--------
April 25, 2000 Daybook
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-200042521403.htm
SENATE COMMITTEES
10 a.m. - Senate Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee holds a hearing on fiscal 2001 defense appropriations, Army overview. Location: 192 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3471.
TODAY'S HEADLINERS
World Bank discussion - 8 a.m. - The Washington International Trade Association holds a discussion, "What's All the Fuss? The Results of the World Bank Annual Meeting and Protests." Location: Ronald Reagan Building, Horizon Ballroom, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Contact: 202/312-1600.
Anti-corporate campaigning workshop - 6:45 p.m. - The Institute for Policy Studies holds a corporate research workshop on organizing an effective anti-corporate campaign and a seminar on grass-roots organizing. Location: Institute for Policy Studies, Suite 1020, 733 15th St. NW. Contact: 202/234-9382.
-------- activists
PREVENTING AN ARMS RACE IN OUTER SPACE
April 25, 2000, in New York
From: Abolition 2000 <a2000@silcom.com>
The United States Government explicitly states that it wants to "control" space to protect its economic interests and establish superiority over the world. These efforts could produce a nuclear arms race in outer space and/or a nuclear catastrophe. The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space is challenging these plans. We invite you to attend a panel discussion on:
PREVENTING AN ARMS RACE IN OUTER SPACE
April 25, 2000 1:15- 2:45 PM
United Nations Conference Room 4 45th and 1st Avenue (enter through visitors' entrance) (You will need a pass to attend this event. Please contact 212-223-7520 to obtain a pass before April 15th)
Speakers:
Karl Grossman, Convenor Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Rashmi Mayur, Director International Institute for a Sustainable Future
Facilitator:
Alice Slater, Executive Director Global Resource Action Center for the Environment
Sponsors: Abolition 2000 NY Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) Promoting Enduring Peace War and Peace Foundation
----
Abolition 2000 Demonstration at Daj Hamarjskold Plaza
a brief report by Carah Ong: Abolition2000@aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 23:10:38 EDT
More than 200 people gathered on 25 April 2000 at Daj Hamarjskold Plaza at the United Nations in New York to protest the resolve of nuclear weapons states to maintain their nuclear arsenals. On 24 April, the sixth Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) opened and will last until 19 May. Despite the end of the Cold War more than ten years ago and despite existing obligations to eliminate nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states have refused to enter into negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty that would lead to the phased and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.
Protestors gathered on 25 April in a ceremony began at 9am to honor hibakusha, downwinders and affected communities who have directly suffered from the legacy of nuclear weapons testing and production, as well as from nuclear power. The event was sponsored by Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons and Earthday 2000 and was organized by Alice Slater of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment. Featured in the demonstration were several indigenous representatives from the First Nations and the Pacific as well as hibakusha. Also featured was a crane whose feathers were comprised of names of downwinders, hibakusha and other affected peoples.
Speakers noted direct link between nuclear weapons and nuclear power. On the busy street corner of 47th and 1st Street, the ceremony stage and a 25 foot inflatable nuclear reactor were powered by solar panels. Janet Bloomfield, British Coordinator of the Atomic Mirror and Member of the Abolition 2000 Coordinating Committee remarked: "Nuclear energy may power the bomb, but renewable energy powers peace."
Abolition 2000 is determined to set a nuclear disarmament agenda at the NPT and raise discussion and awareness on nuclear issues that are often ignored or considered passe by politicians and the media. If you would like more information on Abolition 2000 or if you would like to more than 1850 organizations and municipalities in 93 countries to create a more secure, sustainable and just world for all generations, please contact.
----
Write a Letter to the Editor!
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 10:37:09 -0400
From: Neil Watkins <watkinsn@cepr.net>
1) Some guidelines for writing a letter to the editor, from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
2) Sample Letter to the editor
--
1) How to Write a Letter to the Editor, by FAIR (www.fair.org)
Letters that are intended for publication should be drafted carefully. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
* Make one point (or at most two) in your letter or fax. State the point clearly, ideally in the first sentence.
* Make your letter timely. If you are not addressing a specific article, editorial or letter that recently appeared in the paper you are writing to, then try to tie the issue you want to write about to a recent event.
* Familiarize yourself with the coverage and editorial position of the paper to which you are writing. Refute or support specific statements, address relevant facts that are ignored, but do avoid blanket attacks on the media in general or the newspaper in particular.
* Check the letter specifications of the newspaper to which you are writing. Length and format requirements vary from paper to paper. (Generally, roughly two short paragraphs are ideal.) You also must include your name, signature, address and phone number.
* Look at the letters that appear in your paper. Is a certain type of letter usually printed?
* Support your facts. If the topic you address is controversial, consider sending documentation along with your letter. But don't overload the editors with too much info.
* Keep your letter brief. Type it whenever possible.
* Find others to write letters when possible. This will show that other individuals in the community are concerned about the issue. If your letter doesn't get published, perhaps someone else's on the same topic will.
* Monitor the paper for your letter. If your letter has not appeared within a week or two, follow up with a call to the editorial department of the newspaper.
--
2) Sample Letter to the editor about A16.
If you use this template, be sure to only use ONE or TWO of the bullet points about the issues. Pick the issue or angle you most care about. And be sure to personalize the letter. Good Luck!
SAMPLE LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
To the editor:
Thank you for reporting on the protests in Washington against the IMF and World Bank [cite story]. I [participated in/supported] these protests-- along with tens of thousands of students, union members, environmentalists, and others from across the country -- and I'd like to draw your attention to some key facts missing from your coverage as to why so many of us went to Washington to protest the IMF and World Bank:
[PICK ONE OR TWO OF THESE...]
* The IMF and the World Bank refuse to cancel debts owed to them by the world's poorest countries. Many countries are forced to spend more money repaying debts to these groups than they spend on desperately needed health care or education.
* The IMF's intervention in Russia has been one devastating failure after another. Within four years of its program entering into effect in 1992, the country's national income had dropped by about one-half and the number of Russians in poverty rose from 2 million to 60 million. A collapse of this magnitude is historically unprecedented in the absence of war or major natural disaster.
* All of the IMF's lending and more than 60% of the World Bank's lending is conditioned on policies such as mandates to "privatize" industries, reduce worker protections, reduce access to credit, and pursue export-led growth strategies which deplete natural resources and despoil the environment.
* The IMF and World Bank are undemocratic and they are unaccountable to the people who are most affected by their policies. At the IMF, for example, in the last 2,000 decisions made by the executive board, there have been only 12 votes.
* World Bank financed dam projects have displaced more than 10 million people, and the World Bank has never been forced to pay for the destruction it has caused to millions of people's lives and the environment.
* In Latin America, twenty years of these institutions' supervision have produced income growth, per person, that is less than a tenth of its previous rate. In Africa, income per person has actually fallen 20% over the last two decades.
* Forty percent of the World Bank Group's lending is for extraction industries--oil, gas and mining--that are accompanied by environmental destruction, corruption, forced relocation of the poor and indigenous and the enrichment of multinational corporations.
We united in Washington to say enough is enough. The protests may be over, but we will keep the pressure on these institutions.
Signed, XXXXX
----
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 22:56:47 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com
Subject: Congratulations to the Save Ward Valley campaign
To all Ward Valley supporters:
The final issue of the Save Ward Valley News will be mailed sometime next week. Those of you on this e-mail list will have the privilige of receiving it early. I will send just a page or two at a time so as not to overload you. Here is page 1.
Molly
SAVE WARD VALLEY NEWS Straight from the tortoise's mouth
FINAL ISSUE SAVE WARD VALLEY-FORT MOJAVE INDIAN TRIBE-BAN WASTE COALITION-GREENACTION APR 2000
VICTORY IS AT HAND!!
Ward Valley No Longer Considered for Waste
Our united struggle, after 12 long years, to keep a radioactive waste facility out of Ward Valley has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams! However, even though Governor Gray Davis said that Ward Valley is a "dead issue", his statement was not an official declaration. Neither he nor the State of California has made the demise of the Ward Valley project "official".
The latest "nail in the coffin" of the proposed Ward Valley Radioactive Waste dump was the dismissal of the lawsuit brought by US Ecology against the Department of Interior in the Court of Federal Claims. (see pg. 2) This was a decision long awaited by all and according to Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Before this, Ward Valley was 95-percent dead, and now it's 98-percent dead."
The details of the dump's demise may take years to be worked out, and of course we can't let down our guard even a minute, because dump proponents US Ecology, the Cal-Rad Forum and others will continue their attempts to revive the project. Remember that they have boasted that "Ward Valley is the best location in the world for disposal of radioactive waste." At the same time, these folks are advocates of dumping anywhere, anytime and as a result, are not necessarily attached to Ward Valley.
"Son of Ward Valley" Proposed
The Advisory Group established by Governor Davis to review alternatives to Ward Valley continues as imbalanced as before, dominated by waste generators (especially by members of the Cal-Rad Forum) (see pgs. 4 & 5). The Scientific Panel that is to report to the Advisory Group, even more imbalanced in terms of nuclear interests, has proposed four alternative approaches. These options are all unsatisfactory since they either call for continued dumping of long-lived nuclear waste in out-of state landfills, or promote a landfill or isolation facility in California. Two of the four options involve starting a whole new Ward Valley process, albeit at a different location, for a new dump in California. Unless successfully opposed, we are faced with another ten-year struggle over "Son of Ward Valley." We need to prevent that from happening.
A fifth option, prohibiting the use of shallow land burial within California and proposing interim storage at nuclear power plants is being promoted by Scientific Panelist Dr. Robert Gould and panel consultants Ward Young and Phil Klasky of the BAN Waste Coalition. (see pg. 3)
We Still Need To Put the Pressure On
Here is what you can do--
1) Attend the final two meetings of the Advisory Group on April 26 and May 10. (For further information and to put your name on the list to speak, call Amy Jones of the PMR Group, Inc. at 310/473-7704 or visit their website at www.llrw.org.) 2) Contact Governor Davis - State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814 PH: 916/445-2841 FAX: 916/445-4633. Ask him to: a) Officially remove Ward Valley from any consideration as any kind of nuclear facility either now or in the future. b) Outlaw any burial of any kind of radioactive waste in California. c) Make it the policy of California to store long-lived nuclear waste at nuclear power plants on an interim basis and regularly review improvements in technology to isolate waste from the biosphere.
". . .Ward Valley as a site is a dead issue. . ." ---Governor Gray Davis (see pg. 6)
Save Ward Valley Office to Close
In light of recent events the Save Ward Valley office will be closing April 30,2000. Should any attempt be made to revive the proposed Ward Valley nuclear waste dump, the Colorado River Native Nations Alliance (CRNNA) and Ward Valley Coalition are prepared to take immediate action. Keep in touch with the following organizations for all of the latest news.
BAN Waste Coaliton POB 894, Bolinas, CA 94924 PH: 415/752-8678 FAX: 415/221-4267 Website: banwaste.envirolink.org
Greenaction 1095 Market St., Suite 608, San Francisco, CA 94103 PH: 415/252-0822 FAX: 415/252-0823 Website: greenaction.org
We would like to give a great big "Thank You!" to everyone who contributed their money, their time and their support. It is because of the work of all of you that we have won this battle!
-------- alternative energy
Solar power in the spotlight
April 25, 2000
By SUSAN JANKOWSKI
http://www.djc.com/news/enviro/11007006.html
Journal environmental editor
Even though the cleanest energy source is over 4 billion years-old, it has become a viable source of power in the Northwest only recently.
The market for solar power equipment is growing by 30 percent each year in the U.S., says CEO Jim Duncan of Sparling, a Seattle electrical engineering, lighting design and technology consulting company.
"The market is increasing around the world. It's starting to take off," said Duncan.
According to Duncan, solar energy generated 17 percent of the world's power last year but there is room for growth: The Northwest Energy Coalition says enough sunlight strikes the U.S. in one day to power the entire country for over a year.
Duncan is a proponent of solar power "because it's the right thing to do" and because, he said, the world's fossil fuel resources are dwindling. "We're not creating any pollution, there's no smog, no waste. We aren't messing up salmon habitat, like we do with hydropower. ...this is what you are gaining with solar power."
Now the city of Seattle is testing solar power. A team made up of engineers from Sparling, researchers from Washington State University and Seattle City Light, and Seattle Center employee volunteers installed three solar panel's on the roof Seattle Center's Rainier Room last week. The 2 kilowatt photovoltaic system generates enough electricity to fully power the building's interior lights. The 10-by-12 foot panels are made of silicone crystals and cost $18,000 to purchase and install.
