Today In History
The Associated Press
Friday, April 21, 2000; 8:00 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000421/aponline200019_000.htm
In 1952, an atomic test conducted in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.
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WORLD LEADERS APPEAL TO END NUCLEAR WEAPONS THREAT
Media Release
For Immediate Release
April 21, 2000
Contact: David Krieger <dkrieger@napf.org>
(805) 965-3443
Former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the XIVth Dalai Lama, Queen Noor and other world leaders have joined in an Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity. The Appeal, which was organized by the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is being issued at the outset of the 6th Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. This conference begins at the United Nations in New York on April 24th and runs until May 19th. A copy of the Appeal will be run in the New York Times on Monday, April 24th, concurrent with the first day of the Review Conference.
The Appeal calls for negotiations to achieve a verifiable international treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. The statement also calls for taking nuclear weapons off "hair-trigger" alert, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, maintaining the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, declaring policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons, and re-allocating resources now being spent on nuclear weapons to meeting human needs.
David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said, "The signers of this Appeal include some of the world's greatest peace leaders and voices for human rights. They are clearly saying to the nuclear weapons states, 'It's time for serious action to assure a human future!' The Appeal expresses deep concern that the nuclear weapons states have not done more to fulfill their long-standing obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament."
Other signers of the Appeal include Elie Wiesel, Marian Wright Edelman, Mohammad Ali, Ted Turner, and Harrison Ford. Thirty-three of the signers are Nobel Laureates, including 14 Nobel Peace Laureates.
The call to action is being sent to delegates of the 187 countries who have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Dr. Krieger expressed hope that the moral stature of those who signed the Appeal will move the leaders of the nuclear weapon countries to fulfill their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to achieve nuclear disarmament. People everywhere are being invited to join in this call for action.
Further information on the Appeal can be found at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's web site: www.wagingpeace.org.
(A copy of the Appeal is attached.)
---
APPEAL
END THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS THREAT TO HUMANITY!
We cannot hide from the threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity and all life. These are not ordinary weapons, but instruments of mass annihilation that could destroy civilization and end all life on Earth.
Nuclear weapons are morally and legally unjustifiable. They destroy indiscriminately - soldiers and civilians; men, women and children; the aged and the newly born; the healthy and the infirm.
The obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament "in all its aspects," as unanimously affirmed by the International Court of Justice, is at the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Ten years have now passed since the end of the Cold War, and yet nuclear weapons continue to cloud humanity's future. The only way to assure that nuclear weapons will not be used again is to abolish them.
We, therefore, call upon the leaders of the nations of the world and, in particular, the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to act now for the benefit of all humanity by taking the following steps:
1. Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
2. De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
3. Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
4. Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
5. Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.
LIST OF SIGNERS
Muhammad Ali World Champion Boxer and Humanitarian
Oscar Arias Nobel Peace Laureate Former President of Costa Rica
Kenneth J. Arrow Nobel Laureate
Nicolaas Bloembergen Nobel Laureate
Julian Bond Chair, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Jimmy Carter Chair, The Carter Center Former President of the United States
Alan Cranston Former United States Senator
Paul Crutzen Nobel Laureate
The XIVth Dalai Lama Nobel Peace Laureate Spiritual Leader of Tibetan People
Diandra Douglas Documentary Filmmaker
Michael Douglas Actor and UN Peace Ambassador
Marian Wright Edelman President, Children's Defense Fund
Richard R. Ernst Nobel Laureate
Adolfo Perez Esquivel Nobel Peace Laureate
Edmond H. Fischer Nobel Laureate
Harrison Ford Actor
Arun Gandhi Founder, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
Admiral Noel Gayler Former US Commander in Chief Pacific
Nadine Gordimer Nobel Laureate
Jonathan Granoff Chair, ABA Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament
Corbin Harney Spiritual Leader of Western Shoshone
Father Theodore M. Hesburgh President Emeritus, Notre Dame University
David H. Hubel Nobel Laureate
Daisaku Ikeda President, Soka Gakkai International
Iccho Itoh Mayor of Nagasaki On behalf of the citizens of Nagasaki
Craig Kielburger Founder, Free the Children
Lawrence R. Klein Nobel Laureate
F.W. de Klerk Nobel Peace Laureate Former President of the Republic of South Africa
Walter Kohn Nobel Laureate
David Krieger President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Ambassador James Leonard Former US Ambassador for Disarmament
Bernard Lown, M.D. Founder, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Nobel Peace Laureate Organization
Mairead Corrigan Maguire Nobel Peace Laureate
Rigoberta Menchú Tum Nobel Peace Laureate
Franco Modigliani Nobel Laureate
Robert Muller Chancellor Emeritus, UN University for Peace
Kary B. Mullis Nobel Laureate
Joseph E. Murray, M.D. Nobel Laureate
Erwin Neher Nobel Laureate
Queen Noor of Jordan President, United World Colleges Patron, Landmine Survivors Network
Frederick C. Robbins Nobel Laureate
Jose Ramos-Horta Nobel Peace Laureate
Richard J. Roberts Nobel Laureate
Joseph Rotblat Nobel Peace Laureate
Frederick Sanger Nobel Laureate
Carly Simon Singer and Songwriter
Michael Smith Nobel Laureate
Gerry Spence Trial Attorney
Jack Steinberger Nobel Laureate
Maj Britt Theorin President, International Peace Bureau Nobel Peace Laureate Organization
E. Donnall Thomas Nobel Laureate
Ted Turner Vice Chairman, Time Warner Inc. Founder, CNN
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Nobel Peace Laureate
Elie Wiesel Nobel Peace Laureate
Betty Williams Nobel Peace Laureate
Jody Williams Nobel Peace Laureate
-------- activists
Activist Granny D Arrested in D.C.
April 21, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Granny-D-Busted.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As bystanders chanted ``Go Granny go,'' police arrested and cuffed campaign finance and environmental reform activist Granny D in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Friday.
Doris Haddock, 90, of Dublin, N.H., aka Granny D, and 29 others were arrested for demonstrating illegally inside the Capitol building, Capitol Police Capt. Dan Nichols said.
``Our right to alter our government must be used to sweep these halls clean of greedy interests so that people may use this government in service to each others needs and to protect the condition of our earth,'' Haddock said on the Senate lawn prior to the pre-orchestrated arrests.
The Capitol Police took Haddock and the other activists to their headquarters. Nichols said a conviction for protesting inside the Capitol carries a maximum fine of $500 and 6 months in jail.
Their case will be heard in D.C. Superior Court.
``I'm curious to know how it's going to go, whether I'm going to be scared or afraid,'' Haddock said minutes before her first arrest.
Granny D spent 14 months, from January 1999 to February 2000, walking from Pasadena, Calif., to Washington D.C., to raise awareness of the need for changing laws governing the raising and use of money in election campaigns.
-------- alternative energy
DEPARMENT OF ENERGY TO BUY GREEN POWER
AmeriScan: April 21, 2000
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2000/2000L-04-21-09.html
WASHINGTON, DC, April 21, 2000 (ENS) - Energy Secretary Bill Richardson today directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to purchase a portion of its electricity from renewable energy sources. DOE is the first federal agency to make a department-wide commitment to purchase its electricity from green power sources. Green power is electricity produced from non-hydro renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. Currently, between two and three percent of all electricity sold in the country comes from renewable sources of energy.
"As the world celebrates the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, this directive will establish the department as a leader in achieving President Clinton's goal of using more clean, efficient and renewable energy sources," said Secretary Richardson. "To that end, I am directing the Energy Department to buy three percent of its total electricity needs from non-hydro renewable energy sources by 2005, and 7.5 percent of its total electricity purchases from green power by 2010." To keep its electricity bill down, the Energy Department will put out bids for its electricity supply and expects to often obtain lower costs. By combining this lower cost electricity with some portion of moderately more expensive renewable electricity, DOE will not increase its overall utility bill.
*RENEWABLES WILL POWER SANTA BARBARA
SANTA BARBARA, California, April 21, 2000 (ENS) - The City of Santa Barbara will soon become one of the largest direct purchasers of renewable energy in the world. Council has voted to switch 80 percent of city facilities to green power that is generated by solar, geothermal and wind energy. The purchase will be worth $1.6 to $1.8 million a year. The move is the city's celebration of the Earth Day 2000 theme of renewable energy. Santa Barbara joins a growing list of cities in California that are voting to supply their demand for electricity from green power suppliers. The municipalities of Santa Monica and Chula Vista have already switched to renewable energy, and more than 50 city and public agencies purchase green power in the Bay Area and San Diego County through joint power authorities.
The Santa Barbara power will be provided by Preferred Energy Services Inc (PES), which uses the retailing name of Go-Green.com for the retail market. The company has been selling renewable power in the California market since deregulation began in 1998, and the name change is a transitional step to spinning off the renewable energy venture into its own company." It's exciting to think we can power city facilities using energy from the sun and wind," says Santa Barbara city councillor Harold Fairly. "It's the responsibility for every city to look at how we can help create an energy policy that can be sustainable and environment friendly."
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Seeing Green in a Concrete Way
Energy Official Puts a Practical Spin on His Environmentalism
By Martha M. Hamilton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2000; Page A25
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/21/124l-042100-idx.html
Dan W. Reicher got his first taste of environmental activism when he was in third grade and a Cub Scout in Syracuse, N.Y.
After learning that the wolverine was an endangered species, the future assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy sat down and--with his mother's help--drafted a letter to a sporting goods company protesting the fact that the company advertised a wolverine fur-lined parka in its catalogue.
And he got results. The company discontinued selling the item.
A few years later, when activists celebrated the first Earth Day, in 1970, he was hooked. He ran Earth Day at his junior high school and helped found the Conservation Club, back in the days when environmentalism was on the fringes of the national consciousness.
Now, 30 years later, Earth Day will be celebrated Saturday, with clean energy as its central theme. And Reicher, whose job at the Energy Department centers on making the U.S. economy more energy-efficient, is again very much involved. But the context has changed.
Environmentalism now is taken for granted by most children and embraced, at least publicly, by many corporations. "Virtually every country on the planet is going to be celebrating Earth Day in some form," he said in a recent interview. "Sure, it's a day of symbolism, but underneath that is deep, deep substance."
The substance is the day-in, day-out stuff of Reicher's work. Author of the infamous pun "building the fridge to the 21st century," he oversees making appliances more energy-efficient, encouraging renewable energy, promoting cleaner cars and pondering how to maintain the nation's hydroelectric capacity without doing environmental harm.
Most of the environmental damage by hydroelectric plants is done to fish, said Reicher, who is proud of a new device that was developed to help figure out how to minimize the harm. The device is a fish crash-test dummy--a slightly gummy, blue-green plastic fish stuffed with electrical circuits that measure whether the fish gets chopped up or exploded, or is allowed to safely pass by different types of hydroturbines.
Reicher said he likes dealing with such concrete issues. He studied biology and chemistry when he went to Dartmouth, focusing on water quality issues, an interest he developed as a youngster when his dad taught him how to conduct simple water quality tests on a lake near where the family vacationed.
In 1977, he was part of the first group to kayak the full 1,888 miles of the Rio Grande, between Texas and Mexico, testing water quality along the way. After the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant raised concerns about safety standards, Reicher headed for Washington, seeking a job with a commission created by President Jimmy Carter to study the accident. He moved from photocopying files and moving furniture to doing some research for lawyers involved in the study. Then, he worked as a legal assistant at the Justice Department on an investigation into hazardous waste pollution at Love Canal in New York.
Those two experiences set him on a different track--the study of law--which he pursued at Stanford Law School. After a stint as Massachusetts assistant attorney general in the environmental protection division, Reicher worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Among his achievements at the environmental group was establishing the legal precedent for holding DOE accountable for hazardous waste at its nuclear facilities.
In early December 1992, shortly after Bill Clinton's election, he received a call from the Clinton presidential transition team, asking him to help out--and asking him to say yes or no immediately. He said yes.
He has worked under three energy secretaries--Hazel R. O'Leary, Federico Pena and, now, Bill Richardson.
"Being in government suits me very well," he said. "I fundamentally have found that you can accomplish a great deal in government."
