cannot know in advance what route they will take. However, here are some of the most common charges arising from protest activities that we expect to see again. Remember that the fines and jail time listed are the maximum possible penalty for each offense. The judge has the discretion to give any sentence up to the maximum -- and we can never predict what each judge will do.

A. DC CHARGES

Incommoding. This is blocking vehicle or pedestrian traffic on the streets, sidewalks, and other walkways. This is by far the most common charge we see when protestors sit down in the street. Sidewalks are trickier because you generally have a right to engage in free speech activities on the public sidewalks; but if you so clog them that no one else can use the sidewalks, you might be charged with incommoding. Maximum penalty is a $250 fine and/or 90 days in jail. DC Code § 22-1107. The charge of disorderly conduct is essentially the same. DC Code § 22-1121.

Note that Obstructing bridges connecting DC and Virginia is punishable by an additional fine of at least $1,000 and up to $5,000, and/or up to 30 days in jail. DC Code § 22-1123.

Failure to obey a Police Officer. Often called "failure to disperse," this charge is possible when the police decide to close a street or clear a path and you refuse to move. The order they give you must be "lawful," which means that if the police issue an unconstitutional order, there is no offense in ignoring it. But police authority is very broad and we won't know if the order was unconstitutional until trial. If the order turns out to have been lawful and you failed to obey it, you can be fined $100-$1,000. DC Muni. Reg. §§ 18-2000.2 & 2000.10.

Unlawful entry on property (trespassing). Remaining on private property after being told to leave is punishable by a fine up to $100 and/or up to 6 months in jail. For government buildings and the surrounding land, there must be some reason that you have been asked to leave, such as to prevent disruption or to maintain security. DC Code § 22-3102.

Resisting or interfering with a police officer is a violation of the same law as assault on a police officer (below). You may not stand in the path of an officer (especially if they are trying to make an arrest) or pull away from them or help another person to pull away from an officer trying to make an arrest. In addition to violating this law (which is quite serious in itself -- up to 5 years), you may be charged with aiding and abetting (below). Resisting arrest is unlawful even if the officer has no rightful basis for arresting you.

Failure to appear. If you have ever been arrested before and did not come to court when instructed to do so, there is a possibility that a warrant will have been issued for your arrest for "failure to appear."

Outstanding warrants of this kind from other parts of the country may or may not show up during processing, depending on how thoroughly the jurisdiction where you were arrested has sought the assistance of other jurisdictions. It is best, and probably likeliest, to assume that the authorities here will know if you skipped a court date anywhere else in the country. Failure to appear for a DC court date is a separate offense, so beyond the penalties for whatever you were first arrested for, you can be fined up to the maximum for that offense, and/or an additional 180 days in jail. If you were originally booked on a felony charge, failure to appear is punishable by up to 5 years. DC Code § 22-1110(3)-(4).

False statement. This can come up with forms you are asked to complete before being released. If you put something untrue on a form that says making a false statement is punishable by criminal penalties, you can be fined $1,000 and/or be sentenced to 180 days in jail. DC Code § 22-2514.

The following charges are inconsistent with compliance with the Nonviolence Code of Conduct that everyone involved in the A16 action has agreed to follow. We therefore do not expect to see these, but mention them in case of overcharging by the police.

All participants in this particular action are asked to agree to these action guidelines. Having this basic agreement allows people from many backgrounds, movements, and beliefs to work together. They are not philosophical or political requirements or judgments about the validity of some tactics over others.

These guidelines are basic agreements that create a basis for trust so that we can work together for this action and know what to expect from each other. 1) We will use no violence, physical or verbal, towards any person 2) We will carry no weapons 3) We will not bring or use any alcohol or illegal drugs 4) We will not destroy property.

Assault on a Police Officer. Any unwanted touching of a police officer is an assault. Touching anything they are holding (nightstick, bullhorn, etc.) is the same as touching the officer. Same for throwing anything at an officer, even if you only accidentally hit them. This is a serious offense, a felony, with a possible $5,000 fine and/or 5 years in prison. DC Code § 22-505.

Destruction of property. Less than $250 in damage is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum $1,000 fine and/or 180 days in jail. More than $250 in damage is a felony, with a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and/or 10 years in prison. DC Code § 22-403. Even if there is no "destruction," there is a separate crime of defacing public or private property. DC Code § 22-3112.1.

Also, you should know that these charges exist, although it would be very unusual to see them brought against protestors: Kidnapping. It is possible to be convicted of kidnapping for confining someone against their will, even without transporting them anywhere. Be very careful about blocking all the exits of hotels and offices. It is an extremely serious offense -- you can be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Rioting or inciting to riot. A group that acts violently and creates "grave danger" of injury or property damage can be fined up to $1,000 and/or sentenced to 180 days in jail. If anyone is harmed or if more than $5,000 in damage occurs, everyone to urged others to take part can receive up to 10 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

Aiding and Abetting. We have not seen this charge used much, but it is possible that if you help someone commit a crime, you can be charged even if you do not take any actions personally. If you assist them before the crime is committed, you can be charged with the same offense. DC Code § 22-105. If you assist the person after they have committed the crime, you can receive a penalty up to half of the maximum they are subject to. DC Code § 22-106.

Conspiracy. Similar to aiding and abetting, when two or more people work together to do something illegal, they can both be charged with the additional offense of conspiracy. Maximum punishment is a $10,000 fine and/or 5 years in prison. DC Code § 22-105a.

Unlawful assembly; profane and indecent language. Most jurisdictions have laws like this on the books. As applied to political protest and speech, they are generally unconstitutional and unenforceable. Only individuals in the crowd who become violent or threatening can be convicted under this law. Maximum punishment is $250 fine or 90 days in jail. DC Code § 22-1107.

Obstruction of justice. Interfering with a police officer is illegal. Please see resisting or interfering with a police officer above, as the conduct described there is a serious crime. However, bad television has confused some people as to what "obstruction of justice" means.

It is not illegal to tell someone being arrested to keep quiet, to ask for a lawyer, etc. It only becomes obstruction of justice if you threaten a witness, intending to intimidate them into refusing to testify truthfully, or if you destroy evidence. DC Code § 22-722(a) & 723.

You never have to talk to the police. Sometimes a prosecutor might be able to subpoena you, but then you will have an official document ordering you to answer questions, and you will have time to get legal assistance before doing so. Absent an arrest, you do not even have to identify yourself to the police.

B. POSSIBLE FEDERAL CHARGES

Finally, there are various federal laws that might come into play in a city like Washington. Demonstrations in most parks in this city are regulated by 36 C.F.R. § 7.96(g), which specifies when permits are required and what types of activity are prohibited. Violating any of those rules is punishable by fines and up to six months in jail, under 36 C.F.R. § 1.3.

Destruction of federal property is a serious crime. If you do anything less than $1,000 in damage it is punishable by a fine and/or up to 1 year in prison; more serious damage can lead to up to 10 years in prison.

Assault on a foreign official (maximum 3 years for simple assault and up to 10 years if a weapon is used; 18 U.S.C. § 112(a)) and intimidation or harassment of a foreign official (up to 6 months in jail; 18 U.S.C. § 112(b)) protect the person, accommodation, and car of any "official guest."

Some people have expressed concern that the government may designate the IMF and World Bank buildings "foreign missions." Please know that this changes nothing. You have the same First Amendment rights when protesting outside an embassy or foreign mission as you do anywhere else. It is still lawful to peaceably congregate and express your political views. During the apartheid era, some people were arrested under laws specific to embassies and foreign missions. Many parts of those laws were declared unconstitutional in 1988 in Boos v. Barry and have since been repealed. The sections regarding congregations were not struck down, but were severely limited.

The US Supreme Court ruled that police authority to order such a gathering to disperse when "is limited to groups posing a security threat." When a group is posing a security threat, the police can order it to disperse whether it's a foreign mission or a supermarket or anything else. There might be different laws that come into play here, but what you can and cannot do lawfully is not altered by the designation of an area as a foreign mission. A few people have speculated that the government may use the foreign mission designation as an excuse for creating a "secured zone" around the building, but the truth is that they have the same authority and constitutional limits on authority to do this regardless of whether or not it is a foreign mission or just private property. If the designation "foreign mission" is used, its purpose is probably to cause confusion and discomfort -- it can't do much more.

Assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal official is similar to the DC laws discussed above, except there are maximum punishments of 1 to 10 years, depending on whether a weapon was used. 18 U.S.C. § 111.

Finally, the constitutional limitations and exceptions for violating the rules or regulations of a federal building (maximum 30 days and/or a $50 fine) are the same as the similar charges under DC laws listed above.

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Activists build on Seattle WTO momentum

By Chris Stetkiewicz
Thursday April 13, 10:29 am Eastern Time
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000413/g7.html

SEATTLE, April 13 (Reuters) - A new breed of activist born in Seattle last year has changed the rules of engagement in the running battle to keep corporations and governments focused on human rights and the environment, not just profits.

Police grappling with activists threatening to shut down International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this week in Washington face crowds energised by a wildly successful protest against unfettered free trade in Seattle in December 1999.

Environmental and labour activists said they put aside decades-old differences and claimed more victories in the U.S. Northwest recently, vowing to keep pressuring corporations and governments to stop ravaging the planet and its work force.

Last week a band of environmentalists worked with truckers and longshoremen to keep a load of PCB-laden military waste out of Seattle and this week Starbucks Corp. (NasdaqNM:SBUX - news) agreed to a deal that could triple wages for thousands of coffee farmers.

``Now we cooperate rather than fight over these things,'' said Cliff Caton, an organiser for the Alliance For Sustainable Jobs and the Environment.

``Environmentalists have a lot of heart and drive, but sometimes lack organisation. That's where labour has been able to help them,'' added Caton, a steelworker locked out by Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (NYSE:KLU - news) since Jan. 14, 1999.

BATTLE OF SEATTLE REVISITED

An assembly of tens of thousands dodged rubber bullets and tear gas to block Seattle streets and disrupt a World Trade Organisation (WTO) conclave in December 1999.

The unprecedented success of that protest, alleging the WTO weakens global environmental and labour protection, galvanised activists and may have boosted donations, ensuring major confrontations will follow the ``Battle in Seattle.''

``This week is one more demonstration that the roots of what happened in Seattle go deep,'' David Schorr, director of sustainable commerce at the World Wildlife Fund, said of the IMF protests. ``Seattle definitely gave us a boost. This is not just a fad.''

Corporations like Nike Inc. (NYSE:NKE - news), which saw its Seattle Niketown store looted as the WTO protest devolved into riots, have tried to address the protesters' concerns.

Nike claims it checks on its Asian sneaker assembly plants, run by independent contractors, to ensure safe conditions and above average local wages. Critics say the effort falls short.

Big companies should engage activists, said Gardner Peckham, a managing director at Washington-based consultancy Black, Kelly, Scruggs and Healey, who compiled a list of more than 50 groups at the WTO protests.

``These groups are building a lot of momentum going forward. We are suggesting that our clients ought to establish a dialogue with the activists, though not all groups are interested in a dialogue,'' Peckham said.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn on Wednesday said he was ``demoralized'' by the protests and defended policies that encourage growth and financial reforms in developing nations.

Protesters say the bank spreads poverty and stunts environmental protections by loading struggling nations with debt to fund dams and other construction projects.

MENDING OLD FENCES

Labour groups once resented environmentalist efforts to reduce logging or certain types of coal mining. But traditional fears of job losses are yielding to a strength-in-numbers approach.

``Environmentalists were perceived as job thieves in the past. The argument that you can either have a job or you can have the environment -- large corporations have perpetuated that myth for 50 years,'' Caton said.

Activists have found common ground in trade deals, jointly fighting for labour and environmental safeguards as the United States entered the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada in 1994.

Today the battle has shifted to a looming U.S. congressional vote on granting China permanent normal trade status, a crucial step in Beijing's campaign to join the WTO.

About 15,000 union activists rallied in Washington on Wednesday to convince undecided lawmakers that such a move would legitimise China's alleged labour abuses and could cause huge U.S. job losses.

Proponents of the trade agreement say it calls on Beijing to lower trade barriers, which would boost U.S. exports and related jobs.

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Labor Takes a Turn On the Protest Front
Union Members Decry Trade Relations With China

By David Montgomery and Linda Wheeler
Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/305l-041300-idx.html

Several thousand union members descended on Capitol Hill yesterday, while hundreds of activists converged on Florida Avenue NW and local law enforcement kept a wary eye on the building momentum of fierce free-trade critics gathering in Washington this week.

Bellowing horns of the Teamsters' big rigs punctuated cheers of the union members outside the Capitol listening to various denouncements of normal trade relations with China. They wore T-shirts with images of police arresting Chinese workers and chanted, "No blank check for China," in response to rousing speeches by liberal and conservative politicians who found a note of harmony on this issue.

Down on Florida Avenue, in a warehouse fragrant with the vegetarian cooking of a communal kitchen, more-radical opponents of global capitalism were busy making puppet caricatures and learning the basics of how to blockade a street and withstand tear gas.

Organizer James "Guin" McGuiness joined a small group of activists sitting cross-legged on the floor and reminded them of their purpose: "It's important that people come here and get arrested."

A few people did so, whether or not they meant to. Police said seven people were arrested last night in the 1700 block of U Street NW and charged with possessing "implements of crime," including chicken wire, duct tape, plastic pipes and lockbox-type devices used to link people together. "They weren't plumbers, they weren't electricians, they weren't chicken farmers," officer Tony O'Leary said. "The use was for the protest, to disrupt traffic."

The potential for widespread civil disobedience has authorities on alert. The demonstrators plan to shut down meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on Sunday and Monday. Streets around the organizations' headquarters have been closed, and mailboxes--potential bomb receptacles--have been removed.

An early morning fire in a parking garage just outside the security perimeter around the World Bank sparked momentary fear among police and bystanders, and the area was quickly cleared. Officials later said the episode was an accidental car fire, but the response bespoke the sense of watchfulness.

Some have complained that law enforcement and IMF officials are being too watchful. Charles Lehner, 39, an architect and a supporter of the protests, said he was riding his bicycle at 14th and P streets NW Tuesday night when police stopped him. When he could not produce identification, the officers confiscated his bike, he said. He retrieved it yesterday from a Federal Protective Services substation, but he said the chain was missing.

A D.C. police spokesman said he had no information on the incident.

Yet for all the bluster and wariness, the day was peaceful.

An army of journalists continued arriving, too, with nearly 1,900 registered for the weekend spectacle and nearly 600 already here. It is the greatest attention ever paid to the formerly obscure IMF and World Bank, an IMF spokesman said at day's end.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of alternative newspapers and community radio stations complained that those media outlets were denied credentials to cover the meetings.

"We've been letting journalists into our meetings for 30-odd years, if not longer," said William Murray, an IMF spokesman. "Community radio or whoever these people are never applied until now. . . . We have extremely limited facilities. . . . We have to triage, and we have to cut it off somewhere."

But Norman Stockwell wasn't buying that. "The implication is that the IMF is trying to narrow the scope of coverage of its meetings," said Stockwell, operations coordinator of WORT-FM, which he said has 30,000 listeners around Madison, Wis.

Another medium fell prey to a prank yesterday. Protesters managed to wrap a mock front page around copies of The Washington Post that appeared in news boxes downtown and at a string of Metro stations. The lead story: "Besieged IMF Plans Meaningless Cosmetic Changes."

Those at the union rally took pains to separate their event from the more militant tactics favored by the group gathering at the warehouse. The union event drew top labor leaders as well as members of Congress and presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan. The AFL-CIO has endorsed a legal demonstration planned for the Ellipse on Sunday but is officially steering clear of the planned civil disobedience.

And the unions haven't given up on working within the system. Members fanned out in the halls of Congress and lobbied against trade with China.

But first came the labor pep rally.

"We're for an America where no working mom or dad ever lays awake at night worrying what's going to happen to their family because their job, their paycheck--and their future--was ripped off, boxed up and shipped away to a factory in China," Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.) thundered from a podium set at the base of the Capitol.

The crowd roared back, "No blank check."

It was a day for union members to wear shiny jackets emblazoned with their union logo, wave the American flag and, as Teamsters member Gerard Myatt, of Groveton, said, "feel good about having a voice."

The legislation on permanent normal trade relations, now under discussion by the House, would end an annual review of China's trade practices, and, according to opponents, remove the only leverage Congress now has to pressure China to improve labor conditions.

An assortment of Democratic, Republican and independent members of Congress spoke first at a rally for the Teamsters and later at a rally for all the unions. Buchanan, wearing a blue and gold Teamsters jacket, told applauding union members at the Teamsters rally, "If I was in the White House and the Communist Chinese came to my office, I'd tell them to stop threatening my country, persecuting the Christians, and if you won't, you have sold your last pair of chopsticks."

Harry Wu, a Chinese worker who was imprisoned for 19 years at hard labor, got applause and cheers when he was introduced. He said: "Here I am free. In China, men and women are not free. Some people on Capitol Hill want to negotiate a deal with China. Please say no."

He was greeted by loud hoots of support. Teamsters carried signs that showed Chinese workers being persecuted and threatened with death.

At the main rally, leaders of the United Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and others reiterated union opposition to the proposed trade legislation and encouraged the audience to lobby members of Congress.

Teamsters field representative Carl DiPietro did just that. Wearing his union T-shirt, DiPietro led seven other Teamsters from office to office in the Hart Office Building. Constantly referring to a checklist of senators who were either "right," "wrong" or undecided, DiPietro coached his troops.

"Always say Communist China," he said. "Remember, lobbyists get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do just what we are doing for free."

The seven men and one woman crowded into entrance halls of a half-dozen offices. At each, DiPietro asked politely to see the senator or the aide who deals with trade issues. They never got to talk with a senator, but at the offices of Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.), Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), aides invited them into conference rooms or lobbies to talk.

"This is the easiest lobby you will have today," Ross Kelly, a policy adviser to Wellstone, told the group. Wellstone had appeared on the rally stage earlier.

At Schumer's office, Senate foreign affairs adviser Stewart Gottlieb told the group that the senator was undecided but that Schumer had voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement, another union-opposed measure that did pass.

"If there are no safeguards in this legislation, he will vote against it," Gottlieb said. Afterward, the new lobbyists were unsure what "safeguards" meant but chalked the visit up as a successful one.

The unions were not alone in their focus on trade with China. A small group of the demonstrators who plan to blockade the World Bank and IMF picketed outside the St. Regis Hotel, where Richard W. Fisher, deputy U.S. trade representative, was scheduled to speak at a lunch hosted by the National Policy Association, a think tank devoted to finding "common ground in the new economy."

"This trade agreement is going to be another disaster," said Juliette Beck, an organizer, while hotel security looked on.

From lobbying inside the corridors of power to protesting in the streets outside, the week was shaping up as a case study in American democracy. About 100 Fulbright visiting scholars from around the world got a taste at 2 a.m. yesterday.

The purpose of their visit is to discuss the "unique aspects of contemporary American democracy," and at that early hour, they learned about dissent.

They found themselves rousted out of bed by hundreds of young people shouting and confronting police in front of their hotel on M Street off New Hampshire Avenue in Northwest. Police cars piled up and sirens wailed, keeping them awake for at least an hour, some said. Police could not confirm details of the episode or say whether the crowd was made up of protesters.

The meaning was clear to the scholars.

"It's part of American democracy," said Kazuko Miyashita, who teaches English in Kyushu, Japan. "That's how you achieve and build up your history. That's why I encourage my students to have a living experience in America."

Staff writers Sylvia Moreno and Arthur Santana and researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.

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Labor flexes muscle on Hill

April 13, 2000
By Carter Dougherty and Gerald Mizejewski
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/default-2000413223759.htm

Thousands of labor union workers yesterday rallied outside the U.S. Capitol against a landmark trade deal with China, then iron workers, truckers and teachers filled the halls of Congress to lobby senators and representatives.

"Let's go to the Hill and let's give 'em [something to think about]," said James P. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union.

The unions protested a proposed trade pact in which China agreed to open its markets to U.S. goods and services. In exchange, the United States must grant China permanent access to the its markets, a status known as normal trade relations (NTR).

The Clinton administration, allied with the Republican congressional leadership, is facing a difficult fight in the House to round up enough Democrats to support NTR for China. Keenly aware of the need to hold this vital group, union members fanned out after the rallies to make their case personally.

The demonstration was part of a broader, weeklong series of protests by various groups opposing policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which will be meeting here next week.

Last night, Metropolitan Police arrested seven protesters near the groups' headquarters. Information on charges was not immediately available.

Union members virtually took over Capitol Hill for most of the day in a demonstration of grass-roots strength that labor's opponents in the China debate might be hard-pressed to match. Union officials were planning 60 meetings with Congress members, and set a goal of four separate visits by rank-and-file delegations to each of the 535 congressional offices, according to the AFL-CIO.

Police had few problems with the estimated 15,000 demonstrators, the largest crowd so far in a series of planned protests against the international financial agencies. There were no arrests.

"It was a peaceful demonstration as we expected all along," said Lt. Dan Nichols, spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police.

The only disruptions came in the form of pop music and horns blaring from 14 tractor-trailers that crisscrossed in front of the west side of the Capitol. Teen-agers danced to the sounds and elderly union members in T-shirts raised their fists as the truckers drove by.

The unions charge that passage of NTR would cost U.S. jobs as American companies move factories to China in search of cheap labor.

"We're here because President Bill Clinton and the Republican leadership . . . are about to betray the country by passing permanent NTR," George Becker, president of the United Steelworkers of America, said at a rally on the steps of the Capitol.