Photovoltaic cells are essentially batteries which directly convert solar energy into electrical energy. Light stimulates the flow of electrons across the layers of material and generates current through wires placed between them. Duncan said today's solar manufacturers are developing roof and wall materials that come with photovoltaic cells already installed in them.
Duncan addressed the perception that the region's rainy conditions would prevent solar power from becoming viable. "Even on a day that's cloudy, there are still sun rays coming through that will generate power. When there is sun, you can save the power you generate in batteries for days when it is cloudy."
According to Duncan, the city has also expressed an interest in using solar power for the new City Hall and federal courthouse projects.
Some of the world's first "heat machines" were operated by solar energy in the 18th century. But fossil fuels produced a more concentrated fire more cheaply and won out over solar energy. However, renewed interest in solar power is gaining momentum as concerns grow over limited supplies of fossil fuels.
"We're never going to run out of the sun...we just have to harness it," said Duncan.
-------- india / pakistan
Indian diplomacy
Washington Times Embassy Row,
April 25, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-200042521509.htm
Indian Ambassador Naresh Chandra has dismissed criticism that Indian diplomacy failed to stop President Clinton from visiting Pakistan on his South Asian trip last month.
Mr. Chandra told the newspaper India Today that his government never attempted to prevent Mr. Clinton from meeting Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Indian diplomats did warn Mr. Clinton of the impact of the Pakistan visit on Indian public opinion, he said. But India never insisted that Mr. Clinton promise not to go to Pakistan as a precondition of his visit to India.
"Indian diplomacy did not fail," Mr. Chandra said. "In fact, Indian diplomacy alerted the U.S. administration of possible dangers."
Those warnings, Mr. Chandra said, allowed the White House to argue successfully that the visit would not legitimize the rule of Gen. Musharraf, who overthrew a democratically elected but corrupt government last year.
"The approach of the government of India has been very much distorted in some sections of the press," Mr. Chandra said in the interview, which is reprinted in the April edition of the Indian Embassy newsletter.
"You'll be glad to know that our invitation to the U.S. president was unconditional," he said. "It was our duty to inform the U.S. side in advance about the adverse reaction in India to a visit to Pakistan at this time."
"We always said this is a decision for the U.S. president to take and the warmth and the scale of our reception would not be affected if he decided to visit Pakistan," Mr. Chandra added.
The ambassador cited the future value of the first visit by an American president in more than 20 years, even though Mr. Clinton is in his last nine months in office.
"The main purpose of President Clinton's visit was to send a clear signal that both India and the U.S. are ready and committed to forge a new relationship in the 21st century," Mr. Chandra said.
-------- israel
Israel Asked To Open Nuke Facilities
April 25, 2000
By NICOLE WINFIELD,
Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/000425/19/int-un-nuclear-treaty
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Mideast countries led by Egypt demanded Tuesday that Israel open up its suspected nuclear arsenal to international scrutiny and said its secrecy threatened regional stability.
Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, urged a conference reviewing the landmark Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to single out Israel for its failure to commit to the treaty - the only country in the region that hasn't done so.
"The message must be crystal clear in expressing the danger to the security of the Middle East inherent in the continuation of the status quo," Gheit said.
He was backed by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, and the ambassadors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in demanding Israel agree to the treaty's terms and reveal its arsenal. Other countries made similar demands - but the Middle East states were the most vocal.
The nonproliferation treaty, which went into force in 1970, calls for nuclear weapons states to move toward disarmament and bars countries without nuclear arsenals from obtaining or developing them.
It requires its signatories to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to verify that their nuclear technologies are being used for peaceful means - not weapons.
Western intelligence reports say Israel has a significant nuclear stockpile, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
"This imbalance cannot be accepted neither can it last," Gheit said. "The NPT cannot have any credibility with the states of the region as long as one state is exempt from its provisions."
Israel has maintained a policy of "nuclear opacity" - a refusal to confirm or deny the possession of nuclear weapons.
Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, told Israel army radio earlier Tuesday that the policy would remain. "We are not saying what we have or don't have, and the deterrence stems from the fact that others are kept guessing."
The United States generally backs Israel, which is isolated and often criticized at the United Nations. It has tried to steer criticism from Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal while it works on peacemaking between Arabs and Israel.
But the United States has agreed for the first time to allow the conference to create a subsidiary committee to deal with regional nuclear issues including the Middle East, said Daniel Plesch, director of the British American Security Information Council, which is monitoring progress of the conference.
"The U.S. found it indefensible to not discuss Israel when it has India and Pakistan to talk about," said Plesch, referring to the nuclear weapons tests the two South Asian countries conducted in 1998.
Only four countries - Israel, India, Pakistan and Cuba - haven't signed onto the treaty.
In other speeches at the conference Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned that the United States risked undermining 30 years of disarmament agreements if it insists on amending a landmark missile treaty.
The United States wants to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty limiting missile defense systems to allow it to develop a national system to guard against missile threats from countries such as North Korea or Iran.
----
Israel Said To Stick to Nuke Policy
APRIL 25, 04:39 EDT
By KARIN LAUB
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=MIDEAST&STORYID=APIS742LJMG0
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel will stick to its policy of ``nuclear opacity'' - a refusal to confirm or deny the possession of nuclear weapons - despite renewed pressure by Egypt that Israel reveal its arsenal, a senior Israeli defense official said today.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said he was confident the United States would side with Israel in the expected showdown at the review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at the United Nations in New York. The four-week gathering began Monday and continued today.
Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Ahmed abul-Ghait, has said all Arab nations, along with others in the developing world, would call for identifying Israel by name as the only country in the Middle East that did not sign the treaty.
Sneh said Egypt is ``trying to destroy'' Israel's nuclear policy and that its behavior was unacceptable. He said Israel would not budge.
``Israel has had a certain policy all these years, of nuclear opacity,'' he told Israel army radio. ``We are not saying what we have or don't have, and the deterrence stems from the fact that others are kept guessing. It is good that this will remain so in the future.''
Sneh said he expected the United States to stand by Israel. ``There is an understanding between us and the United States,'' the deputy minister said. It was not clear whether he was referring only to the expectation that the United States would block the Egyptian initiative or to Israel's nuclear policy overall.
Israeli historian Avner Cohen, author of the 1998 book ``Israel and the Bomb,'' has said the two countries worked out an understanding in 1970, believed to be still operative, in which the United States would look the other way as long as Israel kept a low profile and did not carry out nuclear tests.
Western intelligence reports say Israel has a significant nuclear stockpile, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
In 1986, The Sunday Times of London published photographs taken inside Israel's nuclear reactor near the Negev Desert town of Dimona, provided by nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. Based on the pictures, experts said at the time that Israel had the world's sixth largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who oversaw the construction of the reactor in the 1950s and 1960s, has come close to acknowledging Israel's nuclear capability. He has said Israel built the reactor in hopes that it would prevent future wars with the Arabs.
The Dimona reactor was built secretly, with French technical assistance. At first, U.S. intelligence failed to detect the reactor under construction. According to Cohen, Israel improvised two crude, deliverable nuclear weapons on the eve of the 1967 Mideast war.
On The Net: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel-Aviv University, http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/military.htmMilitary
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, http://www.bullatomsci.org/research/collections/israel.html
----
Israel Asked To Open Nuke Facilities
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-UN-Nuclear-Treaty.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Mideast countries led by Egypt demanded Tuesday that Israel open up its suspected nuclear arsenal to international scrutiny and said its secrecy threatened regional stability.
Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, urged a conference reviewing the landmark Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to single out Israel for its failure to commit to the treaty -- the only country in the region that hasn't done so.
``The message must be crystal clear in expressing the danger to the security of the Middle East inherent in the continuation of the status quo,'' Gheit said.
He was backed by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, and the ambassadors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in demanding Israel agree to the treaty's terms and reveal its arsenal. Other countries made similar demands -- but the Middle East states were the most vocal.
The nonproliferation treaty, which went into force in 1970, calls for nuclear weapons states to move toward disarmament and bars countries without nuclear arsenals from obtaining or developing them.
It requires its signatories to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to verify that their nuclear technologies are being used for peaceful means -- not weapons.
Western intelligence reports say Israel has a significant nuclear stockpile, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
``This imbalance cannot be accepted neither can it last,'' Gheit said. ``The NPT cannot have any credibility with the states of the region as long as one state is exempt from its provisions.''
Israel has maintained a policy of ``nuclear opacity'' -- a refusal to confirm or deny the possession of nuclear weapons.
Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, told Israel army radio earlier Tuesday that the policy would remain. ``We are not saying what we have or don't have, and the deterrence stems from the fact that others are kept guessing.''
The United States generally backs Israel, which is isolated and often criticized at the United Nations. It has tried to steer criticism from Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal while it works on peacemaking between Arabs and Israel.
But the United States has agreed for the first time to allow the conference to create a subsidiary committee to deal with regional nuclear issues including the Middle East, said Daniel Plesch, director of the British American Security Information Council, which is monitoring progress of the conference.
``The U.S. found it indefensible to not discuss Israel when it has India and Pakistan to talk about,'' said Plesch, referring to the nuclear weapons tests the two South Asian countries conducted in 1998.
Only four countries -- Israel, India, Pakistan and Cuba -- haven't signed onto the treaty.
In other speeches at the conference Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned that the United States risked undermining 30 years of disarmament agreements if it insists on amending a landmark missile treaty.
The United States wants to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty limiting missile defense systems to allow it to develop a national system to guard against missile threats from countries such as North Korea or Iran.
--------
Egypt Demands Israel Join Non-Proliferation Treaty
April 25, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-nu.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Egypt demanded on Tuesday that Israel sign without further delay the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and place its nuclear facilities under monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Addressing a conference on implementation of the treaty, aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, Egyptian U.N. envoy Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Israel was the only country in the Middle East that was not a party to the accord.
Criticizing ``Israel's intransigent refusal,'' he said ``the message of the 2000 review conference must be unequivocal in its demand that Israel accede to the treaty without further delay and that it place all its nuclear facilities under the safeguard regime of the IAEA.
``The message must be crystal clear in expressing the danger to the security of the Middle East inherent in the continuation of the status quo,'' he said.
Israel, India, Pakistan and Cuba are the only countries not currently parties to the NTB.
India and Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998 while Israel refuses to confirm or deny the general belief that it has nuclear weapons, saying only that it will not be the first to introduce such weapons into the Middle East.
Aboul Gheit said the 1995 NPT review conference adopted a resolution on the Middle East, co-sponsored by the treaty's three depository states -- the United States, Britain and the then-Soviet Union -- calling on Israel to accede to the treaty.
Egypt has put forward many proposals on steps to be taken by Israel and the states of the region aimed at ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, he said.
``Unfortunately, Israel did not respond to any of these endeavors,'' he said.
``This imbalance cannot be accepted, neither can it last. The NPT cannot have any credibility with the states of the region as long as one state is exempt from its provisions,'' Aboul Gheit said.
The nuclear states, and particularly those who co-sponsored the 1995 resolution on the Middle East, were responsible for its implementation, he said, calling for a mechanism to follow up progress in carrying it out.
Using the ``pretext of not burdening the conference or any other pretext so as not to deal with the issue of the Middle East with the necessary seriousness'' would undoubtedly detract from the credibility of the treaty, the conference and the whole non-proliferation regime, Aboul Gheit said.
-------- nato
Retiring NATO Commander Tours Bosnia
April 25, 2000
By AIDA CERKEZ-ROBINSON,
Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/000425/14/int-bosnia-nato
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - NATO's departing commander paid a last visit to Sarajevo on Tuesday after six turbulent years of involvement in the Balkans, and warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic against tightening "the noose" on Montenegro.
U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark, 55, made a victory tour of sorts to the capital of Bosnia, the nation where NATO-led forces in 1995 separated three armed groups, helped reverse the population displacements and instilled greater security after the 3 1/2 years of war. Bosnians now travel freely through the country.
"With steady and sustained effort, we can overcome the tragedy of the 19th century nationalism and move this country and these people into the 21st century's Euro-Atlantic community," Clark said. "It can be done."
Clark said NATO had some success in arresting war crimes suspects for trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
He acknowledged the most prominent suspects - former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his general, Ratko Mladic - remain at large, but said they will face justice.