Looking ahead to the next three decades after this year's Earth Day, Reicher said environmental issues have become more subtle. Climate change "may be the biggest challenge we face," but it doesn't raise the obvious types of alarms earlier environmental disasters did.
But he is optimistic. "Compared to 30 years ago, we've developed an incredible array of technology to deal with problems in an economical way," he said. And returning to that "fridge to the 21st century," he notes that the minimum standards for efficiency for refrigerators starting next year will be three times greater than those for refrigerators in the early 1970s.
He predicts that cars will become nonpolluting and homes will produce more energy than they consume, with power increasingly coming from renewable sources.
There's some urgency in making that happen, he said. In the next 20 years, worldwide consumption of power will nearly double, while over the next 30 years, the number of cars in use will quadruple.
Players
Dan W. Reicher
Title: Assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Age: 43.
Education: Bachelor's degree in biology, Dartmouth College; law degree, Stanford Law School.
Previous jobs: Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council; assistant attorney general, Massachusetts; law clerk to U.S. District Judge David Nelson in Boston.
Family: Married to Carole L. Parker, a consultant in the Office of Environmental Security, Department of Defense; two children.
Hobbies: Kayaking, skiing and playing the saxophone.
-------- britain
British Nuclear Complex Tries to Avert a Commercial Meltdown
Paris, Friday, April 21, 2000
By Alan Cowell
New York Times Service
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/FRI/FPAGE/nuke.2.html
SELLAFIELD, England - When John Storer took over a new high-profile job at Britain's most dispute-ridden nuclear complex in September, he expected ''a fairly steep learning curve.'' Instead, he said, ''World War III started shortly afterward.''
Just as Mr. Storer settled into his position overseeing a troubled nuclear fuel reprocessing unit, he was told that workers had falsified documents involving fuel rods even then in transit to Japan.
The implications were not lost on Mr. Storer. It was the first shipment of such fuel rods to Japan - a crucial customer of British Nuclear Fuels, the government-owned company that operates the Sellafield complex. The discovery, moreover, coincided with efforts by the company to secure government approval for plutonium processing at a gleaming new unit here designed to turn out ''mixed oxide'' fuel - a blend of uranium and plutonium.
''The timing was a disaster,'' Mr. Storer said. ''And worse still, it was self-inflicted. We had shot ourselves in the foot.''
In fact, things turned out far worse than he had imagined, causing the equivalent of a commercial meltdown at this complex on England's northwestern coast, a cauldron of environmental, commercial and social tension ever since the opening of the first unit, a nuclear power station, here in 1956.
In an attempt to rebuild its reputation, British Nuclear this week announced a leadership shake-up, promised an overhaul of safety procedures and said it had embarked on measures to prevent a recurrence of the falsification of documents. It also said it would streamline Sellafield's management to introduce greater accountability and to unify myriad safety and management practices. Government inspectors said they would watch the company closely to make sure it followed through.
The falsification of documents, by some accounts to cut corners, was only the opening chapter in a chronicle of woes that has hammered the company's standing in much of Europe, Japan and the United States, and it is fighting to hold on to an estimated $9 billion worth of contracts to dismantle and clean up nuclear sites.
Indeed, the crisis has started a debate about just what business the company should be in: reprocessing spent fuel for use in power plants, or disposing of nuclear waste and cleaning up nuclear sites, a business that some analysts say has huge potential, without the controversies associated with reprocessing. There is no easy answer. If the reprocessing unit is closed, there will be no raw materials to produce mixed oxide fuel, leaving the Sellafield complex with little but its nuclear waste storage operations and an aging nuclear power station. That would cost thousands of jobs.
Although the company and the British government remain formally committed to reprocessing, Hugh Collum, chairman of the company, has hinted that change might be inevitable.
Not only that, the debate has spread to the whole business of selling mixed-oxide fuels, which are more expensive than uranium but which enable plant operators to re-use spent fuel without buying new uranium. Germany, which also says it received shipments from Sellafield with falsified documents, has raised concerns about ''irregularities'' in reprocessed fuel, known as MOX, from France.
Greenpeace said recently that MOX from Belgium, France and Britain ''cannot be guaranteed safe to use.'' And a group of dignitaries from the Channel Island of Jersey plan to travel to France to press for the end of reprocessing at a plant at La Hague on the French coast that is Sellafield's main rival in MOX production. In the United States, reprocessing has been banned since the 1970s, and British Nuclear's only other competitor is in Belgium. Germany, Switzerland and Sweden have suspended shipments of spent fuel that was to be reprocessed at Sellafield. Japan wants Sellafield to take back the fuel it shipped there.
None of that is surprising considering the catalog of problems at Sellafield. After the falsification debacle, a routine inquiry by government inspectors discovered ''systematic management failures.'' Those conclusions were published in February. In mid-March, the company acknowledged that a saboteur had severed six cables on a robotic arm in a nuclear waste disposal unit. At the end of March, Ireland and Denmark revived a campaign against the company's environmental record on radioactive pollution of the atmosphere and of the Irish Sea, demanding the closing of the $2.88 billion Thorp plant - the spent-fuel reprocessing part of the Sellafield complex.
Not surprisingly, the British government has postponed a plan to sell off 49 percent of the company.
And in this region, the fate of Sellafield's 10,000 jobs has become the greatest topic of debate in pubs and stores and homes. ''Everybody's business around here is a spin-off from Sellafield,'' said Elvina Quayle, 53, who works in a grocery store in Egremont, a market town north of Sellafield, and whose husband has worked at the plant for 38 years.
It seems clear that the troubles stemmed from a blend of high-level, long-range management decisions and low morale among some of the same workers whose livelihood depends not just on the way the complex functions but also on the way customers and critics see its record.
For one thing, critics say, Sellafield's $480 million MOX unit was commissioned and built before the government gave approvals for it to handle uranium or plutonium. John Barbour, a company spokesman, said that was because ''there's no mechanism'' to win the approvals before a plant is built. Yet the company took orders to deliver MOX that it was producing at a far less sophisticated demonstration unit. The new plant, reflecting an assessment of likely demand, has a 100-ton annual capacity, but even with an array of computerized controls it has yet to start operating.
-------- canada
Saskatchewan's uranium industry weathering less than glowing market conditions
http://cbc.ca/cp/business/000421/b042129.html
SASKATOON (CP) - Saskatchewan's uranium industry is in good shape despite some of the lowest prices in 35 years, says a U.S.-based trade publication.
Global production of uranium fell last year to its lowest level since 1966, including a 25 per cent drop in the province, home to all of Canada's active uranium mines.
Statistics released by TradeTech indicate production in the province fell to about 22 million pounds from nearly 28 million in 1998.
Treva Klingbiel, president of TradeTech, said while low prices have made for a very tough market the overall production drop is a positive development for Saskatchewan uranium miners Cameco Corp. and Cogema Resources Inc.
"They're considered the low-cost producers,' ' said Klingbiel Thursday. "We have all of these higher-price producers . . . which have dropped out."
Prices remain rock-bottom because few reactors are coming on stream, said Klingbiel.
Japan is scaling back its plans for nuclear energy, and an anti-nuclear political debate in Germany may result in the closure of some reactors.
In addition, the U.S. Energy Commission has released more material than anticipated onto the market.
However, he said some U.S. reactors have boosted capacity to 98 per cent to keep up with increasing demands for electricity.
"They really are burning up uranium faster than we ever thought they would," said Klingbiel. "Utilities are not sitting on huge inventories any more."
He said global uranium production is presently about half the rate of consumption, a situation that cannot last forever.
Cameco spokeswoman Elaine Kergoat said despite soft prices the company is in good financial shape.
"Here we sit as one of the biggest producers in the world and we're not borrowing to develop our uranium mines in the North," Kergoat said. "We're just basically strong financially."
Cogema president Arnaud de Bourayne said the industry in Canada is in better position than anybody else in the world because we have efficient cost-effective production.
-------- depleted uranium
NATO Accused of Using Uranium Rounds
APRIL 21, 22:13 EDT
By KATARINA KRATOVAC
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS740GLO80
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Yugoslavia-NATO.html
http://www.canoe.com/TopStories/nato_apr21.html
http://cbc.ca/cp/world/000421/w042174.html
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - NATO warplanes used depleted uranium rounds on eight sites in Yugoslavia during the alliance's 78-day bombing campaign last year, a government report Friday said.
A team of Yugoslav experts made the study on the environmental effects of the NATO air strikes launched to stop President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo.
The report comes a few months after NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson confirmed that U.S. jets operating in Kosovo last year fired the armor-piercing depleted uranium rounds on numerous missions.
Robertson said the rounds were used when American A-10 ground attack aircraft engaged armored vehicles - on about 100 missions in Kosovo. The military says depleted uranium is a dense metal that provides enhanced armor-piercing capability.
Some specialists believe the uranium rounds are environmentally harmful. But the U.S. Defense Department has defended the use of the uranium, saying the rounds contained no more health risk that conventional weapons.
The Belgrade study aimed to give specifics on all environmental impacts of the airstrikes.
The locations contaminated by the depleted uranium and described in the 75-page document include six sites in Serbia and one in Montenegro, Serbia's smaller partner in the Yugoslav federation, said Gen. Slobodan Petkovic, who presented the report for the Defense Ministry.
The eighth location is in Kosovo, Serbia's southern province. The region is now run by U.N. and NATO peacekeepers, preventing examination of the contamination by a Yugoslav team, he said.
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CAMPAÑA POR EL LEVANTAMIENTO DE LAS SANCIONES A IRAQ SPANISH CAMPAIGN FOR LIFTING THE SANCTIONS ON IRAQ Tlf./Fax: 91. 531.75.99 (Madrid). c/ Carretas 33, 2º of. F, 28012 Madrid. csca@nodo50.org
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Depleted Uranium: Health and Ecological , Economic and Legal aspects of the use of radioactive conventional weapons. (Spain, November/December, 2000)
National Gulf War Resources Center Washington, DC USA
Madrid, April 21, 2000
Dear friends: The SPANISH CAMPAIGN FOR LIFTING THE SANCTIONS ON IRAQ (SCLSI) is organizing a new International Conference -as those previously held in Madrid in 1995 (International Conference against the Embargo on Iraq), 1996 (International Court for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the SC in Iraq) and 1999 (The recourse to economic sanctions and war in the 'New World Order'. Interventionism against international law: from Iraq to Yugoslavia)- entitle Depleted Uranium: Health and Ecological, Economic and Legal aspects of the use of radioactive conventional weapons. This new Conference of the SCLSI will be held on next 25th and 26th November, or 2nd and 3rd December, 2000 in some of the main Spanish cities to be designed. At the moment, we are preparing the first draft of the Conference, and we will appreciate any suggestion on the program and international participants. The main four topics of the Conference will be:
1. Human population health and environmental consequences of the use of weapons with DU: the cases of the Gulf (1991) and The Balkans (1996, 1999) regions. The 'Gulf War Syndrome' in the US and Great Britain veterans.
2. The financial interests of the production of DU and the manufacture and export of radioactive conventional weapons: the role of the nuclear industry, the Pentagon and the US military-industrial complex in the international proliferation of DU weapons.
3. The International Law and the use of radioactive conventional weapons.
4. The hidden legacy of the Gulf War and the NATO interventions in The Balkans: the military, political and media cover-up of the impact of the use of DU weapons on civil populations and war veterans. Looking forward news from you soon, yours sincerely.
Carlos Varea SCLSI, coordinator (carlos.varea@uam.es)
-------- europe
New Report: Europe Needs 85 New Nuclear Plants to Beat Global Warming
By Helen Andre
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2000/2000L-04-21-02.html
LONDON, UK, April 21, 2000 (ENS) - At least 85 new nuclear power plants must be built in Europe in order to prevent carbon dioxide emissions from increasing, says a new European Commission report.
Carbon dioxide is produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Scientists estimate it is responsible for 70 percent of the Earth's global warming.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union is committed to reducing carbon dioxide levels by eight percent from 1990 levels by the five year period 2008 to 2012. But Europe's nuclear power stations are due for decommissioning after 25 to 30 years service.