Mr. Hoffa warned Congress not to underestimate the power of organized labor to defeat trade legislation. Labor helped stop "in its tracks" passage of fast-track trade negotiating authority in 1997, he noted.

"I've been concerned about the impact labor is going to have with or without 10,000 people walking on the Hill," Commerce Secretary William M. Daley told reporters before the demonstration.

Speakers urged undecided members of Congress to deny NTR for China. Labor unions oppose China's human rights violations and fear that 800,000 or more jobs will be lost to underpaid workers abroad.

"Please take the spirit of the rally home with you," said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. "Our message is that until there is a permanent change of values in China, there will be no permanent normal trade relations."

Politicians supporting labor's efforts came from all over the political spectrum, from labor stalwart Rep. David E. Bonior, Michigan Democrat, to Rep. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, and Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican.

Television commentator Pat Buchanan, a contender to become the Reform Party's nominee for president, egged on union members in their battle to defeat NTR for China. "The jobs of Americans . . . come ahead of the stock options of the Fortune 500," he said.

China's trade status currently is reviewed on an annual basis. Legislation being pushed by the Clinton administration and the Republican leadership would end the annual congressional reviews and pave the way for China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"People in America who have good-paying Teamster jobs . . . can't compete with citizens of a country that make 19 cents an hour," said Paul Waterhouse, 54, a Teamster business agent from Local No. 705 in Chicago.

Pro-NTR forces still face a difficult fight to obtain even a narrow majority in the House, where many Democrats, and a smaller number of Republicans, are determined to sink the legislation.

Standing alongside union leaders on the podium, members of Congress like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, lauded the workers' efforts.

"Nothing is more eloquent to a member of Congress than the voice of his own constituent," she told the unions.

"This deal is a bad deal for the American economy," she said. "You are beautiful. . . . You are right."

Mr. Sweeney called the gathering the largest assembly of union workers ever to lobby Washington in a single day. The Teamsters alone brought 5,000.

The protesters' so-called "Days of Action" demonstrations will continue this week and culminate Sunday and Monday, when as many as 10,000 activists plan to use "large-scale, nonviolent direct action" to try to shut down the World Bank and IMF meetings.

Metropolitan Police have closed 19th Street NW between G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and H Street NW between 18th and 20th streets until further notice.

A federal government source said the government plans to keep its downtown offices open despite the expected demonstrations. The source said, however, that federal employees who do not wish to come to work will be allowed to use leave.

"If they don't want to come in, no one is going to hold their feet to the fire," said the source, who is familiar with government's plans.

• Clarence Williams and Jim Keary contributed to this report.

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Trade to critics: 'Think again'

04/13/00
By James Cox and Dina Temple-Raston,
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu03.htm

WASHINGTON - IMF and WTO leaders joined administration officials Thursday in an impassioned defense of globalization, answering protesters here who blame it for poverty, labor abuses and environmental havoc.

Trade and technology have connected nations, lifted living standards and created a more stable, peaceful planet, said Michael Moore, head of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"I'd like to say to those outside who say this is all wrong -- think again," Moore said.

The WTO, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) make up what detractors call the "iron triangle" overseeing the global financial and trade system.

The WTO is a group of nations that have agreed to eliminate trade barriers to each other's products and services. The World Bank makes long-term loans to nations and helps them to develop their economies. The IMF provides short-term loans to countries that agree to fiscal reforms.

Thousands of protesters have flooded Washington this week to disrupt World Bank and IMF meetings. They say the institutions favor multinational corporations over workers and the poor.

Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers defended U.S. support for the World Bank and IMF . The two "provide exceptional value for the money" and have "a tangible impact on millions of lives," he said.

Access to new markets, capital and technology through globalization is "the only way we are going to raise people around the world to the same level as people in industrialized countries," said Stanley Fischer, acting managing director of the IMF.

Because of the rapid change it has brought, globalization has become a loaded term, Fischer said. "The word 'globalization' could become a problem, but the process it represents is fine. It is something that will make us better off, not worse off."

But even the IMF and World Bank have clashed over how to narrow the gap between rich and poor. The IMF sets conditions for aid to developing countries on their willingness to adopt strict budgets and economic formulas aimed at modernizing their financial systems. Its prescriptions often have been followed at the expense of workers and the poor, critics say.

"The labor market is not just about efficiency, it is about the fabric of the society," said Jerome Levinson of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. "These decisions are too important to be left to the economists. We're creating an alienated worker class."

Many of the anti-globalization protesters in Washington also have come to demand that Congress deny China normalized trade relations. The issue comes to a vote in late May.

The WTO's Moore urged Congress to bring China into the global trading system. Normalization requires the USA to give up nothing, in return for the huge market-opening concessions China must make to join the WTO, he said.

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At IMF Headquarters Embattled Staffers Wonder 'Why Us?'

By John Burgess Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/321l-041300-idx.html

Jeffrey Waite feels "a little bit under siege." He's an education specialist at the World Bank and from his office can see police barriers below, put up as defense against demonstrators who have very publicly pledged to "shut down" the bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, this weekend.

Waite spends a quarter of his year on the road in such places as Morocco, overseeing programs that aim to enroll more children in school, particularly girls in villages. "People who work here are committed to making sure that the poor are becoming less poor," he said yesterday.

The Foggy Bottom headquarters of the bank and the IMF are full of such experts on schools, electric power for villages, clean water, AIDS, river blindness, road building, financial management. And what many want to know this week is this: How is it that we are being called the cause of world poverty?

Many of the demonstrators "would benefit from going and working in a poor country for a few years, seeing what it's like and how difficult it is to make progress," said Ian Johnson, a bank vice president who spent five years in Bangladesh in the 1970s helping get emergency food and clean water to villages.

Johnson and Waite say they welcome informed debate with the bank's critics, many of whom they respect as deeply committed and concerned about the issues, but they wonder whether its really radical opponents understand the basics of how the bank and poverty alleviation work.

To many people in the bank and fund, there's a paradox in the air. They feel they've never done their job so well--they've reformed their huge institutions, making them more responsive to local concerns. Two years ago, they helped pull the world back from near financial collapse with $100 billion in emergency loans.

Yet so often the thanks they get is fire from all directions: chants and sit-ins from demonstrators; accusations from members of Congress of incompetence, waste, environmental abuse and secrecy; lectures from academics that the two organizations need to be downsized.

The defenders contend they have made significant reforms and more are on the way. A "quiet revolution" is underway at the IMF, said interim chief Stanley Fischer. He cites the write-off of debt owed by desperately poor countries, the phase-out of obsolescent lending programs, and the release of once-confidential documents: "We now publish about everything. If you don't believe it, look at our Web site."

"We have never done more in the history of the institution to reach out," echoes James D. Wolfensohn, president of the bank. "The clear future of development is in engagement with the local communities."

Half a century old, the two institutions are the twin pillars of the world financial order. The bank focuses on long-term lending to promote economic development, while the IMF works to coordinate economic policy and provide shorter-term aid to countries running low on foreign currency.

No one foresaw how big they would grow. The bank today employs about 11,300 people. It made $29 billion in new loans in its last fiscal year, a record, bringing the total on the books to about $200 billion.

The IMF has a smaller balance sheet and payroll (2,200 employees and $90 billion in loans) but arguably greater clout in day-to-day affairs of the world economy. When its managing director flies into a country, the visit tops the news. Financial markets pay close attention to his every word for clues to shifts in exchanges rates and the safety of investments.

The institutions see themselves as essentially democratic shops, financial co-ops that are owned by their member nations. Every few days, board directors appointed by member governments meet and hash out policy. No corporate chief executive gets as much direction from the boardroom as do the heads of the two institutions.

Wolfensohn, a former Wall Street financier who became president of the bank five years ago, likes to say the organization he inherited simply doesn't exist anymore.

He's now got about 3,200 people in field offices, up from about 1,800 five years ago, in an attempt to combat a culture of direction from headquarters. He's replaced most of his 30-plus vice presidents and is about to bring on board an African as a managing director, a powerful job in the tier just below him. She is Mamphela Ramphele, a black South African physician and university vice chancellor who was active in the movement against apartheid.

For years, the World Bank was known for never hearing a dam or pipeline proposal it didn't like, though critics said these often harmed the environment. Under Wolfensohn, it has continued underwriting big-ticket items but has branched out toward smaller, community-oriented things.

Earlier this year, in the towering atrium of its headquarters, the bank convened a "Development Marketplace" competition for $5 million in grants. People with ideas for small, community-oriented projects set up booths and vied for the money. Winners included projects to use merry-go-rounds to pump water and carry AIDS awareness posters, to combat female genital mutilation, to help households purify water and help Africa build a digital library.

"I come in every day thinking I'm doing God's work, as do my colleagues," says Wolfensohn.

The IMF in the last five years has moved toward more openness after years of being run with a central banker's love of secrecy. Its chief meets with reporters more often; it has publicly conceded that it got things wrong early in the 1997 financial crisis, pressing borrowing countries toward austerity rather than letting them grow their way back into health.

In the meantime, the IMF has put in place auditing safeguards to try to make it harder for borrowers to cheat, after being hit by questionable reporting of foreign-exchange holdings by Russia and Ukraine.

Other changes, mainly new bulges in the loan portfolios, have been the result of outside events, notably the financial panic that erupted in Thailand in 1997. To quell it, the IMF became chief organizer of a global bailout, mobilizing close to $100 billion in emergency loans from itself and other lenders. The fund's loans more than tripled in 1998 from 1997.

Under pressure from industrial-world governments to help, the bank dramatically picked up its "structural adjustment" loans, which bolster countries' foreign-currency reserves rather than underwrite specific projects.

Today, much of Asia has recovered (the economy of South Korea, notably, grew by about 10 percent last year) but Russia and Latin America continue to drag. Still, the financial world breathes easier, and people at the two institutions think they are a big part of why that happened. But whether they look right or left in the political spectrum, they see people gunning for them.

Many U.S. legislators fault the institutions as big, wasteful and unaccountable, run by an elite drawing large tax-free salaries. Country bailouts are viewed as poorly planned and executed and unfairly saving Wall Street fat cats who made risky bets in overheated economies abroad. And why, the critics ask, did the crisis of 1997 catch the two lenders so unaware?

Other criticism targets the loans' social impact. Conditions of structural adjustment loans--closing down inefficient factories, for instance--can put local people out of work (though the bank argues that in the longer term such measures clear the way for more jobs).

Because the United States is the largest member of both institutions (it contributes about 18 percent of the equity to each), what Congress says carries big weight.

Earlier this year, a congressionally appointed commission headed by economist Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University called for major overhauls, including essentially pulling the World Bank out of better-off countries such as China and limiting IMF aid in most cases to countries that have carried out reforms before they get into trouble.

Bank critics in Congress praise the report and say they'll act on it. "The good news now is we have a road map," said Rep. Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). ". . . The IMF has had a long period of mission creep. The report helps us understand what needs to be done, so they can have a positive impact in these countries."

Other pressure comes from environmentalists, who note that World Bank projects involving roads and pipelines can literally redraw landscapes. Under pressure from the groups and some of its own staff, the bank has instituted rules requiring detailed assessments of prospective projects' impact. But for the most part, environmentalists give the bank mixed marks.

"Certainly the rhetoric of the organization has changed in the last five years," said Andrea Durbin, director of the international programs for Friends of the Earth USA. "But the practice hasn't." Critics contend the bank often violates its own environmental rules on project lending. The bank counters that it is becoming ever more attuned to these concerns.

It would be hard for the institutions to entirely please the environmentalists, as many view development of any kind as bad for air and water. It's even harder to assuage the more radical political groups that will take to the streets this week. In their view, many of the world's ills lie at the door of international capitalism. The bank and the fund, they feel, are agents of the multinational corporations, working to open up countries to economic rape.

Certainly the bank and the fund make no bones about their faith in open markets. Its emergency program to stabilize South Korea, for instance, has been predicated on that country moving to make its financial markets more open to foreign investors and break up big industrial conglomerates that have traditionally received favored treatment from the government. At times, as with South Korea, the country is inclined to go in that direction on its own; in others the lenders apply the strong arm, saying no action, no money.

Fischer predicts that in the end, no radical change will result from the debate. "I see the debate going in a direction that reaffirms the value of the IMF as the central monetary institution in the system," he said, "that raises questions about the way we do business, but that does not fundamentally challenge the . . . main things we do."

----

IMF Defends Policies And Says It Helps the Poor

April 13, 2000
By Janet Guttsman
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/000413/12/news-imf-leadall

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it shared the anti-poverty goals of demonstrators who want to bring its meetings to a halt, but rejected their charges that IMF policies made poverty worse.

IMF acting Managing Director Stanley Fischer, in an impassioned defense of the global lender, said import barriers and ignoring a global marketplace just did not work.

"All the evidence is that the best way to grow is to integrate into the global economy. We are not trying to keep poor countries down," Fischer told a news conference at the start of the IMF's spring meetings.

"We have to listen to the demonstrators, and we are trying to do that. We have the same goals as the demonstrators, and we both want to reduce poverty all over the world, especially in the poorest countries."

But he added, "All the academic evidence on outward-oriented policies and pro-market policies suggests that is the way to grow."

The demonstrators, comprised of environmentalist, human rights activists, anti-free trade lobbyists and other groups, are planning big protests Sunday and Monday, when ministers gather for meetings in the IMF's Washington headquarters.

World Bank President James Wolfensohn said Wednesday the he found the demonstrations demoralizing, but Fischer said there would be no changes to the broad agenda of the weekend meetings.

Among other issues, the IMF's policy-making International Monetary and Finance Committee will Sunday examine the world economic outlook, how to streamline the IMF's complicated collection of lending windows and ways to ensure countries do not misuse the money it lends.

The following day the World Bank's Development Committee will look at the bank's future role, plans for more liberal trade rules and how member countries can respond to the spread of the AIDS pandemic, which is hitting cash-strapped developing countries especially hard.

BAIL IN THE BANKS

The IMF, which put together loans totaling tens of billions of dollars during the world financial crisis of 1997-99, is also under pressure from U.S. lawmakers who say it is secretive and inefficient, or who argue that big IMF loans encourage lenders to be reckless.

Fischer said the IMF was drawing up a set of principles on involving the private sector in rescue deals, but different circumstances in different countries meant a case-by-case approach was more likely to work than a fixed set of rules.

He said the IMF had already tightened its own lending rules to ensure countries did not misreport key data and win loans the IMF might otherwise have refused. Mandatory audits of central bank activities should help avoid problems, he said.

"It will not eliminate misuse, but it should go a long way toward helping that," he said.

Fischer, reiterating the upbeat stance of the IMF's World Economic Outlook, said economic prospects were looking up around the world, although countries faced big challenges.

Japan, emerging slowly from a prolonged and painful recession, needed to keep tax and interest rate policies very loose to ensure that its recovery was not derailed.

-------- iran

Iran Says Foils Rebel Attack From Iraq

April 13, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iran-at.html

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian troops foiled a cross- border attack by the Iraq-based Mujahideen Khalq rebel group on Thursday, state television reported.

``This morning, a terrorist group of hypocrites entered our soil from Iraq, but they were spotted and crushed by our security forces,'' the television said, referring to the Mujahideen, the main Iranian rebel group based in Iraq.

Government forces seized weapons, cash and false identification, but did not report any casualties, the television said.

In a statement to Reuters in Dubai, the Mujahideen said the arrests were linked to its plan to attack Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during prayers Friday. As result of these and other arrests, the plan had been uncovered, it said.

Tension has risen between Iran and Iraq in recent weeks over two attacks by the Mujahideen in the heart of Tehran and a string of cross-border raids.

Iran has retaliated with strikes on rebel bases inside Iraq. The Iraqi government blamed Iranian agents for mortar attack in March on a building housing Palestinians in Baghdad, in which six people died. Tehran denied responsibility.

Iran has also intercepted up to a dozen ships in its territorial waters in the last 10 days carrying Iraqi oil in violation of a U.N. trade embargo on Iraq.

-------- iraq

Security Council Approves New Arms Inspection Agency for Iraq

April 14, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041400iraq-un.html

UNITED NATIONS, April 13 -- The Security Council quickly approved a streamlined arms inspection commission for Iraq today. But Russia warned that it would be on the lookout for anyone named to the panel who might be troublesome to Iraq.

Hans Blix, the new chief inspector and author of the organization plan for the new panel, created by the council in December, said he was pleased with the council endorsement. He is waiting to see what move Iraq makes.

The government of President Saddam Hussein has belittled and criticized the plan for renewed inspections. But Mr. Blix has said his door is open to the Iraqis if they want to talk about it. He added, however, that he would not negotiate the plan's terms. Some council members are already confident that Iraq will eventually comply in some fashion.

On that assumption, Mr. Blix will begin naming a core staff for the commission, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and prepare a list of unfinished business in Iraq.

The Russians are expected to try to block the reappointments of two former Russian inspectors with extensive knowledge of the Iraqi missile and chemical weapons programs and who have considerable experience in Iraq.

That raises concerns among independent arms experts that political pressures will weaken the panel. The plan by Mr. Blix, a former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, seems intended to minimize that. It requires that all inspectors be United Nations employees, not officials on loan from governments. It also divides inspection and intelligence gathering, so that the agency cannot be accused of spying for any government.

A year ago, accusations arose that inspectors from the previous arms commission, Unscom, had spied for the United States. But other governments were also known to be collecting information for their own use through inspections in Iraq and may have in some cases passed that on to officials in Baghdad.

Under current Security Council resolutions, Iraq cannot have the sanctions, imposed after it invaded Kuwait in 1990, suspended or lifted until it cooperates with arms inspectors. There have been no inspections since December 1998, when inspectors of the earlier commission were withdrawn in advance of American and British bombing.

The American ambassador, Richard C. Holbrooke, said after the meeting today that Mr. Blix "has done a terrific job" in planning for his agency, known as Unmovic. "This charade from Baghdad really has gone on much too long," Mr. Holbrooke said.

The Iraqis have argued that sanctions should be lifted without further inspections because all of Iraq's weapons have been destroyed as demanded. Iraq has also said that the American-led campaign to keep sanctions in place has caused many deaths and excessive deprivation of the Iraqi people. Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a speech last month that the United Nations was in danger of losing a propaganda war with Mr. Hussein on this issue.

In the last year, support for tough sanctions against Iraq, which had been dwindling even before the 1998 confrontation, have diminished even more, as the Clinton administration considerably reduced its pressures on Iraq.

The use of sanctions generally as a tool of policy will be the subject of a Security Council debate next week.

----

UN Weapons Inspection Plan OKd

By Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000413/aponline213144_000.htm

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council on Thursday unanimously approved an organizational plan for returning weapons inspectors to Iraq, more than a year after they were barred from the country by Saddam Hussein.

After only a few hours of debate, the council president, Robert Fowler of Canada, made the announcement after the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, briefed ambassadors for the first time on his plan.

The Security Council created the new commission, known as UNMOVIC, in December to replace the U.N. Special Commission, known as UNSCOM, which was stung by allegations that U.N. inspectors spied on Iraq on behalf of the United States.

The quick approval signals that the Security Council, which has been deeply divided over Iraq, is united in its initial support for Blix, the 73-year-old former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who was chosen to head the new U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

"I'm quite pleased with the outcome," Blix said after the closed-door meeting. "We have worked kind of hard on this operational plan."

He said he would begin interviews to form a "core staff" of 40-plus full-time professionals in New York as well as part-time experts who can be called on for specific missions. All staff will attend a six-week U.N. training course in the summer, he said in an interview.

Since 1991, UNSCOM had worked with the IAEA to oversee the destruction of Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Weapons inspectors from both agencies left Iraq in Dec. 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes, launched to punish Iraq for failing to cooperate with the inspectors - and Baghdad barred UNSCOM from returning.

Top Iraqi officials have said Baghdad would not accept new U.N. weapons inspectors, but others have left open the possibility for compromise.

Blix said the resolution that established UNMOVIC offers the possibility of suspending sanctions if Iraq cooperates. Previously, a 1990 council resolution required the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before sanctions could be lifted, he said.

"But they will decide for themselves what they'll do," Blix said. "I do not see it as my function to persuade Iraq. ... Above all, I do not feel that I have any authority on my part to give any discount on the resolution. I'm not negotiating the resolution. I implement it."

According to Blix's plan, UNMOVIC inspectors will come from all around the world and be paid for out of the U.N. budget - not volunteered by member governments or under their control, as was the case with UNSCOM.

When asked about the safeguards in Blix's plan to prevent intelligence about Iraq from filtering back to individual countries, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said: "I support what he said entirely."

Holbrooke said Iraq should now cooperate fully and allow Blix's inspectors to do their job.

"This charade from Baghdad really has gone on much too long," he said.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said Moscow signed off on the organizational plan even though it had some lingering questions that would have to be answered.

Primarily, Russia wants to ensure that former UNSCOM employees who "abused their positions," wouldn't work for the new agency - a reference to the espionage allegations.

Lavrov said there's "a good chance" Iraq would cooperate with the new agency if the United States and Britain stopped their airstrikes in the no-fly zones and the U.S. ended its efforts to undermine the Iraqi government.

"But if unilateral (actions) continue, then I don't believe the atmospherics would be right for any hope for success," he said.

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said the United States and Britain were enforcing the no-fly zones as a way to protect minorities in northern and southern Iraq. The U.S. and British planes never initiated attacks but rather responded to Iraqi fire, he said.