"People in this country must have confidence," he said. "This will happen. Justice will be done."
Clark, who led the 78-day NATO air war in 1999 against Milosevic's repression in Kosovo, spoke of the accomplishment of forcing the Yugoslav leader to end an 18-month crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants in the province.
"We demonstrated that we have learned lessons from Bosnia and the international community put its foot down and said: 'No more of this."' the general said.
Clark said Western officials and NATO is aware of the pressure Milosevic is putting on Montenegro as this junior partner in the Yugoslav federation pushes for closer ties to the West.
"We have watched with concern as President Milosevic has tightened the noose around Montenegro," Clark said. "He has strengthened the Serb military forces there, replaced the officers there with political cronies, brought in paramilitary thugs and put them in uniform."
"I think that he should know that NATO is watching," Clark said.
Clark, who is leaving his NATO job this month, also visited Croatia and received a medal from President Stipe Mesic. Clark said he had "high hopes and expectations" for Croatia, a former Yugoslav republic which hopes to become a member of NATO's auxiliary program, Partnership for Peace.
Clark will be replaced as NATO commander by U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, and plans to retire June 30. He has not said what he will do after that.
-------- npt
UN chief issues warning on nuclear war threat
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-25apr2000-36.htm
Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, says the threat of nuclear war is still a real possibility.
He says pressure to allow the deployment of new missile defences is jeopardising the new anti-ballistic missile treaty.
Mr Annan made the remarks at an international conference on halting the spread of nuclear weapons.
The UN is urging Washington to weigh the dangers carefully before giving in to the growing pressure to create a national anti-ballistic missible defence system.
United States President Bill Clinton is expected to take a decision about the development of a national defensive system later this year.
US military planners argue that a Star Wars-type shield will only be used to protect them against any future missile attack from rogue states, such as North Korea.
Russia is also showing concern with Moscow's Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, warning that the development of such a system could create a destructive domino effect for the existing disarmament system.
----
UNITED NATIONS PRESS RELEASES ON NPT REVIEW
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>
DEFICIENCIES OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT INSTRUMENTS UNDER WIDE-RANGING ASSAULT AS NPT REVIEW CONFERENCE ENDS SECOND DAY
20000425
As the 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) continued its general debate this afternoon, EgyptÕs representative said that the NPT could not have any credibility with the States of the Middle East region as long as one State was exempt from its provisions.
The current imbalance in the Middle East, he said, could not be accepted, and neither could it last. The Conference must be unequivocal in its demand that Israel accede to the Treaty and place all its nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards regime. We have failed to achieve the universality of the NPTÓ, he said. There had also been a failure to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) had become an elusive objective after the refusal of the United States Senate to ratify it.
Speaking on behalf of the nations of the Andean Community, Jose Antonio Bellina, Director for Political, Multilateral and Security Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru, said that it was the Treaty that was extended indefinitely in 1995, not the right to keep nuclear arsenals forever. The NPT itself contained the contractual obligation on all the parties to make progress towards general and complete disarmament. It could not be seen as the establishment of an international order based on the perpetual existence of a small group of States entitled to possess nuclear weapons, and a large majority that lacked that right.
The representative of Malaysia said that the process of nuclear disarmament had become more of a case of taking one small hesitant step forward, but two steps backward, as the nuclear-weapon States reasserted their commitment to the dangerous and outmoded doctrine of nuclear deterrence. There was no shortage of ideas on how to propel the disarmament process forward. However, what was seriously required was a comprehensive legally binding international instrument prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, threat or use of nuclear weapons and their destruction.
Kamal Kharrazi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iran, said that the Conference must ensure implementation of article IV of the Treaty in all its aspects, especially with regard to transfer of technology, equipment and nuclear materials to developing States. [Article IV of the Treaty guarantees the inalienable right of all the parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with articles I and II.] Under the guise of non-proliferation, systematic denial of transfer of technology to developing non-nuclear-weapon States parties, and restrictive export control by nuclear suppliers, secured the exclusive possession of nuclear technology by developed countries.
Also speaking in this afternoonÕs debate were representatives of the United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Libya, as well as the Permanent Observer of Switzerland. The Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) also took the floor.
Also this afternoon, the Conference elected Jean Lint (Belgium), Suh Dae-won (Republic of Korea) and Igor Dzundev (The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) as Vice-Chairmen of its three Main Committees. Fayza Aboulnaga (Egypt) was elected Vice-Chairman of the Drafting Committee, and Ion Botnaru (Republic of Moldova) Vice-Chairman of the Credentials Committee.
The general debate will continue at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 26 April.
Conference Work Programme
The 2000 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) continued it general debate this afternoon. The Conference is regarded as pivotal movement for the Treaty and hinges on States partiesÕ perceptions about whether the instrument meets their national and international security needs in the new global security environment. (For more background details see Press Release DC/2692 of 24 April.)
Statements in General Debate
MOHAMMAD J. SAMHAN (United Arab Emirates) said global debates had proved that the security of States could not be ensured by stockpiling and amassing nuclear weapons. Hence the entry into force of the NPT. In that regard he called upon States parties to respect the obligations enshrined in the Treaty that prohibited nuclear weapons. He also called upon those countries which had not adhered to the NPT to do so immediately. The United Arab Emirates further called for the establishment of an ad hoc committee of the Disarmament Commission.
Since the last review conference of the NPT in 1995, a number of positive gains had been made, he said. Nine countries had adhered to the NPT, for example, including his own country and Oman. While the Middle East had opted to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone, Israel still represented the only country in that region which had not adhered to the Treaty and still possessed nuclear weapons of mass destruction. That was a serious threat to peace in the Middle East. This Conference must therefore call upon the Israeli Government to give up its nuclear arsenal.
He also called for a halt to the provision of the type of scientific and technical assistance that had assisted Israel in amassing nuclear weapons. That countryÕs adherence to the NPT would put an end to many of the tensions in the Middle East. He further called upon the Conference to find positive solutions to guarantee the global nature of the NPT.
KAMAL KHARRAZI, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iran, said that on a positive note, the Treaty had to a large extent succeeded in curtailing horizontal nuclear proliferation, thereby enhancing international peace and security. However, much remained to be accomplished. Progress on nuclear disarmament, security assurances and cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy had been slow and dismal. More importantly, the Treaty had yet to become universal.
The nuclear-weapon States had an international obligation to end the manufacture of nuclear weapons, liquidate all their existing stockpiles, and eliminate nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. Their duty to negotiate in good faith had been underlined by the International Court of Justice. However, a growing number of indicators suggested the persistence of nuclear deterrence doctrines and refusal by nuclear-weapon States to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. It was necessary to start negotiating an additional protocol to the NPT to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons.
In the meantime, there was a great potential for further diversification of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Article IV of the Treaty provided a broad-based scheme for that. The record of commitment to article IV, however, was not promising. One could not but express dismay over the systematic denial of transfer of technology to developing non-nuclear-weapon States parties to the NPT, and the restrictive export control policies by nuclear suppliers. Disguised under the pretext of non-proliferation, those regimes had the objective of securing the dominance and exclusive possession of nuclear technology by developed countries. The Conference must take effective measures to guarantee realization of article IV in all its aspects, especially with regard to transfer of technology, equipment and nuclear materials to developing States.
Regarding security assurances, he said that some nuclear-weapon States had tried to confine them to nuclear-weapon-free zones or to place conditions on them. It was necessary to obtain more stringent and specific nuclear security assurances in the form of a legally binding international instrument. Turning to the situation in the Middle East, he said that Israel should be forced to renounce nuclear weapons, accede to the NPT and bring all its facilities and programmes under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. The review process of the Treaty should be strengthened. To guarantee compliance of States parties, it was necessary to set up a standing body to coordinate and harmonize implementation. That could be addressed without amending the Treaty.
AHMED ABOUL GHEIT (Egypt) said that we have failed to achieve the universality of the NPTÓ. There were still States that possessed advanced nuclear capabilities and had either not adhered or not declared their intention to adhere to the Treaty. There had also been a failure to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia. As for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), it had become an elusive objective since the United States SenateÕs refusal to ratify it. Moreover, the Conference on Disarmament had not yet succeeded in initiating negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty, or in agreeing on the bases of such an instrument. In addition, a resolution on the Middle East had called upon all the States of that region which had not yet done so to adhere to the Treaty and to place their nuclear facilities under the safeguards regime of the IAEA. Any possible progress in that regard continued to be met by IsraelÕs intransigent refusal to adhere to the NPT or come under the AgencyÕs safeguards system.
Egypt had put forward many proposals on steps to be taken by Israel and the States of the region to rid the Middle East of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. His country had forwarded those proposals in the hope of initiating a positive dialogue that would contribute to breaking the current impasse and to reaffirming the obligation on the Israeli side to take practical and concrete steps to render the region free from nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Such an understanding would strengthen the security of the region, and avoid a regional arms race with all its attendant dangers. Unfortunately, Israel had not responded to any of EgyptÕs endeavours. Neither did the former accept to engage in a calm dialogue based on logic, understanding and the right of all States of the region to live in peace and security.
He said the current imbalance in the Middle East could not be accepted and could not last. The NPT would have no credibility with the States of the region as long as one State was exempt from its provisions. The message of this Conference must be unequivocal in its demand that Israel accede to the Treaty without further delay, and that it place all its nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards regime. Egypt also believed that the outcome of the review process of the NPT, after its indefinite expansion, must call upon all parties to the Treaty, particularly the nuclear-weapon States, to seek to achieve the NPTÕs universality and ensure the strict implementation of its provisions.
CAMILO REYES RODRIQUEZ (Colombia) said his country was committed to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. It participated in the Treaty of Tlatelolco, and attributed special importance to the NPT. The package of decisions by the 1995 Review Conference had not yet been fully implemented, and that was a cause of concern. As Chair of the Third Preparatory Conference, his country had made significant efforts to ensure the implementation of the NPT. The regime must be not only preserved, but also strengthened and made more efficient. The international community should not shy away from new constructive proposals. It was necessary to overcome the sense of frustration that some delegations seemed to feel.
Since the 1995 Review Conference, he continued, some important developments had taken place. Following the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, States that advocated nuclear disarmament could no longer tolerate the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries. It was necessary to place the facilities and programmes of all countries in the Middle East under IAEA safeguards. It was gratifying that the Russian Duma had ratified the Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II), but much still remained to be done in that area. The nuclear-weapon States must take decisive steps to eliminate nuclear weapons, and his delegation supported the New Agenda proposed by a group of countries to that end. It was also necessary to ensure wide accession to the CTBT, and a non-discriminatory convention on the cut-off of fissile materials should be concluded.
Colombia had no nuclear-weapon aspirations, and it intended to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only. However, the promised process of cooperation towards peaceful nuclear development had been highly unsatisfactory. In that connection, he proposed holding a special conference of the parties to promote transfers of technology and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
FAWZI SHOBOKSHI (Saudi Arabia) expressed concern that the world was farther from achieving the principles and objectives of the NPT. Despite some limited progress among the nuclear-weapon countries on unilateral and bilateral levels to reduce their nuclear arsenals, the parties to the Treaty could not halt the horizontal and vertical spread of nuclear weapons. In addition, those States parties could not establish a fair equilibrium between nuclear- and non-nuclear- weapon countries on the issue of the total elimination of nuclear armaments. The world was plagued by large arsenals of nuclear weapons, the spread of such weapons to other countries, and the double standards employed by major Powers in dealing with those countries. Such issues cast doubts on the effectiveness and credibility of the NPT in achieving its main objectives.
He said the nuclear-weapon States had to be reminded of their responsibility not to assist non-nuclear States, either directly or indirectly, in manufacturing, producing, stockpiling or acquiring nuclear weapons. The international community could not accept any leniency in dealing with the serious challenges to safety and the credibility of the NPT. On the other hand, non-nuclear States must have guarantees that they would not be subjected to nuclear attacks or the threat thereof. There was a pressing need for the international community to work harder to make non-proliferation obligatory. That would not be achieved without collective political will to strengthen the non-proliferation system; reducing the strategic and political importance of nuclear weapons in international politics; and commitment to implement existing treaties that called for disarmament and the reduction of nuclear stockpiles.