As the 15 European Union Member States phase out nuclear power, says the report by London based consultants, Environmental Resource Management (ERM), the only viable alternatives for energy production are those that belch out greenhouse gases. Both Germany and Sweden are engaged in phasing out their nuclear power plants.
The report says that in one extreme scenario, early retirement of nuclear power stations could even result in carbon dioxide levels increasing by 40 percent by the year 2025.
Finnish nuclear power plant at Loviisa (Photo courtesy Virtual Nuclear Tourist)
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was signed in Kyoto, Japan as an addition to the United Nations climate change treaty. It governs the emission of carbon dioxide and five other heat trapping greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Thirty-nine industrialized countries are supposed to be bound by the protocol, but it has not come into effect due to the failure of any of those countries to ratify it. Still, the protocol is seen as a policy guideline if global warming is to be averted.
Though nuclear power is seen as the black sheep of energy generation for its radioactive leaks and the seemingly insurmountable problem of how to dispose of dangerous wastes, it does not produce carbon dioxide, one of the greatest current dangers to the environment.
Electricity generation produces nearly a third of Europe's carbon dioxide emissions, but would contribute far more if it was not for the nuclear industry which generates 23 percent of the electricity that powers the European Union.
In a perfect world, all of our electricity would be generated by renewable sources such as solar, tidal, and wind power, which produce no carbon dioxide. According ERM, lack of political determination means that these renewable sources are unlikely to be developed sufficiently over the next 20 years to play more than a minor role.
ERM is an environmental management consultancy operating in the UK since 1971 with four offices and over 250 professional staffers. The UK branch is part of a global ERM organisation that includes 2,500 specialists in 32 countries representing more than 30 disciplines - engineering, natural and earth sciences, social science, environmental health sciences, economics, planning and management.
The ERM report says the only way the Kyoto Protocol target can be achieved is to keep existing nuclear power stations open, and to switch from coal generation of electricity to natural gas.
No targets for carbon dioxide emissions have been set beyond 2010, and as natural gas runs out, and nuclear power stations are closed down, greenhouse gases will increase rapidly, the report warns.
ERM admits that the report has its limitations. Based on projections for energy use and carbon dioxide emissions rather than a crystal ball, anything could happen in real life.
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. nuclear generating station at Calder Hall. (Photo courtesy BNFL)
But lack of public support for nuclear power and the extremely high costs involved in producing nuclear power means that large numbers of new nuclear power plants are unlikely to play a significant role in future energy generation.
"It's both unnecessary and unaffordable, and Europe can meet its energy needs perfectly well from a combination of renewables and better efficiency methods," said Mark Johnston, Friends of the Earth energy campaigner.
Although governments have been lazy over the development of renewable energy sources, says Johnston, increasing greenhouse gases will force them to reconsider their lack of environmentally friendly policies.
"I think they'll go for the least cost options," says Johnston. He predicts this will include a far greater proportion of natural gas power stations than exist today. "They are the cheapest to operate and the quickest to build."
The European Commission (EC), the executive branch of the European Union, is taking a proactive approach to its greenhouse gas responsibilities. In October last year, the Commission announced the formation of the European Climate Change Programme.
This partnership between the EC, experts from Member States, industry, and environmental non-governmental organisations was established to develop policy proposals in areas such as energy, transport, and emissions trading.
Even with the aid of nuclear power stations, the EC admits that it is not on track to reach the Kyoto targets, and that the latest data shows carbon dioxide emissions increasing rather than decreasing.
European Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin)
"The picture is not rosy," warns European Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, "We have to put into place additional measures at the Community level if we are to achieve what we promised in Kyoto. At the same time, the Member States should not rely on the community doing it all. Most of them are not on track for reaching their national targets."
Conflict over the role of nuclear power in combating global warming heated up again in March. EU Member States meeting in Brussels were preparing for a crucial conference of parties to the UN climate change treaty scheduled for the Hague in November to negotiate practical implementation of Kyoto Protocol targets.
Greenpeace issued a warning that France and the UK were calling for nuclear power projects to be included in the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), under which industrialised countries will be able to claim greenhouse gas emissions credits if they help developing countries to cut emissions.
The group said the Clean Development Mechanism risked becoming "a new subsidy for the nuclear industry" if nuclear was not excluded. "The CDM is meant to promote sustainable energy in developing countries, not create more radioactive waste," Greenpeace claimed.
European nuclear industry association Foratom hit back, calling for the CDM to be implemented "without limits" on technologies that could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "All forms of energy are necessary for global sustainable development," a Foratom spokesman said.
A source at the Brussels meeting confirmed that the UK and France were pushing informally to allow nuclear projects under the Clean Development Mechanism, although there has been "no [formal] clear position" from either. The source said most other member states and the European Commission wanted to exclude nuclear, but that the issue would only be resolved at a senior political level.
{ENDS Environment Daily contributed to this report. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London.}
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Police Department earns global fame
April 21, 2000
By Jim Keary and Clarence Williams
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/default-2000421222732.htm
The Metropolitan Police Department has found itself in a rare position - the focus of worldwide attention, not for what it did wrong, but for what it did right during the World Bank protests this week.
And much of the credit is being attributed to the leadership of Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who took charge of the beleaguered police force two years ago today.
"We set a new standard and now the world knows we can handle something like this," Chief Ramsey said. "I've told the command staff that we have some great momentum and we've got to keep it going."
From Philadelphia to Prague, the 3,500-member D.C. police force has gained recognition for thwarting tens of thousands of protesters trying to halt a joint meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Most noteworthy has been the lack of violence that marred similar demonstrations last year in Seattle.
Peter LaPorte, director of the District's Office of Emergency Management, said the department has received praise from police officials around the country for controlling the estimated 10,000 demonstrators.
"I've talked to many chiefs of police I know and they are commenting that MPD never looked better," Mr. LaPorte said.
Officials from the Czech Republic, which will host IMF meetings for two weeks in September, met in Chief Ramsey's office this week to study police tactics.
Police officials from Chicago and New York - as well as Philadelphia and Los Angeles, host cities for the Republican and Democratic national conventions this summer -took copious notes on how D.C. police handled the protests.
Moreover, an article in Tuesday's editions of the Seattle Times noted: "In the end, the area surrounding the IMF and World Bank was too big, the protesters too few and the police too numerous and well prepared."
D.C. police officials had said they wouldn't be overwhelmed like Seattle police, who imposed a curfew and broke up protests with clubs, rubber bullets and tear gas. Hundreds of Seattle police, 200 National Guard troops and 600 state troopers were needed to restore order after rioting erupted. More than 580 protesters were arrested and about $10 million worth of property damage reported.
The World Bank protests provided a test for D.C. police officials, who said they had learned the lessons of the Seattle riots. Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper resigned in December, taking full responsibility for the violence that disrupted meetings of the World Trade Organization.
Police prevented protesters from using common building materials to form nearly impenetrable barriers in the streets, conducted a pre-emptive raid on the activists' warehouse headquarters and arrested hundreds during a spontaneous rally the day before the main rallies were to begin Sunday.
In all, D.C. police arrested more than 1,200 protesters, about 150 of whom remain in custody in the D.C. Jail.
Chief Ramsey and Executive Assistant Chief Terrance W. Gainer spent the better part of the week keeping their officers from being too aggressive and limiting the use of force. Officers used batons to push back crowds and let loose with pepper spray to clear streets and sidewalks when demonstrators refused to move.
"It was a great thing that they understood what we were doing and they had the discipline," said Chief Ramsey, who often stood on the front lines with his officers and even arrested a protester himself.
He said he could not have gone to the barricades to defuse tensions between officers and demonstrators and Chief Gainer could not have negotiated a truce without the officers on the line having the discipline, trust and confidence in their leaders.
"It calmed them down," Chief Ramsey said. "It relaxed them."
The tactic of having Chief Gainer and himself walk between the officers and the demonstrators was the result of a "gut feeling," he said, crediting Chief Gainer with negotiating a truce with the protesters.
Officer Kervin Johnson, assigned to the 7th Police District in Southeast, was among those holding the line at 20th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW Sunday when Chief Ramsey walked up to the barricades.
He was at the same place Monday when Chief Ramsey and Chief Gainer quieted the crowd and began negotiating a peaceful ending in which 400 activists allowed themselves to be arrested peacefully.
"They walked the line and they talked to us and the demonstrators," said Officer Johnson. "They reassured us everything was OK."
Chief Ramsey said the protests demonstrated how the Metropolitan Police Department can cooperate with other agencies, noting that 10 federal and local police agencies at the barricades followed the commands of the D.C. police.
The D.C. officers "are proud as a peacock," Detective Frank Tracy, chairman of the MPD Fraternal Order of Police Labor Committee said. "These young folks are part of MPD history and they are riding high right now."
D.C. Council member Harold P. Brazil, chairman of the council's Judiciary Committee, said the police officers and officials should take a bow for their performance.
"Everyone was doing their jobs - the little one and the big one," said Mr. Brazil, at-large Democrat, adding that Chief Ramsey had to overcome huge problems to get to where he is today.
"It was difficult. It is a big bureaucracy," Mr. Brazil said. "It is hard to change the policies and practices. I think they made a good showing."
Chief Ramsey noted that the police department had been looked down on because of past mismanagement and scandals. He said now all officers, even those hired in 1989 and 1990 when background checks and training were lacking, have something to be proud of.
"Many of the men and women on that line were the class of '89 and '90. Most of them did a . . . good job. All those kind of [scandals] cause low self-esteem," he said. "All it takes is a major event like this to bring it back."
Chief Ramsey said he's glad that other departments are asking him for help, rather than the other way around. "It does feel good."
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The below Washington City Paper story on the April 16-17 rally/direct action starts with the large quotes interspersed throughout the article.
COVER STORY: PUPPET SHOW
by Kevin Diaz,
Washington City Paper
April 21-27, 2000
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/cover.html
It was clear that whatever explained the magic in Seattle, it was high time to take the show to the capital of the free world.
They wear ponchos and bandannas against the steady drizzle. There's gathering excitement, but there's also a sense that everyone's all dressed up with no place to go.
"We don't want you here in D.C....Go home, you stupid boys and girls. You're not allowed to have ice cream!" -Mobilization outcast Vladimir Budney
After some telephone negotiations between protest allies and authorities, the police agree to let the protesters reclaim some personal belongings, food, and, most important, their puppets.
"[W]e can do ourselves a HUGE favor by focusing on the issues and not divide and conquer ourselves over questions of tactics." -Nadine Bloch, Mobilization for Global Justice
"We cannot accept the active participation of cops and/or peacekeepers in this or any other movement, protest or demonstration.'' -Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Bloc statement
"We're going to kick some ass a month from now." -Kevin Danaher, of San Francisco's Global Exchange, on March 14
"Drizzle and lots of cops-looks just like Seattle." -Michael Dolan, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
"There are anarchists, and then there are anarchists. Some are social anarchists, who are into it because it's the hip thing. But all of us are anarchists to some degree, or we wouldn't be in the movement." -John Steinbach, Gray Panthers
"To put this many people out on the street with a fairly focused call for economic justice was pretty amazing." -Soren Ambrose, 50 Years is Enough
"[The police] should be down at the World Bank and IMF asking questions of the people who are meeting there. They should not be here harassing activists who are making puppets out of papier mâché and cornstarch." -Njoki Njoroge Njehu, 50 Years Is Enough
"If we can't learn nonviolent conflict resolution within our movements, how can we create a peaceful world?" -Carol Moore, Washington D.C. Area War Tax Resistance
PUPPET SHOW
They came, they marched, they declared victory. And none of that got in the way of business as usual inside the World Bank and the IMF.
Washington, D.C., April 16 We all know how things turned out-or didn't turn out. Yes, angry, dedicated people showed up to-well, there never was a list of demands, but they showed up. And yes, angry, dedicated cops showed up to occasionally douse them with pepper spray and club a few who were particularly out of line. But the meeting went on, and so did the show.
And that is what it was. Everybody, including the protesters, ended up playing themselves on TV. Once the cameras swung into view, the leaders of this leaderless movement revealed themselves-and declared victory. Nothing, save a few blocks of city street, ended up getting shut down.