----

Austrian President Urges European Legislators to Put an End to Sanctions

April 13, 2000
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+109579+29+wAAA+%22april%7E13,2000%22

STRASBOURG, France, April 12 -- The Austrian president, Thomas Klestil, turned to members of the European Parliament today in his latest attempt to break his country's isolation within the European Union, saying that Austria was a land of "enthusiastic Europeans" who are by no means abandoning democracy.

Mr. Klestil appealed to the European legislators to help Austria find a way out of the isolation imposed by the 14 other members of the European Union after the right-wing Freedom Party was included in the Vienna government in February.

"There is no indication of any kind that Austria is departing from its path of parliamentary democracy and European values," Mr. Klestil told the European Parliament in Strasbourg in a speech that did not once mention the right-wing Freedom Party by name. "We Austrians are enthusiastic Europeans and will remain so," Mr. Klestil said.

Several legislators, including French Socialists and a blend of Greens and Communists, boycotted Mr. Klestil's noon-hour speech. "We cannot accept an official visit that renders banal the presence of the far right in the government of an E.U. state," said a statement from the French Socialists.

Mr. Klestil asked to speak to the European Parliament after it passed a resolution in February that condemned "all the insulting, xenophobic and racist statements" made by the Freedom Party's then-leader, Jörg Haider, who has since stepped down as party chief but continues to wield great influence.

Mr. Haider, attending a meeting today of the European Union's committee of the regions, slipped into Brussels three hours early, avoiding protesters at the airport.

In the latest salvo in a developing dispute between Austria and France, Mr. Klestil complained that sanctions were affecting European Union business.

The dispute erupted after the French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, held a meeting in Paris briefing ambassadors from European Union countries on France's plans for its six-month presidency of the European bloc and excluded the Austrian ambassador. This is allowed under the sanctions that were imposed after Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel took Mr. Haider's party into the government.

Mr. Schüssel had threatened legal action and a deliberate slowing of European Union business in retaliation. A French minister, Pierre Moscovici, retorted that Paris would not give in to what he called blackmail from Austria.

In Vienna, a senior member of Mr. Schüssel's conservative People's Party today accused France of discrimination.

"Austria is not blackmailing at all," said Maria Rauch-Kallat, general secretary of Mr. Schüssel's party.

Mr. Moscovici, speaking on television after the threat of legal action, said, "it is now up to Chancellor Schüssel to show he leads a country which is still in the E.U., which has chosen the E.U., and to show that he is a European chancellor."

Ms. Rauch-Kallat then denounced what she called "unacceptable rabble-rousing tirades from France."

"Chancellor Schüssel doesn't have to prove anything," she said.

"He has always been a pro-European politician."

-------- israel

Israel Says No Need for U.S. Concern on China Deal

April 13, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-israel-.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel Thursday tried to navigate through a diplomatic storm with the United States which is opposed to its sale of a sophisticated radar system to Beijing.

If Israel canceled the deal it could hurt its blossoming ties with China. Relations have burgeoned with the sale of tens of millions of dollars worth of military hardware to Beijing.

Washington is worried the plane at the center of the row, a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 modified with an advanced airborne warning and control system (AWACS) could be used against U.S. and Taiwanese planes in the event of a war with China.

At a news conference with visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told reporters the issue was not simple.

``We respect our relations with China and attach high importance to them. At the same time we are aware of American sensitivities to the matter and are talking to our friends in the United States in an effort to find a solution agreeable by all,'' Barak's office said he told Jiang during their meeting.

BLOSSOMING TIES

Jiang, who is the first Chinese leader to visit Israel, is on a mission to boost ties with the Jewish state.

``The United States is a great friend of Israel and a main supporter of our weapons systems for our defense, so we think it's not a simple issue,'' said Barak who discussed the deal with President Clinton at the White House Tuesday.

Barak intercepted reporters' questions posed to Jiang, who has so far remained tight-lipped about the deal.

Foreign Minister David Levy said earlier Wednesday Israel had been forthright with the U.S. about the sale.

``We haven't done anything behind the back of the United States...Americans know well we have not violated any law, we did not transfer any American technology or know-how,'' Levy said after meeting Jiang.

``Israel has not and will not do anything to harm American interests...I believe we will come to an understanding on this matter,'' he said.

State-owned Israeli Aircraft Industries has put a $250 million price tag on the first AWACS aircraft which is ready for delivery to China. Beijing has options to buy several more.

JIANG VISIT'S ISRAEL'S PARLIAMENT

Jiang visited Israel's Holocaust memorial and met Parliament Speaker Avraham Burg earlier Thursday, the second day of a six-day tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories.

In parliament, Jiang attended a round-table discussion that also touched on the sensitive issue of human rights in China and the treatment of women there.

Burg, in remarks to reporters after the meeting, expressed solidarity with Taiwan, saying that Israel ``cannot ignore the interests of Taiwan in another region of the world which actually sometimes looks very similar (to the Middle East).''

China has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province since the defeated Nationalists fled to the island at the end of the civil war in 1949 and wants to include it as part of a ``united China.''

Jiang said in the Israeli parliament that the ``traditional friendship'' between Jews and China had ``laid a solid foundation for the establishment and growth of bilateral ties.''

He also visited the grave of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing Jew opposed to ceding land for peace with the Arabs. Jiang laid a stone atop the tomb in a Jewish mourning ritual in the presence of Rabin's widow, Leah.

----

Israel Resumes Golan Building; Syria Peace Distant

April 13, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ehud Barak said peace with Syria was a distant prospect Thursday as Israel ended a freeze on settlement construction in the occupied Golan Heights.

The lifting of the moratorium, which Barak imposed after taking office last year, was likely to anger Syria and hurt efforts to restart land-for-peace talks that broke off in January.

``I believe it's only natural that since we see the door is left with a very small crack of possibilities of renewal of talks with Syria that part of the projects that had been delayed for several months on the Golan Heights will get permission to move forward,'' Barak told reporters.

``That was the decision that was taken by the director-general of the prime minister's office today.''

Israeli-Syrian peace talks have stalled over Syria's demand that Israel agree in advance to withdraw from the strategic Golan Heights which it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

U.S. efforts to get the talks back on track have so far failed to produce results. Barak and President Clinton decided during a meeting in Washington Tuesday to focus attention on peace talks with the Palestinians instead.

A spokesman for Israel's Regional Municipality of the Golan Heights said the decision to end the freeze applied to tourism and all aspects of building.

``This morning we got a formal notice that all freezing is cancelled,'' he said.

An Israeli official, who declined to be identified, said there were no immediate government plans for new projects.

``We never totally stopped building in the Golan Heights. There was a freeze in projects, or a slowing down, and now we are allowing the continuance of life to go on there,'' the official said.

JEWISH GOLAN RESIDENTS WELCOME MOVE

About 17,000 Jewish settlers live in the Golan along with about the same number of Arab Druze, who have been split from their community on the Syrian side of the border since 1967.

Many Israeli residents with businesses on the heights say they would leave the Golan if Syria were to rule the area.

Avi Zeira, a member of the Golan Residents Committee, said that private building had never stopped and the decision to end the freeze referred to development by the government.

The Golan settlers' council said in a statement that building on the heights should be a ``premier national goal.''

``Israel should strengthen its hold on the Golan, and in doing so make clear that the Golan settlements are an irreversible reality,'' it said.

A senior Israeli official, speaking after Barak's meeting with Clinton, said the United States believed the door had yet to close on Israeli peace moves with arch-foe Syria, but the ''opening is smaller than before

-------- korea

GE Seeks N. Korea Protection

By Barry Schweid AP Diplomatic Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000412/aponline140216_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- 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.

----

PROTEST: US Taxpayer To Insure N.Korean Nukes?

Thu, 13 Apr 2000 11:46:24 -0400
From: Paul Gunter pgunter@nirs.org
"Bill Smirnow" smirnowb@ix.netcom.com

Call the White House at: 202-456-1414 to complain. You can also fax them at: 202-456-2883 & 202-456-2661
Also, please call your Reps & Senators at: 202-224-3121 to tell them we refuse to be General Electric's Insurance Policy.

-Bill Smirnow

A Risky Policy on N. Korea

By JIM MANN
Los Angeles Times,
Wednesday, April 12, 2000

WASHINGTON--Warning to American taxpayers: Without knowing it, you may soon take on responsibility for what could be billions of dollars in liability stemming from nuclear accidents in, of all places, North Korea.

At the behest of the General Electric Co., the Clinton administration is quietly weighing a policy change that would make the U.S. government the insurer of last resort for any disasters at the civilian nuclear plants being built for the North Korean regime.

In case of a Chernobyl-type disaster in North Korea (a country not known for advanced safety procedures), the U.S might wind up paying legal claims.

The proposed U.S. government guarantee, now being intensively studied by the State and Energy departments, would be aimed at easing the way for construction of two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea. Those reactors are a key element in the Clinton administration's 1994 deal in which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear weapon program.

North Korea, which has defaulted on debts in the past, is too poor and unreliable to be counted on to pay legal claims arising from a nuclear accident. Private insurers are unwilling to take on the potentially astronomical claims of a North Korean Three Mile Island. So, American companies supplying parts for the North Korean reactors worry that, if there were a disaster, they would be sued.

Both the Clinton administration and GE confirmed that the company asked several months ago to be indemnified by the U.S. government before participating in the North Korea deal.

"We would like indemnity before we sign" any contract, said a spokesman for GE, which makes the steam turbines that would be used in the project.

"If there's an accident, they [GE officials] have to understand on what basis they'd be covered," explainedCharles Kartman, the State Department's special envoy for North Korea.

Kartman acknowledged that GE's request was unusual, if not unique: Other firms participating in the North Korea project have been willing to go ahead without the indemnity GE is seeking in hopes that the unsettled liability questions could be worked out over the next few years.

How will the Clinton administration go about granting new legal protection to GE? It is reluctant to seek a new law from the Republican Congress, which often has criticized the administration's policy of engagement with North Korea. That roadblock has sent administration lawyers scurrying through the U.S. code, and they have found an obscure law that might be used in a new way to cover GE.

This law--Title 85, Section 804--was intended to indemnify companies that took part in nuclear cleanup operations. But the State and Energy departments are now thinking of applying it to protect the firms participating in the North Korean civilian reactor project.

Presto! One little legal reinterpretation by the administration and one huge new legal liability for American taxpayers.

Not to worry, insisted Kartman. The idea that the U.S.government will ever have to pay these claims is "very hypothetical."

He noted that the parts for the North Korean reactors would not be shipped for several more years and, in the meantime, the U.S. and other countries are trying to work outa new international agreement that would limit liability in nuclear accidents.

But ask yourself this: If the proposed international accord Kartman describes is such a sure thing and the prospects of claims from a nuclear accident are so remote, why can't the Clinton administration persuade GE to go ahead without the indemnity it is seeking? Why does the U.S. government, rather than GE, have to take responsibility for this supposedly hypothetical risk?

Viewed strictly from GE's self-interest, its request has a certain logic. GE is a relatively small player in the North Korea project; most of the work is being done by South Korean companies. The sale of GE's steam turbines will bring in roughly $30 million, yet the company fears it could face lawsuits ranging in the billions.

Why don't the organizers of the North Korea project simply do without GE and find another company more willing to take the risk? They could. But doing that would require a redesign of the North Korea project, would lead to delays of a year or more and would increase the overall costs--most of which are being paid by South Korea. So, on the whole, everyone involved is eager to avoid losing the big American company.

For GE, it seems, the Clinton administration brings good things to life. The rest of us are left to pray that we don't get stuck with massive bills from nuclear plants we won't run in a country over which we have no control.

-------- libya

Libya Accused of Smuggling Missile Parts

WORLD IN BRIEF
Compiled by Patricia E. Gaston
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page A21
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/212l-041300-idx.html

CAIRO--For the second time this year, Libya has been accused of trying to smuggle Scud missile parts through Europe, this time by Swiss authorities who found alleged missile components in the luggage of a 44-year-old Taiwanese man at the Zurich airport.

The man was arrested after authorities received a tip he was headed for Libya via Hong Kong and Switzerland, the Reuters news service reported.

Altough Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government has rehabilitated Libya's image over the last year as a sponsor of state terrorism and airplane bombings, and begun to renew ties with the West, it is suspected of maintaining an active, clandestine weapons program.

Earlier this year, British authorities seized suspected missile parts from a British Airways jet that had made it as far as Malta before they were detected.

(Howard Schneider)

----

Pentagon: Libya Seeks Missile Help

APRIL 13, 17:37 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS73R3SC80

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon said Thursday that Libya is seeking help from Asian and other countries to develop a longer-range ballistic missile, but it would not confirm a published report that China has provided such assistance.

The Washington Times reported in Thursday's editions that China has been providing Libya with missile technology since March 1999. The newspaper said Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, outlined the technology transfer in a classified government report dated March 2.

Kenneth Bacon, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary William Cohen, said when asked about the Times report that it was well known Libya wants to build missiles of longer range than the Scud-B missiles it currently has.

``They do not have the indigenous technological capability to do that, so they have been trying to work with other countries in the world in order to gain that capability,'' Bacon said. ``And beyond that, I'm not going to comment on specific intelligence reports, but those countries are in Asia and other parts of the world.''

China is not a party to the international Missile Technology Control Regime that limits transfers of missile-building knowhow and components, but Bacon said China has pledged not to provide other countries with finished missiles.

``So the question is, if China were providing help, what would the help be and how would it compare to the pledge not to transport entire missiles?'' Bacon said.

-------- nato

U.N. Prosecutor Demands More Arrests From NATO

April 13, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-yugosla.html

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The United Nations' chief prosecutor urged NATO Thursday to finish the job of arresting all war crimes suspects, while thanking it for stepping up efforts in recent months. ``Thanks for the arrests, but it's not enough. I'm asking for the arrest of all fugitives. How long is it going to take?'' Carla Del Ponte told NATO Secretary-General George Robertson at a news conference at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague after the two met.

Robertson said all fugitives would be arrested ``as soon as possible,'' including the three most prominent indictees, former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, his military commander Ratko Mladic and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

``The net is closing, the noose is tightening... Come to The Hague rather than face the rough justice of the Balkans,'' he said, echoing the words he had used in Washington last week.

He urged suspects to surrender, reminding them of the fate of Zeljko ``Arkan'' Raznatovic, the Serbian paramilitary leader murdered in Belgrade on January 15.

Robertson said arresting indictees was a dangerous task.

``There are risks because these people are violent. The forces of SFOR and KFOR are willing to take those risks... There is a lot of creativity involved,'' he said.

NATO troops have netted six suspects during Robertson's six-month tenure and earlier this month arrested Momcilo Krajisnik, the former speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament and the biggest catch to date.

``Without those indicted facing a fair trial there can be no lasting peace,'' Robertson said.

-------- russia

Russian Ministers Brief Duma Before START-2 Vote

April 13, 2000
By Martin Nesirky
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/000413/10/news-arms-russia

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Senior Russian ministers beat a path to the State Duma lower house of parliament on Thursday to urge deputies to ratify the long-delayed U.S.-Russian START-2 nuclear arms reduction treaty.

Deputies are expected to vote on Friday to ratify the pact, which would cut nuclear warheads from 6,000 to no more than 3,500 on each side by 2007.

The U.S. Senate has already ratified the treaty but a significant minority of Duma members remains unconvinced.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, a former nuclear missile commander, briefed the Duma in closed session on the treaty and its implications.

"Sergeyev gave a detailed and comprehensive account," said Eduard Vorobyov, a center-right deputy.

He said Sergei Ivanov, secretary of the Kremlin's advisory Security Council, was also in the chamber and defense industry chiefs were on hand to answer questions.

Assuming that the Duma backs the 1993 treaty, President-elect Vladimir Putin will be able to mark his visit to Britain on Monday, his first to the West, with a major foreign policy coup and proof to potential foreign investors that he can push legislation through parliament.

"He'll be able to say, 'I'm here, here's the ratified treaty which has been sitting untouched for seven years'," Alexander Golts, defense writer at the magazine Itogi, told Reuters.

The previous Duma steadfastly refused to ratify the pact but the chamber elected in December is broadly pro-Putin.

Those who still oppose ratification are vocal but are unlikely to be able to block its passage.

"Ratifying the agreement would be like Munich, which led to war," opposition Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told reporters, referring to the vain 1938 attempt by Britain to avert war with Nazi Germany.

"The policy of the last 10 years...has led to the complete destruction of state security and now an act of national betrayal is being prepared -- ratification of a treaty which in essence strips the state of missiles and the only shield under which our exhausted country can be revived," he said.

Unusually, Friday's debate in the 450-seat Duma will be behind closed doors. It is not clear whether the vote will be open or also in secret.

----

Russia Communists Oppose Arms Treaty

By Vladimir Isachenkov
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2000; 5:57 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000412/aponline175713_000.htm

MOSCOW -- 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.

----

Russia, Kyrgyzstan to Cooperate More on Security

Apr 13, 2000
Reuters
http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=151008

BISHKEK, Russia and Kyrgyzstan are combining efforts to prevent extremist "new Afghanistans" emerging in Central Asia, a Kremlin spokesman said on Wednesday.

"We in Moscow clearly see that there are influential forces at work which would like to see new Afghanistans arising in post-Soviet Central Asia, which would be controlled by religious fanatics," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Moscow's chief spokesman on Chechnya, told a news conference.

He said the two countries, both members of a security treaty binding former Soviet republics, had already undertaken joint steps to guard against religious extremists gaining further ground in the Central Asia region.

His comments came as Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement, which espouses a radical brand of Islam, warned Russia of grave consequences if it carried out a recent threat to attack alleged terrorist training bases on Afghan soil.

Last weekend, during a visit to Tajikstan, which borders both Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, the secretary of Russia's Security Council Sergei Ivanov said he could not rule out the possibility of such attacks against targets on Afghan soil.

Afghanistan, where Soviet troops battled Afghan guerrillas for a decade until 1989, is still in the grip of civil conflict.

Russia, now battling separatists in Chechnya, is keen to retire its influence throughout Central Asia by offering assistance to deal with the region's growing security problems.

Kyrgyzstan last year was invaded by hundreds of guerrillas said to be radical Moslems from neighboring ex-Soviet Uzbekistan. The country was forced to turn to Russia and its Central Asian neighbors for assistance.

----

Russians Charge Alleged U.S. Spy

The Associated Press
Thursday, April 13, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000413/aponline102324_000.htm

MOSCOW -- A former American naval officer arrested by Russian intelligence agents has been charged with espionage for allegedly trying to buy state secrets, the Federal Security Service said today.

A U.S. Embassy official in Moscow earlier identified the man as Edmond Pope, who made frequent business trips to Russia. Pope was detained for allegedly paying a Russian contact for the plans to a submarine-launched missile, Russian television reports said.

The Russian contact, not yet publicly identified, was charged today with revealing state secrets, the report said.

Pope, a native of Grants Pass, Ore., does not hold diplomatic immunity and could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.

Pope was associated with the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. He was an assistant for foreign technology who developed contacts between Russian and American research institutes and worked on converting technology for commercial uses, a statement from the university said.

Pope is being held in Moscow's Lefortovo prison and has received visits from U.S. diplomats.

----

Russia Charges US Man With Spying

APRIL 13, 21:40 EST
By NICK WADHAMS Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS73R7E180

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian authorities have charged a former U.S. Navy officer with espionage after holding him in a Moscow prison for more than a week, saying he had tried to obtain military secrets, officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Embassy has identified the American as Edmond Pope, but Russian authorities have consistently refused to identify him or a Russian man arrested as an alleged accomplice.

A spokesman with the Federal Security Service, Russia's main intelligence agency, said the American faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The Russian was charged with divulging state secrets and faced 10 years behind bars.

The agency, known by the initials FSB, said it had found documents proving the American had cultivated contacts with Russian scientists in an effort to buy state secrets. Russian television agencies said he was arrested after paying for plans of a submarine-launched missile.

Pope is being held in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, where he has been visited by U.S. diplomats, U.S. Embassy officials said. A Russian lawyer has been appointed for him.

A woman reached at Pope's home in State College, Pa., who asked not to be identified, said Thursday that the family was not prepared to comment on the charges.

Pope is a native of Grants Pass, Ore. After retiring from the Navy, Pope worked in 1994-97 with Pennsylvania State University's Applied Research Laboratory, which does research for the military.

Pope was an ``assistant for foreign technology'' who developed contacts between Russian and U.S. research institutes and worked on converting technology for commercial uses, a statement from Penn State said.

He left the laboratory to create CERF Technologies International, which ``has commercial contacts with organizations in Russia,'' according to the statement. He frequently traveled to Russia on business, it said.

A friend of Pope's who has kept in touch with him said in a recent newspaper interview that Pope had been concerned he might get framed for his work.

Richard Penny said Pope told him he was being constantly contacted by Russians seeking American cash.

``He said he had a hard time sleeping at night because people were always knocking on his door asking him to buy things,'' Penny was quoted as saying by the Daily Courier in Grants Pass. ``He realized he could be set up.''

So far, the reaction to Pope's case has been muted, with neither Russia or the United States commenting as much as they did during a string of arrests of alleged spies last year.

In December, a U.S. diplomat was expelled from Russia last year after being briefly detained by the FSB. Washington then expelled a Russian diplomat who allegedly monitored transmissions from a bugging device discovered at the U.S. State Department.

----

Putin's London Ally

By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page A31
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/157l-041300-idx.html

LONDON-Prime Minister Tony Blair is moving quickly to engage Vladimir Putin while other Western leaders hesitate and puzzle over the Russian president-elect's intentions. Blair will warmly welcome Putin here Sunday on his first symbolically important trip abroad since his election.