He said that at a time when the NPT was of great importance to the Arab States, Israel refused to sign the Treaty and obstructed the process under way to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapon-free zone. That countryÕs position clearly contradicted its calls for peace. Its possession of nuclear weapons and threats to use them were all part of its policies to achieve hegemony in the region. That was cause for concern and a threat to the peace and security of both the region and the world. IsraelÕs refusal to join the Treaty regime would not be resolved or corrected by using double standards. That would not help non-proliferation in the Middle East. It was hoped that this Conference would draft a document that emphasized the need to achieve international consensus, urged all States to join the NPT, and emphasized the need to make the Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction.
JOSE ANTONIO BELLINA, Director for Political, Multilateral and Security Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru, speaking on behalf of the Andean Community nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) said that the Conference must clearly establish that there was no reason whatsoever to believe that the indefinite maintenance of nuclear weapons could be justified. What had been extended indefinitely in 1995 had been the Treaty, not the right to keep nuclear arsenals forever. The NPT itself contained the contractual obligation on all the parties to make progress towards general and complete disarmament.
It was essential for the non-proliferation regime to be truly effective and universal, he continued. In that sense, he particularly welcomed the adherence of Chile and Brazil -- countries of his region -- to the Treaty. The transfer of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes to States without nuclear weapons must be promoted. It must be remembered that international cooperation in the sphere of the peaceful use of nuclear energy continued to be questioned by certain groups. It was necessary to find innovative and original methods to permit the participation of both developed and developing countries in the decision-making. In that regard, the IAEA had an important role to play.
Calling on the whole Southern Hemisphere to become a nuclear-weapon-free zone, he stressed the importance of the existing Treaties of Tlatelolco, Rarotonga, Pelindaba and Bangkok. His delegation also believed that a reassertion of the commitment of the nuclear States along with positive guarantees as well as negative ones, would permit an easier acceptance of the Treaty by States that were not yet members. The entry into force of the CTBT was particularly important. The NPT must not be seen as the establishment of an international order based on the perpetual existence of a small group of States entitled to possess nuclear weapons, and a large majority that lacked that right.
HASMY AGAM (Malaysia) associated himself with the position of the Non-Aligned Movement and said that at the 1995 Conference, his delegation had had reservations regarding the indefinite extension of the Treaty because it would provide a carte blancheÓ for the nuclear-weapon States. His delegation had also argued that the indefinite extension did not serve as an incentive towards universality. Given the dismal record of nuclear disarmament during the period under review, he saw no reason to revise the conclusions it had made at that time. Self-serving national interests of the nuclear-weapon States parties had taken control of the process, at the expense of the larger interests of the international community.
He went on to welcome a number of positive developments, including the conclusion of the CTBT, the recent ratifications of START II, and the development of nuclear-weapon-free zones. Turning to recent negative events, he said his delegation believed that the agreements made at the 1995 NPT Review Conference had not been fully honoured. The process of nuclear disarmament had become more of a case of taking one small hesitant step forward, but two steps backward. While some progress had been achieved over the last decade in the reduction of the total number of nuclear weapons deployed, the nuclear-weapon States had reasserted their total commitment to the dangerous and outmoded doctrine of nuclear deterrence.
In contemplating future steps to be taken, the States should recall the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, he continued. The NPT was at a crossroads. The goodwill and patience of the non-nuclear-weapon States had been put under severe strain by the lack of demonstrable political will on the part of the nuclear-weapon States. There was a danger of serious erosion in the objective of nuclear non-proliferation and in the Treaty itself. There was no shortage of ideas on how to propel the disarmament process forward, and many of them deserved serious consideration. However, what was urgently required was to work for a comprehensive legally binding international instrument prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, threat or use of nuclear weapons and their destruction under effective international control.
ABUZED OMAR DORDA (Libya) said the NPT had not achieved its objectives. Non-nuclear-weapon States that were parties to the Treaty had committed themselves not to develop nuclear weapons, in return for the commitments of nuclear-weapon States to certain obligations Ð- gradual nuclear disarmament and the eventual destruction of their weapons of mass destruction. Since the holding of the review conference five years ago, there had been both positive and negative developments to the NPT regime. On the positive side, the use of nuclear weapons or the threat to use them in disputes was now illegal. Also, the CTBT now existed, along with the ratification by the Russian Federation of the START II Treaty. On the negative side, the United States Senate had rejected ratifying the CTBT. There was also that countryÕs decision to develop its star warsÓ option. That could provoke a new arms race. Then there was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) espousing the notion that nuclear weapons were the only means of keeping peace.
He said certain States that were not parties to the Treaty continued to develop nuclear weapons and increase their arsenals. The United States had ignored the huge Israeli nuclear arsenal, and had provided that country with assistance in developing such weapons. There was obviously a double standard in Washington. The Arab region, on the other hand, now came under the threat of nuclear weapons. That threat spread from South Asia to North Africa to the Middle East. The continued development of destructive weapons by Tel Aviv was a peril that threatened the region. If those weapons were not eliminated immediately, efforts to bring peace to the Middle East would fail.
He also stated that one European State had given Israel three submarines capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Yet, another European State had secretly negotiated to sell nuclear reactors to the Israelis. In addition, the United States Department of Energy had lifted all restrictions on Israeli scientists visiting United States centres for nuclear research. He stressed that all countries should be treated equally and that Tel Aviv should not be exempted from the NPT.
He added that the present Conference must stress the absolute and urgent necessity for Israel to adhere to the NPT and come under the IAEA safeguards regime. The transfer of nuclear-related technology, weapons, explosive devices, equipment, material, resources and information to Israel should also be prohibited as long as that country was not a part of the Treaty. He drew attention to the fact that Libya had been forbidden access to spare parts for washing machines, because it was claimed that those parts could be used to produce chemical weapons. That was just one example of the prevailing double standard at work in the world today. There should be an international standard to set rules. It should not be left up to one country to impose its hegemony.
JENO STAEHELIN, Permanent Observer of Switzerland, said that the military significance of nuclear weapons remained unchanged, even though their political importance was perhaps diminished. Nuclear deterrence continued to be part of defence doctrine, and new arguments for maintaining nuclear arsenals had been put forward. The CTBT and START II agreement had not yet come into force, and the Conference on Disarmament had bogged down. Nuclear tests in South Asia had been a brutal reminder that regional instabilities could become a source of nuclear proliferation, and doubts remained as to whether Iraq and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were fully complying with the Treaty.
The 1995 decision to extend the Treaty must not mean an indefinite extension of the status quo, particularly as far as the prerogatives of the nuclear-weapon States were concerned. The work of the Conference should result in the adoption of two types of documents -- a review of the implementation of the Treaty and the outcome of the 1995 Conference; and a new package of reaffirmed principles and updated and supplemented objectives. The starting point for a revitalization of the review process should be reaffirmation of the link between disarmament and non-proliferation; and the link between the extension of the NPT and the adoption of the other documents of the 1995 Conference.
It was also necessary to establish new objectives, he said. A new action plan should include confidence-building measures and increased transparency efforts. The Conference should encourage further systematic reductions in nuclear weapons on the basis of article VI, with a view to their complete elimination. The United States and the Russian Federation had a special responsibility in that respect. The reduction of nuclear arsenals should include the elimination of warheads and tactical nuclear weapons. Negotiations to conclude a treaty banning the production of fissile materials for explosive purposes should be initiated without delay, and the Conference on Disarmament should intensify its efforts in the area of security assurances. Regional aspects of non-proliferation should also receive special attention.
WOLFGANG HOFFMAN, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said that by putting an end to testing, in any realistic way, the CTBT impeded the development of evermore sophisticated nuclear weapons. The Treaty was expected to stop vertical and impede horizontal nuclear proliferation. With its present 155 States signatories, the CTBT was approaching the status of a universal Treaty. Membership and ratification had been the focus of the first Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the CTBT, which was held last October in Vienna. The Treaty provided that the global verification regime should be capable of meeting its verification requirements at the time of entry into force. One of the main tasks of the Preparatory Commission was to build up the worldwide network of stations that comprised the International Monitoring System. All the data from the monitoring facilities would be made available to the States signatories. There were provisions on consultation and clarification for dealing with ambiguous events. Work was going on in the International Data Centre -- the nerve centre of the verification regime.
The Commission was also preparing the groundwork for on-site inspections, provided for by the Treaty, he said. Training the national staff from States signatories had been an ongoing effort. In establishing the global verification regime, the Organization was equipping 89 countries with cost-free cutting-edge technology, supporting the operation of their stations and training their staff.
--
IN CONTINUING DEBATE AT YEAR 2000 NPT REVIEW CONFERENCE; SPEAKERS SEE RENEWED THREATS TO STRATEGIC STABILITY
20000425
Principle of Irreversibility in Nuclear Arms Control Measures Can No Longer Be Taken for Granted, Warns Brazil
As the 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons continued its general debate this morning, Igor S. Ivanov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, said there was a dangerous tendency to undermine the existing system of strategic stability, and that was a direct invitation to a new arms race on the planet.
He underscored that attempts were being made to build national stability at the expense of the interests of other States -- not to mention misappropriation of the right to use force in violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.
He said that there was a possibility of missing the historic chance to achieve real nuclear disarmament if the cornerstone of strategic stability in the world Ð- the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty -Ð were to be destroyed. Such a possibility had become quite real, given United States declarations of the wish to deploy a national missile defence system, which was prohibited by the ABM Treaty. Compliance with the Treaty in its present form, without any modifications, was a prerequisite for further negotiations on nuclear disarmament in accordance with article VI of the NPT. It affected the national security interests of every State and of the international community as a whole.
FranceÕs representative said the ABM Treaty was an essential element in the maintenance of strategic stability. His country was anxious to avoid any challenges to the Treaty that might bring about a breakdown of strategic equilibrium and restart the arms race.
Nothing would be more dangerous than attempting to redraft every five years the fundamental principles and objectives contained in the decisions of 1995, he said. The priority was therefore unchanged -Ð to secure the early entry into force of the CTBT, and prohibit the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons through the immediate launch of concrete fissile material cut-off treaty negotiations.
The representative of Brazil said that the international community had recently been reminded that the principle of irreversibility in nuclear arms control measures could not be taken for granted. The Conference faced daunting challenges, and its deliberations would be followed with great attention around the world.
Lloyd Axworthy, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Canada, stressed the importance of restricting access to the means of delivering nuclear and other weapons -- namely, missiles. There were serious concerns as to whether strengthening missile defences would reinforce or damage the NPT regime. Another option was to curtail missile proliferation in the first place, and to make that a key part of a strengthened global non-proliferation regime. For example, the Missile Technology Control Regime could be made more effective by adopting stricter export controls and widening participation. The Regime could also contribute to developing workable confidence-building measures, establishing universal norms and backing that up with an effective verification mechanism.
Also speaking this afternoon were Ministers from Belgium, Australia, Lithuania and Sweden, as well as Deputy Ministers from Ukraine and Kazakhstan and the representative of Costa Rica.
The Conference will reconvene at 3 p.m. to continue its general debate.
Conference Work Programme
As the 2000 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference met this morning, it was expected to continue its general debate. The purpose of the four-week Conference is to provide appraisal of the progress achieved in the field of nuclear non-proliferation since the 1995 Review Conference, and to identify the areas where future efforts should be made. (For background information, see Press Release DC/2691 of 20 April.)
Statements
JEAN DE RUYT, Director-General for Political Affairs, Special Envoy for the Government of Belgium, described the latest developments in the field of nuclear disarmament and said that unfortunately, the hopes which had allowed the States parties to extend the NPT indefinitely seemed to be seriously threatened in light of recent negative indications. One of the worrisome signals was the unexpected slowness in the ratification process of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). It was essential to make rapid progress in that area to avoid compromising not only the universality but also the very credibility of the Treaty.
The inability of the international community to launch negotiations on the fissile material cut-off treaty was another cause for concern, he continued. We can understand the reasons why certain countries would like to link this negotiation to other matters, but if we constantly want to link everything, if we want to multilateralize everything, we are denying ourselves the concrete results, which could have an important impact on the progressive reduction of the nuclear riskÓ, he said. The declared intention of the United States to deploy a national anti-missile defence system was one of the threats hovering over the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Whatever the merits of such a system, it was essential that the programme did not compromise strategic balances and the desired progress towards the reduction of strategic nuclear arsenals.