What else were we expecting? Was the protest a failure just because most of the plate-glass windows protecting global evildoers were preserved? The protest didn't meet expectations because it couldn't have. Seattle was a big deal because nobody saw it coming. Everybody saw A16 coming from a mile away.
It was a hyperorganized, hyperorchestrated show on all sides. There were promises to shut down the meetings. There was tear gas, there was broken glass, and, at times, there was even a little rain. But it wasn't Seattle. For a few months or so, it was like old times again on the ramparts of the political left. Despite the dayslong siege in Washington, it was business as usual at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. All the planning in the world won't yield chaos.
Gray Panther Office, April 5 The details seem to escape Louise Franklin-Ramirez. But then, she's been at this a long, long time. Hell-raisin' Louise. Rolling around in her wheelchair, still fighting for global peace and justice at age 94. Head drooped faintly to one side. Long white hair tied up in a tidy grandmotherly bun. There are still some capers left in those watery blue eyes. But right now, in her Gray Panther office downtown on 8th Street, 11 days before the much-anticipated April 16 mass demonstration to shut down the IMF and the World Bank, the retired D.C. schoolteacher can hardly remember the last time she was arrested.
She nibbles on a bran muffin and thinks. OK, so it was only six weeks before. Her husband, John Steinbach, with a long gray braid and beard, nudges her arm to prod her memory. Why, it turns out, it was just Feb. 28, outside the U.S. Supreme Court, at a free-Mumia rally. It was being billed as a warmup for the Big Event, the Mobilization for Global Justice on April 16, dubbed A16 by some collective that names such things. Which is why Franklin-Ramirez is at work on this particular afternoon: organizing, however forgetfully.
They held Franklin-Ramirez for eight hours with 185 other pro-Mumia agitators, who threatened more civil disobedience ("jailhouse solidarity") unless the police released her first. By Franklin-Ramirez's reckoning, that was the last of a "couple dozen" arrests over a lifetime of picketing, marching, and otherwise raging against the capitalist machine.
Steinbach returns to the business at hand, which is folding A16 protest fliers, to be mailed to several thousand D.C.-area lefties. Franklin-Ramirez, sitting alongside him at a plain wooden table in the Gray Panthers' basement office in the Calvary Baptist Church, returns to her muffin. "I may not always be able to remember," she's told Steinbach, himself a committed Gray Panther and radical-cause jailbird at the tender age of 53. "But I can always get arrested."
Indeed, Franklin-Ramirez's porous memory has not discouraged her in the least. During the interminable Tuesday night planning meetings for April 16, she's always had a beatific smile for all the new young recruits around her. And even now, doing the mailings-perhaps the real shitwork of any protest-she tries to turn the Gray Panther office into a party. She swivels in her chair as a song rises from a boombox: "No Woman No Cry."
"We like to have a good time," she says, in her best impersonation of early-20th-century anarchist leader Emma Goldman. Then she high-fives a departing visitor: "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Until lately, though, if you didn't do what Franklin-Ramirez wouldn't do, you could still be doing quite a bit. Last year, when the IMF and World Bank held their annual meetings in Washington, Steinbach and Franklin-Ramirez were part of a tiny cadre of dedicated activists-numbering several dozen, perhaps-who held a lonely and largely ignored vigil outside the buildings.
There were no anarchist soccer games in the streets. "There are anarchists, and then there are anarchists," Steinbach says. "Some are social anarchists, who are into it because it's the hip thing. But all of us are anarchists to some degree, or we wouldn't be in the movement."
But last year, there was no fear of breaking glass, pepper spray, or rubber bullets. In fact, absolutely nothing happened. "It was very low-key," Steinbach recalls. "The attitude of the cops was that if you had fewer than 100 people, 'Just go for it, obey the traffic signals, and we'll see you later.'"
And that's how it's been for a long time for Steinbach and Franklin-Ramirez and their friends in America's far left-at least since the anti-nuke battles of the early '80s, when Steinbach and Franklin-Ramirez met. They've been quietly trying to overthrow the status quo ever since. Quietly. They have been ignored.
"We went underground," says Jerry, a 72-year-old self-described socialist who's helping Steinbach and Franklin-Ramirez with the A16 mailing. Jerry, who won't give his last name, sports a bushy white beard and a fading Malcolm X cap. "We haven't been doing anything,'' he continues. "We've been snoozing."
As he talks about the World Bank, the phone rings, and Steinbach gets up to answer it. It's Crestar Bank, looking for information about another Gray Panther activist who died some years ago, leaving behind an inactive account.
"Filthy lucre," Jerry chides.
Steinbach returns to the conversation thread. "The organized left has been irrelevant for a long time," he says. "I say that as a leftist. We've been irrelevant. Or maybe that's not the right word. Maybe I should say 'ineffectual.'"
That was before a coalition of crunchy old lefties, some pissed-off union members, and a couple of punks with bad attitudes came together in Seattle.
Streets of Seattle, Nov. 30, 1999 Marching toward the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference, Soren Ambrose looked around at the police lines and the teeming thousands of protesters. He knew something extraordinary was taking hold. Crowds surged, and tear gas canisters popped off. The labor ranks were there. People dressed as sea turtles were there. Bill Clinton was there. Television networks were everywhere. More important, all those impeccably dressed WTO delegates were trapped. Their meetings were disrupted. This was a far cry from the desultory few who gathered robotically each spring in front of the IMF and World Bank in Washington and protested ineffectually.
Ambrose was usually one of those few. After all, it was part of his job as a paid staffer in the Capitol Hill office of 50 Years Is Enough, an organization dedicated to the abolition of the two organizations. The financial institutions, founded in 1944, are now well past their 50-year anniversary, and, in the view of Ambrose and Co., also well past their usefulness as instruments of global corporate hegemony. So to Ambrose, not long out of graduate studies in English and African literature, the Battle in Seattle was an unexpected "gift."
"When I went to Seattle, I knew it was going to be big. But I was a little taken aback," he now recalls. Tens of thousands of people had emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, and were displaying real passion for the same issue that impelled him: arcane international financial policies that allegedly comfort the rich and afflict the poor. They came from unions, environmental groups, political organizations, and anarchist cells. "To put this many people out on the street with a fairly focused call for economic justice was pretty amazing," says Ambrose, an improbable-looking revolutionary with a light-blond beard that barely disguises a soft, cherubic face. "When that audience was out in the street, we knew we would be able to reach them."
It was economic-justice-wonk heaven. An idealist's dream. Finally, after all the rhetoric, the fist-shaking, the speeches, something happened. Never mind that the signal event was the sound of breaking glass on a Starbucks shop, it was news.
Monte Paulsen, a freelance writer from D.C. who covered the WTO protests, says that, if nothing else, the experience "rekindled people's faith in protests," which had become fairly moribund affairs in the '80s and '90s. It was clear that whatever explained the magic in Seattle, it was high time to take the show to the capital of the free world.
The idea came right away to Ambrose: "I can remember when I had the idea: on the streets of Seattle, on Nov. 30, when we heard the tear-gas canisters going off. I turned to my friend Bob Naiman and said, 'We ought to do this in D.C.'" Naiman, a policy analyst with the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, would go on to win some notoriety in February for "pieing" a top IMF official in Bangkok, Thailand. He was on board right away.
Almost before the tear gas cleared, Ambrose was on the phone with fellow organizer Kevin Danaher, of the San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange. Danaher, a shaved-head author and intellectual guru of the globalization movement, was having the same thought. So were David Solnit, the curly-headed Seattle leader of the Direct Action Network, and Michael Dolan, deputy director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, and a host of others who were instrumental in bringing off a little piece of history in Seattle. What took Seattle by surprise became a long buildup for D.C.
University of the District of Columbia, Jan. 11 Six weeks after Seattle, many of the same actors-and a few more-are in Room 211 of the University of the District of Columbia's law school, talking about how to keep "the spirit of Seattle" alive. Under the flat fluorescent lighting of a classroom, the idea of A16 takes shape.
Recalls Ambrose: "We felt we had to do something to keep people focused, or they'd recede back into the constituencies they came from."
Service Employees International Union Building, Feb. 15 They look like a nice bunch of kids. Black berets, tattoos, pierced body parts, tattered clothes. Long hair, spiked hair, green hair, blond Rasta hair. New activists. Then there are a few gray-bearded hippies thrown in. Old activists. Taking up the middle ground are some serious-looking, 30-something, clean-cut types. And young women. Lots of college women. Sweet, innocent-looking coeds. American University, in particular, seems to be well-represented, to judge from the introductions. Others in attendance are delegates for the full package of good causes in the American left: the International Socialist Organization, the D.C. Statehood Green Party, the Labor Party, Witness for Peace, Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies), the Ruckus Society, the Campaign for Labor Rights, the Third World Network, the Rainforest Action Network, Positive Force, and a mélange of anarchist factions.
There are about 300 people in all, gathered in a basement auditorium. It's A16 minus two months.
At the moment, the attendees all have their hands over their heads, or by their ears, their fingers fluttering in the air. Twinkle your fingers if you agree. This is what consensus looks like.
Everyone twinkles, except two beefy guys in the back of the room, wearing baseball caps and well-polished black leather shoes. A few people in the room take them for cops, or perhaps a pair of Teamsters. On the other side of the room, a guy with a partially shaved head takes a swig from a paper bag.
Somebody reads the nonviolence code: We will use no violence, physical or verbal, toward any person....We will carry no weapons....We will not bring or use any alcohol or illegal drugs....
And then the controversial part: We will not destroy property....
For a disparate coalition that's scarcely been in existence for a month, an organization with no leaders and no hierarchy, a lot, it seems, has already been decided. A template is in place, much of it imported from Seattle: Everything shall be decided by consensus. There are working groups for training, logistics, art, outreach, message/propaganda, media, medical and legal issues, and just about every other conceivable facet of the coming political get-together, which has been dubbed "the Convergence." Working groups decide courses of action and then feed their decisions into a central "spokescouncil." Rotating representatives are called "spokes." Everything's pretty much out in the open, except for the very top-secret "scenario" group, which is working out the details of what's supposed to actually happen when it all hits the fan on April 16-and, for those who evade arrest on the first day, on April 17, too.
Chuck Kaufman, a fundraiser for the Nicaragua Network, starts passing an olive baseball cap, which will scoop up about $163 by the end of the night. Everything-including social and cultural revolution-costs money.
Greenpeace Office, March 11 Standing her ground on the barricade line, Madeline Gardner is getting jostled and shoved fairly deliberately. Her hands are raised, palms out, to form two fleshy shields in front of her face, framed by her frizzy blond hair. Her tormentor, another woman, is trying to get by. Similar duels are playing out between people all around them.
Suddenly, Gardner shrieks: "You're hurting me! You're hurting me!"
Just as suddenly, the action stops. Somebody asks Gardner how she feels. "As soon as I was pushed, it made me really furious," she responds.
"I was nice to her, and I was just trying to get through to do my business," her tormentor replies, giving her version of the encounter.
It's only March 11, but they're pretending it's April 16. Gardner is one of the mobilization's nonviolence trainers. Just 17, she's a recent high school graduate from St. Paul, Minn. Along with her boyfriend, Solstice, aka Matthew Smucker, 22, she's one of the protest's full-time organizers, working out of donated space in the Greenpeace office at 14th and U Streets.
Her pinky-smooth cheeks don't exactly shout "movement veteran," but she's already got a rap sheet and press clippings. She dislocated a hip last July getting tackled by a cop in Minneapolis, where she was part of an encampment protesting a highway project that would cut through an oak savanna. The spot was alleged to be sacred to local Native American tribes. Smucker, an organizer with the Rainforest Action Network, was part of the Minneapolis "Free State" encampment, too. He was arrested there in a massive predawn police raid on a freezing cold morning in December 1998.
On this Saturday morning, Smucker and Gardner are co-facilitators in the cause, along with Jennifer Carr, who describes herself as an activist between jobs. The nonviolence training, which is targeted at everybody who's expected to take part in the IMF and World Bank protests, has drawn about a dozen young activists today.
They discuss Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and even Abraham. They deconstruct power relationships, like the economic power of multinational corporations over debt-ridden Third World countries. And they analyze the finer points of nonviolence, civil disobedience, and direct action, which, Smucker says, "may or may not involve breaking the law."