"His vision of the future is one that we would feel comfortable with," Blair told me at his Downing Street office on Tuesday. The prime minister voiced surprising praise for the still relatively untested successor of Boris Yeltsin. Margaret Thatcher assessed Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 as a man the West could do business with. Putin emerges from Blair's word portrait as a man who could do business in the West.

"Putin has a very clear agenda of modernizing Russia. When he talks of a strong Russia, he means strength not in a threatening way but in a way that means the country economically and politically is capable of standing up for itself, which is a perfectly good aim to have," Blair said, adding deliberately:

"I read sometimes that people worry when he uses language about Russian strength. But when I use language about Britain being strong, I don't mean that it threatens the outside world. I mean it is a better developed country with a better sense of its place in the world and better able to hold its own economically and politically."

It is accepted here that Putin has deliberately chosen Britain, and Blair, as special interlocutors as he begins to feel his way in international politics. Putin is 47, the age Blair reaches on May 6. Both intend to be in power for some time to come. And their personal styles seem to mesh.

I sensed from our conversation that Blair sees some of his own discipline and focus in Putin, who hosted Blair in St. Petersburg this winter. The former KGB agent can hope to learn the ropes from the forceful and firmly entrenched Briton as they both prepare for the G-8 summit in Okinawa this summer and other international gatherings.

But the connection is geopolitical as well as personal. The fact that Britain has been more restrained in criticizing Russian atrocities in Chechnya than has France, Germany or the United States made Putin's choice of a great power to visit easier. So did Britain's political role of being a bridge between the United States and Europe.

"Putin said in St. Petersburg that one of the reasons he wanted to establish a stronger relationship with Britain is that he sees us in that role" of linking Europe and the United States and having influence in both. But Blair quickly turned away a question about whether he would try to mediate Washington and Moscow's sharp disagreement on modifying the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty of 1972:

"We will discuss these issues. What people are trying to do is manage the situation, to make sure that each one understands the other's point of view. We want to make sure everyone is on the same wavelength of dialogue and understanding."

At another point in the conversation Blair laid heavy emphasis on the importance of maintaining the ABM treaty as a cornerstone of international arms control and nuclear deterrence. I heard him suggest, without quite voicing, serious concern about the viability of Britain's own nuclear arsenal if the 1972 treaty is abrogated and missile defenses proliferate.

Blair said he would press Putin to allow international access to prison camps in Chechnya and to work for a political solution there. But while other European countries are pressing for political sanctions against Russia, Blair feels he can still reason with Putin.

"It is important that there is full access for the international bodies that examine and monitor human rights in Chechnya. In the end that is the only thing that will satisfy the outside world. I raised it in St. Petersburg and I will do it again."

Finally, the prime minister may hope to use this hastily arranged working summit on Sunday to lay the groundwork for new cooperation between the West and Russia in the Balkans. With NATO troops in Bosnia and Kosovo, Putin should be given no grounds for cozying up to Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic.

Blair's enthusiasm and fierce drive, which were vital factors in pursuing and winning the Kosovo war last year, touch every project he undertakes. He is not a half-measure man. The London welcome for Putin will therefore be warm and supportive. Less certain is how productive it will be.

----

Russia Norilsk says submarine project needs $80 mln

April 13, 2000
http://news.excite.com:80/news/r/000413/05/minerals-russia-submarines

MOSCOW, April 13 (Reuters) - Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel NKEL.RTS has finished a feasibility study of a project to use nuclear submarines for ore shipments, which once started will cost $80 million, Norilsk's chairman said on Thursday.

"The feasibility study has been prepared and now the board of directors has to approve spending of up to $80 million for its implementation," Yuri Kotlyar said.

"But even then the decommissioning of the submarines should be sanctioned by the state."

Kotlyar said the company could use two Typhoon class submarines to carry cargoes between the Arctic ports of Murmansk and Dudinka, where Norilsk units are situated.

The 30,000-tonne Typhoon is Russia's largest submarine, which can carry up to 20 nuclear missiles. But defence experts say that due to cash shortages not all of Russia's Typhoons carry them.

In February Kotlyar said that Norilsk has instructed its research institute, Gipronikel, to prepare a feasibility study on using submarines for cargo transports due to rising freight costs of nuclear icebreakers.

Norilsk has to resort to expensive nuclear-powered icebreakers to guarantee shipments of ores and concentrates between its units.

-------- spying

Some Spy Satellites Couldn't See

By Tom Raum Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2000; 3:08 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000413/aponline030831_000.htm
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS73QN4T80

WASHINGTON -- A Pentagon computer malfunction hampered the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to process pictures from spy satellites for several weeks last summer. But intelligence officials suggest it could have been worse.

The breakdown happened at a time when the world was relatively free of trouble spots, allowing analysts to use older, slower methods to distribute and examine selected photos, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the director of the super-secret National Security Agency, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that his surveillance agency isn't eavesdropping on private communications from ordinary Americans - either at home or abroad.

"We are not out there as a vacuum cleaner," said Hayden.

"There are absolutely clear rules. They are well known. And they are well respected," Hayden testified before the House Intelligence Committee. U.S. law prohibits the agency from spying on Americans, with few exceptions.

The committee held a rare public hearing to give the little-known agency a chance to respond to allegations that it had violated its charter by eavesdropping on e-mail and other private communications of Americans and Europeans.

At issue is U.S. participation in a satellite surveillance network, the so-called Echelon Project, along with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Although American officials have never confirmed such a network, there have been many published and broadcast reports about it, particularly in Europe.

"There seems to be great concern among some of our European friends," said committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla.

The NSA, based in Fort Meade, Md., specializes in electronic intelligence gathering through satellites, telephone intercepts and other methods.

But Hayden said snooping on private conversations or e-mails is not something his agency does. When such messages are inadvertently received, they're usually destroyed, he said.

Hayden also denied allegations that the NSA engaged in industrial espionage to help U.S. companies.

CIA Director George Tenet, who also testified, echoed Hayden's remarks.

"The United States intelligence community is unequivocally committed to conducting its activities in accordance with U.S. law and due regard for the rights of Americans," Tenet said.

Although Goss, the committee chairman, said he was satisfied that "our safeguards are in place and are working," Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., who has been pressing for more information on Echelon, said there remains "a whole host of questions that we need to go into."

Separately, intelligence officials said the problem with the computer in the Pentagon's National Imagery and Mapping Agency last August made it hard for intelligence agencies to process photographs - even though satellites kept beaming the high-resolution images down to earth.

The officials said that they had to use backup, low tech measures, selecting for analysis only photographs that represented potential sort-term threats to national security, such as North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Other, longer range projects, like analyzing crop changes in drug-growing regions, suffered as a result, the officials said.

The problem, first reported in Wednesday's editions of The New York Times, arose when a new computer was installed by the mapping agency.

Lasting about a month, the problem was more serious than a previously disclosed Y2K-related malfunction that occurred over the New Year's holiday, the officials said.

One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the intelligence community was fortunate that there weren't multiple crises in the world at the time of the malfunction.

-------- taiwan

Taiwan Hangs Tough

By Lally Weymouth
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page A31
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/158l-041300-idx.html

TAIPEI-On Election Day, a U.S. official in Taiwan visited the Democratic Progressive Party candidate, Chen Shui-bian, to warn that if he won, his victory speech should not be provocative toward Beijing. Chen, whose party has long backed independence for Taiwan, did win, and since then he has been relatively conciliatory in his remarks about mainland China. Nevertheless, conversations with officials and strategists here make it clear that Taiwan feels continuing pressure from the mainland.

Is Taiwan unnecessarily fearful of a military attack? Will Beijing try to destabilize Chen's government, or will it build a dialogue with Taiwan that might ultimately lead to a political deal?

Taiwan's departing president, Lee Tengzhui, who has ruled the country for 12 years and helped make it a democracy, told me in an interview that he's worried about the possibility of China attacking Taiwan with military force. The main threat from the mainland, he said, is missiles. Lee said Taiwan must improve its national defense but noted that the U.S. administration does not share his sense of urgency.

Tang Fei, the minister of defense who has been named premier of the new government, echoed the president's warnings. He said that the mainland is modernizing its military forces and that by 2005, it will surpass Taiwan in military might. Indeed, China poses "a dire threat" to Taiwan's national security with its tactical ballistic missiles, Tang said. As he sees it, Taipei's defense priority is to build a defense against these missiles.

As for the proposed sale of AWACS-style surveillance technology to mainland China by Israel--a sale that Washington is attempting to halt--Tang said that "if Israel helps mainland China build AWACS, it will threaten not only Taiwan but also the security situation in Asia." He added that it might even threaten the military balance the United States is trying to build in the region.

Tang noted that Israel has transferred some of the Lavie (fighter jet) technology to China to help it build planes. In the future, he said, Israel could further alter the military balance in mainland China's favor by helping it develop electronic warfare, air-to-air missiles and space technology.

Tang Fei views negotiations with China apprehensively. "Mainland China is trying to push Taiwan into negotiations on an unequal footing due to its rising defense power," he says. Nevertheless, he said, Taiwan will not stop trying to resolve the potential conflict through dialogue.

Chen, who got only 39 percent of the vote, is putting his government together carefully. He has distanced himself from the hard-liners in his party by resigning as its secretary general. And by nominating Tang Fei--a Nationalist Party stalwart--as premier, he sends a signal to the opposition that he intends to have a moderate, broad and inclusive government.

Indeed, coming from the pro-independence party, Chen may have more flexibility to maneuver with Beijing than did his predecessors. Chen says he wants cross-straits relations to move "in a direction of reconciliation and dialogue."

Clearly, he'll try to get talks going. But it will require some creativity on Beijing's part, says one U.S. official, if the gap between the two sides is to be bridged. This official expects to see Beijing put pressure on Taiwan in the form of military exercises, and he adds: "We don't know how bad it will get."

China is not only modernizing its armed forces but also talking tough. In the recent Chinese Military Review, China announced that it was ready to fight a nuclear war with Washington if the United States intervened on the side of Taiwan.

Washington's task is to get the situation back on the political track. The United States must show strength and commitment to Taiwan's new president. Beijing will, of course, expect the United States to pressure him to enter talks. Washington should refuse to do so. Standing by Taiwan means providing it with the weapons it needs to protect itself--a move Beijing won't like.

In 1998, President Clinton visited China and repeated the "three nos" governing U.S.-China relations: no to two Chinas, no to an independent Taiwan and no to membership for Taiwan in the United Nations or any international organization.

It was a depressing moment for Taiwan's inhabitants. Clinton seemed to be denying their sovereignty, which U.S. policymakers had previously left ambiguous. Now Clinton has a chance to put new emphasis on a fourth no: no to the use of force in resolving Taiwan's future.

-------- ukraine

Ukraine, Italy to Set up Space Consortium

Apr 13, 2000
Reuters
http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=151010

KIEV, Ukraine will sign an agreement with Italy this month to set up a group to launch Ukrainian rockets into space from Brazil, the head of Ukraine's space agency was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Olexander Nehoda told the daily Fakty that the group's formation was the final step to an international consortium which would include participation from the United States, Italy, Brazil and Ukraine.

"We will supply our Tsyklon rocket boosters to the consortium. We have used these boosters for many years, and none of them has crashed so far," he was quoted as saying.

"There is no doubt the safety of these rocket boosters makes the project profitable and risk-free."

Ukraine and Brazil signed a commercial space launch deal last November, under which the ex-Soviet state's boosters are to be launched from Brazil's equatorial launch site next year.

Officials say Italy's Avio and some U.S. firms plan to participate in the project. They aim to increase the Tsyklon's four-ton payload and fuel capacity, create a new control system and modernize its engine.

Brazil is preparing a new port and railway link to get the rocket to the launch site.

Ukraine's hope of playing a leading role in the commercial satellite launch business suffered a setback last month when a Zenit-3SL rocket crashed while carrying a satellite belonging to international telecoms consortium ICO Global Communications.

Nehoda said the crash was unlikely to disrupt further launches and the next was due in May.

Fourth Criminal Case against Kazakh Opposition Head ALMATY, April 12 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan tax police have started crminal proceedings against former Prime Minister and opposition leader Akezhan Kazhegeldin for the loss of large sums of public money, state television reported on Wednesday.

The Khabar television channel quoted tax police as saying Kazhegeldin misused his position as prime minister in 1995 when he signed a government resolution granting a sports club exemption from tax on imported goods.

"As a result, the city budget failed to receive hundreds of millions of tenge," Khabar said.

The money should have been received by the city council of Almaty, Kazahkstan's commercial capital, it said.

Kazhegeldin, a former Prime Minister and the main political opponent of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, is now wanted in Kazakhstan on four counts. He lives in exile in Western Europe.

He was barred from contesting the 1999 presidential election on a minor technicality, tarnishing Kazakhstan's democratic image and drawing criticism in the West.

The prosecutor's office wants to try Kazhegeldin for money laundering and tax evasion, both of which he denies. The Interior Ministry also registered a case of illegal possession of arms against him last month.

-------- us military

Navy: Leak aboard nuclear sub never posed a danger
Workers aboard the USS Olympia simply wash off slightly radioactive water

By Gregg K. Kakesako,
Thursday, April 13, 2000,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii News
http://starbulletin.com:80/2000/04/13/news/story6.html

Three Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard workers were exposed to minute traces of radiation when water leaked from a pipe in the propulsion plant of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Olympia yesterday.

But the Navy said there was never any danger to the environment from the radioactive water or to the workers.

The radioactive water is now stored in one of the submarine's bilges, Navy spokesman Jon Yoshishige said.

This was at least the fifth accident at the shipyard involving nuclear submarines, but none has involved nuclear systems on the subs. In 1998 the Navy reported that:

An ensign on the USS Los Angeles had to stop the closing of a torpedo loading hatch because proper safety procedures were not followed. A Navy diver was injured while removing the propeller on the USS Columbus. The equipment the diver used to loosen a propeller nut broke loose, striking the diver. The diver was treated for a scalp cut. The removal of a protective cover for a sea water system valve on the USS Key West was not properly done, causing some flooding. There was an electrical maintenance problem on the USS Chicago.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles-class submarine USS Olympia -- one of 21 at Pearl Harbor -- was undergoing routine maintenance at a shipyard facility next to the submarine base when the leak occurred at 5:37 a.m. The leak was detected when water was being returned to the propulsion plant system following maintenance on a valve in the sub's reactor compartment, Yoshishige said.

About 500 gallons of water were released and drained into the reactor bilge, where waste water from that part of the ship is collected.

The reactor was not operating at the time and had been shut down for more than two weeks.

Six shipyard workers were in the reactor compartment when the leak occurred. Three workers received small amounts of radioactive material on their skin but washed it off with soap and water, Yoshishige said.

Another worker also suffered a minor cut on the head. He had backed into an object as he was moving away from the leaking pipe. The worker was treated at Tripler Army Medical Center and released. His name was not released.

----

Navy Reports Radioactive Leak

The Associated Press
Thursday, April 13, 2000; 12:21 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000413/aponline122145_000.htm
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS73QV7V80

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- Radioactive water leaked from a pipe within a nuclear-powered submarine's propulsion plant but no radioactivity was released, the Navy said.

The radioactive water was contained in one of the submarine's bilges, Navy spokesman Jon Yoshishige said.

The 360-foot, fast-attack submarine USS Olympia was undergoing maintenance when the leak occurred early Wednesday.

The leak was detected when water was being returned to the propulsion plant system following maintenance on a valve in the sub's reactor compartment, the Navy said. Some 500 gallons of water were released and drained into the reactor bilge, where wastewater from that part of the ship is collected.

The reactor was not operating at the time and had been shut down for more than two weeks.

Six shipyard workers were in the reactor compartment at the time, said Lt. Cmdr. Dave Werner, spokesman for the Commander Submarine Forces Pacific.

Three workers received small amounts of radioactive material on their skin, but it easily washed off, he said, and the amount of exposure was less than a person receives from natural radiation sources in a single day.

State officials also examined the area and found no unusual radiation levels or threat to the public.

Werner said water in the reactor bilge will be pumped from the ship to be processed to remove the radioactivity. The compartment will then be cleaned and the valve will be repaired.

The cause of the problem with the valve has not been determined, Werner said.

Access to the Navy base was barred for several hours after the accident.

----

Air Force pilot refuses vaccine
A captain from Eugene resigns his commission and says he has been denied his rights since he declined an anthrax vaccination

Thursday, April 13, 2000
By Norm Maves Jr.
The Oregonian
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/04/lc_52anthr13.frame

After dueling with the U.S. Air Force for six months over his refusal to be vaccinated against anthrax, Capt. Cliff Volpe, an active-duty pilot from Eugene, has resigned his commission and asked the service for an honorable discharge.

Volpe sent his lengthy letter to Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters on Monday.

He asked for the discharge rather than serve under what he called "a chain of command that fails to follow Air Force regulations, continually harasses me and has openly expressed its intent to make my life miserable."

The anthrax vaccination controversy has been a hot issue in the military since Defense Secretary William Cohen in 1998 ordered the immunization of all active-duty and reserve troops against anthrax by 2005.

The order was given because of the suspicion that some potential enemies -- Iraq and others -- could use it in lethal doses as a biological weapon.

President Clinton and Cohen are pushing for full compliance in the inoculation effort, and Cohen says the vaccine is safe. Vice President Al Gore, however, broke with the White House and the Pentagon on Tuesday, calling for "careful evaluation" of whether the program should be mandatory.

Several people have refused the vaccination, citing inadequate testing of the vaccine and side effects that have cropped up in some recipients. Some have fought the system; others have resigned from the military.

In February, a House subcommittee called for suspension of the vaccination program. And last month, Air Force Maj. Sonnie Bates, a C-5 cargo jet pilot at Dover Air Force Base, Del., was given a general discharge after receiving a fine and reprimand for balking at inoculations.

An Air Force spokesman at the headquarters of Air Mobility Command, the 457th's parent command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., said that short notice precluded an immediate response to Volpe's charges and that the command would respond today.

Dr. Sue Bailey, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said that the vaccine was safe and the only way the military could protect its troops from the deadly disease. She said nearly 400,000 service members had received all or part of the six-shot program.

"It's frustrating to have to do this," said Volpe, 27, a C-21 pilot with the 457th Airlift Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C. "I've kept my head bowed and gone with the flow, but every other recourse of action and official means of resolving this has failed."

Volpe, a 1991 graduate of South Eugene High School and a 1995 graduate of the Air Force Academy, accuses the service of denial of several legal rights and of a pattern of harassment.

His military obligation extends to May 2005.

At the root of Volpe's action was his order in early October to be vaccinated against anthrax.

Volpe did his own research on the subject before making up his mind. He compiled anecdotal evidence from physicians and people who have had adverse reactions to the vaccine and examined British medical journals. British soldiers were vaccinated during the Persian Gulf War. He also reviewed General Accounting Office reports on adverse reactions.

Then he refused the order -- he was one of the first pilots to do so -- and was immediately slapped with an Article 15. The article, part of the Universal Code of Military Justice, provides for punishment without going through a court martial. On Oct. 13, Volpe accepted a fine of $3,210 and a reprimand; a month later, he filed for an appeal.

Since then, Volpe said, "the Air Force has continued a deliberate campaign to delay the resolution of my case and make my service in the military unbearable."

Specifically, he said, he was illegally prevented from flying, wasn't allowed to participate in Air Force athletic events -- Volpe is a competitive distance runner -- wasn't permitted to volunteer in the community and was harassed up and down his chain of command. He said that the Air Force also had violated its own rules when it refused him an audience with an officer who was reviewing his Article 15.

And although regulations limit pay forfeiture to half a month's pay for two months, Volpe was docked the entire amount in one month, he said.

Air Force attorney Capt. William Burke has been representing Volpe for the past six months. He said Wednesday that cases of refusal to accept the anthrax vaccine were relatively new and that the military was still trying to iron out procedures.

"Generally," he said, "in any justice system you want some consistency so that similar offenses receive similar punishments. In Cliff's case, he's been held onto a lot longer and subjected to some things.

"His case played a big role in how the Air Force will handle this. Nobody wants to deal with it in court; the Air Force doesn't want its bluff called, nor is a court martial in the best interest" of the refuser.

"This is the only thing that's the slightest black mark on his record," Burke said of Volpe. "His record is certainly an outstanding one; when you balance all the facts, he deserves an honorable discharge."

Volpe says he attended two House of Representatives committee hearings on the anthrax subject last year but declined the opportunity to testify. He also has refused opportunities from other media to go public with his problems.

"Obviously, I don't want a bad record," he said, "but I just can't live with this anymore."

In his resignation letter to Peters, Volpe said, "I am disappointed that I have to write this letter. I love serving my country, and the opportunities I have had to fly and be an Air Force officer. I have great respect for the men and women of the Air Force. . . ."

The Chicago Tribune News Service contributed to this report. You can reach Norm Maves at 503-221-8255 or by e-mail at normmaves@news.oregonian.com.

----

UAB says anthrax antibiotic in works

04/13/2000
MICHAEL BRUMAS
News Washington Correspondent
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/Apr2000/13-e418024b.html

WASHINGTON - UAB researchers believe they are well on the way to developing a new-generation antibiotic that could be used by the military and civilian populations to protect against antrhax - one of the greatest biological warfare threats.

The head of the University of Alabama at Birmingham team said researchers are working to create a pill that would prevent anthrax spores from germinating in into the lethal organism and kill the bacteria after exposure.

"There is currently no other antibiotic that can block the germination process," said Larry DeLucas, director of the UAB Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering. "Our compounds are unique in that they can be taken prophylactically, thereby preventing the infectious disease caused by anthrax spores.