Among the constructive achievements of the last five years, he recalled the trilateral initiative of the United States, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to put designated fissile materials under the control of the IAEA, the initiatives of the United Kingdom and France regarding reductions and increased transparency for the production of fissile materials for military purposes, and the ratification by Russia of the Treaty on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II). Belgium encouraged the nuclear-weapon States to continue on that path, and hoped that the United States and Russia would negotiate START III shortly. It was important that four States remaining outside the Treaty should be present during the meetings of the non- proliferation regime, as proposed by Canada last year.
Belgium believed in a gradual evolution of nuclear disarmament, and pleaded for the creation of an information exchange mechanism to allow nuclear States to keep the international community informed about efforts and progress in that field. In 1998, his country had presented a proposal to the Disarmament Conference in that regard. Belgium had confidence in the existing structures, and recognized the usefulness of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. One of the priorities nowadays was the resumption of its activities.
ALEXANDER DOWNER, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia, said today his country was celebrating ANZAC Day, in memory of the tens of thousands of his countrymen who lost their lives fighting for freedom and a better world. The key elements of an ANZAC Day six-point plan to promote progress in nuclear arms control and disarmament were: the immediate entry into force of START II and the early commencement and completion of the negotiations on START III; the early entry into force of the CTBT; the immediate commencement of negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty; universal adherence to the IAEA Additional Protocol, and early establishment of an integrated safeguards regime; implementation of effective export controls; and universal adherence to the NPT.
He said the primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament lay with the two largest weapon States. Australia, like many other countries, therefore looked to the United States and the Russian Federation to deliver the deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals promised by the START process. It was also disappointing that the CTBT, which was brought to the General Assembly by Australia in 1996, was not yet in force. None of the five nuclear-weapon States had yet signed the instrument. They had an obligation under international law not to thwart the TreatyÕs purpose. It was frustrating that the Conference on Disarmament was yet to commence negotiation on a fissile material cut-off treaty -- the logical next step in the nuclear arms control and disarmament agenda. The current meeting should reaffirm the need for the immediate commencement of such negotiations.
There had been many challenges to the NPT, and doubtless many more lay ahead. It was an encouraging feature of the post-cold war era that whenever new challenges emerged, the international community strongly supported the existing non-proliferation regime and the identification of possible new measures. The NPT was still the worldÕs best defence against the spread of nuclear weapons. It delivered major security benefits to all States, even to those four who were yet to join it. The danger of nuclear proliferation was still a reality, and the Treaty was no less relevant than it was 30 years ago.
CELSO LUIZ N. AMORIM (Brazil) said that today was the first time his country had participated in the Review Conference. BrazilÕs accession to the NPT had come after careful consideration of the TreatyÕs role. Like many other States, Brazil had been critical of the asymmetrical obligations deriving from the NPT; but it had been encouraged by the package of decisions adopted by the 1995 Review Conference, which had set yardsticks to measure progress.
The Constitution of Brazil stipulated that nuclear energy would be used only for peaceful purposes, he continued. The country had also taken steps to bring the Treaty of Tlatelolco fully into force in the country itself and in the region. BrazilÕs accession to the NPT had been based on the understanding that, in accordance with article VI of the Treaty, effective measures would be taken to stop the nuclear arms race and to totally eliminate nuclear weapons. However, the present international environment did not give rise to the same degree of optimism that had prevailed in the early and mid-1990s.
Recently, the international community had been reminded that the principle of irreversibility in nuclear arms control measures could not be taken for granted, he said. The possibility of redeploying nuclear weapons had not been fully discarded. Equally regrettable was the lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Continued reliance on nuclear deterrence, and the assumption that nuclear weapons were here to stay for the indefinite future, were unacceptable.
The Conference faced daunting challenges, he continued, and its deliberations would be followed with great attention by authorities and decision makers around the world. Its outcome would have a strong bearing on the future of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. The Conference must build upon numerous contributions that had been advanced over the years, particularly on interim measures and on the next steps to be taken. Such contributions had been presented by several governments, groups of experts, including the Canberra Commission and the Tokyo Forum, the non-governmental organization community and eminent figures.
The New Agenda, of which his country was a founding member, had been a catalyst for the promotion of those ideas, he said. It proposed a programme of action that did not exempt any country from its responsibilities towards others. The listed measures would be incumbent on the five nuclear-weapon States, the three States not yet parties to the NPT, and the international community as a whole. The ideas of the Agenda were not in themselves novel, and some of them had been on the table for decades. The new elements of the New Agenda included the composition of the coalition and its timing. The comprehensive, balanced and achievable nature of the programme was also important.
ALGIRDAS SAUDARGAS, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, said the work of the Preparatory Committee for the Review Conference appeared to have been rich in debates but not as productive as many had hoped. It was essential to keep in mind, however, that at the outset, the international community had embarked upon the Strengthened Review Process unaware of its real potential. A new instrument needed time to develop. It is up to us to shore up the review process at the end of its first cycle, if need be, by modifying and fine-tuning itÓ, he said. Obviously there were unmet expectations, but the fundamental purpose of the NPT was still credible, despite the problems of implementation and enforcement that would be addressed during the current Conference.
He called upon States whose ratification was needed for the CTBT to enter into force to ratify the instrument without delay. He further called on India, Pakistan and the Democratic PeopleÕs Republic of Korea to sign and ratify that same Treaty without delay. Lithuania also believed that the resolute support by almost all States for the early commencement of negotiations on the fissile material cut-off treaty should not be allowed to diminish. He noted that it was of extreme concern that instead of working towards disarmament we have to increasingly divert our efforts towards stemming proliferationÓ.
It was therefore incumbent upon this Review Conference, he continued, to evaluate the dangerous course of events in South Asia and come up with thoughts on how to prevent further deterioration. Despite some difficulties, the NPT, by all accounts, worked. It had achieved many successes and weathered all challenges. The challenge ahead now was to reaffirm the validity of the decisions and the resolution adopted in 1995. Perhaps consensus on all issues was not possible, but he was certain that it was possible to craft a compromise that would maintain and reinforce the Treaty.
LLOYD AXWORTHY, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Canada, said the Conference was an opportunity not only to review the NPT, but also to rewire its machinery in response to the new realities. At stake was nothing less than the future course of nuclear weapon attitudes and arsenals -Ð indeed, the very well-being of humanity. The concerns included the tendency of some to justify retaining nuclear arsenals as a defence, and the ambition of others to acquire nuclear capacity. Other issues had to do with the security, storage and disposal of fissile materials for dismantled warheads and the possibility of illicit transfers of nuclear material and technology. The inexcusable impasse at the Conference on Disarmament had precluded any multilateral movement on nuclear disarmament and security arrangements.
Canada was committed to promoting and protecting the TreatyÕs universality, he continued. It was necessary to continue international efforts to engage the four remaining NPT holdouts and to seek their full adherence to the Treaty. It was also necessary to ensure that all States parties kept their commitment to the Treaty obligations. Canada would also work to secure agreement on an updated Five-Year Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Action Plan containing concrete objectives and goals.
He said that the Plan was designed to complete work on the CTBT; end deadlock at the Conference on Disarmament and begin negotiations on a ban on fissile material production; continue START reductions; stress the need for Russia and the United States to maintain the integrity of the ABM Treaty; call on nuclear-weapon States to enter into disarmament negotiations; extend the application of existing nuclear-weapon-free zones and encourage new ones; and promote universal application of IAEA safeguards and further improve verification and inspection capacity. Canada was pressing for progress in all those areas.
Another issue, which needed closer attention, was restricting access to the means of delivering nuclear and other weapons -- namely, missiles. One possibility advocated by some was to strengthen missile defences. However, there were serious concerns as to whether strengthened defences would work, and whether they would reinforce or damage the NPT regime. Another option was to curtail missile proliferation in the first place, and to make that a key part of a strengthened global non-proliferation regime. For example, the Missile Technology Control Regime could be made more effective by adopting stricter export controls and widening participation. The Regime could also contribute to developing workable confidence-building measures, establishing universal norms and backing that up with an effective verification mechanism.
As a stronger non-proliferation regime depended on effective global arrangements and on the willingness of countries to assess the validity of their policies, Canada had been active in the efforts to review the North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationÕs (NATO) non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament options. NATOÕs nuclear forces had been reduced by over 80 per cent, but more needed to be done. Canada also intended to work towards more robust NPT review and assessment policies. It believed that the NPT review process could be enhanced with a requirement to more frequently track, discuss and document movement towards translating commitments into action. Real transparency was also needed.
IGOR S.IVANOV, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, said that Russia was committed to its obligations in the field of nuclear disarmament. It considered the NPT as the basic mechanism for preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons while ensuring further international cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. In the concept of national security of the Russian Federation, which was recently adopted by President Putin, strengthening of the non-proliferation regimes was considered a major priority. Preservation and strengthening of the Treaty would serve the interests of the entire world.
Today that task had to be addressed in a difficult situation, in view of the emergence of new serious threats to international security and stability, he continued. There was a dangerous tendency to undermine the existing system of strategic stability, and attempts were being made to build national stability at the expense of the interests of other States -- not to mention misappropriation of the right to use force, in violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and international law. That was, in fact, a direct invitation to a new arms race on the planet.
All five nuclear Powers should work to achieve progress towards nuclear disarmament without any artificial delays or undue hurry, he said. A few days ago, Russia had ratified the most important block of agreements in that field, and first and foremost, the START II Treaty and the 1997 package of ABM agreements. The Duma had also ratified the CTBT, which was designed to reliably block the way to qualitative improvement of nuclear arsenals. Those decisions were sending a clear signal about the role of the nuclear factor in RussiaÕs military doctrine. Russia also continued to implement other previously signed agreements on the reduction of strategic nuclear arsenals and its unilateral initiatives related to tactical nuclear weapons.
His country was prepared to go further, towards deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals, he continued. However, at present there was a possibility of missing the historic chance to achieve real nuclear disarmament if the cornerstone of strategic stability in the world Ð- the ABM Treaty Ð- were to be destroyed. Such a possibility had become quite real, given plans declared by the United States to deploy a national ABM system prohibited by that Treaty. The collapse of the ABM Treaty would undermine the entirety of disarmament agreements concluded over the last 30 years. Compliance with the ABM Treaty in its present form, without any modifications, was a prerequisite for further negotiations on nuclear disarmament in accordance with article VI of the NPT. It affected the national security interests of every State and of the international community as a whole.
Russia was prepared to engage in the broadest consultations with the United States and on a multilateral level to deal with missile threats and proliferation without breaking the ABM Treaty. The Russian initiative to establish a global missile and missile technologies non-proliferation control system served that very purpose. It was launched last month at the Moscow International Expert Meeting.
He said that it was necessary to further reduce nuclear weapons and take common action against the threat of missile proliferation. Also, the task of ensuring universality of the Treaty remained very urgent, as was the goal of establishing nuclear-weapon-free zones. He hoped that common sense would prevail as far as the Conference on Disarmament was concerned, and that the Conference would resume its constructive work. Russia supported the IAEA safeguards as an effective instrument of control.
OLEXANDR CHALYI, First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said his country had made a significant reduction in strategic armaments deployed in its territory -- 77 per cent of the total number of its strategic offensive arms were already eliminated under the START I Treaty. At present, Ukraine had embarked upon the third and final phase of reducing its strategic arms, which would be completed by December 2001. It was now imperative to ensure the implementation of START II and to resume talks on START III.
He said progress in ensuring the universality of the NPT up until now could be seen more in terms of quality than quantity. The fundamental principle of non- proliferation had been undermined by developments in South Asia, and challenged by States not yet parties to the Treaty who possessed unsafeguarded nuclear facilities. It was imperative that those States accede to the NPT without delay and put their nuclear objects under IAEA safeguards. It was also discouraging to note that negotiations on the fissile material cut-off treaty had not moved forward. Immediate commencement of those negotiations was the next necessary step.
The current Conference was being convened at a critical moment in the history of non-proliferation, he said, when mostly negative external and internal tendencies dominated the viability of the NPT. The lack of speedy progress on genuine nuclear disarmament, serious threats to the existing non-proliferation regime, the continuous reliance on the benefits of nuclear weapons and the stalemates in the multilateral disarmament forums were all aspects that created an atmosphere of frustration and despair. The international community needed, however, to build on progress achieved, rather than criticize regressive developments.
He said the Ukraine was particularly concerned over the failure of the Ad Hoc Committee established at the 1998 Conference on Disarmament to hold collective consultations on security assurances. If progress was desired, then that Committee would have to be re-established to enable it to bring its work to a successful conclusion.