The group, much in the fashion of a college seminar, searches for the historic roots of nonviolence. "One example I like is the one where-you know, it was in Greece, and there was a war going on?" Gardner offers, her voice raising into a question. "And the women stopped giving it out at night, until the men stopped fighting. And it worked. I love that story."
Someone mentions that she's talking about Lysistrata, by the fifth-century-B.C. Greek comic playwright Aristophanes.
The group has a hard time precisely defining the concept of direct action, encompassing, as it does, a broad spectrum of activity, from letter-writing campaigns to blocking streets, however nonviolently.
The class runs through the A16 guidelines against property destruction, drugs, weapons, and abusive language. Someone points out that the same rules were in effect in Seattle, except with a loophole allowing the dismantling of police barricades used to block protesters. Everyone signs on to the rules with a show of hands. "God, I feel so safe," Carr says, lightening the mood a bit.
But all the rules and definitions still seem like fuzzy-headed abstractions until they're put into practice-which is what is to happen on Greenpeace's wooden floor: Imagine the barricades. Imagine the tear gas...the helmeted riot cops coming at you clutching batons...
But the class can't start there. Way too scary. Way too advanced. Instead, they start with just a poor, innocent dog. Somebody, for some reason, kicks a dog. What's a person committed to nonviolence to do?
The answer is to be divined via a "hassle line." The students group into two rows, face each other, and shake hands. Each student on one side kicks an imaginary dog, and each partner on the other side reacts. The room erupts into shouting, arguing, and some reasoned pleading.
Carr stops the exercise after a minute and asks how everyone felt.
"I felt panicked," one student says.
"I felt helpless," says another.
"I picked up the dog," says a third.
"Oh, you went for the victim," Carr notes approvingly. "That's good."
The young initiates are urged to use nonverbal communication like eye contact, lower their voices to de-escalate tensions, and, whatever they do, avoid any threatening gestures toward the police. "Touching is escalation," Smucker warns. "If you touch a police officer, you can be charged with assault."
The final line of defense, the protesters learn, involves their own two hands-the "two hands of nonviolence." One hand is held up, palm out, so as to say, "Stop." The other is held out, so as to say, "Let's shake," or "Put it there." That's not the language the facilitators use, but that's what it looks like. Explains Carr: "You're opening yourself up, putting yourself in a potential situation."
"And that works?" one guys asks.
Sidewalk, Near 14th and U Streets NW, March 11 There's a solitary figure standing in front of the M.A. Winter Building, which houses the Greenpeace office, where the nonviolence class is still going on. He's an old man, a veteran anti-war protester with a disheveled white beard. He wears army fatigues, a tattered baseball cap, and a sandwich board exclaiming: "Stop Anarchist Training. Stop Seattle Riots." His name is Vladimir Budney.
Budney, or Vlad, as he's known inside the movement, has started to get bad vibes from the protest organizers. The feeling is mutual. "He's a little touched," says one volunteer, leaving the building. "He's gone over the edge."
Budney's lonely vigil is the result of a little falling-out with mobilization leaders, who a week earlier accused him of becoming "threatening" and "disruptive." Minutes from the March 2 spokescouncil meeting indicate that he had become "a problem" and that a group should be delegated to warn him to follow the rules or be barred from the organization.
"These are activists and hippies with rank," Budney complains. "If you don't recognize their rank, they throw you out. When we had demonstrations against the Vietnam War, we didn't have rank."
Cyberspace, Month of February The revolution will not only be televised, but launched into cyberspace with an A16.org Web site as well. There will be live-streaming audio and video captured on the street by the protesters themselves. It will be a unified, unfiltered vision of anti-corporate rebellion.
In Washington's first major demonstration of the 21st century, there will be no need to rely on the images and representations of the "corporate media." Organizers form media working groups-in effect, little public relations affinity groups. They insist on press censorship within the coalition's most sensitive A16 "scenario" working groups. And they organize training seminars on how to talk to reporters, with constant reminders to "stay on message" about global capitalism when the cameras and microphones come beckoning-which they always do.
It's all just as controlled and intermediated as the corporate propaganda they inveigh against. In the weeks and days leading up to the big shebang, the only glimpse into the movement's unvarnished heart and soul is through its best and most unregulated organizing tool: e-mail.
The debate is unfettered by the need for the twinkling of hands. People spout off about whatever is on their minds: Do we need a list of demands? Should A16 be treated as a "coming-out" event for the new coalition? Will the name "Mobilization for Global Justice" be twisted by the media into "Global Justice Mob?" Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
E-mail is also a guide to the coalition's cracks and fissures. "Sprout" and other members of the Arts in Action working group, in the midst of organizing a protest road show and caravan up and down the East Coast, launch something of a minor internal tempest about tactics on Feb. 16. They ask that other working groups discuss how to work within the A16 nonviolence guidelines "without explicitly marginalizing activists that use other tactics (like those that target property)."
Two camps develop on this issue. One thinks that protest leaders should explicitly condemn property destruction. That would be going a step further than most of the public pronouncements, in which coalition leaders have affirmed their commitment to nonviolence but said they couldn't speak for-let alone control-everybody who might show up at the protest. The other camp, invoking the mantle of "diversity" in tactics, does not want to publicly attack people outside the coalition who want to target property.
Part of the debate turns on the employment of "peacekeepers," volunteers who would serve as police liaisons during the major protest action. In many people's minds, they would be little more than "peace cops," trying to keep people in check. Peacekeepers were used in Seattle, but they became controversial among activists when some of them were accused of physically restraining would-be vandals and others. [Editorial note: as we know, properly trained nonviolent peacekeepers do not restrain or assault others, but untrained people in Seattle did in fact do so. C.M.]
On Feb. 22, the debate gets a big splash of cold water from superorganizer Nadine Bloch, a veteran of Seattle with 20 years' experience in the radical environmental movement. Bloch, a 38-year-old Greenpeace activist and Takoma Park resident, posts an e-mail seeking an end to the discussion over violence and tactics. It is to become a familiar refrain.
"As a movement to deal with structural violence that is perpetuated by monstrous corporate institutions, we can do ourselves a HUGE favor by focusing on the issues and not divide and conquer ourselves over questions of tactics," Bloch writes.
Debate about tactics, Bloch adds, creates a wedge in the movement-"one of the ways the right destroys us from within." She also argues that the violence of Seattle was all perpetrated by the police. "There was NO violence in Seattle, EXCEPT on the part of the Police, which tear gassed, pepper sprayed and rubber-bulleted the 30-40 THOUSAND nonviolent protesters," she writes. "There were some people (about 20-30 TOTAL by the Police's estimate) that engaged in the tactic of property destruction."
But advocates for using peacekeepers, themselves starting to feel marginalized, decline to keep quiet. The day after Bloch weighs in, an activist and trainer using the name Starhawk posts a message on the trainers' list asking how a few people bent on destruction can be allowed to take cover in the middle of an otherwise nonviolent mass action. "How is it that these people are presenting themselves as the injured party here?" Starhawk asks.
Starhawk's plea is echoed by Carol Moore, a member of Washington D.C. Area War Tax Resistance and an organizer of a group of peacekeepers that will eventually be allowed to patrol the legal, "permitted" April 16 demonstration on the Ellipse. Moore posts a message on Feb. 23 saying that she cannot agree with Bloch that "using physical force to smash windows is not violence." She asks for more discussion: "If we can't learn nonviolent conflict resolution within our movements, how can we create a peaceful world?"
Meanwhile, on a separate anarchist discussion group, a faction identifying itself as the Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Bloc vows that its members will not bow to peacekeepers in Washington: "We cannot accept the active participation of cops and/or peacekeepers in this or any other movement, protest or demonstration. Those whose job it is to protect the ruling class' interests cannot be trusted to simultaneously support us."
While stopping short of an explicit call for property destruction, the anarchist statement says, "We cannot work with people who dictate what tactics are and are not appropriate. No one should be pretending to own this movement or this demo."
Adams Morgan, March 9 Night has fallen, and the bucket brigade is gathering in Adam Eidinger's fashionable roof-terrace condominium. The "More World, Less Bank" posters are laid out in piles on the living room floor. Eidinger, a young publicist working for Democratic media consultant Steve Rabinowitz, has signed on in his spare time to do media for the Mobilization for Global Justice.
A 26-year-old American University graduate with a fashion sense that has led him to nerdy, black-plastic-rimmed eyeglasses, Eidinger has emerged as something of the movement's Washington spokesperson. He does press and arranges events. Tonight's event just happens to be mildly undercover.
Eidinger, who takes a lighthearted approach to his task, is pouring wheat paste into buckets over his kitchen sink. "My pet peeve is when people return the buckets all sticky," he says to the gathering troops. Over the course of this weeknight, about a dozen other young activists will filter in and out of his condo. Each one will be dispatched to glue the posters to lampposts and walls all over the Washington area.
"If you see the police, just tell them what you're doing," he counsels. He recounts his own experience from a few nights before, when he was confronted by an Arlington police officer as his crew surreptitiously glued posters in Crystal City: "He was like, 'I don't like the WTO and the World Bank, either. Don't look so guilty when you hang posters.'"
For the moment, Eidinger is blissfully unaware that a couple of Metropolitan Police Department detectives from the gang intelligence unit are following an e-mail trail to his condo. They will pay him a visit two weeks later. But all they can do is issue a warning, prompting another swirl of publicity. What will hurt Eidinger more will be losing his job with Rabinowitz-which will happen a week after the police visit.
Tonight, the operation is on, and the troops are pumped. "I've always had subversive tendencies, and Adam just brought them out," says friend Steve Izzo, a fellow American University grad. Among the other volunteers are an artist, a self-employed computer consultant, a guy from the Free Burma Coalition, and a guy who works a 280-acre farm in Upper Marlboro. The farmer, Matthew Hora, of College Park, says that he got involved in the mobilization effort through the Internet. Somebody else in the room announces proudly, "All the news I read is on the Internet."
Eidinger goes through a couple of last-minute instructions about the mechanics of wheat-pasting: Treated wood and rubber surfaces don't work well; metal and concrete work better.
Then, after a beer or two, they're off into the night. Eidinger joins "Task Force D," a three-man crew that will paper 14th Street downtown. One guy pastes, one guy rolls, and Eidinger serves as police lookout. The alarm word is not "police" but "doughnuts." It's getting on to 11 o'clock. "We won't look too suspicious," one of them says. "We'll just be three guys hanging out with the crack whores."
University of the District of Columbia, March 14, 7 p.m. It's A16 minus one month (give or take a day or two). Eidinger, dressed in a suit and tie for another general organizing meeting, is running through the list of media that sent representatives to the Mobilization for Global Justice's "coming-out" press conference at the National Press Club that afternoon. The list includes an impressive array of broadcast outlets: Fox, CBS, CNN, NPR...more than 50 reporters in all.
Hands twinkle all around.
A lot of people were caught napping before the Battle in Seattle, and now it is clear that the press isn't going to be accused of not seeing this one coming. Many of the luminaries of Seattle are here at the law school tonight, including Public Citizen's Dolan, Global Exchange's Danaher, and Greenpeace veteran Bloch.
Dolan, who's stayed in the background of the Washington protest-planning, is announced to another round of twinkling hands. He's a hardened labor organizer; this touchy-feely stuff is not his bag. But he's a good-natured guy, and he takes the adulation in stride. He says little.
Tonight's pep talk is delivered by Danaher, whose book on the IMF and World Bank, 50 Years Is Enough, is on sale at the front of the classroom. "We are going to make history in the streets a month from now, just like we did in Seattle," Danaher tells the crowd of about 200. "This is the first truly global revolution."
With a shaved head and a T-shirt revealing a good build, Danaher cuts an imposing figure in a room otherwise dominated by young radical-intellectual types. The tattered ranks, including an ascetic-looking monk in saffron robes and sneakers, present a wide range of body types, few as buff as Danaher's. He sprinkles in phrases like "Dig it." We've got a white man's Shaft here. Accenting the macho look is Danaher's rhetorical bravado: "We're going to kick some ass a month from now."