The drug eventually may be used as an aternative to the anthrax vaccine, which has become deeply controversial within Congress and among some troops, who question whether the shots are safe, DeLucas said.

"I've always thought that drug therapy could be an alternative, for the following reason: Troops are leery about taking a vaccine. In the case of the drug, you're simply taking a pill. It's a compound and there's no anthrax in there. You don't have to worry about that."

Earlier this year, a House of Representatives panel issued a report recommending that the military suspend the anthrax vaccine program. The report said the effectiveness of the shots is uncertain and the safety of the troops who have been inoculated is not being properly monitored.

But the Defense Department rejected the recommendation, arguing that the vaccine is safe and effective and is the only known way to prevent rapid deaths in troops who inhale anthrax spores.

Vaccine on trial

The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing today on the anthrax vaccine program, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a member of the panel, said he planned to press Pentagon officials about the UAB research.

"We have a crisis with anthrax immunization," he said. "It's a very serious matter. If there's any reasonable chace that Dr. DeLucas' project can work, then we ought to pursue it. I believe it's more that just some vague chance. It seems to me they're onto something that very well can work and solve immediately the anthrax problem for our people in uniform."

DeLucas said his team identified an enzyme, NAD synthetase, that is critical for the germination and life cycle of the anthrax dacteria. Researchers then developed a new antibiotic that prevents anthrax spore germination and also inhibits the growth of anthrax, if infection has already occurred.

DeLucas, a former NASA astronaut who conducted microgravity experiments aboard the space shuttle, said the antibiotic has been tested at Army infectious diseases labs using bacteria cultures, although no tests have been performed yet on animals infected with anthrax.

Dr. John Ezzell, who oversaw the tests at the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., said the preliminary results "looked good."

"But they are very limited in scope," he said. "They need to be expanded and tested further. It's dangerous at this point to be drawing final conclusions until we have all the data."

Delucas optimistic

DeLucas agreed that more work needs to be done but he said, "We are optimistic that we can produce a viable drug candidate that would be ready to begin testing in humans within two years."

The Pentagon considers anthrax, a virulent disease that causes death within a few days, among the greatest biological weapons threats to U.S. forces. It is a naturally occurring bacteria found in domesticated animals.

A dried form of anthrax spores can be loaded into artillery shells, bombs and missiles or can be sprayed from planes. Although anthrax has never been used in combat, the Pentagon fears Iraq, North Korea and other countries - as well as terrorist groups - might try.

Defense Secretary William Cohen has ordered all 2.4 million active duty and reserve troops to get anthrax vaccines - and so far 422,000 service members have been immunized, Pentagon officials said this week.

But some servicemen have reported side effects, including fevers, muscle pain, soreness and dizziness, prompting about 350 refusals to take the six-shot regimen and annual booster. Several pilots in the Birmingham-based 117th Air National Guard also have said they will leave the military rather than be subjected to a mandatory vaccine.

The research at UAB could lead to a resolution to that controversy.

DeLucas said a three-year, $6.5 million Army grant to pursue research has run out. He said the project needs an additional $14 million, which would pay for further development and pre-clinical testing required for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"We have carefully assembled a detailed work plan and budget for accomplishing this," he said. "We recently partnered with a small pharmaceutical company that will be responsible for the pre-clinical trials."

Lt. Col. John Grabenstein, deputy director for clinical operations at the Army's Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program Agency, said the military doesn't know enough about the UAB antibiotic to assess the project.

"I'm a real pro-vaccine guy," he said. "The nice thing about the vaccine is you get your protection established and you stay immune for a good period of time. ... The vaccine is the best option today. As we gather more information about this product, then we would reassess."

----

Atomic Time Bombs

By Gary Turbak,
VFW Magazine April 1998
http://www.vfw.org/magazine/apr98/20.shtml

Last month, "Under the Mushroom Cloud" described the nuclear tests in Nevada and the Pacific that exposed thousands of veterans to ionizing radiation. Part II traces their quest for medical treatment and disability compensation from the government that placed them in danger. Ronald Benoit, an Army MP during Operation Castle, displays his security clearance ID card issued in 1954. Though he was told to turn it in at the end of the nuclear tests, he held onto it as proof that he was there.

In March 1977, retired Army Sgt. Paul Cooper filed a claim with the VA regional office in Boise, Idaho. A patient at the VA hospital in Salt Lake City, Cooper suffered from acute myelocytic leukemia and was seeking disability benefits on the grounds that his malady was service-related.

His claim-considered outlandish at the time-was that his leukemia had been caused by radiation received while participating in a nuclear detonation in the Nevada desert in 1957 (Shot Smoky of Operation Plumbbob). After an initial denial, VA approved Cooper's claim, but declined to comment on the connection between the bomb test and the disease.

Cooper's case-and that of atomic veteran Orville Kelly, a victim of lymphocytic lymphoma who in 1979 founded the National Association of Atomic Veterans (NAAV)-received considerable publicity. The genie was out of the bottle.

By the thousands, veterans wrote to the VA, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other agencies claiming their health problems also stemmed from radiation received at the nuclear tests-or at least asking whether it was possible.

Endless List of Ailments Between 1946 and 1962, about 210,000 GIs participated in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests-in the Pacific and in Nevada-that might have exposed them to radiation. Another 195,000 had occupied Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where they could have contacted radioactive materials. Collectively, they have come to be called atomic veterans.

In the 1970s, many of them started getting sick, and they wanted to know if radiation was the cause. Today, after more than two decades of study, argument and accusation, that question still has not been answered conclusively.

To be sure, there is no scarcity of sick and deceased atomic veterans, no shortage of circumstantial evidence pointing a finger of blame at radiation. The NAAV says the GIs who served in irradiated Japan and at the test sites are dying at an average age of 56-up to three-fourths of them from cancer.

Afflictions reported by atomic veterans are almost endless: heart trouble, prostatitis, joint aches, gall bladder troubles, thyroid problems, high blood pressure, arthritis, headaches, internal bleeding, anemia, immune system problems, teeth falling out, sterility, blood blisters, failing vision and cancers of every kind.

The National Association of Radiation Survivors, an advocacy group for all types of radiation victims, lists more than 75 maladies suffered by its members.

For some, the long-ago tests are literally a bad dream. "I have nightmares of steel doors clanging shut, leaving me outside with the radiation coming down," says Ronald Benoit (Castle). He was forced to stand guard for 18 hours on his ship's deck during a fallout.

In addition, some atomic vets believe radiation's genetic effects have been visited on their children in the form of infertility, retardation and a host of other health problems. Paul Pepin (Upshot-Knothole) wonders about the radiation that may have remained in the boots he brought home-boots later worn by his son, who now has his own health problems as well as a retarded child.

"It [the detonation] changed my life and ruined my children's," he says. "I'm living in hell knowing I may have caused my grandchildren's problems by serving my country."

The Roll Call Goes On GIs who witnessed test blasts in Nevada and the Pacific are not the only atomic veterans. Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WWII, 195,000 U.S. troops were sent to those two Japanese cities.

These servicemen lived and worked for weeks in irradiated areas. They drank water from city reservoirs. They were generally not warned about radiation hazards and were not issued protective clothing or given radiation detectors or film badges.

The Defense Special Weapons Agency says most of these GIs probably received no radiation whatsoever and that the rest received insignificant amounts. Some of these vets disagree.

Additional members of the armed forces may have been exposed to radiation while serving their country, too. Some GIs assisted the British military with their bomb tests, Navy ships passed through contaminated Pacific waters, and soldiers stationed near the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state may have been subjected to fallout.

Moreover, the National Cancer Institute determined late in 1997 that virtually the entire U.S. population may have been exposed to radioactive fallout from the Nevada tests during the 1950s.

There's even a theory that the Nevada testing killed several movie stars. In his book Under the Cloud, Richard Miller relates the following tale: In 1954, stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and director Dick Powell came to southwestern Utah to film The Conqueror.

The site, directly downwind from the Nevada nuclear tests, proved rather windy. For 13 weeks the Hollywood folks breathed and swallowed local dust and dirt. Within 30 years, 91 of the 220-person crew had developed cancer-including all of the film's stars.

Film Badge Fallacy
Many atomic veterans say the Pentagon deliberately or carelessly exposed them to radiation, then botched-or sabotaged-the recording and storage of information about the doses troops received. "I will always feel that the [government] will never tell the truth about the exposure during these tests," says Robert Ruhnau (Tumbler Snapper).

For troops at nuclear tests, gamma radiation was a major danger-but one relatively easy to gauge. The primary tool for measuring dosage was the film badge, a packet of photographic type film (typically clipped to clothing or worn around the neck like dog tags) that darkened as it was exposed to radiation. The system, however, had some inherent flaws.

For starters, prior to 1955 not every test-site GI received a film badge. Instead, only selected members of a unit got the devices-on the assumption that the rest of the outfit would likely receive similar radiation exposure. Within any unit, however, the duties and movements of individuals sometimes varied widely. Moreover, the location of radiation "hotspots" were often unpredictable.

Invariably, reconstructions suggest the GI received minimal radiation. The government stands by its method, while many vets call it a joke. "We have absolutely no confidence in the dose reconstructions," says Oscar Rosen (Crossroads), co-founder and president of the Atomic Veterans Radiation Research Institute. "Many of them were simply made up."

Another problem with film badges was their ability to measure only gamma radiation. Alpha and beta rays can be even more deadly when inhaled or ingested, but there is no way to know how much radiation of this kind GIs received.

Finally, there were the normal snafus that can result in any big military operation. "We were issued radiation film badges, but they were seldom checked and were frequently lost and new ones issued," says Michael Kraut (Hardtack).

Also, in 1973, a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis destroyed or damaged thousands of radiation records. The upshot is that many atomic veterans remain skeptical about the amount of radiation the government says they received.

According to the Defense Special Weapons Agency (DSWA), nearly all troops received very little exposure. "Findings indicate that most external gamma doses to personnel at the tests were quite low-averaging 0.63 rem," says its For the Record-A History of the Nuclear Test Personnel Review Program, 1978-1993.

"Many participants received no dose at all, and less than 1 percent [about 1,700 individuals] exceeded 5 rem." (Rem stands for "roentgen equivalent in man" and is a measure of the effect of radiation on biological tissue. Five rem is the current allowable annual exposure for nuclear plant workers.) DSWA also insists veterans who served in Hiroshima and Nagasaki received only "negligible" radiation.

presumptive diseases
Radiogenic diseases listed below qualify for VA disability compensation. They include these cancers:

leukemia (except chronic lymphocytic leukemia)
multiple myeloma lymphomas (except Hodgkin's disease)
liver (unless cirrhosis or hepatitis B is indicated)
thyroid
breast
esophagus
stomach
pancreas
pharynx
small intestine
bile ducts
gall bladder
urinary tract
salivary gland

Finding the Culprit

But the plight of atomic veterans is not a simple matter of black and white, of obvious cause and effect. Don Bumgardner (Hardtack) gets to the heart of the quandary as well as anyone: "I have strong reservations about using people as guinea pigs without their knowledge and consent.

"But I truly resent organizations such as NAAV [of which he is a life member] trying to blame every illness imaginable on radiation exposure. I believe this broad-brush approach only makes it more difficult for those who do have legitimate claims."

Not every atomic vet has complaints, physical or otherwise. "The Atomic Energy Commission appeared to take pretty good care that we didn't get an overdose of radiation," says Bill Terrace (Redwing and Teapot). Arthur Mann (Hardtack) witnessed about 30 detonations and today suffers only from arthritis.

Ernest Fisher, now 79, participated in Operation Greenhouse and worked several years at the Nevada Test Site. "I just passed my flight physical," he says, "and the doctors laughingly suggest my excellent health is due to radiation."

Reduced to essentials, the problem is this: Many of the vibrant young servicemen who witnessed the nuclear tests are now in their 60s and 70s-decades when things start to go wrong with the human body. It is, perhaps, only natural for anyone fighting a serious disease to look for the origin-the cause-of that malady. Radiation is a known potential hazard and an easy culprit to blame.

But radiation simply cannot be responsible for every otherwise unexplainable cancer or other illness in a group of aging atomic veterans. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, cancer accounts for about 23% of all American deaths-even with no known radiation exposure.

For atomic veterans, there simply is no way to know which maladies are a result of radiation and which are not (although some afflictions, such as rotting teeth and Parkinson's disease, definitely are not caused by radiation).

The science surrounding this issue tends to substantiate the government's position that relatively few cancers and other illnesses resulted from the bomb tests. Following Paul Cooper's claim, CDC looked at other participants of Shot Smoky. It found that those GIs had no greater incidence of cancer or death (from any cause) than did the general U.S. population-although the Smoky vets did have a higher rate of leukemia.

In 1995, another study found that about 8,500 Navy veterans of Operation Hardtack had more overall deaths and higher rates of digestive tract cancer than did a similar group of sailors with no radiation exposure.

Researchers, however, found no increase among Hardtack participants for most of the cancers known to be caused by radiation. And in England, 21,000 British atomic veterans were found to have roughly the same mortality rate as a like number of veterans with no radiation exposure.

In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the results of yet another study, this one comparing mortality among approximately 40,000 participants of Operation Crossroads and a similar group of GIs who did not participate in nuclear testing.

This time, researchers did find more deaths among atomic vets-but the bulk of that increase was not attributable to cancer or leukemia. Because the death rate from cancer was essentially the same in atomic and non-exposed veterans, researchers concluded that the higher overall death rate was likely due to causes other than radiation.

Currently, the government's bottom line is that radiation from the nuclear tests is likely to cause only a handful of maladies that would not otherwise have occurred. "To date, there's not a lot of evidence that the radiation the veterans received has increased their cancer mortality," says health physicist Chris Johnson, who directed IOM's Crossroads project.

But the jury is still out. In December 1998, IOM will publish the results of a mortality study of 70,000 atomic veterans-the largest group examined thus far. Preliminary indications are that these vets received more radiation than did Crossroads participants.

'swept under the rug'

Some atomic vets, however, believe that no government study will ever show government culpability. They sometimes speak of "cover-up" and "stonewalling." They compare their treatment to that afforded GI victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam and those thought to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome. "We have been swept under the rug to satisfy the nuclear power and weapons lobbies," claims Rosen.

Angry vets fault the government for studying only deceased veterans, for downplaying the significance of sometimes higher death or leukemia rates among veterans, for focusing primarily on cancer, for technical flaws in the studies and for refusing to look at the health of atomic veterans' children.

"I believe the government is stalling, and if it stalls long enough, we will all be dead," says Fred Bors (Crossroads).

Study outcomes notwithstanding, Congress has passed legislation allowing veterans to receive compensation for some maladies possibly related to radiation exposure (see chart at right).

Veterans need show only that they participated in one or more nuclear test(s) or served in postwar Hiroshima or Nagasaki. They do not need to prove radiation caused their disease or even that they received a high dose. Several additional maladies may also be covered, provided veterans can demonstrate they received enough radiation to cause the disease.

For More Information For further information, contact:

Defense Special Weapons Agency Nuclear Test Personnel Review Office 6801 Telegraph Road Alexandria, VA 22310-3398 1-800-462-3683

Department of Veterans Affairs VA Regional Office 1-800-827-1000

Atomic Veterans Radiation Research Institute Attn: Oscar Rosen P.O. Box 4424 Salem, MA 01970-6424 Tel: (978) 744-9396; FAX: 740-9267 E-Mail: otaka@earthlink.net

National Assn. of Atomic Veterans Attn: Rudy Florentine P.O. Box 2558 Ventnor, NJ 08406-0558 1-800-784-6228

VFW National Veterans Service Attn: John McNeill 200 Maryland Ave., N.E. Washington, DC 20002 (202) 543-2239

reconciling claims
Perhaps the biggest casualty of this festering controversy is the wedge being driven between veterans and various government agencies-VA, DoD, DSWA and others. Bobbie Highland (Ivy and Greenhouse): "It grieves me to admit my government has not honored commitments of medical care. I am painfully aware that atomic veterans ... have been rewarded for our service with deception and lies."

VA, because it is often the vets' most direct link to the government, receives much of the criticism-for denying claims, constructing roadblocks of red tape, emasculating legislation with regulations and slow claims processing. "I gave up bothering the VA [years ago] because it was a waste of time and money," says Dighton Brazee (Sandstone).

In one instance, the VA even put an atomic vet in the grave, at least on paper. In October 1992, Steve Olen (Sandstone) received a VA computer printout indicating he had passed away that September-which he decidedly had not. "I had this deleted," he says. But such mistakes are inevitable in such a large system.

VA says that through the end of 1997 it received 19,781 claims for compensation due to radiation exposure while in the military. Some 5,277 of these claims were granted for service-connected disability compensation or death benefits. "We do our best to serve all veterans," says VA spokesman Ev Chasen.

"The fact that there seems to be a higher rate of death among exposed veterans should indicate a problem," said Fred Juarbe, VFW's director of National Veterans Service. "We suggest that veterans of a nuclear test who are suffering from cancer contact their VFW service officers and file a claim with VA. VFW is concerned about any reported case of radiation exposure and will continue to press for appropriate action."

DSWA says it is doing its part, too. "We're doing everything reasonably possible to determine how much radiation the nuclear test veterans received," according to Deputy Public Affairs Officer Cheri Abdelnour. " We're dedicated to providing the best possible support to atomic veterans. If a veteran has better, more accurate information about his participation in the tests and the radiation he received, we would like to hear about it. We encourage veterans to call."

It is unlikely this issue will ever be settled definitively. Were some GIs harmed by radiation from nuclear tests? Certainly. Is every malady afflicting atomic veterans a result of their exposure? Of course not.

The truth, perhaps perpetually shrouded, lies somewhere in the middle. And that mystery can be the greatest blow of all to veterans seeking only to understand whether their long-ago involvement with "the big bomb" might have started a microscopic time bomb ticking inside them.

"It would be nice to know that my vision and prostate problems have nothing to do with my exposure to atomic energy," says Donald Horne (Wigwam).

But he probably never will.

gary turbak is a Missoula, Mont.-based free-lancer who specializes in health, science and the military.

-------- us nuc facilities

Compensation details announced:
Government admits health problems from exposure

Portsmouth Times
April 13, 2000
By Brian J. Overman

Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson announced Wednesday the details of a plan to compensate thousands of atomic workers who MAY HAVE BEEN EXPOSED to dangerous materials while working at nuclear weapons facilities. The revised proposal now includes workers at any plant that MAY HAVE BEEN EXPOSED, including the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon.

"The men and women who served our nation in the nuclear weapons industries of World War II and the Cold War labored under difficult and dangerous conditions with some of the most hazardous materials known to mankind. This is a fair and reasonable program, " Richardson said, Additionally, Vice President Al Gore said, "For decades, government ignored mounting evidence that workers who were contributing to our nation's defense were themselves being put at risk. While we cannot undo their suffering, today this administration begins the process of healing by admitting the government's mistakes. designing a process for compensating these workers for their suffering and by becoming an advocate for Department of Energy workers throught the nuclear weapsons complex."

The administration intends to open a workers advocacy office with a toll free number by May 1, According to Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels, about $15 million to $20 million dollars per year will be devoted to the unfrastructure that will support the ill workers. as part of the legislation, it is expected about $120 million dollars per year will be devoted to program. It is anticipated that after a back log of workers with illnessess have been compensated, the cost will go down to $80 million per year.

Michaels said an estimated 3,000 workers with job-related illnesses will be compensated under the program. Estimates indicate 1,5000 workers with cancer-related illnesses, and 750 workers with Beryllium-related illinesses and 750 workers with other illnesses will come forward to benefit from the compensation.

Michaels pointed out that some plants, like Piketon, already have a STAFF OF INDEPENDENT DOCTORS ON SITE. If those physicians find a work-related illness, the case may be referred to the state workers' compensation agency to initiate benefits even before the legislation is passed. According to the DOE, the new proposal would provide the following benefits:

FOR WORKERS WITH BERYLLIUM RELATED ILLNESSES - All medical expenses would be paid in full by the compensation program, including prescriptions, treatment and travel costs. Workers would also receive compensation for lost wages and job retraining. Workers may also choose a lump sum payment of $100,000 instead of the compensation package.

FOR WORKERS WITH RADIATION_RELATED CANCERS -The benefits for these illnesses are the same as those for beryllium. IF ADEQUATE information about the amount of radiation exposure is not available, the DOE will assume they were exposed to the highest amount of radiation associated with their job.

FOR OTHER GROUPS OF SICK WORKERS $ 100,000 lump sum benefits are available to workers with specific types of cancer at the department's three gaseous diffusion plants if physicians determine the illnesses are related to work exposure.

FOR WORKERS WITH OTHER OCCUPATIONAL ILLNESSES - The workers' advocacy office will help workers with other illnesses to obtain state workers' compensation benefits. The compensation plan only covers workers and families of workers, NOT NEIGHBORS of the plant whose health may have been effected. Michaels said, "That is certainly something we're looking at, but we have no active plans now." Also not covered are GENETIC propensities to cancer and birth defects which may have been caused by exposure. Legislators have expressed a desire to see the legislation approved and in operation within the year. Additional information on the progress of the compensation proposal is available on line at http://www.eh.doe.gov/benefits.