HUBERT LA FORTELLE (France) said success in preserving and consolidating the NPT as an irreplaceable instrument entailed a comprehensive and balanced approach in three key areas: non-proliferation, the applications of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and disarmament. France had committed itself unequivocally in favour of nuclear disarmament. With the complete phasing-out of land-based nuclearÐweapon components, his countryÕs assets were now limited to two components. Moreover, it had carried out a reduction in the format of the airborne and sea-based components. In parallel, the total number of delivery vehicles had been cut by more than half. With the ratification of the CTBT, France had also taken radical, irreversible and unparalleled measures.
He said that with the dismantling of the French surface-to-surface missiles on the Plateau dÕAlbion, no component of his countryÕs nuclear deterrent force remained targeted. The alert status of FranceÕs nuclear forces had also been reduced twice. Moreover, by giving the security assurances called for by the Security Council, and by ratifying the relevant protocols to the treaties establishing nuclear-weapon-free zones, which were legally binding instruments for more than 100 States, France had met the legitimate security concerns of those countries. His country was also convinced of the merits of enhanced transparency as a true voluntary confidence-building measure designed to support disarmament efforts. FranceÕs actions -- such as the opening of the test site in the Pacific to international visit, bore witness to that determination to achieve transparency.
He said that today the international community was called on to acknowledge the importance of what had been achieved, in order to enhance understanding of prospects for the future. What should be our preoccupation during the next five years?Ó he asked. Nothing would be more dangerous than attempting every five years to redraft the fundamental principles and objectives contained in the 1995 decision. The priority was therefore unchanged Ð- to secure the early entry into force of the CTBT, and the prohibition of the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, thanks to the immediate launch of concrete fissile material cut- off treaty negotiations. France also attached the utmost importance to maintaining strategic stability, of which the ABM Treaty was an essential element. His country was anxious to avoid any challenges to the Treaty that might bring about breakdown of strategic equilibrium and restart the arms race.
The safeguards system implemented for the past 25 years by the IAEA was of paramount importance to the full and effective implementation of the NPT, he said. Notwithstanding difficulties presented by countries such as the Democratic PeopleÕs Republic of Korea and Iraq, the international community had succeeded in adapting and strengthening the safeguards system over the years with a view to preserving its credibility and reliability. It was now essential to achieve the universality of that strengthened system and to help the Agency to take up its challenges. He stressed the importance of providing the IAEA with the resources it needed to implement its programmes.
KAIRAT KH. ABUSSEITOV, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, said that the problems revealed during the review process could lead to inconsistencies between the interpretation of Treaty obligations and the interests of its parties, especially between nuclear-weapon States and others. It was the goal of the international community to make the Treaty an effective tool for solving problems of nuclear disarmament and for strengthening the non-proliferation regime.
The recent ratification by the Russian Federation of the START II process had paved the way to negotiations on further reductions of strategic arms, he said. At the same time, it had become clear that despite the multilateral treaties in force, the international arms control regime was very vulnerable, since even a slight change in global balance and stability could endanger the effectiveness of the international arms control regime as a whole.
In that regard, he was concerned over the situation with the ABM Treaty, the preservation of which was an indispensable condition for the process of disarmament. Recognizing the need for overall strengthening of the non- proliferation regime, Kazakhstan supported the entry into force of the CTBT at an early date. By closing the Semipalatinsk test site, his country had made a significant contribution to the nuclear-test ban. It was also necessary to combat the illegal turnover of nuclear materials and missile technologies.
Since 1997, Kazakhstan had been following the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines in its nuclear export practice, he said. Kazakhstan was also interested in joining the Missile Technology Control Regime. At present, the country was putting in place a system of export control and was upgrading a legal basis to conform to Suppliers Group and Control Regime requirements. As a full member of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Kazakhstan was also in favour of the commencement of negotiations on the ConferenceÕs agenda, in particular the talks on ending the production of fissile materials for military purposes. His country was also taking an active part in the elaboration of the treaty on establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia.
The problem of security assurances to non-nuclear States continued to be at the centre of discussions, he said. A solution to the problem could be found in the adoption of a security assurances protocol as an integral part of the NPT. Achieving openness and unrestricted exchange of nuclear materials and technologies, as well as scientific information, should facilitate the development of programmes on peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
ANNA LINDH, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, subscribed to the position of the European Union and said that 30 years after the entry into force of the NPT, the international community faced a near-standstill in nuclear disarmament negotiations. Out of concern for that situation, Sweden, together with several other non-nuclear-weapon States, had launched an initiative in 1998 calling for progress towards the Treaty-bound objective of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Today there was still an urgent need to turn commitment to the 1996 Principles and Objectives into practical steps.
The four areas of concern included reducing nuclear-weapon arsenals; bringing into force the CTBT; halting the development of new weapons and systems; and nuclear weapons in regional conflicts. While welcoming RussiaÕs ratification of the START II Treaty, Sweden remained deeply concerned that it had still not entered into force seven years after being signed. The Russian Federation and the United States must now assume their special responsibility, bringing START II and its protocol into force, and immediately beginning negotiations on a START III Treaty.
No States had the right to hold the common security environment hostage to domestic policies, she continued. Nor was it acceptable that differences between the nuclear-weapon States on unrelated issues should interfere with the responsibility for advancing the nuclear arms control agenda. Sweden remained committed to negotiating a treaty on fissile material based on the Shannon report, which would effectively prevent further development of nuclear weapons. We cannot accept attempts by China or any other State to block progress on that crucial treatyÓ, she said.
She added that her Government was also deeply concerned about the United StatesÕ plans for a national missile defence system. There was a chance that such actions would jeopardize the international balance and have negative consequences for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The United States should refrain from any deployment that could create uncertainties. India and Pakistan must reverse their nuclear ambitions, in accordance with Security Council resolution 1172. She also urged Iraq to cooperate with United Nations monitoring, and said that Sweden hoped for a solution to the nuclear situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Her Government remained committed to cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology, and welcomed the IAEAÕs efforts to align its activities in that field more closely with those of the developing countries. Any activities related to nuclear applications must be based on internationally agreed safety standards, and all countries must accede to all relevant conventions and fully implement their commitments. The Conference offered an opportunity to add more
substance to the strengthened review process and to renew international commitment to the full implementation of the NPT.
BERND NIEHAUS (Costa Rica) said the danger of nuclear weapons lay in the inevitable escalation of military conflict. Once the nuclear fuse was lit, there was no way of avoiding global confrontation. The nuclear-weapon States must truly commit themselves to genuine disarmament, deactivate their nuclear offence systems and dismantle their arsenals. Restrictions had to be put in place to halt the transfer of nuclear technology to States that were not party to NPT. He called on both India and Pakistan to adhere to the Treaty and to halt their nuclear arms testing.
Appealing to all States that had not ratified or signed the CTBT to do so shortly, he said that the TreatyÕs entry into force was an indispensable and urgent step to ensure the security of all humanity. Its prompt ratification was essential to prevent a new arms race, he stressed. He also expressed disquiet at the obstacles put in the way of the work of the IAEA by Iraq and the Democratic PeopleÕs Republic of Korea. The current Review Conference was tasked with coming up with concrete measures to reduce the risk of nuclear war. It must establish a realistic nuclear disarmament agenda for the next five years.
Such an agenda, he continued, should promote the strengthening of the IAEA and its verification activities. The international community must also resume and fulfil its obligations Ð- it must continue negotiations aimed at achieving complete disarmament. The five nuclear-weapon States had prime responsibility in that area. Costa Rica trusted that this Conference would strengthen and reaffirm the worldÕs nuclear-weapon-free zones. The will of States that sought such nuclear-weapon-free zones must also be heeded. He stressed that the financial resources devoted to weapons should be devoted instead to ensuring socio-economic development.
----
Annan calls nuclear war 'very real' prospect
April 25, 2000
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200042522943.htm
NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday warned that nuclear conflict remains a "very real and very terrifying possibility."
"Quite frankly, much of the established multilateral disarmament machinery has started to rust - a problem due not to the machinery itself but to the apparent lack of political will to use it," Mr. Annan said at the start of a monthlong conference to review the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Nuclear conflict remains a very real and very terrifying possibility at the beginning of the 21st century. This is the stark reality confronting you today," he said.
The U.N. conference was called to review a 1968 treaty signed by 187 countries in which non-nuclear states agreed not to try to develop or acquire nuclear weapons on condition the nuclear nations pursue disarmament. The treaty was extended indefinitely in 1995 with the Clinton administration's strong support.
Each of the signatories to the treaty is participating in the conference to review the last five years of nonproliferation efforts. Few tried to paint a happy picture, however U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright defended the United States' nuclear disarmament record.
"Since the fall of the Berlin Wall . . . the United States alone has dismantled about 60 percent of our nuclear weapons," said Mrs. Albright.
Late last year the U.S. Senate voted against ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, even though the Clinton administration was one of its most passionate supporters.
However, Mrs. Albright countered that she is "convinced that America will sign the CTBT and thus help to ensure that the nuclear arms race becomes a relic of the 20th century, not a recurring nightmare of the 21st."
Several speakers criticized Washington's efforts to revive the National Missile Defense system and to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Washington was often contrasted with the Russian State Duma, which has in the last two weeks embraced both the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and START II.
Mrs. Albright sought to deflect criticism of America's "star wars" antimissile system.
"If the Clinton administration were bent on sabotaging the ABM Treaty and strategic arms control, we have surely gone about it in a strange way - in the open, with care, and in consultation not only with Congress, but after extensive discussions with our allies and other countries, Russia and China emphatically included," she said.
She also appeared to put rogue states on notice.
"The world has changed dramatically in the almost three decades since the ABM Treaty was signed . . . and there is no good reason it cannot be amended again to reflect new threats from third countries outside the strategic deterrence regime."
Later, at a news conference, Mrs. Albright said North Korea and Iran posed the threats.
Nuclear testing by India and Pakistan in 1998 has fueled complaints that the United States, Russia and the others have not taken steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Those complaints are expected to be aired during the four-week conference.
A group of seven nations -Mexico, New Zealand, Egypt, South Africa, Sweden, Brazil and Ireland - considered politically moderate called for negotiations "without delay" to achieve nuclear disarmament. Fifty-three nations endorsed the agenda.
----
Nuclear war terrifyingly possible, says Annan
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2000/0425/wor10.htm
UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan said yesterday the threat of nuclear war "remains a very real, and very terrifying possibility" at the beginning of the 21st century.
Without mentioning Washington by name, he also cautioned against plans to develop a "star wars"-type National Missile Defence (NMD), saying this could lead to a new arms race.
Mr Annan was welcoming delegates at the start of a month-long conference to review implementation of the key nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Under the treaty, which entered into force in 1970, the five original nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France - are permitted to retain their nuclear weapons in exchange for a pledge to move towards nuclear disarmament.
The other 182 parties to the treaty have renounced any ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons, while being assured access to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
But their resentment at what they regard as the big powers' foot-dragging on disarmament will be highlighted during the conference.
Another focus is likely to be the four countries that have so far refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. They are India and Pakistan, which carried out tit-for-tat underground tests in 1998, Cuba and Israel, certain to be accused by Arab states as possessing nuclear weapons.
Mr Annan said the tests carried out by India and Pakistan were "a serious setback against the global norms against nuclear testing and nuclear proliferation".
Welcoming what he called "an unmistakable record of achievement and hard-won progress" in the disarmament field, Mr Annan said this was "no time for complacency when it comes to the threat of nuclear war".
"Nuclear conflict remains a very real, and very terrifying possibility at the beginning of the 21st century. This is the stark reality confronting you today," Mr Annan said.
Mr Annan said the most recent challenge was "the growing pressure to deploy national missile defences". - (Reuters)
----
Secretary-General Fears Arms Race
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/04252000/nation_w/44149.htm
http://www.seattlep-i.com/national/arms25.shtml
UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday warned that growing pressure to deploy national missile defenses "could well lead to a new arms race."
But Secretary of State Madeleine Albright countered that a way should be found to mount a limited defense against new threats.
Speaking at a conference of dozens of non-nuclear nations as well as the handful of nuclear-armed states, Annan was responding to those who argue a 1972 treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union to ban anti-missile defenses should be overhauled or even scuttled.
Annan referred to the treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and called for "great care" before taking steps that "may well reduce, rather than enhance, global security."