University of the District of Columbia, March 14, 9 p.m. Paul Kuhn, the 34-year-old impresario of the self-styled Lavender Leopard Society, a group that wants to keep the P Street Beach safe for gay cruising, proposes an April 16 demonstration around Dupont Circle to protest the area's gentrification. He wants it to be at night, for people who won't have gotten enough action at the day's World Bank/IMF protests.
He's immediately cut off by Bloch. "You can't propose something for Sunday night," she snaps. "You have to do that in the working group."
Kuhn, aka Luke, is a beefy guy with long, wavy brown hair and a sleeveless Doors T-shirt. Suddenly, he's the picture of contrition. "Sorry, I didn't know the process," he says.
Cyberspace, March 19 Questions are being raised in the discussion groups about the organization's openness and supposed devotion to a nonhierarchical structure.
"I've spoken with some students who are somewhat new to activism, and was told that they felt profoundly out of place at the big meetings, as if there was absolutely no reason to be there," writes Zachary Wolfe, a National Lawyer's Guild member. "There is a sense that a handful of people think they know what to do, and everyone else had best fall in line and follow directions."
Chuck Munson, a soft-spoken anarchist and computer specialist better known by his Internet moniker, ChuckO, takes up the thread: "These meetings resemble something more akin to being run by Roberts Rules of Order. If these meetings are to be run by consensus, they need to be longer. This means that they should start on time, so that those of us who commute to the suburbs don't have to get home around midnight. It also means that people shouldn't be told to shut up when they offer a suggestion at the wrong time."
The suggestion that the mobilization has leaders and followers has long been a hot topic of contention, and not just via e-mail. Maintaining a veneer of solidarity amid an otherwise fractured left requires some delicate diplomacy. Part of the schtick is that nobody acts like a dictator. Although there have been insider jokes about the existence of a "central committee," Eidinger, ever the flak, takes pains to portray the organization as flat and leaderless: "It's really an amorphous, informal group. There really is no leadership."
Dissenters within the movement-and not just Budney-seem to sense an unseen hand pulling things together behind the scene. Moore, the sidelined peacekeeper, puts Bloch high on her list of suspects. "She's totally in control," Moore says.
Others aren't sure that's such a bad thing. Dolan, who comes from the tradition of the United Farm Workers and other labor groups, says he's more comfortable with the speed and efficiency of a hierarchical chain of command and accountability. He acknowledges having played a leadership role in Seattle, although he's eschewed that function for April 16. But he believes others have filled the vacuum. "I would say Nadine [Bloch] is in charge, but she'll deny it," he says.
Bloch, in fact, does deny it. An interview in her office quickly turns confrontational. "There are people within a nonhierarchical structure who have leadership characteristics," she says. Pressed to explain what she means, she repeats in a rising voice: "There are people within a nonhierarchical structure who have leadership characteristics."
The Convergence Space, April 8 There's a hard wind blowing in Washington on this Saturday morning, a week before the big demonstration. Hundreds of activists are swirling around the newly opened "Convergence Space," the movement's ramshackle headquarters in a warehouse at the end of a brick alley off Florida Avenue in Columbia Heights. There are registration tables for volunteers, for people who need housing, and for reporters, who seem to be everywhere.
Sticks, bamboo poles, and cans of paint are stacked up in a large workshop area for building puppets. There are also boxes of beans, rice, and vegetables for the kitchen, which will provide largely vegetarian fare to hungry protesters throughout the weeklong buildup. About 50 bicycles, in various states of repair, are parked in the alley next to the door leading into the center.
Martin Thomas, a D.C. Statehood Green Party activist who's campaigning to become the District's shadow representative to Congress, points to a map on the wall to orient activists, who are starting to arrive from around the nation. More than 1,000 people are on a waiting list for shelter, and he's trying to make arrangements for them in churches, dormitories, houses, and campgrounds throughout the area. He and his housemate, Kate Loewe, who works on human rights issues in Central America, are pitching in by sharing space in their Mount Pleasant house with Smucker and Gardner, the organizers from Minnesota.
Francesca Zamora, a 31-year-old art teacher from Los Angeles, has found digs at the Olive Branch, which she calls "a space where activists live and work." On her way to law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, next year, Zamora is also a member of the Midnight Special Law Collective, which is here to share legal advice with the protesters. "We're about empowering people with information," she says. "It's exciting on the level of having the regulars, who are always organizing, mix in with the new heads."
But one of the regulars who shows up is Budney. And this time he's brought a bullhorn with him. He stands at the end of the alley, wearing shocking-pink sunglasses, and harangues the new arrivals: "Go back to Berkeley!" he shouts. "We don't want you here in D.C....Go home, you stupid boys and girls. You're not allowed to have ice cream!"
Redemption Ministry, April 11 Blues singer and Southeast neighborhood activist Katie Shephard is trying to sing "I Believe I Can Fly." But the sound system keeps cutting out here in this storefront church on South Capitol Street in Anacostia.
No matter. She's here to make connections, and she's not giving up. The main connection she's trying to make is between poverty and oppression in Ward 8 and poverty and oppression in the Third World. She's organized a forum with A16 outreach activist Chelsea Mozen, a recent graduate of Earlham College, a Quaker college in Indiana.
Shephard is black; Mozen is white. Together, they're trying to bridge another gap-the seeming chasm of disinterest in the IMF and World Bank protests among D.C.'s black-majority population.
Shephard provided a mailing list of 150 names. But though everybody was sent a notice, most of the plastic conference room chairs are empty, five days before the major demonstration. About 25 people have shown up-not counting the Rev. Anthony Motley and his seven-piece band-but it's not clear if many will be marching on Sunday. A few of the older church women in the back row have trouble walking.
A panel of experts includes Njoki Njoroge Njehu, the leader of 50 Years Is Enough. She describes the deteriorating health-care system in her native Kenya, a victim of the lending practices of the IMF and World Bank. "The problems of poor people are the same around the world," she says. "The oppression of the World Bank and IMF is global, so the solidarity must be global."
But unlike some of the people giving dissertations at the Mobilization for Global Justice meetings-with their emphasis on international trade, tariffs, and IMF and World Bank "structural adjustment" policies that link loans to social austerity measures-the speakers at this church meeting are going for a local focus. The talk is about unemployment, disinvestment, poor health care, and poverty.
"I'm not going to talk about structural adjustment," says Teamster activist Roger Newell. "I don't think it really rings a bell here." Instead, Newell talks about how the city is "stealing your children's birthright" by investing in downtown sports arenas and privatizing public-sector jobs, rather than investing in neighborhoods.
It's the same story all over the world, he says: "The rich want to get richer." Which brings the talk to the reason these protests are happening in Washington and why the black community should get behind them.
Clearly, there's more organizing to do. Motley prays and promises that his Redemption Ministry might put a few more black faces in the rally. But even if it doesn't, not all is lost for Shephard, who finally gets the sound system working for her: "We are blessed. Our poverty would be heaven in other countries. But we're here to get people to think about things other than crime, schools, and welfare."
Convergence Space, April 15, 8:30 a.m. The police strike first. About 20 activists are attending a last-minute meeting on media strategy when police and fire officials show up at the door of their protest headquarters. They announce that they're there for fire-code violations. They cite the propane tanks in the kitchen. Elliott Caldwell, a member of the scenario group, tries to shut them out. "They said, 'You've got 45 seconds to open the door,'" he'll recall later. "I left. And somebody opened up the door.When I came back, the police were inside."
With hundreds of protesters milling about outside, some just piling out of buses from out of town, about 150 police officers and fire inspectors fan out and around the warehouse. Then they evacuate the building and close off the block. Yellow tape now separates the activists from their headquarters full of supplies and puppets.
"They say they're looking for flammable liquids for Molotov cocktails," Eidinger fumes. "That's bullshit. The only flammable liquid they found was a can of paint thinner."
The raid, however, has brought on an onslaught of reporters from around the world. It's become increasingly clear, as many union members have left town after a Capitol rally on Wednesday, that the numbers aren't materializing to shut down the IMF and World Bank. The police are too well-organized. So after a week of minor skirmishing and small marches around town, the press is eager to cover something besides puppet shows.
Njehu stands in front of the police tape on 14th Street and launches into a diatribe against the police, ending: "They should be down at the World Bank and IMF asking questions of the people who are meeting there. They should not be here harassing activists who are making puppets out of papier mâché and cornstarch."
Legal observer Peter Erlinder, past president of the National Lawyer's Guild, denounces the raid as a "pretext to deny these people their First Amendment rights."
Clearly, in the battle for control over the city, the police have taken the initiative. About 1,000 to 2,000 protesters regroup a few blocks away in the Wilson Center, at 15th and Irving Streets NW. They wear ponchos and bandannas against the steady drizzle. There's gathering excitement, but there's also a sense that everyone's all dressed up with no place to go. Organizers try to disperse them, lest they bring on another police raid. They also see that they can salvage a victory on the public relations front. Says Smucker, one of the rousted organizers: "When you seize our puppets, you're only helping our cause."
13th Street and Florida Avenue NW, April 15, 4 p.m. After some telephone negotiations between protest allies and authorities, the police agree to let the protesters reclaim some personal belongings, food, and, most important, their puppets. Negotiator Clark Lobenstine, executive director of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, is asked if he believes that the police had only the protesters' health and safety in mind when they shut down their headquarters. "I believe that was one motive," he says diplomatically.
Protest organizers are still outraged. But they maintain discipline. An impromptu drum session and dance break out in the rain on 14th Street. "The police have given us so many opportunities to show we're nonviolent," says Loewe, watching as organizers load several trucks with protest paraphernalia from the seized headquarters.
"Morale is superhigh," says Ruckus Society organizer Han Shan. But expectations are also diminishing. "It's a victory even if we don't shut them down tomorrow. I mean, they've thrown everything they have at us."
20th and K Streets NW, April 15, 7 p.m. Several hundred protesters on a march through downtown are trapped by riot police on 20th Street, about three blocks from the World Bank. The police accuse them of parading without a permit and failing to disperse. The protesters claim they weren't given a chance to disperse. Rows of riot police in full Darth Vader protection gear keep supporters and passers-by at bay. A steady drizzle falls as it gets dark over the city. The marchers, numbering about 600, are arrested and put on school buses, to the jeers and chants of thousands of others who have been summoned to the corner by cell phone. This will mean many fewer bodies at the barricades the next morning, and some protesters are already worrying privately that the numbers won't be what they hoped for or anticipated.
But it's not all gloom. Dolan arrives at the corner and looks over the scene. "Drizzle and lots of cops," he says. "Looks just like Seattle."
Washington Circle, April 16, 6 a.m. First light breaks heavy and damp, revealing a couple hundred people milling about outfitted for battle. Many are wearing army boots, rucksacks, water bottles, and gas masks. They step around a homeless man lying on the ground, propped against a shopping cart, trying to get some sleep. Everyone is startled when a noisy police scootercade comes screeching around the circle, sirens wailing, and heads down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the IMF and World Bank. "Damn," a guy in a bandanna mutters to himself. "This is serious."
Shan, a clean-cut looking young man with Paul Newman eyes, shows up with a cell phone attached to his ear. A bike messenger pulls up and tells him that "22nd Street to I Street looks pretty clear." A "flying squad" of about 100 activists forms and takes off on the suggested route.
Then a woman on a bullhorn organizes the next squad. "Is the hot-pink group ready to go?" she asks. A triangular pink flag is produced, and somebody from the crowd yells, "Follow the pink flag!" Another squad is dispatched for the perimeter of the IMF conference. Shan joins the group down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The pink group winds its way through the George Washington University campus, picking up other contingents, including self-styled "Black Bloc" anarchists, as it makes its way toward the police barriers at 17th Street and New York Avenue. The searchlight of a police helicopter picks up the protesters as it hovers overhead. It's getting light as they arrive, and they meet a festive group pounding drums. The crowd, however, is still too thin to stop any buses or cars heading into the conference it's pledged to stop.
It's like that all up and down the police barriers in this sector, one of 13 zones designated by protest leaders on the perimeter drawn by the police, who are now donning their gas masks. There's the acrid smell of vinegar in the air as the protesters ready their defenses for a tear-gas attack that doesn't come.