----

Zeros and Heros: Richardson press conference and press release

Thu, 13 Apr 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com
Reply-To: downwinders@egroups.com

My notes and comments Re: Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson 4/12/2000 press conference and press release on C-SPAN tonight:

1. Secretary Richardson stated that he, the President and VP "apologize" for nuclear workers' suffering. I think the apology was a throwaway line, not delivered convincingly. Bad acting or insincere. We need an apology from the President and Vice President themselves. President Clinton apologized for Bosnia, slavery and Tuskegee experiment -- why can't the President and Vice President personally apologize to Oak Ridge and other nuclear weapons victims? Delegation to Richardson of "apology" function cheapens the value placed on worker lives. Gore quoted in press release, but not at press conference. Richardson looked tired.

2. DOE has changed the terms slightly since the curtain raiser news stories appeared on the web, including lifetime medical care for some workers, and maybe for others. There is a moving target -- they keep improving the terms. Keep writing and speaking and calling. As Samuel Gompers said, the goal of labor is MORE.

3. Still no meeting between President and Vice President and sick workers. No suggestion or hint of it. This is stigma.

4. Still no DOL process -- DOE wants to decide who gets benefits. Disastrous. We don't let wrongdoers decide workers' compensation. Conflict of interest.

5. There will be a DOE worker advocacy office staffed by "aggressive advocates" and toll-free telephone number.

6. DOE will compensate a "group of workers" at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Sounds like they want to get rid of "The Exposed" with their lump sum payment.

7. Richardson said Congressman Strickland from Piketon was "relentless" in pushing for his constituents, later during Q&A said he was more than "relentless." The bill still not strong enough. All victims should be "relentless" until a proper bill is passed and the bill is made adequate.

8. Not one mention of prosecution of managers responsible for horrific workplace exposures.

9. Ms. Vicki Hatfield from Kingston introduced: her father has chronic beryllium disease and asbestosis. She spoke eloquently, as in her testimony before Sen. Fred Thompson, with some persons in background visibly wiping a tear. She stated, "I believe we have a long way to go before the package is complete." The family has spent over $400,000 on her father's medical bills. Family savings gone. Men being diagnosed in 30s -- long road to get to end -- families must be taken care of -- should not have to take their savings to pay medical bills, and lose homes. Hopes this is not a political issue -- wants immediate help.

10. Members of Congress present were, in order of speaking: Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D. PA) -- leader on compensation for beryllium workers. "Five decades of neglect" of nuclear weapons workers. "Government turned its back ... on needs and responsibilities." Said Richardson's work on compensation was the "most responsible activity of Cabinet officer" he has seen in "15 years of public service." Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Sen Richard Bryan (D-Nev) He was a NTS worker. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) Fan of Dr. Michaels and Secretary Richardson, whom he termed his "heroes." Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) Got his first non-Chamber of Commerce briefings on OR after his election in 1994 re: what happened in Oak Ridge and emphasized "how stupid we were as a Nation with respect to some of our nuclear legacy and some of the environmental legacy.... disbelief .... allowed some of the activities that they allowed to go on ... I couldn't believe that they just dug holes in the ground and buried stuff in the holes... this was wrong ... a remedy is in order... Administration .... should be commended..... safety factors are now being met (Huh?) ... proud of all the workers .... Vicki Hatfield did an excellent job of bringing this to life .... constitutent who drank from well and swam -- not just the workers either -- we must continue to find solutions for peoples that are disaffected by nuclear weapons buildup (Richardson behind him looking MEAN at this point when he mentions finding solutions for sick RESIDENTS affected by nuclear weapons) .... got to find bipartisan solutions ... working with Paul Kanjorski ... [Wamp is] on Appropriations Committee... pledges to build bipartisan solutions.... Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) Bob Clement (D-TN) Thanked the absent President and Vice President as if he thought they were hiding in the press conference room somewhere. Says he "enjoyed" Vicki Hatfield's remarks. Inappropriate word choice, like "enjoying" Schindler's List or Shoah (Bob Clement once told Memphis Commercial-Appeal Editorial Board about West Tennessee's problems with tornadoes and volcanoes. :) Bob Clement probably means well; when I met him in 1979 and told him about TVA coal procurement fraud and Kingston steamplant layerloading, he said "Ed, you're trying to make me smart.") Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) Represents Hanford. Noted that U.S. won WWII & Cold War. Should treat workers as favorably as veterans. Looks forward to working on legislation Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo) Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) Spoke of uranium miners and known cancer hazards, and how Bill Richardson passed compensation in Congress, and "made it right." (The reference is to RECA, and there are many who disagree with that, including Tom Udall in private). Said that workers requested exposure records and "all of the records are gone." He is introducing DOE legislation in House today (4/12/2000). Going to try to provide interim health care while claims pending. Quotes someone as saying "we don't want a lot of money," but don't want to be saddled with medical bills.

11. PRESS QUESTIONS and ANSWERS by RICHARDSON AND MICHAELS:

Q: What about deceased workers/where get 3000 number from? A: 1500 cancers (dead and alive), 750 beryllium, rest other illnesses. Estimate cost of legislation as $17 m in FY 2001 (starting 10/1/200)) $120 million in each of the next three years, about $70 m/year beyond that. Burden of proof on goverment, not workers. Not going to make workers find records. Records don't exist in many cases. Going to reconstruct peoples' doses in establishing compensation. Michaels said opending door a little wider than the hundreds he believes are sick to cover everyone. ........

A: No cap on beryllium -- minimum of $100k, or 80% of lost wages plus first dollar medical care. If disease is the right one.

Q: What about Amchitka nuclear test workers?

A: Covered.

Q: Cases "with merit" -- dispute all along? What of people still skeptical that government that fought against for five decades. Why not Department of Labor or some other Department that does not have a history of being your opponent?

A: Physicians decide.

Q: Credibility problem re: DOE being an advocate?

A: Lot of workers understandably suspicious. Lot of workers saying another empty promise, big delays. (Is he reading our E-mails?: If so, who forwards them to DOE?) Government is on the workers' side. Will take some time. Got to get it passed. Going to try to correct an injustice. Made a start here today. Town meetings on Navajo reservation -- would talk about sick uranium miners. Stewart Udall, Richardson and DOJ fought for RECA.. Still delays. Understands suspicions. Tribute to White House -- brought all competing positions together.

Q: How many workers can you help with $17 m in first year?

A: Setup of office, start program, some compensation money in supplemental appropriations for this Fiscal Year for Paducah, Piketon, OR. $10 m for worker health issues.

Q: PACE says burden of proof shifts to government only at Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge.

A: Michaels -- can find doses, should be compensated generously. GDPs difficult , workers weren't told, weren't protected. DOE actively decided not to test and see what the exposures were there.

Q: (by Laura Frank): 1750 non-rad, non-beryllium illnesses -- how fit in to state worker compensation.

A. Richardson has Dr. Michaels answer. In contact with state worker comp agencies, will be asking them to accept cases. If doesn't work, will be backto Congress.

Q: Highly toxic chemical exposures --

A. Independent physicians working through unions

Q: Who to head office

A: TBA. In a few weeks be able to give you a better sense of what it will look like.

Q: (Laura again?) Based on dose reconstruction....

A: Look at jobs, potential exposure, give benefit of doubt, lean over backwards.

Backdrop behind all of the press conference speakers: large black and white photos of workers in white coats with gloveboxes. :) Looks clean. We need to show CD-ROM dirty pictures of K-25, Y-12 and other plant sites to the American people. We need to do so on websites and in Oak Ridge Museum of Atomic Energy. They want a "clean" bill to clear out sick workers with $100k bribes, with myth of "clean" industry perpetuated by propagandists' choice of photographs.

----

US nuclear regulator says firms unlikely to cut corners

April 13, 2000
By Julie Vorman
http://news.excite.com:80/news/r/000413/20/utilities-nuclear

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumers need not worry about utilities cutting corners with safety under the Nuclear Regulatory Agency's new oversight rules because plant safety is crucial to profitability, the agency's new chief said on Thursday.

"Licensees understand that safe operations go hand in hand with improved economics," said Richard Meserve, who became commissioner of the NRC in October.

While the industry has welcomed the changes, some consumer groups have complained that the oversight program now relies too much on cooperation from the industry.

"What we've seen is not only improved performance and economic performance of the plants, but also improved safety performance," Meserve added in a wide-ranging interview with journalists.

The NRC's new oversight procedures went into effect last week, replacing the agency's old "watch list" of problem plants and heavy reliance on fines that were typically issued months or years after a violation.

Now, plants are ranked according to performance standards and categorized as exceeding performance goals, meeting them fully, meeting them with minimal reduction in safety margins or meeting them with significant reductions in safety margins. The results will be published every three months.

Two NRC employees are assigned to work at each commercial nuclear reactor to inspect the plant's performance.

NRC REFOCUSING, NOT RELAXING

"This not a relaxing, it is a refocusing," said Meserve, who spent 18 years with a Washington law firm after working for President Jimmy Carter's science advisor. "The program is intended to focus our resources on matters that have safety significance."

The oversight program will be assessed by NRC staff in June 2001 for any needed changes, he said.

Activists have also expressed concern that with the rapid pace of consolidation and mergers among utilities, some plants may be tempted to trim spending on safety programs to bump up profits.

Meserve said the NRC was closely watching the industry consolidation for signs of any problems.

But, he added that there "may also be gains for safety in consolidation," as companies with greater expertise buy out those with less-skilled management.

"At the moment, this is something that seems to be headed in the right direction," Meserve said. "We want to make sure management keeps focused on the ball."

MORE LICENSE RENEWALS IN PIPELINE

Another key issue for the NRC is the growing number of nuclear plants seeking license renewals.

Last month, the agency issued a precedent-setting decision that marked its first approval of a license renewal. The ruling extended the operating life of Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s Calvert Cliffs Units 1 and 2 for 20 years each.

The NRC aims to issue a decision in July on the renewal application for Duke Energy Corp. Oconee plant in South Carolina, Meserve said. Two others -- Southern Co.'s Hatch units and Entergy Corp. Arkansas Unit No. 1 -- are next in line for rulings.

Altogether, some 17 renewal applications are either pending or expected to be filed soon, he said. "We have set a schedule for ourselves of trying to complete those within a 30-month period unless there is a hearing," Meserve said.

Over the next few years, as many as 85 percent of the 103 operating U.S. commercial nuclear plants are expected to seek license renewals.

Meserve also said the NRC was continuing to evaluate the leak of radioactive water from a steam generator at Consolidated Edison Inc.'s Indian Point plant. The plant has been closed since the Feb. 15 incident.

An internal NRC paper "suggested staff had not followed up adequately" after a previous problem with the plant's steam generators, Meserve said. A so-called Section 2.206 petition has been filed with the agency that raises concerns about the steam generators.

Meserve said he did not know if the plant could be restarted before the NRC has completed its review of the petition.

Meserve, who also holds a doctorate in physics, served on several National Academy of Sciences committees and has worked on nuclear licensing and non-proliferation issues.

----

U.S. unveils aid package for nuclear lab workers
The initiative would compensate employees sickened by exposure to radiation and chemicals

Thursday, April 13, 2000
By Brent Hunsberger
The Oregonian staff

Ending a decades-old policy of secrecy and denial toward members of the federal work force, the Clinton administration announced Wednesday that it would compensate workers sickened from exposure to radiation and toxic materials during Cold War buildup at the nation's largest bomb-making facilities and research labs.

The package, which could apply to hundreds of former Hanford Nuclear Reservation employees and their families, offers current and former workers a $100,000 lump-sum payment or negotiated compensation package for medical costs, lost wages and job retraining. Benefits would be available to workers with radiation-induced cancer or beryllium-related pulmonary disease and specific groups of workers at three gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. They also extend to surviving family members.

The benefits would not extend, however, to communities immediately surrounding Hanford or other complexes.

For workers with other work-related illnesses, the U.S. Department of Energy also plans to establish an advocacy office with a toll-free hot line to help them obtain state workers' compensation.

If funded by Congress, DOE's initiative could cost a half-billion dollars over five years and millions thereafter. Federal officials estimate at least 3,000 workers from former bomb-making sites in 10 states would be eligible.

"Justice for our nuclear weapons workers is finally happening," U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Wednesday. "The government is for a change on their side and not against them."

Richardson praised an estimated 600,000 workers nationwide for laboring under difficult conditions, producing material for nuclear bombs from the 1940s to the 1970s that helped the United States win World War II and wage its Cold War with the Soviet Union.

In the following decades, however, the federal government refused to acknowledge the workers' claims that their life-threatening illnesses -- leukemia, lung cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, beryllium disease, asbestosis and other cancers and ailments -- stemmed from radiation and chemical exposure.

"No more. We are reversing the ways of the past," Richardson said. "I will instruct our contractors not to contest those claims that show merit.

"We are not waiting," he said. "The nation has turned a corner."

Energy officials at Hanford could not immediately estimate the number of workers who might be eligible for compensation if the new initiative becomes law. More than 60,000 employees worked at Hanford at the height of the Cold War.

Jay Watts, a union organizer near Richland, Wash., estimated that 150 to 200 workers would file health claims. A University of Washington researcher suggests the numbers could be even higher. Tim Takaro, who oversees a five-year health screening program for former Hanford workers, estimates that 15,000 workers between 1943 and 1997 were exposed to beryllium, a superlight metal. The number of workers exposed to asbestos could be twice as high.

"If they're DOE contract employees, we'll take care of them," said David Michaels, DOE's assistant secretary for health and safety.

Nationwide, DOE estimates the initiative would benefit 1,500 workers with cancer, 750 workers suffering from beryllium disease or associated illnesses and 750 workers with other illnesses.

Richardson made his announcement in Washington, D.C., before a group of bipartisan lawmakers from states with weapons plants, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington.

"This was a proud generation," Murray said. "They had a right to be proud. They also have a right to justice. That's what this initiative does." Her colleagues promised quick action, though prospects of congressional action remained unclear Wednesday.

The compensation package has limits. Workers exposed to beryllium need only show they have increased sensitivity to the silver metal or chronic beryllium disease. But workers with cancer must be shown, through federal records, to have experienced certain levels of radiation exposure before earning eligibility. And the benefits, modeled after other federal packages, won't cover expenses more than a year old, nor legal expenses.

Significantly, the program, as proposed, applies only to workers and their families -- not to communities surrounding the facilities. Hanford's neighbors have claimed that their positioning "downwind" of the facility may have exposed them to radiation fallout.

Wednesday's announcement follows a draft study prepared for the White House that concluded workers at 14 DOE sites suffered higher-than-normal rates of 22 types of cancers. The study found clear links between the cancers and workplace exposures.

The proposed initiative also followed a series of public hearings across the country in which more than 3,000 workers and family members testified of the pain the illnesses and the government's denials had caused them. The Feb. 3 hearing in Richland with DOE's Michaels drew 600 people. Hanford produced weapons-grade plutonium from the 1940s until the 1980s.

The government's admission of foot-dragging goes a long way with Eustolio Salinas Jr., who begins his eighth round of chemotherapy May 1. The 44-year-old Hanford worker and divorced father of two was diagnosed with leukemia five years ago. A chemical operator, Salinas links his illness to the job.

"It can't be proven one way or the other," he said. "But I come from a family of 13, nine sisters and three brothers, and none of them is sick." Insurance covers 85 percent of his medical bills, but Salinas says the time he has spent off work has taken a financial toll.

It's important that the government "do the right thing," Salinas said.

Richardson's announcement drew widespread praise from those in the Tri-Cities area and the Northwest who've fought for more than a decade for greater government openness and acknowledgment of worker suffering.

"Initially, from what I'm hearing, it's a very enlightened position that Secretary Richardson's taken," said Watts, political coordinator and past president of the Paper, Allied Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union Local 8-369 in Richland, Wash. "He's made a lot of changes that make it more fair for the work force. These are things that we knew were going on, but always before the government took a heavy adversarial position on workers' compensation."

But downwinders, or nearby residents who fear airborne releases of iodine-131 from Hanford might have caused thyroid diseases, criticized the proposal for failing to include their concerns.

"I'm angry at the Clinton administration if they haven't decided to include the downwind people," said Kay Southerland, a Walla Walla activist. "We were just as much exposed as the workers. They released it into the environment. They used us as experiments."

"It's a long, long overdue gesture, recognition actually, to the fact that DOE radiation facilities have harmed workers," said Rudi H. Nussbaum, Portland State University professor emeritus of physics and environmental science and co-founder of Northwest Radiation Health Alliance in Portland. "Undoubtedly the downwinders will make their claims known, and I think they have every right to be treated as veterans of the Cold War."

The compensation package also applies to people at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, Rocky Flats Complex in Colorado, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Mound Plant and Fernald Environmental Management Project in Ohio, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and gaseous diffusion plants in Piketon, Ohio; Paducah, Ky.; and Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Oregonian staff writer Michelle Cole and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

-------- kentucky

DOE plan to expand sick benefits
Workers with radiation-induced cancers may now recover lost wages, a year's medical benefits and job retraining.

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200004/13+00e2_news.html+20000413

Department of Energy officials say a sweeping new plan to help at least 3,000 sick defense plant workers nationwide expands a benefits program announced last fall for current and former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant employees. Workers already eligible for a $100,000 lump-sum payment for specific radiation-induced cancers such as leukemia may now get more by meeting certain exposure thresholds, said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of environment, safety and health. Depending on the extent of exposure, those people could receive lost wages, a year's medical benefits and job retraining, which would be worth more than $100,000, he said.

That part of the change must still be approved by Congress in a program expected to cost about $120 million annually during the first three years of full operation. Yearly costs would drop to about $80 million as a claims backlog lessens, DOE says.

Michaels and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson made the announcement Wednesday in Washington. In a telephone press conference later, Michaels said a second component â€" advocating state workers' compensation claims for those with other occupational diseases â€" will start immediately without the need for legislative action. That also will expand the benefits program at Paducah, he explained.

Few workers' compensation claims have been filed against the plant because the government has fought them and because Kentucky law immunizes primary plant contractors from negligence actions arising from regular business. Under the new program, DOE will tell contractors not to contest such claims for eligible workers identified by independent doctors.

"We'll just step back and pay the bill," Michaels said.

He said the program will begin next month by establishing regional or plant Occupational Illness Compensation Office centers for such claims. By then, a toll-free number will be available for workers to call for assistance, Michaels said. Details are available on the DOE Web site at Department of Energy: www.doe.gov.

While praising the historic overall compensation program, the plant atomic workers' union blasted DOE for using state workers' compensation programs to pay claims for other illnesses caused by toxic chemicals, heavy metals or silicon dust.

"This is naive, if not unworkable. DOE lacks credibility and independence to advocate for workers when they are liable for paying out compensation," said Richard Miller, Washington-based policy analyst for the union. "Given its history of mounting scorched-earth defense against workers, promoting DOE as an advocate for workers' comp claims against its contractors is like promoting a child molester to start a day-care center."

Others also spoke less than glowingly about the new program. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has repeatedly questioned Richardson's sincerity and the lack of funding to back it, said the Clinton administration "has put new wrapping paper on an old package" that is late in coming.

"The provisions in this 'new' plan were announced months ago. It wasn't enough then, and it's still not enough now," McConnell said. "Workers at Paducah and other plants have been stricken with cancer and other life-threatening diseases because of DOE's lax radiation safety controls, and at the very least we owe these victims health-care benefits to cover the expense of their treatment."

McConnell and 1st District U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, said they support legislation for more help. Whitfield is working on a larger proposal to provide medical care and $200,000 to ill workers at all weapons plants.

The DOE plan also expands compensation for government and contract workers with lung illnesses related to breathing or ingesting dust from beryllium, a highly toxic metal. Subject to congressional funding, they may now choose $100,000 or compensation including medical costs, lost wages and retraining. Medical costs include prescriptions, treatments and travels costs.

When the $100,000 lump-sum program for beryllium disease was announced last year, DOE said there was no evidence of beryllium at Paducah. Since then, the department has admitted that beryllium probably was in nuclear weapons parts milled for precious metals at the plant during the Cold War.

Earlier this year, the Sun reported that traces of beryllium were found in more than 100 groundwater samples at and near the plant during the past decade. Most of the findings were near scrap yards and a building where the recovery of precious metals reportedly took place.

Dr. Steven Markowitz, an epidemiologist heading a health study of enrichment plant workers, said earlier that beryllium testing could easily be added if DOE provides specific information to identify target groups. The study has mainly dealt with radiation exposure.

"We certainly think there could be beryllium exposure, because we found beryllium (at Paducah)," Michaels said Wednesday. "But we don't know if there is any beryllium disease. We'd like to find that out."

DOE officials anticipate that about 3,000 workers in 10 states â€" 1,500 with cancer, 750 with beryllium disease and the rest with other illnesses â€" will receive benefits. Michaels said he is unsure how many workers at specific sites such as Paducah will be eligible.

Richardson's announcement, which expands coverage to Paducah's sister plant near Portsmouth, Ohio, follows a White House panel's conclusion that toxic and radiation exposure probably caused many workers at the nuclear weapons plants to contract lung cancer and other serious illnesses.

The proposal assumes workers were exposed to the highest expected level of radiation associated with their jobs if actual medical records are unavailable.

While the panel said the evidence did not in all cases show a direct causal link between workplace exposures and specific illnesses, it found that workers at the plants suffered higher than normal rates of a wide range of cancers and that they clearly were exposed to cancer-causing radiation and chemicals in the workplace.

The studies examined health records and other data covering three decades of the Cold War, and officials emphasized the findings do not relate to working conditions at the plants today.

The report said elevated rates of 22 categories of cancer were found among workers at 14 facilities in the departmentâ€(tm)s atomic weapons complex. They included leukemia, Hodgkinâ€(tm)s lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, kidney, salivary gland and lung.