The Secretary-General made no direct reference to President Clinton's consideration of limited anti-missile defenses against what administration officials say is a threat of attack by North Korea and other so-called "rogue states."
But Albright stoutly defended amending the treaty to defend against "at most a few tens of incoming missiles."
"The treaty has been amended before and there is no good reason it cannot be amended again to reflect new threats from third countries," she said.
Clinton is expected to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit in Moscow June 4-5 to cooperate in modifying the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Many conservative Republicans in Congress would go further by scrapping the pact and proceeding with a spaced-based weapons program.
Putin has denounced tinkering with the treaty but in 1997 his presidential predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, agreed to take steps to destroy "strategic nuclear warheads" at a Helsinki, Finland, summit with Clinton.
American and Russian negotiators opened talks last week in Geneva, Switzerland, on reducing nuclear stockpiles and defending against nuclear attack.
The U.N. conference was called to review a 1970 treaty signed by 187 countries in which non-nuclear states agreed not to try to develop or acquire nuclear weapons on condition the nuclear nations pursue disarmament. The treaty was extended indefinitely in 1995 with the Clinton administration's strong support.
Nuclear testing by India and Pakistan in 1998 has fueled complaints that the United States, Russia and the others have not taken steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Those complaints are expected to be aired during the four-week conference.
A group of seven nations considered politically moderate called for negotiations "without delay" to achieve nuclear disarmament.
Foreign Minister Rosario Green of Mexico, presenting the group's "new agenda," proposed that nuclear states pledge not to use nuclear weapons first, as well as speed up the removal of warheads from missile launchers, end the deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons and expand nuclear-free zones.
Fifty-three nations endorsed the agenda advocated by Mexico, New Zealand, Egypt, South Africa, Sweden, Brazil and Ireland.
----
US Defends Record on Reducing Nukes
By NICOLE WINFIELD,
Associated Press Writer Tuesday
April 25 12:48 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000425/us/un_nuclear_treaty_8.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States is defending its record in reducing its nuclear arsenal against criticism that the world's nuclear powers aren't doing enough to rid the world of the deadly weapons.
In a speech Monday to a conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pledged U.S. commitment to disarmament and rejected suggestions that the United States was ``turning its back on arms control.''
The treaty, which went into force in 1970 and has been signed by 187 countries, committed the nuclear nations to pursue disarmament while the non-nuclear states agreed not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.
``We share the frustration many feel about the pace of progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons,'' Albright said. ``But we also know that if countries demand unrealistic and premature measures, they will harm the NPT and set back everyone's cause.''
Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the four-week conference by warning that another cornerstone of arms control - the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty - was being jeopardized by suggestions that a limited missile defense system be allowed.
The United States wants to amend the ABM treaty to build a limited missile-defense system against possible attacks from ``rogue states.'' President Clinton is expected to make a decision this summer.
Russia has vehemently opposed the plan, which it says would make its own forces ineffective and trigger a new arms race.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told the conference today that Russia would only consider further reductions in strategic offensive weapons if the treaty is preserved without modification.
He invited the United States to join an alternative system to counter threats from rogue states - a missile nonproliferation control system that could be worked out within the norms of the ABM treaty.
But at a press conference today, a senior adviser to Clinton and Albright said talks on amending the ABM treaty shouldn't be rejected outright. Modifying the treaty would enable it to deal with new threats from North Korea and Iran that didn't exist when the treaty was negotiated, said John Holum.
Annan, however, voiced the Russian concerns on Monday by warning that a missile defense system could trigger an arms race and create incentives for missile proliferation.
``It is my hope that all states will take great care to weigh these dangers and challenges before embarking on a process which may well reduce, rather than enhance, global security,'' Annan said.
Albright defended amending the ABM treaty to protect the United States against the handful of missiles that could be launched by countries such as North Korea or Iran.
``The treaty has been amended before, and there is no good reason it cannot be amended again to reflect new threats from third countries,'' she said.
Clinton is expected to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin at a June summit in Moscow to cooperate in changing the ABM treaty. Many conservative Republicans in Congress would go further by scrapping the pact and proceeding with a spaced-based weapons program.
At the conference's opening session, a new coalition of seven countries - backed by another 50 nations - issued a united position on pressing forward with nuclear disarmament, particularly among the nuclear powers.
The coalition, which includes Mexico, South Africa, Ireland, Sweden, Egypt, New Zealand and Brazil, proposed that nuclear states pledge not to use nuclear weapons first. It also asked them to speed up removal of warheads from missile launchers, end deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons and expand nuclear-free zones.
Foreign Minister Rosario Green of Mexico acknowledged the process of nuclear weapons elimination would take time. But she said nations have a responsibility to do interim measures ``to lessen the prospect of the unleashing of nuclear weapons whether by design or accident before they are eliminated.''
----
Russian Head Talks With Clinton
By BARRY SCHWEID,
AP Diplomatic Correspondent
Tuesday April 25 6:38 PM ET
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>
WASHINGTON (AP) - Russia's foreign minister warned anew at a United Nations disarmament conference Tuesday that the United States was on a risky course in considering an anti-missile defense. But he took a softer approach later with President Clinton at the White House.
Standing without a hat or an umbrella in a rain-pelted driveway after an hour with Clinton in the Oval Office, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said his government was open to any suggestions to improve security, And he stressed President Vladimir Putin wants to improve already good relations with the United States when he sees Clinton in Moscow June 4-5.
In fact, Ivanov said he did not directly challenge Clinton for considering a limited defense against missiles that Russia says would cause a dangerous erosion of the arms control process.
``Our position is that security will be better protected if the treaty (that bans national defenses against missiles) is kept intact,'' Ivanov said in Russian. But, in a gesture to Clinton, who has not made a final decision on a limited defense, the foreign minister also said ``we are ready to listen to any suggestions.''
Differences over missile defenses and strong measures taken by the Russians in Chechnya are casting a cloud over summit preparations.
Ivanov tried in his exchange with reporters to paint a brighter picture.
``It is important to look for solutions on a basis of political dialogue,'' Ivanov said. ``But it does not mean we will not have our disagreements. It is quite natural and they can be on a major scale.''
Earlier, in his speech to the United Nations, Ivanov said ``the collapse of the ABM treaty of 1972 would ... undermine the entirety of disarmament agreements concluded over the last 30 years.''
Clinton is expected to urge Putin at their summit meeting to cooperate in amending the treaty. Many conservative Republicans in Congress would go further and scrap the pact and proceed with a spaced-based weapons program.
In the meantime, Russia's parliament has ratified the START II treaty to slash U.S. and Russian arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons about 50 percent and an international ban on nuclear weapons tests that the U.S. Senate rejected.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin extended persistent criticism of Russian operations in Chechnya, saying human rights of civilians were being violated in a mistaken notion that force would end the rebellion in the republic.
Rubin cited deadly attacks on Russian troops as evidence the war was not over and could not be ended forcibly.
Ivanvv acknowledged that ``disagreements do exist'' with the United States on the regional conflict. But he said the problem was the failure of the international community to find ways to deal effectively with regional conflicts.
----
N. Korea Singled Out at Conference
APRIL 25, 23:03 EDT
By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=ASIA&STORYID=APIS7435OR80
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - North Korea has been singled out for criticism at a conference on nuclear nonproliferation and named as the reason the United States wants to build a missile defense system.
North Korea is among the 187 countries that have committed themselves to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which allows the International Atomic Energy Agency to make sure a countries' nuclear technology is being used for peaceful purposes.
But North Korea has limited IAEA access to its facilities, prompting the head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, to tell a conference reviewing the treaty that the agency couldn't be sure North Korea hadn't diverted technology to non-peaceful uses.
A senior U.S. official, meanwhile, raised concern Tuesday that North Korea could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile within the next five years - before the United States could mount a missile defense system against it.
North Korea launched a three-stage Taepondong missile in 1998, with a range of over 940 miles, and is ``very close'' to an even more advanced missile, said John Holum, a senior U.S. adviser on arms control.
That 1998 test spurred the United States to begin considering a missile defense system to guard against attack, he said.
Russia, which ratified the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with the United States barring such systems, has rebuffed U.S. efforts to amend the treaty to allow a limited defense, arguing it would make Russian forces ineffective.
The United States says the missile defense system isn't intended to counter Russian missiles, but to eliminate the smaller threat a nation such as North Korea could pose.
Pyongyang has agreed for the time being not to conduct a flight test of the more advanced Taepondong-2 system, Holum said.
``Nevertheless, the intelligence analysis is that North Korea is very close to an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capability through that system, much closer to an ICBM capability than we are to deployment of a national missile defense,'' Holum said.
The U.S. consideration of a missile defense system has dominated the opening days of the conference, but North Korea's non-compliance with the treaty has figured prominently in several speeches as well.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer welcomed recent improvements in relations between Pyongyang and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, an apparent reference to plans by leaders of North and South Korea to hold an unprecedented summit in June.
``We hope this will be reflected in reduced tensions in the region and improved North Korean cooperation with the IAEA,'' he said.
But Downer stressed that North Korea had solid commitments with the IAEA regarding information about its nuclear facilities that needed to be turned over.
-------- puerto rico
U.S. Is Working to Clear Vieques
April 25, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/pr-vieques.html
Related Article
Solution on Vieques Takes a Step Forward (Feb. 29, 2000)
WASHINGTON, April 24 -- Federal officials said today that they were working on a plan to remove, by force if necessary, dozens of Puerto Rican protesters at a Navy bombing range on the island of Vieques.
The operation could begin as early as next week, the officials said.
The protesters stand in the way of putting into effect an agreement reached on Jan. 31 by President Clinton and Gov. Pedro J. Rosselló to permit the Navy to resume limited exercises on Vieques in exchange for a referendum to decide whether to close the range.
When the deal was announced, Mr. Rosselló pledged to "support federal efforts to assure that trespassing or other intrusions on the range cease entirely." Since the agreement, however, no action has been taken against the protesters.
The removal plan, which has not received final approval, would involve federal marshals as well as F.B.I. agents. Marines would be aboard ships off the coast to provide perimeter security, the officials said. The Puerto Rican police would support the operation by performing crowd control and other duties.
--------
Protesters Prepare in Puerto Rico
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Puerto-Rico-US-Navy.html
VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Reacting to reports that Marines are setting sail to arrest them, Puerto Rican protesters braced Tuesday for a possible showdown on the dusty, cratered expanse of the U.S. Navy's Vieques bombing range.
After a year of holding the Navy at bay, demonstrators camped out on the range said the threat of arrests won't stop their campaign to shut down the Navy's prime Atlantic training ground.
``I know all the risks and I am ready to be arrested,'' said 65-year-old Felicita Garcia, camped with about 30 other people outside the front gates of the training ground. ``We are resolved to go the all the way.''
Dozens of people joined the protesters at camps set up after an April 1999 accident on the range, which is littered with unexploded bombs and shells. A 500-pound bomb launched off-target killed a civilian security guard.
Gov. Pedro Rossello urged the protesters to leave Tuesday, even offering them public land outside the training ground for their camps.
``We are asking that the removal be voluntary and peaceful ... so that there will be no kind of confrontation,'' Rossello said.
But the demonstrators refused, saying they would replace any arrested protesters by cutting through fences or sending in reinforcements on horseback.
Angel Navarro, 72, planned to take his small fishing boat through any blockade.
``I was a sergeant in Korea for 11 months ... fighting for democracy -- now I'm ready to fight the Navy,'' he said.
Pentagon sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that a raid on the camps by U.S. Marshals and FBI agents could occur as early as next week.
As soon as the news was leaked, islanders began moving to the camps -- where numbers vary from less than 10 on weekdays to dozens at weekends -- said one organizer, Robert Rabin. More than 60 people were on the range by Tuesday morning.
There were unconfirmed reports that two ships in Norfolk, Va., were preparing to carry Marines to set up a security perimeter around the 21-mile-long island, just east of Puerto Rico.
Local police are to provide five patrol boats, helicopters and 100 to 200 officers in case of any raid, Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo said Tuesday. He said the police would only provide transport and crowd control and would not enter the range because it is federal property.
The Navy has practiced bombing and other exercises in Vieques since 1941. Last year's accident created island-wide outrage that has drawn support from environmental and other groups in the United States.
The protesters have stood in the way of a pact between President Clinton and Rossello that would allow exercises to continue without explosives until Vieques's 9,400 residents vote in a referendum on whether to expel the Navy. Clinton has agreed to order the military out by May 2003 if the Navy loses the referendum.