There's nothing to do but wait for more people to create a critical mass that can face off credibly with the police. Until then, groups of protesters march back and forth in confusion, wondering which way to go.
"They're holding most of our lines," says an exasperated Antonia Juhasz, as she tries to direct people to various intersections. "I need people."
20th and E Streets NW, April 16, 7:10 a.m. The people keep coming. Munson, at the head of the growing anarchist contingent, is pointing at the Old Executive Office Building, leading a phalanx of black flags toward the spot being held by the pink-flag squad. "We have to give solidarity to the people down here," he announces. But on its march, the group crosses paths with another contingent going the other way, reacting to reports that the IMF delegates are assembling at the Kennedy Center for a ride to the conference.
It's like that for much of the next hour, as people mill about looking for something to do. The costumes and the pageantry of colorful flags, floating puppets, and dark headgear seem more striking than anything that's actually happening at the police barriers. A group of young women poses for a tourist photo. But the crowds are growing, and people are starting to link arms or lock themselves together in front of the police lines. Unrealized danger seems to be all around. Steam pours out of a State Department sidewalk grate. Someone asks nervously, "Tear gas?" A bike messenger rides up and reports, "There's no gas, and the police aren't doing anything." A few minutes later, somebody shouts that the perimeter is secure, meaning that the IMF and World Bank complex is surrounded. "You are awesome!" an organizer shouts.
The chant goes up: "Whose streets? Our streets!"
Word on the street, though, is that some number of delegates, perhaps many of them, are getting through. "The solidarity is there," says Dorian, part of a cluster from Gainesville, Fla., calling itself Fucking Florida and Friends. "But I don't know if we can keep the delegates from getting through." He suggests that the situation is a testament to the restraint shown by the demonstrators. "It's probably more peaceful here than it is on a normal day in D.C."
Amid uncertainty on the street, especially among the organizers tied together by the network of bikes and cell phones, there's a sense that the growing show of force is itself cause to declare victory. "We're getting lots of information, which we're trying to filter," Shan says. "There are indications that some delegates have gotten through. But I don't know that it matters if we shut down the institution. They're under siege, and they're under criticism from every sector in society. What we're looking for is a victory party out in the street. Essentially, the tone is peaceful."
14th Street and New York Avenue NW, April 16, 9:30 a.m. Wire fencing, wood, and other construction debris are piling up in the intersection, liberated from the site of a future "executive tower" on the corner. Some protesters have decided they want a physical backstop for the activists who are locking arms there. "I don't agree with this," says Manu Kapoor, a protest supporter from Boston. "But like anything, it's a statement, I guess."
A young woman in blond dreadlocks and a red scarf is imploring protesters to get active. "Everybody on the sidewalk, we need you on the street," she shouts over a bullhorn. "Don't just stand around like tourists-do something."
Whether heeding her advice or not, some members of the Black Bloc and others soon find themselves facing off with riot police on 14th Street. According to SpeakOut.com reporter Jason Vest, something is thrown in the direction of the police. They respond by driving the group back into Franklin Square, smashing skin and tulips in a blitz of riot sticks and smoke.
18th and I Street NW, April 16, 11 a.m. Comedian Dick Gregory, a one-man bridge to a different race, a different age, and a different era, is strolling along casually in a white warm-up suit, nodding his hellos to well-wishers. "There's no manual for what the police are confronting here," he says, praising the creativity of the young activists' pageantry and swarming tactics.
19th and I Streets, April 16, 11:30 a.m. There's a nastiness developing between another insurgent crowd of black-clad activists and the police line on 19th Street, which offers the best view of the delegates' buses in front of the World Bank and IMF. A skinny punk in a black ski mask starts smashing out the windows of what is taken for an unmarked police car that's been unwisely parked outside the perimeter. "Fucking bullshit," says a young woman, walking away in disgust. Vince Hedger, a long-haired college student from Harrisonburg, Va., steps in front of the ski-mask kid. "This is not anarchy!" he screams at the vandal. "This is inarticulate rage!"
Somebody strings up yellow tape that says, "Mumia 911."
Police Chief Charles Ramsey shows up soon after and walks the line, patting his officers on the shoulder. He stops briefly to talk to reporters and activists, trying to calm the situation. He orders the officers to take their masks off, apologizing, saying that both sides have a tendency to get overzealous. He tells the crowd, "I've been here before, in 1968, but I was on the other side of the line. Man, times change, don't they?"
21st and G Streets NW, April 16, Noon Chalk one up for the protesters. A bus coming down G Street toward the IMF is forced to back out when thousands of activists sit down and block the intersection. They even withstand a police smoke-canister charge. Feeling his oats, another black-ski-mask kid takes a whack at the rear window of a parked George Washington University Police car. A confederate spray-paints something about "Kops" in black on the hood. "You moron!" somebody yells. "The corporate media is going to be all over this." Indeed, within moments, about 20 press photographers are busy at work making close-up images of broken glass and spray paint.
19th Street NW, April 16, 12:15 p.m. Back at the barricades, the Radical Cheerleaders of D.C., in red-and-white outfits emblazoned with "RCDC," have just paraded by. The 40-foot puppets have come and gone. People are singing and chanting in the street. Drums and whistles are deafening. Ambrose, one of the organizers of the legal protest happening over at the Ellipse, is playing hooky, AWOL from his post at the permitted demonstration. He just had to come and see what was happening on the streets of downtown D.C. "It's very positive, very energetic," he says.
They didn't close down the conference-the police were way too ready for that. But the crowds have swollen to respectable levels after the early-morning panic, when it seemed everyone was still in jail or in bed. By anybody's standards, this is a major demonstration. It will probably go down in D.C. demo lore, like 1971, when thousands of anti-war protesters blocked the 14th Street Bridge. Franklin-Ramirez, ancient, feisty, and glowing, is interviewed by television crews. She seems proud.
Everyone can leave happy. The IMF. The World Bank. The cops. And certainly the people who brought us A16. "The other day, I was picking someone up at the bus station, and I saw a young white woman and a black man arguing about Third World debt," Ambrose says. "That's what I want to see. That is the sort of victory we were aiming for."
20th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, April 17, 7 a.m. It's a rainy Monday, and it feels like the morning after a big party. The day's promised blockade fails to materialize. It's not even close. The police have the barricades to themselves. The roughly 1,000 protesters who do show up for the denouement of A16 dedicate themselves mostly to a meandering march through downtown, dodging in and out of early-morning commuter traffic, skirmishing with police in riot gear.
In a final act of defiance, Free Tibet activist Nicholas Udu-gama stands in front of a van crossing a police barrier on Pennsylvania Avenue. His eyes are still stinging from pepper spray from an encounter with U.S. marshals a few minutes earlier. He stands alone, an easy target for three riot police who descend on him from the barricade and another police car. "I didn't feel anything, but I hit the ground pretty hard," Udu-gama, a freshman pre-med student at George Washington, will explain later. "If I was thinking rationally, I probably wouldn't have done it."
Farragut Square, April 17, 9:15 a.m. Udu-gama is still at it, in his white rain poncho, jumping up and down and clapping between police lines forming on K Street. The crowds are still milling, but the energy is dissipating.
"Whose streets?" he yells. There's no answer. CP
-------- israel
U.N. Plans To Bolster Its Troops In Lebanon
Aim Is to Fill Gap After Israeli Pullout
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post
Friday, April 21, 2000; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/21/174l-042100-idx.html
UNITED NATIONS, April 20-The United Nations may roughly double the size of its peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, from 4,500 troops to as many as 8,000 troops, to fill a security vacuum following an Israeli pullout expected before July 7, U.S. and U.N. diplomats said today.
The additional peacekeepers would police Lebanese territory now under Israeli control and patrol the country's border with northern Israel. Diplomats said the United Nations has already asked several countries to provide armored personnel carriers, communications equipment and other logistical assistance.
The U.N. Security Council today formally requested that Secretary General Kofi Annan begin preparations for the Israeli withdrawal. Annan dispatched his Middle East envoy, Terje Roed Larsen, to seek the cooperation of key countries--Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat, was instrumental in the secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that led to the 1994 Oslo Accords. "Cooperation by all parties concerned will be required in order to avoid a deterioration," according to a statement from the Security Council.
Israel hopes the peacekeepers will prevent Syrian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militants from launching cross-border raids against northern Israel after the withdrawal, according to diplomats here. However, it is unclear whether the countries likely to contribute additional troops, such as France, Ireland and Fiji, will authorize them to use force to stop such raids.
Diplomats said today that a number of countries have expressed willingness to send additional troops, but only if the United Nations is able to reach an understanding that Syria and Lebanon will restrain the anti-Israeli guerrillas.
The United States will not provide troops for the mission.
Some diplomats said there are reasons to be optimistic that the Israeli withdrawal will occur peacefully. First, there is an emerging consensus among the key Security Council members--the United States, France, Russia and Tunisia--over the need for a reinforced U.N. mission in southern Lebanon.
They also cite the involvement of Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Charaa in drafting today's Security Council statement as a sign that Damascus, the main power broker in Lebanon, may cooperate with the United Nations.
Annan, however, made it clear that the mission would not be "risk free."
"Obviously, we will have to go in with the right strength and the right force to be able to undertake our mandate, to defend our mandate and ourselves," Annan told reporters Wednesday.
Annan will not make a final decision on the size of the new mission until Larsen returns.
U.N. planners, however, have already asked countries that have contributed troops to the interim force (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon--Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy, Nepal and Poland--to be prepared for a request to increase their forces.
The secretary general has the authority, based on a 1982 Security Council resolution, to increase UNIFIL to about 7,000 troops. But the U.N. military planners are considering a request for 7,500 or even 8,000 troops, which could require Security Council approval, according to some diplomats.
Israel reiterated its intention to pull out of Lebanon in a letter to Annan on Monday, even though Prime Minister Ehud Barak has been unable to conclude a peace agreement with Syria, which has about 35,000 troops in Lebanon. Israeli troops first invaded Lebanon in 1978 and later established a nine-mile-wide buffer zone in the southern part of the country to prevent attacks on northern Israel.
In 1978, the Security Council also passed two resolutions, Nos. 425 and 426, demanding that Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon and establishing UNIFIL to restore security and help the Lebanese government regain authority over the area.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, told reporters here Monday that Israeli forces will withdraw behind Lebanon's "internationally recognized border" with Lebanon "in one go." A major sticking point for Israel and the world body is whether Lebanon will live up to its obligation to reclaim its authority over southern Lebanon.
"We will need the cooperation of Beirut," said a diplomat here. "It is not up to UNIFIL to do Lebanon's work."
----
UN Chief Hails Duma Approval of Nuke Test Ban
April 21, 2000
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/000421/18/international-russia-un
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday hailed the Russian parliament's ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty and drew attention to the failure of Washington and Beijing to do likewise.
Annan, in a statement issued by a spokesman, said he was "deeply gratified" to learn of the action by the Russian Duma, which ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty on Friday.
The Duma's action, he said, enhanced "prospects for the entry-into-force of this important legal instrument against nuclear proliferation and the further development of nuclear weapons."
Annan noted that among the five declared nuclear weapons states, France and Britain had ratified the CTBT. The other two are China and the United States, where the Republican-led Senate last year failed to approve the treaty despite lobbying by the Clinton administration, which has signed it.
Annan, depository for the treaty, urged "those states that have still not signed and or ratified the treaty to do so as expeditiously as possible."
The Duma's ratification of the CTBT as well as the SALT II arms reduction treaty with the United States, puts Moscow in a good position at next weeks review conference in New York of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of nuclear arms conventions.
To date 41 countries have signed the treaty and 28 have ratified it. A total of 44 nations with varying degrees of nuclear capability must sign as well as ratify the CTBT, initiated in 1996, for it to take effect.
All have signed except for India, Pakistan and North Korea. The treaty bans all explosions in the environment, whether in the atmosphere, space or underground, regardless of size. A 1963 treaty barred explosions in the atmosphere and another one in 1974 set some limits on underground tests.
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Israelis Attack Guerrilla Hideouts
April 21, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Lebanon-Israel.html
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- Israeli helicopter gunships struck suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Lebanon today, killing a Hezbollah guerrilla, officials said.