President Clinton ordered the review after DOE concluded the government should compensate workers who had developed beryllium disease. Richardson and the White House wanted to know if other nuclear weapons plant workers likewise should be compensated because of exposure to plutonium, uranium and many other radioactive or highly toxic substances. The interagency group reviewed dozens of epidemiological studies, raw health data and other documents, many of which in the past have been dismissed by the government.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

----

McConnell takes DOE to task for discrepancies
Senator tries to pin directors down on cylinder contamination and budget allocation.

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
http://www.paducahsun.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?200004/13+00e1_news.html+20000413

The head of the Department of Energy's nuclear energy program says he is surprised and unsure why foreign plutonium and similar highly radioactive contamination are in newer cylinders of uranium hexafluoride waste stored at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

William Magwood, director of DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, told Sen. Mitch McConnell last month that the contamination was found in cylinders generated in 1988 and 1993. The department had previously thought the material was limited to cylinders generated before 1980, when the plant processed uranium contaminated with plutonium and other elements from spent reactor fuel from facilities in the United States.

On Tuesday, Magwood told a Senate subcommittee that he suspects the contamination came from the foreign research reactors, "but we are not really certain of that." Magwood said the matter is under investigation.

DOE officials have told congressional sources they believe the material went from either foreign research or nuclear power reactors to the department's Savannah River nuclear fuel plant in South Carolina. From there, the fuel was reprocessed and sent to Paducah.

The Savannah River plant was a chief source of contamination in domestic spent fuel received at Paducah before 1980.

During the congressional hearing, Magwood responded to questions from McConnell, a member of the Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations. McConnell asked Magwood to explain why the contamination is in newer cylinders.

"I am not being facetious, but that is really a good question," Magwood said. "We have been trying to figure that out. It is something that was something of a surprise to my office."

A DOE investigation has shown that workers in certain areas of the plant were exposed to the plutonium and similar radioactive substances. Two federal lawsuits allege the exposure was intentional because plant contractors placed production ahead of safety.

In the hearing, McConnell expressed concern that a project to convert the waste into safer material is mired in government bureaucracy. DOE expects to award a contract about a year from now for the conversion facility, which would help offset some of the 425 job cuts that USEC is planning to start this summer, Magwood said.

DOE officials have said the project was delayed because of concerns about the contamination and the risks it poses to conversion workers. But lawmakers and the plant atomic workers' union say would-be contractors have no significant concerns about the contamination.

"They (DOE officials) are using that as an excuse," said a chief legislative assistant, speaking on condition of anonymity. "That doesn't alter the technology or engineering, just the protection for workers and some of the processes needed."

McConnell said in the hearing that despite Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's promise to build the facility, DOE has allotted only a third of the $60 million needed for design work. He said he was disappointed that Richardson has offered only half of the $24 million pledged last year.

Magwood denied that Richardson has backed out of his commitment. He said the level of funding is "just about right," considering the delays regarding contamination. The $60 million, or the balance needed for design, must be budgeted in fiscal 2002, Magwood said.

McConnell asked Magwood why only $12 million was budgeted for conversion when Richardson promised last year to commit $21 million from the sale of enriched uranium from DOE stockpiles.

"Is this a budget sleight of hand or what?" McConnell asked. "How do you explain that?"

Magwood said the department is deferring use of the money but could not explain why the $21 million was not budgeted.

His office controls $10 million to paint, inspect and otherwise maintain the cylinders from 2002 to 2010. McConnell asked why that money could not be used immediately to provide enhanced severance to displaced workers, increase worker health testing and accelerate the conversion project.

Magwood said he had "not heard that idea come up" but would discuss it with Richardson. Because it will take 25 to 30 years to convert all the material (Paducah has about 37,000 cylinders), a balance is needed between maintenance and conversion, he explained.

Another witness was Dr. Carolyn Huntoon, DOE assistant secretary of environmental management, who oversees $1.6 billion in funds to clean up contaminated buildings and other facilities at enrichment plants in Paducah and two other cities. She told McConnell she was unaware of a reason that some of the money could not be used for the conversion project.

"It is hard to imagine a reason why the 57,000 cylinders (the 20,000 others at plants in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tenn.) of depleted uranium should not be transferred to your office immediately, is there?" McConnell asked.

"Well, I guess there is no reason why we should not consider it," Huntoon answered.

McConnell turned to a draft General Accounting Office investigative report that he said alleges DOE has "purposefully ignored" many of 148 hazardous and radioactive waste storage sites at the Paducah plant. He said several of the sites pose a risk of an uncontrolled nuclear "criticality" reaction and the material makes up a million cubic feet of uncharacterized waste.

The senator asked Huntoon why the sites, including 9,000 drums of low-level radioactive waste, are not part of the plant's overall cleanup plan and why only 13 of them are being studied.

Huntoon said she understands the waste perhaps was "scavenged from the closure of other facilities and brought (to Paducah) for use." Material not needed by past plant contractors was turned over to Magwood's office, which is not part of environmental management, she explained.

Huntoon said the issue of who controls the storage areas must be addressed in responding to the GAO report. She promised McConnell she would study the cost, schedule and best way to clean up all the sites.

-------- maryland

Court Affirms Calvert Cliffs Decision
Judges Uphold NRC's Use of Streamlined License Renewal Process

By Todd Shields Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 13, 2000; Page M01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/13/082l-041300-idx.html

Calvert County officials and utility company executives welcomed a federal court decision Tuesday affirming the process that led to the renewal of the operating licenses for the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acted properly in granting 20 more years of operating life to the twin-reactor plant in Lusby.

"We are pleased with this decision," said Robert E. Denton, an executive vice president with Constellation Energy Group, parent of plant operator Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.

"This decision closes the book on what has been a remarkably successful license renewal process," Denton said. "We will remain focused on safely and efficiently operating Calvert Cliffs."

For Calvert County officials, relicensing of the plant means extending the life of an important source of public revenue. The plant pays about $20 million in property taxes annually, or 18 percent of the county's budget, said Terry Shannon, the county's director of finance.

The percentage of the county budget paid by the plant is to drop to about 11 percent by 2002 as tax cuts put in place as part of electricity deregulation take hold, Shannon said. But county revenues will increase after that as BGE installs new $300 million steam generators and begins to pay taxes on them, Shannon said.

Tuesday's ruling by the appeals court left standing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's March 23 decision to relicense the Calvert Cliffs plant, the first commercial reactor in the United States to gain such approval.

Denton said the ruling by a three-judge panel "confirms the . . . license renewal process provides ample opportunity for public participation."

The National Whistleblower Center, the losing party in the ruling, said it would appeal.

"Nuclear safety was the big loser today," said Stephen M. Kohn, an attorney for the Whistleblower Center. "Under the new [Nuclear Regulatory] Commission rules, the ability of citizens to challenge the NRC's current rush to relicense old nuclear power plants is completely undermined."

Calvert Cliffs filed to renew its operating licenses for the plant on the Chesapeake Bay in 1998. Since then, six more of the nation's 103 operating reactors have filed for license renewals, and an additional 21 have said they plan to do so by 2003, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group.

Tuesday's ruling completes the Court of Appeals' abandonment of its initial decision in the case. On Nov. 12, another three-judge panel said the NRC unfairly ignored the Whistleblower Center, which had asked for additional public hearings and the chance to search for potential safety hazards at the plant.

However, that decision was vacated on Nov. 23 when the court said it had misread NRC regulations in its haste to rule before one judge taking part in the ruling left the panel.

The NRC relicensed the plant last month without waiting for a final ruling from the appeals court. NRC officials said at the time that there would be plenty of time to react if the judges ruled against the agency.

At issue was the NRC's streamlined renewal process, put in place to remove uncertainty faced by utilities as they ponder whether to extend the lives of expensive and complex nuclear power plants.

The appeals court panel, including both judges remaining from November's rulings, said the NRC was free to adopt the streamlined process in the Calvert Cliffs renewal. The judges also said the NRC was free to rebuff the Whistleblower Center's requests for detailed inquiries that would have slowed the renewal.

In an 11-page opinion, the judges found the Whistleblower Center twice missed deadlines established by the NRC. The judges said the agency's rules "did not foreclose participation by third parties" but merely imposed reasonable deadlines on them.

The Whistleblower Center says the process left unanswered key safety questions about the reactors, which went into service in the mid-1970s and now will be allowed to operate past 2030.

Calvert Cliffs officials say they have continually upgraded equipment and safety procedures at the plant, which generates enough electricity for nearly 500,000 homes.

-------- ohio


-------- ohio

LAWMAKERS WANT MORE FOR PIKETON
ENERGY DEPARTMENT URGED TO EXPAND COMPENSATION PACKAGE FOR WORKERS

Thursday, April 13, 2000
Jonathan Riskind
Columbus Dispatch Washington Bureau

http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli.pl?DBLIST=cd00&D

WASHINGTON -- A White House proposal to compensate nuclear- plant workers in southern Ohio harmed by exposures to radiation and other deadly contaminants doesn't go far enough, Ohio lawmakers said yesterday.

The plan, unveiled by U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson at a news conference, acknowledges that the government is responsible for cancers and other illnesses suffered by thousands of plant workers as recently as the early 1990s.

"Justice for our nuclear workers is finally happening,'' Richardson said. "The government for a change is formally on their side and not against them.''

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon in Pike County is singled out in the proposal, along with a sister facility in Paducah, Ky., and a now-closed plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., as a plant where past workplace conditions warrant the presumption that a number of workers deserve compensation.

The proposal includes $100,000 lump-sum payments to workers found to have contracted cancers linked to radiation exposure.

About 3,000 workers or their surviving spouses nationwide would be eligible for compensation, at a projected cost of about $500 million during the program's first five years. The policy mainly affects workers at 12 current or former facilities, including the Fernald plant near Cincinnati and the Mound facility near Dayton.

But a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, and Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, said more money is needed to cover more workers.

Under the proposal, many Piketon plant workers are presumed to have suffered exposures deserving of compensation, but workers who toiled at other Energy Department facilities face a too high burden of proof, they said.

Strickland said legislation he's working on "does not make those kinds of arbitrary distinctions. The bill we're going to unveil is more uniform and has more presumptions in favor of the worker.''

Strickland and Voinovich are developing legislation that increases lump-sum payments to $200,000 and guarantees eligible workers lifetime health-care benefits.

"If the government caused people to be injured or die, the government should be responsible for compensating those people,'' said Mike Dawson, spokesman for Voinovich. "It's a very simple concept.''

However, Strickland and Voinovich credit Richardson with taking a big step in the right direction.

"The baton has been passed to Congress,'' Strickland said. "Our responsibility is now to fashion legislation that will be . . . broad enough to get significantly broad bipartisan support so it can be enacted into law. But we wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell if the department hadn't done this.''

Richardson also publicly singled out Strickland and Voinovich at the news conference. He said Strickland has been a "relentless'' advocate for Piketon plant workers and that a Senate hearing Voinovich helped conduct "was a critical hearing that opened a lot of eyes.''

Energy Department documents released at the news conference also note that the agency is wrapping up an investigation at Piketon "into concerns that until 1990, workers may not have been adequately informed of hazards at the site or given training on how to protect themselves from their possible health impacts.''

Piketon workers were unwittingly exposed to deadly plutonium-tainted uranium from spent nuclear-reactor fuel, among other contaminants. The Piketon plant produced weapons- grade uranium during the Cold War, but now manufactures only commercial-grade material for use as nuclear-power-plant fuel.

An array of lawmakers from states including Ohio, Colorado, Tennessee and Washington attended the news conference at the Energy Department. They pledged to pass the compensation legislation before Congress adjourns for the year.

----

Ill ex-workers at Fernald get U.S. aid

By Bill Straub,
Cincinnati Post Washington Bureau,
April 13, 2000
http://www.cincypost.com/news/fernal041300.html

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration has changed course and determined that all nuclea r defense plant workers who became ill because of exposure to radiation and other toxic chemicals should receive some financial compensation.

That means that workers at the Portsmouth Uranium Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, as well as similarly situated workers in Paducah, Ky., who were omitted from the administration's initial compensation plan will be eligible for some award.

It apparently also means that Fernald workers in Crosby Township, north of Cincinnati, could be in line for the new benefits if they can establish that exposure led to illness.

The Department of Energy has proposed making a $100,000 lump sum payment to Portsmouth plant workers who have certain radiologic cancers. They also would be able to tap into a larger compensation pool under a program that would include the Fernald workers.

That larger pool would allow workers to reclaim lost wages and medical expenses for the duration of the illness - about $400,000 for a worker who was disabled for 10 years.

''I understand that former and current Fernald workers would be covered under the new workers compensation plan,'' said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, of Terrace Park, whose district includes the Cold War-era defense facility.

The decision to include every adversely affected nuclear defense plant worker in a federal compensation package was announced Wednesday by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Initially the administration intended to include only workers at specified facilities that did not include Paducah, Piketon or Fernald.

The compensation plan is expected to cost at least $520 million over the initial five-year distribution period. About 3,000 workers at former bomb-making sites in 10 states would be eligible.

An untold number of nuclear arms plant workers contracted cancer and other diseases because of exposure to radiation and toxic chemicals. Until now, the government refused to move despite the evidence.

The Department of Energy estimates that 3,000 workers have developed illnesses related to exposure.

Publication date: 04-13-00


--------- tennessee

DOE announces plan to aid n-workers
Proposal must gain congressional approval

April 13, 2000
By Richard Powelson,
Knoxville News-Sentinel Washington bureau
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/7765.shtml

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy on Wednesday proposed paying all medical expenses for about 3,000 contract workers, including hundreds at Oak Ridge, who got permanently ill or died after exposure to hazardous materials or chemicals.

Also, the workers or their survivors could get a $100,000 lump sum or smaller annual compensation for the length of their disability in a five-year program estimated to cost more than $440 million. The funding plan requires congressional approval.

The announcement drew scattered support in Congress, mostly from members with federal plants where many sick workers have complained of job-related disability. But there was criticism from others that it doesn't go far enough.

Workers with certain cancers or symptoms from beryllium exposure are the primary beneficiaries.

Vikki Hatfield of Kingston, Tenn., daughter of a dying former federal contract worker at Oak Ridge's federal Y-12 and K-25 plants, appeared with DOE Secretary Bill Richardson to thank him for pushing a plan.

"It's not everything we hoped for ... but it's a start," Hatfield said. She said the down side is that it is not clear when or if Congress will approve the package, how long it will take to get money to sick workers or whether the change at the White House in January will affect aid to sick workers. Her 76-year-old father, who has beryllium disease, has had more than $400,000 of medical bills over 10 years, she said.

Janet Michel, a disabled former K-25 Plant worker, who suffers various ailments from nickel dust and mercury poisoning, said she is concerned whether the doctors under contract with DOE to check sick workers for eligibility for federal payments will be independent. Also, the $100,000 lump payment option won't be adequate for many workers who were denied years of compensation, she said.

Richardson apologized for the U.S. government's putting workers in harm's way and subsequent inaction.

"(We) apologize for the (health) suffering these men and women have been through ... and also suffering at the failure of their government to acknowledge a responsibility to help them," he said. "It's time ... for the government to finally bring justice to the workers who deserve it."

In other reaction, Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., who last month headed a Senate committee hearing to learn why DOE has been slow to resolve federal workers' health insurance and disability pay claims, said DOE's plan is "a step in the right direction." But he wants more details to make sure the sick federal contract workers get "the compensation they deserve."

Also, three Tennessee House members, Republican Zach Wamp of Chattanooga (whose district includes Oak Ridge), and Democrats Bob Clement of Nashville and Bart Gordon of Murfreesboro appeared at DOE with Richardson to back the thrust of the aid package.

Besides Oak Ridge, other areas targeted for federal aid are in Hanford, Wash.; Savannah River, S.C.; Nevada Test Site; Rocky Flats near Denver; Pantex Plant in Texas; Mound Plant in Ohio; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; the Fernald plant in Ohio; Paducah, Ky.; and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Richard Powelson may be reached at 202-408-2727 or PowelsonR@shns.com.

-------

Bill to include more workers

April 13, 2000
by Larisa Brass
Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/041300/new_0413000024.html

Declaring that "justice for our nuclear weapons workers is finally happening," Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson announced legislation to be introduced by the president which will provide aid to ill workers across the Department of Energy complex.

The compensation package is an updated version of a DOE proposal made last summer to provide medical coverage and payment to those suffering from chronic beryllium disease and radiation-related cancers.

The expanded proposal offers a $100,000 lump sum payment or a negotiated package of lost pay and medical coverage to all workers with chronic beryllium disease and all workers at the Oak Ridge K-25 site with cancers shown to be caused by radiation.

A group of about 50 sick workers at K-25 who participated in a medical study will also be offered the $100,000 payment if they do not fall into the previous categories.

Richardson also announced that a worker advocacy office will be set up to help workers suffering from other occupational illnesses receive state workers compensation benefits.

"The president, vice president and I apologize for the suffering these men and women have been through," said Richardson in a press conference on Wednesday. "It's time to do right by these proud workers. It is time for the government to finally bring justice to the workers who deserve it and were forgotten ... ."

Richardson said DOE is prepared to give ill workers and former workers the benefit of the doubt when it comes to proving their cases. Many workers have complained about health records that are incomplete or have been altered.

If the legislation passes, a group of independent physicians would be selected to review medical records to determine whether radiation caused a worker's cancer, said David Michaels, DOE assistant secretary for environment, safety and health.

But the experts won't rely on the records entirely, he said. They will also look at where employees worked in the plants and during what years, said Michaels. The program will take "a very liberal approach" to workers' claims, he said.

But, said Michaels, if employees are approved for medical benefits the coverage will be retroactive only for one year.

Many workers have said that $100,000 simply isn't enough to account for the enormous cost of medical treatment.

Vikki Hatfield of Kingston, whose father is a former K-25 worker dying from chronic beryllium disease and asbestosis, also spoke at the press conference. She called the administration's proposal "a start."

"I believe we still have a long way to go before the package is complete," said Hatfield.

Glenn Bell, a worker at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant who has been diagnosed with chronic beryllium disease, also said that $100,000 is not enough.

And, said Bell, it's unclear how DOE will calculate lost work time or provide training for employees who are too ill to work. "Are they going to teach me how to pull around my oxygen tank?" he joked.

Under the proposed guidelines, the program will cost about $120 million for the first three years and about $80 million annually thereafter.

The legislation still has to be approved by Congress, however. And some congressional leaders have proposed alternative legislation. For instance, U.S. Rep. Ten Strickland, D-Ohio, has crafted a proposal that would give workers at least $200,000.

-------- washington

Compensation recommended for Hanford workers

Tri-City Herald
By Annette Cary
Herald staff writer
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2000/0413.html#anchor5964

The federal government is recommending compensation for an estimated 3,000 workers at Hanford and other nuclear sites who contracted cancers linked to radiation exposure and other diseases caused by toxic chemicals.

"What is key here is the burden of proof is on the government, not the worker," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who unveiled the plan Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

In the past, the government has fought claims brought by workers who believed their illnesses were caused by working around some of the most dangerous materials known. It denied that working at nuclear sites made employees ill, except in unusual cases.

"The president and I apologize to the people who were suffering diseases and for the failure of the government to help them," Richardson said. "It is time to bring justice to the workers who deserve it, who were forgotten."

The Clinton administration is asking Congress to approve spending $120 million annually over the first three years of the program, which would cover worker benefits and administration costs. After the backlog of cases is reduced in that first three-year period, the program would cost about $80 million for each of the next two or three years.

The proposal includes two programs that would cover Hanford workers: immediate help getting state worker compensation and a more comprehensive program for radiation-related cancers and chronic beryllium disease caused by exposure to the exotic metal.

Workers with radiation-related cancers would be offered full medical coverage, reimbursement for 80 percent of lost wages and job retraining, in a program requiring congressional approval. Workers could alternately request $100,000, if the benefits package would total less than that.

Workers who had cancer in the past would be limited to medical reimbursement for one year, the same benefit offered to federal workers, said David Michaels, DOE assistant secretary for environment, safety and health.

"We didn't feel we could offer more than federal employees," he said.

For workers who have died of cancer, the benefit would be paid to survivors.

"It could be $100,000 or it could be $100 million, and it doesn't help my sadness at losing my dad," said Jim Williamson of Kennewick. His father, Jack, died about six months ago at the age of 69 of bone marrow cancer. The elder Williamson had worked at Hanford for 26 years.

However, Jim Williamson empathizes with other families who are watching a loved one fight cancer.

"This may help them with what they are going through and make them more comfortable," he said. "It's a beginning."

Williamson was among about 550 people who came to a hearing in Richland in February to discuss health problems caused by working at Hanford. Workers and their families described their pride at helping keep the United States free by working at the Hanford nuclear plant. But they also talked of lives devastated or ended early by leukemia, lymphoma and cancers of the breast, lung and other organs.

Not everyone with cancer will be able to prove their work at Hanford or other nuclear sites made them ill. The 3,000 people estimated to be compensated are from a pool of 600,000 people who worked at nuclear sites during World War II and the Cold War and later to clean up contamination left by weapons production.

"We haven't made thousands and thousands of people sick," Michaels said. "But there are hundreds, and we are opening the door wider to make sure we get everyone."

To link cancer to job exposure and make nuclear workers eligible for the compensation, their radiation dose would be calculated and compared with National Institute of Health tables to find the minimum dose that could cause cancer. Those radiation doses vary for a wide range of cancers, including leukemia and bone cancers.

According to a report by the National Economic Council of the White House, cancers that might be linked to radiation exposure at Hanford include cancers of the liver, pancreas and genitals and Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma. However, compensation wouldn't be limited to those cancers if a link between the illness and radiation exposure seemed plausible.

The government also is pledging to be lenient when it figures radiation doses and not penalize workers if records are missing or their job history would indicate higher doses than recorded.

The government is estimating cancer victims will make up about half the 3,000 people to be compensated in the next few years. The remaining 1,500 likely will include 750 with chronic beryllium disease and 750 who are ill because of exposure to other substances, such as asbestos.

Hazardous substances workers could have been exposed to at Hanford include beryllium, plutonium, iodine, solvents and asbestos.

Those with chronic beryllium disease will be offered the same benefits as those with radiation-linked cancer. That program also requires congressional approval.

Those with other illnesses will be given help to apply for state workers' compensation and the federal government will support their applications.

That program will start May 1 when DOE opens an occupational illness compensation office that it's already dubbed "The Workers' Advocate." Workers with chronic beryllium disease and cancers also could apply for state help through that office while they wait for the proposed federal program to be approved by Congress.

"The office will be staffed by aggressive advocates," Richardson said. "I will instruct contractors not to oppose claims with merit."

Independent doctors will review claims to determine if illnesses are work related. For Hanford workers, the program is expected to be linked to medical specialists at two existing programs to monitor the health of former construction workers and former production workers.

The occupational illness compensation office would be headed by a director named by Michaels. In addition to reviewing claims and then helping file them, it would develop a program to educate workers and their families about benefits available.

It also would administer the proposed compensation program for radiation-related cancers and beryllium disease, after it's approved by Congress.

The Clinton administration warned that, despite bipartisan support, it could take months to win approval.

"We are reversing decades of policy," Richardson said. However, the Clinton administration is pushing for approval this year.

Members of the Washington congressional delegation stood behind the proposal Wednesday.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., joined Richardson at the press conference announcing the proposed compensation.

"Like combat veterans, these veterans of the Cold War deserve to have their health concerns addressed," Hastings said.

Murray emphasized the need to clean up waste at Hanford, but said "we also need to compensate people who became ill from their work at our nation's nuclear weapons complex."

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., believes compensation for ill workers is long overdue, said his spokeswoman, Cynthia Bergman.

----

BNFL looks to cut costs

Tri-City Herald
By John Stang Herald staff writer

A top official for BNFL Inc. said Wednesday that the company is struggling to shave a potential $13 billion price tag for turning Hanford's radioactive tank wastes into glass.

The statement by Mike Lawrence, manager of BNFL's Hanford project, came a day after the company shocked state and federal officials by saying the estimated cost for the so-called vitrification plants had almost doubled.

Several weeks ago, BNFL was still using a $6.9 billion estimate. The new estimate includes $6.4 billion in "hard costs" for the actual work, with financing costs pushing it to about $13 billion.

Lawrence said the company is trying to come up with a Plan B by April 24, when it is contractually required to submit a proposal to build the plants to the Department of Energy.

That back-up proposal would include different financial conditions, which Lawrence said could reduce the inflated price to $9 billion to $10 billion.

"We're going to emphasize the alternative (proposal)," he said.

Lawrence said the alternative will likely have BNFL trying to pay its financing debts much earlier, which would reduce interest costs.

Such a move, though, would require Congress to appropriate more money earlier than planned to make those early interest payments. It also would require changes in BNFL's contract.

Lawrence said he's confident about the $6.4 billion for the hard costs. But the former DOE Hanford manager also recognizes BNFL no longer enjoys DOE's trust. "We don't have credibility right now," he said.

Lawrence said he hopes DOE will accept BNFL's contractual proposal and back-up plan. Then he wants DOE to analyze BNFL's numbers, hoping the federal agency will agree that no one - BNFL nor a replacement firm - can build and operate the plants for less than $6.4 billion.

If that estimate holds up under scrutiny, he hopes DOE will give BNFL some leeway on changing the financing plans. DOE already plans to analyze BNFL's figures.

Officials with DOE's Office of River Protection said Tuesday that the $13 billion estimate is unacceptable and that it could jeopardize Hanford's efforts to glassify the radioactive tank wastes.

State officials and congressional members also are in sticker shock.

State Attorney General Christine Gregoire, a co-author of 1989's Tri-Party Agreement that governs Hanford's cleanup, said, "I find this very, very troubling. This is probably the most discouraging time I've had (with Hanford) since 1989. ... (Tank waste glassification) has been the ultimate soul of the Tri-Party Agreement all the way along."

Gregoire also said DOE made some bad calls that painted it into today's corner. She noted the state had qualms about DOE adopting the privatization concept under which the vitrification plants would be built by a private contractor that would not be paid until it begins production.

She also said the state objected to DOE going with only one corporate team on the project. In 1998, DOE eliminated a second team led by Lockheed Martin because that team wanted to use unproven technologies.

Gregoire said the state plans to enforce the Tri-Party Agreement deadlines but added she is reluctant to file a lawsuit, saving that as a last resort. "I want to work with DOE on this," she said.

Spokesmen for Gov. Gary Locke and U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said their bosses had not seen the figures yet. The three want to wait until April 24 to see what BNFL's actual figures are before they decide what to do, their spokesmen said.

U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash, said, "We really don't know what the final numbers are. It's going to cause some problems here in Congress if the numbers stay at a high level. ... When that (April 24) proposal comes in, we can be more definite on it."

Deputy Energy Secretary T.J. Glauthier was to meet with Locke on Wednesday. But a death in his family postponed that meeting to possibly next week. Gregoire also plans to attend.

BNFL leads a four-company team picked to design, build and operate plants to turn 10 percent of Hanford's most radioactive tank wastes into glass by 2018. The site has 54 million gallons of the wastes stored in 177 underground tanks, some of which have leaked.

The basic legal timetable has been for BNFL to submit its design and financial package to DOE on April 24, hope for DOE's approval by June 24, and hope for Congress' approval and a signed long-term contract by Aug. 24. Then construction is supposed to start in 2001, with the first glass produced in 2007.

A key feature of the proposed "privatized" contract is that BNFL pays all up-front costs, and DOE won't pay the company until the first glass is produced. But that means BNFL must borrow massive amounts of money up-front - and incur high financing costs because of the huge price tag, the high risks and waiting so long before the first DOE payment.

In 1998, BNFL calculated construction and operating hard costs through 2018 would be $3.2 billion - which translated to $6.9 billion with financing.

But in the past few weeks, BNFL and partner Bechtel finished calculating their revamped construction and operating costs - and came up with the huge discrepancy.

---------

Hanford watchdog group cleared by state

Tri-City Herald
By Chris Mulick
Herald staff writer

For the second time in three years, a Hanford watchdog group has been cleared of charges it used state money inappropriately for political purposes.

And though the Tri-City lawmaker who filed the latest complaint says she'll continue to seek reform, the state Department of Ecology says it doesn't need to change its much-ballyhooed public participation grant program. The program provides money in an attempt to stimulate citizen involvement in issues the agency deals with.

In January, state Rep. Shirley Hankins, R-Richland, filed a complaint with the state's Public Disclosure Commission, saying Heart of America Northwest used grant money to pay for an information hot line with a political message. A December message on that hot line mentioned an initiative aiming to shut down Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility for good.

"They've clearly politicized themselves this time," Hankins said last month. "It's a very fine line."

The state doesn't agree, saying, first, there is and never was any such initiative, and second, state money never paid for operation of the hot line. Rather than simply give Heart of America a check, Ecology essentially extended the group a line of credit and paid its bills.

Heart of America, which has received more than $200,000 in public participation grants from the state agency since 1991, never did submit bills for the operation of the hot line, the agency says.

The PDC found no wrongdoing and passed the complaint on to the state Auditor's Office in February. Auditor Brian Sonntag responded Wednesday in a letter to Hankins, saying the complaint was without merit.

"We determined these expenditures were appropriate under the terms of this grant," Sonntag wrote. "We found that no grant funds paid for the toll-free number."

Heart of America declared vindication.

"We always knew the allegation was entirely false," said Gerald Pollet, who heads Heart of America Northwest. "I expect that some people with an ax to grind will continue to waste taxpayers money on things like this."

In 1997, Heart of America was cleared of a similar charge when Sens. Pat Hale, R-Kennewick, and Valoria Loveland, D-Pasco, accused the group of using grant money to pay for an anti-FFTF newspaper ad. It was later determined Pollet didn't submit that bill to the Ecology Department either.

Hankins says Heart of America isn't being singled out.

"We're not picking on them," she said. "I would do this for any organization that uses state grant money in the wrong way."

Sonntag's ruling came as little surprise to Hankins, who was expecting it.

Already, she's considering introducing a bill next year that would prevent Ecology from giving grants to the same group every year.

"They need to diversify their grant programs," Hankins said last month. "There ought to be a rotation."

But Cullen Stephenson, Ecology's program manager for solid waste, said every applicant seeking money for legitimate projects gets something.

"The competition is usually not in terms of who gets the grants," Stephenson said. "Most of the applications we get are for viable projects. If it's a viable project, they should get some money."

Besides, Stephenson said, those weighing in on Ecology cleanup projects should be allowed to receive money every year because many projects are multi-year efforts.

But Hankins said groups with a political agenda, such as Heart of America, hog grant money that could be going to other applicants. The Three Rivers Children's Museum in Richland, for example, has a program that teaches children about solid waste treatment.

"I still say the appearance of fairness is not there," Hankins said.

Pollet says the program has proved itself to be an effective tool to engage the public about Hanford cleanup issues.

"If there is no program, then people like Shirley Hankins can explain why no one talks to their members of Congress about the need for funding for Hanford cleanup," he said. "This program is a major factor."

----

BNFL, Bechtel blew it; but vit plant still must be built

Tri-City Herald opinions
April 13, 2000
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/OPINION/0413.html

Although the Tri-City community is reeling from sticker shock after this week's revelation that a critical Hanford waste plant has doubled in cost, no one should lose sight of what's important here.

The Hanford waste vitrification plant - to turn radioactive wastes now stored in deteriorating underground tanks into glass logs - must be built in the cheapest and most efficient way possible. Safely disposing of the 54 million gallons of waste sitting near the Columbia River has to be a priority for this community, the region, its elected representatives and the Energy Department.

No question, BNFL Inc. and Bechtel Inc., the contractors cooperating on pricing the design and construction of the plant, screwed up.

In 1998, they grossly underestimated the cost of the plant at about $6.9 billion. And, as they pursued the admittedly daunting task of expanding the vitrification technology to a larger scale than ever tried before, they apparently did not adequately monitor how the price was changing.

Tuesday, BNFL officials, who are preparing to submit their final fixed price proposal to the Department of Energy by April 24, confirmed the price estimate was nearing a whopping $13 billion.

BNFL officials say they didn't know just how large the final estimate was going to be until a month ago. Although hardly plausible, if true, that was a staggering blunder.

Worse, although BNFL officials had a good idea that the price was escalating significantly as early as last fall, they chose to keep the project's champions - the community, state and federal lawmakers, Energy Department officials and, reportedly, even BNFL's board overseeing U.S. operations - in the dark until just recently.

Community leaders and state lawmakers bent arms in the Tri-Cities and in Olympia to garner support for a bill to exempt the project from personal property tax - which was passed March 9. The objective was to keep the project's cost down so Congress would be more willing to keep setting aside more money for the project.

Under the newfangled privatization contract, BNFL assumes all upfront costs during design and construction and the federal government doesn't pay until the first glass log is produced, sometime around 2007. About half of the $13 billion estimate includes interest payments on financing.

Now, BNFL is left trying to deal with a community and public policymakers who feel they've been snookered.

Conceding BNFL's credibility has been obliterated, Mike Lawrence, general manager of BNFL's Hanford project, said the company will propose a way to pare the costs when it submits its final proposal. If the federal government makes early payments on the debt - not to BNFL's bottom line - $3 billion to $4 billion in interest costs might be saved.

Lawrence believes the Energy Department's thorough review of BNFL and Bechtel's numbers will show the current estimate reflects accurately how much vitrification technology on this scale actually will cost.

Dick French, chief of the Energy Department's Office of River Protection, already has an independent company calculating what the glassification project's costs should be and comparing them with BNFL's numbers. And French's office is considering all its options, including whether to reject BNFL as the contractor, continue with BNFL under a more traditional contract or rebidding the job under either a privatization or traditional contract.

French's job is perhaps the hardest - assessing whether to continue a relationship with companies that were, if not deceitful, certainly less than candid. He also has to be able to convince Congress that the project continues to merit an increasing amount of money to be set aside.

BNFL and Bechtel's dirty little secret presents just the type of ammunition foes of the project will seize.

French needs all the help he can get. Once the Energy Department completes its review, French should consider convening a summit of people with a stake in getting the vitrification plant built, including representatives from the state, regulators, the Hanford Advisory Board and the community and elected officials. This group should agree on the best strategy for moving forward so they can present a united front of advocacy.

There is little time for delay.

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Radiation compensation proposal includes Hanford
Each sickened worker would get $100,000 or more; Congress still must OK funding

April 13, 2000
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=041300&ID=s790712&cat=
Karen Dorn Steele - Staff writer

Hanford workers made ill by exposure to plutonium and hazardous chemicals during the Cold War would be eligible for payments of $100,000 or more each under a new compensation plan proposed by the Clinton administration.

The initiative, announced Wednesday, reverses decades of official denial about the dangerous health consequences of nuclear weapons work.

The policy reversal has been nearly a year in the making.

Last July, the U.S. Department of Energy admitted it had put employees who worked with beryllium, a toxic metal, at risk of lung disease. Early this year, the agency made a much more sweeping acknowledgment -- that nuclear weapons work had made thousands of workers sick at 14 weapons plants nationwide.

"Justice for our nuclear weapons workers is finally happening. The government is, for a change, on their side and not against them," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said at a Washington, D.C., news conference.

A new workers advocacy office will be opened at the Energy Department by May to help workers, he said.

The DOE will award claims based on radiation exposure records. If reliable records aren't available, the agency will assume workers were exposed to the highest radiation levels possible in their job category, according to the draft plan.

Richardson, credited with pushing the policy change at the White House, was flanked at the news conference by politicians from states with DOE weapons sites -- including Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Slade Gorton.

Congress must agree to pay for the program, estimated to cost $400 million in the first five years.

The Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group that sometimes represents Hanford workers in litigation against DOE contractors, reacted cautiously to the plan.

"I'm glad Bill Richardson is trying to do something for workers," said project attorney Tom Carpenter in Seattle.

"However, I have a lot of trepidation. This is the same agency that has spent $20 million a year fighting Hanford downwinders' claims. Will DOE change its stripes overnight?" he asked.

Also, full funding from Congress isn't guaranteed, Carpenter said.

DOE's plan would compensate more than 3,000 workers throughout the nuclear weapons complex, said David Michaels, DOE assistant secretary for environment, safety and health.

Michaels said about 1,500 cancer patients nationwide are expected to receive compensation, but he couldn't estimate how many are likely to come from Hanford.

"We certainly expect some radiation-related exposures from Hanford," he said.

In February, Michaels held a town meeting in Richland to discuss worker exposures. More than 600 retired and current workers showed up to talk about their illnesses, including various forms of cancer.

More than 100,000 men and women have worked at Hanford since 1944. Thousands were exposed to radiation as they made plutonium, analyzed dangerous nuclear waste and disposed of radioactive garbage.

Of those, some developed radiation-related cancers, including leukemias, myelomas and cancers of the lung, bone and thyroid.

Last fall, a University of Washington health screening program disclosed that former Hanford construction and production workers were more likely to suffer from diminished lung function and skin lesions and show symptoms of beryllium exposure.

The compensation plan comes too late for workers such as Blaine Marks, who worked at Hanford during the Manhattan Project in the 1940s and died of bone cancer in 1985.

"My mother always suspected there was a connection," said Guy Marks of Sandpoint after hearing the government announcement Wednesday.

The new DOE program would compensate workers exposed to several dangerous substances, including:

• Beryllium, a carcinogen and the lightest structural metal known. Beryllium dust is highly toxic if inhaled. Workers diagnosed with beryllium disease before the proposed legislation passes would be able to choose a $100,000 lump sum or a compensation package that includes all medical expenses, lost wages and job retraining.

• Plutonium and other radioactive substances that cause cancer. The proposed compensation is the same as for the beryllium workers.

• Other radioactive elements that sickened workers at the DOE's three defunct gaseous diffusion plants at Oak Ridge Tenn., Paducah, Ky., and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Other affected workers were at Savannah River, S.C.; the Nevada Test Site; Rocky Flats near Denver; Pantex in Texas; the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and the Fernald Environmental Management Project in Ohio.

DOE's new advocacy office will help workers file state workers' compensation claims, Michaels said.

DOE has set up an Energy Workers' Compensation Helpline at 888-447-9756.

More information about the compensation proposal, including benefit summaries, is available on the Internet at www.eh.doe.gov/benefits.

Karen Dorn Steele can be reached at (509) 459-5462 or by e-mail at karend@spokesman.com.

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Roy Process Article continued from page 11

The treatment process not only will render plutonium 239 harmless in a remarkably short time, he said, but also will keep deactivated plutonium from ever being reprocessed to make an illegal atomic weapon. Roy further warned that the United States not only is exporting nuclear energy when it sells reactor technology to foreign nations, but also is sending overseas the potential for making illegal bombs out of plutonian from reprocessed nuclear wastes.

The treatment method will guarantee to foreign countries that use nuclear fission energy that they can maintain an environment free from radioactivity, and it also could guarantee to the world that there will be no reuse of plutonium in an unauthorized weapon, he said. Careful theoretical and mathematical analyses have assured him that the nuclear waste- treatment process will function reliably and with rapidity and high efficiency, ha said. "But the existence of this promising nuclear waste-treatment procedure should not be construed in any sense to mean that nuclear fission power reactors are safe" Roy said. The contractor who built Three Mile Island's reactor-like those who built the other 71 reactors now operational in the United States -- expected that plant to function normally for 30 years in total safety without event .But the fact is that it went out of control and nearly created a meltdown which could have destroyed a large part of the human habitat of east-central Pennsylvania,'' Roy said.

-------- us nuc weapons

Lee spy probe renewed interest in Livermore neutron bomb case

Thursday, April 13, 2000,
San Jose Mercury News
BY DAN STOBER Mercury News Staff Writer
http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/nation/docs/neutron13.htm

There was revived interest in the neutron bomb case at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the mid-1990s, a decade after the investigation went dormant. The CIA, FBI and scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory began to sift through clues that indicated China may have developed advanced nuclear weapons -- small but extremely powerful -- using information stolen from the United States.

Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee became the chief suspect in that case, but the investigation prompted another look at the neutron bomb incident.

A key concern of investigators was whether China used stolen technical information to learn the tricks of shrinking the size of thermonuclear warheads. A smaller warhead weighs less and can be delivered over a longer distance by a missile, thus potentially expanding the number of U.S. cities that could be struck by Chinese missiles in a war.

Smaller nuclear warheads would also make it easier for China to deploy mobile missiles, towed by trucks, that are difficult for an enemy to find and attack.

``Mobile ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) will require smaller, more compact warheads. The stolen U.S. information on the W-70 (the neutron bomb) or W-88 Trident D-5 will be useful for this purpose,'' noted the 1999 report of a U.S. House of Representatives committee headed by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach.

A crucial step in reducing the size of a warhead is reshaping the plutonium bomb that is used to trigger the hydrogen bomb inside the warhead. In smaller warheads, the plutonium bombs are oval or egg-shaped, rather than the spherical shape used in earlier weapons.

That is true of the W-88, the sophisticated warhead for the Trident submarine-launched missile that has been at the heart of the investigation of Lee. But it is also true of the less sophisticated W-70, the Lance missile warhead that Gwo-Bao Min was suspected of compromising.

``The W-70 warhead contains elements that may be used either as a strategic thermonuclear weapon, or as an enhanced radiation weapon,'' meaning neutron bomb, the Cox committee said.

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Plan for U.S. Missile Defense

Thursday, April 13, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000413/t000034919.html

Warfare state paranoia oozes from the April 9 editorial, "Russia a Key in Missile Plan." It makes the case for the plan of Congress and the president to expand our missile defenses, which requires amending or abrogating the successful 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and sabotaging any effort of Russian President-elect Vladimir V. Putin to get the Russian Duma to finally ratify the START II treaty.

The justification offered is the threat of a small number of missiles by rogue states, such as North Korea. Who in the world can believe any rogue state would take action that guarantees its nuclear obliteration by launching a nuclear missile at the U.S.? Why would anyone even consider such an attack, when nuclear bombs can be transported into the U.S. as easily as drugs are smuggled in today?

The rulers of our corporate-warfare-prison state are addicted to military spending that took 47 cents of every 1999 federal tax dollar to pay for the wars of the past, present and future and denies the American people investment in public services essential for a functional and sustainable society.

NICHOLAS V. SEIDITA
Northridge

* *

Your editorial misses the mark. You rightly say, "The United States doesn't want to lose START II because of Russian antipathy to a new U.S. missile defense." But why push a "missile plan"? Rogue nations will back off from launching at us for the same reason Russia backed off--because of our nuclear superiority.

We need nuclear abolition. We will get this only with the help of an international body of treaty enforcers that can get rogue nations to swap their nuclear weapons for food and the other things they lack. We need a presidential candidate who will come out for nuclear abolition. Readers should urge Al Gore and George W. Bush to pledge that they'll let other nations' inspectors watch us junk our nuclear weapons at the same time that our inspectors watch their nukes being junked.

HAROLD WATERHOUSE LU HAAS
Pacific Palisades