The aircraft fired several missiles in three early morning sorties over woods near the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, Lebanese security and Hezbollah officials said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
A statement issued by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group said one of its fighters, Mohammed Akhdar, 20, was killed.
In a separate attack, a single U.S.-made Apache gunship fired a missile at the center of Nabatiyeh, Lebanese security officials said. The Israeli missile did not explode but caused damage to shops and its impact led to panic among residents.
The officials said the missile could have caused heavy casualties had it detonated. They did not know the target or reason for the missile, but noted several Hezbollah members live in the area.
Israeli military officials, however, denied a missile attack on the town's center.
In a statement issued in Jerusalem, the military said one of its attacks in the area struck a vehicle carrying rockets, causing the munitions on board to explode and disperse in the area.
``It is possible that the (Lebanese) reports refer to the debris from the ammunition,'' the statement said.
The Israeli military confirmed the other raids, saying all aircraft returned safely.
Today's violence came after Hezbollah detonated two roadside bombs in southern Lebanon, killing one Israeli-backed militiaman Thursday. The day before, two guerrillas were killed in an Israeli attack.
Hezbollah is trying to oust some 1,500 Israeli soldiers and the 2,500 Israeli-backed militiamen from a border enclave held by Israel since 1985 as a buffer against cross-border guerrilla attacks on its northern towns.
Israel on Monday formally notified the United Nations that it plans to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon by July.
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Nuclear test ban treaty flies through Russian Duma
April 21, 2000
http://cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/04/21/russia.test.ban.02/index.html
MOSCOW (CNN) -- Russia's parliament handed President-elect Vladimir Putin a major victory on nuclear policy Friday, handily passing the second major arms control agreement to come before it this week.
Russia's lower house, the Duma, voted 298 to 74 to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, requiring Russia to end nuclear test explosions once other nuclear-capable nations have done so.
The upper house, the Federation Council, is expected to follow suit quickly.
Putin had pushed both the CTBT and START II, ratified by the upper house on Wednesday, to give Russia an edge over the United States -- which has not ratified the CTBT -- in arms reduction talks.
"We are using offensive tactics," said Duma member Gennady Rykov. "Now if the United States does not ratify the treaty, they will show their true face: that they are against the test ban."
Russian Foreign Secretary Igor Ivanov is scheduled to leave Moscow for the United States on Sunday for preliminary talks on a START III.
More than 150 countries have signed the CTBT, but with Russia's vote, only 52 have ratified it. The treaty will not go into effect until all 44 countries considered to have nuclear capability -- including the United States -- ratify it.
The U.S. Senate failed to ratify the treaty last year, with opponents arguing that it would compromise the nation's weapons program. Egypt, Pakistan, India, China, Israel and North Korea are also holdouts on the treaty.
Russian finances limit nuclear policy
The Russian arms control offensive is rooted in economic necessity. START II -- which will not go into effect until the U.S. Senate approves protocols added in 1997 -- would cut the number of nuclear warheads in Russia and the United States in half.
Russia's defense ministry supports the push, saying it does not have the money to replace aging missiles. The cuts, the ministry said, are the only way to maintain parity with the United States.
"Russia today economically is not in very good shape, to put it mildly," said military analyst Sergei Rogov. "Russia is not interested at all in a new arms race, and that is why the preservation and strengthening of arms control ... is definitely in Russia's national interest."
But the Duma's Communists and their allies opposed the treaty.
"We shouldn't have done it before the Americans," said Communist deputy Yegor Libachev.
"Lately, there has been a deliberate movement aimed at depriving Russia of its status as a nuclear power," said Ivan Nikitchuk, another Communist legislator.
Putin's representative in the Duma, Alexander Kotenkov, dismissed the Communists' concerns, however, saying that until the other nations ratified the treaty, Russia could still conduct tests.
But Russia, which has not exploded a nuclear device in 10 years, currently has a moratorium on such tests.
Military doctrine OKs nuclear strike
And while the Duma was supporting Putin's drive for nuclear reduction, the president-elect was pushing a draft of a new military doctrine through his Security Council.
The new doctrine, replacing a 1993 policy, stems from concerns over a perceived threat from NATO and Islamic militants.
One of the key points of the new doctrine is that Russia is incapable of defending itself from a mass attack by conventional forces without the use of nuclear weapons.
Western officials have criticized the new doctrine as too harsh, but Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov said it was merely a defensive measure.
Correspondent Steve Harrigan, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Russian Duma Ratifies Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
April 21, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/00/04/21/late/21cnd-russia.html
MOSCOW -- Lawmakers today overwhelmingly approved the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which would oblige Russia to end all nuclear test explosions once the United States and other nuclear-capable nations comply.
Hailing the vote, lawmakers said it gave Russia a moral edge over the United States, which has not ratified the treaty. Moscow is very critical of Washington's stand on nuclear arms reduction.
"The ratification gives Russia an excellent chance to seize the initiative in nuclear arms talks," said Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Duma's committee on international affairs.
The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, ratified the treaty by 298 to 74 after government officials urged lawmakers to back President Vladimir Putin's call for major cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.
The vote came a week after the Duma broke a seven-year nuclear deadlock by ratifying the START II treaty under which Russia and the United States would scrap thousands of nuclear warheads.
Putin, who won election last month, has made nuclear arms reduction a key part of his foreign policy. The quick approval of two key treaties in a row underlines his strong authority and the dominance of the new centrist majority in the Duma.
The test ban treaty must be ratified by the upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council, where swift approval is expected. Russia has not exploded a nuclear device since 1990.
The Communists wanted to make Russian ratification of the test ban treaty dependent on the United States, China, India, Pakistan and India ratifying the measure. The Duma ignored the proposal and many hardline deputies voted for ratification.
"We shouldn't have done it before the Americans," complained Communist Deputy Yegor Ligachev after the vote.
Before the vote, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov urged lawmakers during the closed-door session to ratify the treaty.
The treaty has been signed by more than 150 countries, but with Russia's approval just 52 countries have ratified it. The treaty will not go into effect unless it is ratified by all 44 countries considered to have some degree of nuclear capability.
The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty last year, with opponents arguing that it would undermine the country's weapons program and that compliance by other countries could not be ensured.
Besides the United States and China, other holdouts include Egypt, Pakistan, India and North Korea.
Russia strongly criticized the Senate's vote although it had not at that time ratified the pact. But under Putin, Russia appears to be trying to seize the initiative in pushing arms control issues.
The ratification of START II, which was completed on Wednesday with approval by the upper house of the Russian parliament, ended years of Russian obstruction and bounced the issue back to the United States, where the Senate must approve amendments worked out by U.S. and Russian negotiators after the Senate ratified the pact in 1996.
START II ratification also cleared the way for talks to begin on further arms reductions under a proposed START III.
Ivanov is to leave for the United States on Sunday for meetings on arms control issues, including the tense disagreement between Washington and Moscow over the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
The Kremlin opposes the United States' proposal to amend the ABM treaty to allow construction of a limited missile-defense system. Conservatives in the U.S. Senate claim ABM became obsolete with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"This is an additional argument which will help put pressure on the United States so that they give up their plan to develop anti-missile defenses," said Rogozin, head of the international committee.
"If the Americans find themselves in isolation, they will have to blame themselves," he added.
Putin has warned the United States that he will abandon START II and all nuclear arms control treaties if Washington breaks with ABM.
The Duma's ratification of the test ban treaty is expected to give Moscow an edge in talks with U.S. officials.
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Russians OK Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
April 21, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Treaty.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a ban on nuclear test explosions Friday, boosting Moscow's campaign to pressure the United States into sweeping nuclear arms cuts.
The approval by Russia's State Duma, or lower chamber of parliament, of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty gives Moscow symbolic edge on the United States, where the Senate last year rejected the treaty.
The Russian approval came a week after the Duma ended seven years of deadlock by passing START II, a treaty to scrap thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads. It also came just days before an international review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is to begin in New York.
Russian officials hailed the ratification, saying it would back their drive to stop the United States from building an anti-nuclear missile defense system. Moscow believes the two votes by the Duma will help swing world opinion behind Russia in the dispute.
``This will help Russia in arms talks with Americans, taking away their main trump card, which has been Russia's repeated failure to ratify nuclear treaties,'' said Gennady Raikov, a senior lawmaker.
``If the Americans go ahead with building anti-missile defenses, they will find themselves isolated under the fire of public opinion,'' he added.
Russia is expected to try to take advantage of the Duma's actions when Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov attends talks next week in the United States on arms control issues, including the anti-ballistic missile and non-proliferation treaties.
The treaty approved Friday would ban nuclear tests only when the United States and other nations with nuclear capability also approve it, although Russia has not conducted a nuclear explosion since 1990.
The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty in 1999 after opponents said it would weaken American security. Other holdouts include China, Egypt, Pakistan, India and North Korea.
The defeat was a foreign policy setback for President Clinton, but the Russian ratification now could help him in the push for Senate approval.
In a written statement, Clinton on Friday congratulated President Vladimir Putin, the Duma ``and Russian citizens who together worked to achieve this important step toward a safer future.''
The Duma accepted the treaty by a vote of 298-74 after minimal debate.
Putin, who was elected last month, pushed the Duma to approve the test ban treaty and START II. Putin has made arms reductions a key part of his foreign policy and is pushing for further cuts under a proposed START III, which is being negotiated by U.S. and Russian diplomats.
Putin and other Russian leaders strongly oppose American proposals to amend the 1972 ABM treaty to allow construction of a limited missile defense system. Washington says the system is needed to defend against possible attacks by states such as North Korea.
Russia fears the U.S. system would make its own nuclear forces ineffective despite American denials. Putin has threatened to pull out of all nuclear arms control agreements if Washington goes ahead with it.
Putin has warned that Russia cannot afford a new nuclear arms race. Russia's nuclear forces, like the rest of the military, are falling apart because of the country's economic decline.
But while Russia may get a moral or symbolic boost from its approval of the test ban and START II, analysts say Moscow is still in a weak position and will find it difficult to force any major changes by Washington.
``This is a strong move for Russia, but mostly in the propaganda field,'' said Yevgeny Volk of the Heritage Foundation.
Some analysts say Putin may compromise on the ABM treaty. Some Russian generals reportedly want a change to agreements that prevent Moscow putting multiple-warheads on land-based missiles.
The test ban treaty must be ratified by the upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council, where swift approval is expected.
Also Friday, the Security Council approved the final text of Russia's new military doctrine, which broadens the Kremlin's authority to use nuclear weapons. Under the dictum, Russian leaders could use nuclear weapons to oppose any attack if other efforts fail.
The doctrine, which Putin said he would sign on Friday, will replace one adopted in 1993.
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Russian Mull Nuke Test Ban Treaty
APRIL 21, 04:55 EST
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7401F500
MOSCOW (AP) - Government officials today urged the lower house of parliament to approve the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty banning all nuclear test explosions.
The ratification hearing of the test ban treaty comes a week after the parliament broke a yearslong nuclear deadlock by ratifying the START II treaty, and approval of the test ban treaty was expected.
The U.S. Senate rejected the treaty last year, with opponents arguing that it would undermine the country's weapons program and that compliance by other countries could not be ensured.
The hearing in the State Duma, the lower house, was to be a closed session, a frequent move when issues involving classified information are discussed.
Parliament took up the debate on ratifying the treaty at the urging of President Vladimir Putin.
Dmitry Rogozin, chief of the chamber's international affairs committee, predicted earlier this week that the treaty would receive overwhelming support, and even the Communists, who opposed START II, are expected to join in voting for the test ban treaty.
Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov were expected to give reports at the hearing urging the legislature to ratify the treaty.
The treaty has been signed by more than 150 countries, but only 51 countries have ratified it. The treaty will not go into effect unless it is ratified by all 44 countries considered to have some degree of nuclear capability.
Besides the United States and China, other holdouts include Egypt, Pakistan, India and North Korea.
Russia strongly criticized the Senate's vote although it had not at that time ratified the pact. But under Putin, Russia appears to be trying to seize the initiative in pushing arms control issues.
The ratification of START II, which was completed on Wednesday with approval by the upper house, ended years of Russia obstructing the treaty and bounces the issue back to the United