Protesters celebrated a minor victory Tuesday as the Navy announced the USS George Washington battle group would train off the U.S. East Coast instead of Vieques on May 12-20.
It was unclear whether that might cause authorities to postpone the reported plans. But demonstrators said they were not lowering their guard. On Tuesday, they continued to block vehicles carrying troops or non-Vieques residents from the range.
A scuffle with one driver Tuesday drew more than 250 people to the gates in 30 minutes.
Manning his post at the protest camp outside the gate, 90-year-old Nazario Cruz wagged his white beard angrily as he and other protesters discussed the reports of a possible raid.
``This is unworthy of the American nation,'' he said.
--------
Navy Cancels Exercise Off Vieques
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Puerto-Rico-US-Training.html
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A U.S. aircraft carrier battle group will train off the East Coast rather than Puerto Rico because protesters continue to occupy a bombing range on Vieques island, the Navy said Tuesday.
The May 12-20 exercise by the USS George Washington group is the fourth series of naval maneuvers to be diverted since April 1999, when demonstrators occupied the Vieques range to protest the death a civilian security guard by an errant bomb.
The announcement followed reports that federal authorities were drawing up plans to send Marines to Vieques to help U.S. Marshals and FBI agents remove the protesters, by force if necessary.
It was unclear if the change in venue for the training exercise would affect any plans for a raid. Navy spokesman Jeff Gordon said he knew nothing about possible raids, and Justice officials have refused any commment.
``When the range at Vieques becomes available, the Navy will be eager to use it,'' a Navy statement said.
The George Washington battle group will instead train off Virginia and North Carolina.
The Navy calls Vieques its prime Atlantic training ground, the only place where it can do live bombing, shelling, submarine maneuvers, amphibious assaults and ship-to-ship warfare drills at the same time.
``The training conducted at Vieques, particularly the combined arms portion, is critical to combat readiness,'' the Navy said. ``It affords the most realistic and effective preparation.''
The presence of the protesters impedes implementation of a Jan. 31 agreement between President Clinton and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello to permit the Navy to resume limited training exercises on the island in exchange for a referendum on whether to eventually close the range.
Pentagon officials warn that warships may go into missions unprepared if they are not allowed to use the range.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS George Washington battle groups have both been diverted to the East Coast twice. Earlier this year, two cruisers and a destroyer from the Eisenhower were sent to Cape Wrath, Scotland, to practice shelling that would normally be done in Vieques.
-------- russia
Russia Urged To Cut Fuel Leaks
APRIL 25, 13:31 EDT
By ANNA DOLGOV
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS742TCCG0
MOSCOW (AP) - The oil and natural gas that Russia loses in leaks and spills every year could provide enough energy to allow the country to close its nuclear power plants, Greenpeace said Tuesday.
The comments by the Russian, German and Dutch branches of the environmental group came on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine, which sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
Russia relies heavily on its nine nuclear power plants. No major accidents have been reported at the Russian plants and the government says all Chernobyl-type reactors have been modernized and are safe.
``We are trying to prove that ... the output of nuclear power stations could be substituted,'' said Oganes Targulian, a Greenpeace-Russia oil specialist.
Russian Nuclear Power Ministry spokesman Vladislav Petrov was skeptical about the Greenpeace proposal.
``It's a bit like saying, 'Let's take the whole humankind and transport it to a new, wonderful planet,''' Petrov said by telephone. ``The idea is nice, but can it be realized?''
Between 70 million and 140 million barrels of oil are spilled in Russia every year, out of the approximately 2.1 billion barrels the country produces, according to government and environmentalist estimates cited in a Greenpeace report released Tuesday.
The country also loses between 210 billion cubic feet to 1.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in pipeline leaks every year, the report said. Russia's annual natural gas production has hovered around 19 trillion cubic feet the past few years, according to government figures.
The exact losses are hard to estimate because some companies underreport leaks and spills to avoid paying fines, while others may exaggerate them to hide fuel theft, Targulian told reporters.
Every year, another 630 billion cubic feet of associated natural gas - a byproduct of oil fields - is simply burnt up because Russian oil companies say transporting or converting it into energy is unprofitable, Targulian said.
Depending on fuel leak estimates and the efficiency of power plants, the wasted oil and gas could give Russia between 70 billion and 316 billion extra kilowatt-hours of energy every year, according to the Greenpeace report.
In comparison, Russia's nuclear power plants produce 120 billion kilowatt- hours of energy annually, according to government figures cited in the Greenpeace report.
Russia relies on aging pipelines, often hastily built during the Soviet era, and patching fuel leaks would require major upgrades. Greenpeace has not estimated the cost of renovations needed to reduce leaks, Targulian said.
----
Russia May Expand Nuclear Doctrine
APRIL 25, 19:58 EDT
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS74332EO0
MOSCOW (AP) - A top military official said Russia's new military doctrine, which expands the conditions under which nuclear weapons could be used, also applies to protecting allies, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.
The doctrine had raised concerns among some observers because it says Russia could use nuclear weapons if other means to repel an aggressor fail. Previous policy said nuclear weapons could be used only if Russia's sovereignty was threatened.
Col. Gen. Valery Manilov, first deputy chief of the Russian general staff, told a news conference that the policy also covers aggression against allies, the report said.
Interfax did not specify what countries Manilov considers allies. Russian officials have previously said that the so-called ``nuclear umbrella'' applies to Belarus, which has signed a treaty with Russia.
Manilov rejected concerns that the new military doctrine reflects an increasingly confrontational attitude.
``The reverse is true. We regard all countries as potential partners in upholding security and stability in the world,'' the report quoted him as saying.
----
At U.N., Russia's Foreign Minister Opposed U.S.-Backed Arms Plan
April 25, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/25un-nuclear.html
UNITED NATIONS - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov dashed U.S. hopes again Tuesday of amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and instead asked to world to promote a curb on missile technology.
In a speech to a conference on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Ivanov opposed any changes to the ABM treaty Washington might propose so it can develop a missile defense system to protect itself against rockets from "rogue" states.
And he said Russia would only consider further reductions in strategic offensive weapons if the ABM treaty is preserved without modifications.
"One has to be fully aware of the fact that the prevailing system of arms control agreements is a complex and quite fragile structure," Ivanov said. "Once one of its key elements has been weakened, the entire system is destabilized."
"The collapse of the ABM Treaty would, therefore, undermine the entirety of disarmament agreements concluded over the last 30 years," he concluded.
The one-month NPT conference, held every five years, is to review progress on the treaty that went into force in 1970 and has been signed by 187 countries. The five nuclear weapons powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- are obligated to move toward disarmament while all other signatories vow to give up atomic warheads for good.
Ivanov said Russia was prepared "to engage in the broadest consultation" with the United States and with other nations.
Specifically, he referred to a Russian plan to limit "rogue" states' access to missile technology, called the Global Missile and Missile Technologies Non-Proliferation Control System, proposed by Moscow in March.
Impatient with the slow implementation of nuclear arms reduction treaties by Washington and Moscow, dozens of countries this year used the conference to tell the United States its proposed anti-missile shield would escalate the arms race and be a step in the wrong direction.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Monday defended the policy, dubbed "Star Wars," arguing that Washington was not threatening 30 years of arms control progress by developing an anti-missile defense system. President Clinton will decide this summer whether to go ahead and build it.
At a news conference, a senior advisor to Clinton said the type of threat the United States had in mind might come first from North Korea, with Iran or Iraq posing a threat later this decade.
North Korea is "much closer to an ICBM capability than we are to deployment of a national missile defense," said John Holum, an advisor on arms control and international security. "We are five years away from having a missile defense."
Ivanov also provided a new progress report on Russia's destruction of thousands of so-called non-strategic tactical nuclear weapons, which are not included in the START II strategic arms reduction treaty.
This pact would cut the number of nuclear warheads from 6,000 to no more than 3,500 on each side by 2007.
Ivanov said one-third of all nuclear munitions for sea-based tactical systems and naval aircraft had been scrapped. He said Russia was "about to complete the destruction of nuclear warheads from tactical missiles, artillery shells and nuclear mines" and had destroyed half of its nuclear warheads for anti-aircraft missiles and air-dropped atomic bombs
Russia had been harshly criticized for storing rather than destroying some 20,000 non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons. The United States plans to refurbish its reserve of 2,500-3,000 warheads after Start II's limit of 3,500 deployed warheads for each side is activated.
"The possibilities of redeploying nuclear weapons that are currently in non-operational status has not been fully discarded," said Brazil's envoy, Celso Amorim.
Reminding the world his country had renounced nuclear weapons, Amorim said "we believe ... a single nuclear weapons is a nuclear weapon too many."
Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Ireland, Egypt, South Africa and New Zealand have formed a "New Agenda Coalition" with a series of proposals for the conference that most countries support.
Despite the focus on the United States, Sweden's foreign minister, Annan Lindh, noted the growing importance Russia has given to nuclear arms strategy since the breakup of the Soviet Union to compensate for its crumbling conventional forces.
"In some countries there is a tendency to accord nuclear weapons a growing importance in military doctrines and postures. This is unacceptable," she said.
Canada, which benefits from the U.S. defense umbrella, said it was seriously concerned about whether the U.S. missile defense program would work, whether it would enhance or diminish security or whether it would reinforce or damage the NPT regime.
Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy also said NATO had to do more to review its disarmament options. Canada has encouraged the alliance to review its first-use nuclear weapons strategy but these proposals are being put off for at least a year.
--------
In a New Era, U.S. and Russia Bicker Over an Old Issue
April 25, 2000
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/042500us-russia-arms.html
MOSCOW, April 24 -- A decade after the collapse of Communism appeared to make superpower arms controls routine, the old disputes over missile defenses have suddenly returned to the forefront of United States-Russian relations. And though experts say new rules of the nuclear game are technically feasible, the issue has been caught up in American election politics and Russian suspicions.
At issue are the fundamental principles that Washington and Moscow have accepted for almost three decades, that the only way to encourage reductions in strategic arms is to restrict ways to counter them -- an understanding codified in the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
But a new-found American interest in developing a missile defense, which proponents say would defend against "rogue" states like North Korea and Iran, has called the treaty into question.
So far, Russia has strongly opposed any changes in the treaty. And in recent weeks, President-elect Vladimir V. Putin has strengthened his hand in the dispute by getting his Parliament to ratify the long-delayed nuclear arms reduction treaty known as Start II and conditioning the accord on continued United States adherence to the ABM treaty.
With Republicans in the United States Senate equally adamant about developing antimissile defenses, resolving the dispute during President Clinton's visit to Moscow in early June will be difficult at best.
"It is a very sensitive period," said Anatoly Diakov, the director of the Moscow-based Center for Arms Control and the Environment. "Both sides have to decide whether to support the arms control regime or destroy it."
The increasingly heated debate is something of a surprise because arms control had ceased to be a bitter bone of contention in recent years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the expectation was that the hard bargaining over warheads, missiles and bombers was over. The two sides were no longer adversaries. And while arms control talks often lagged, that seemed little more than a matter of benign neglect.
But the demise of the Soviet Union also left the United States without a consensus on the threats that confront the nation and on how best to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
Republican lawmakers in Washington have cast the heart of old nuclear arms controls, the ABM accord, as an anachronism that needs to be radically modified or abandoned altogether so the United States can build an antimissile shield against "rogue" states.
The Clinton administration sought to blunt the political assault from the right by proposing a limited defense, which would require amending the ABM treaty, but not jettisoning it.
The administration says the system would be designed to protect all 50 states from an attack by several dozen warheads carried by North Korean missiles or half a dozen warheads mounted on Iranian rockets. The plan, which would be carried out by 2005, would involve the construction of a radar in Alaska, the deployment of 100 interceptors there, and upgrades to five existing radars.
But the Clinton plan is too little for many Republicans and too much for the Russians.
Russian officials have said they doubt that the United States would go through all the cost and trouble of developing a national missile defense just to counter tiny North Korea. And while the 6,000 warheads in Russia's arsenals are more than enough to overwhelm a limited defense, Russian officials worry that the Clinton plan would unleash a new race to deploy antimissile defenses, which cash-poor Russia is doomed to lose. "The American plans of a national missile defense is not perceived in Russia as something that is justified by the North Korean or Iranian nuclear programs," said Sergei Rogov, the director of the United States and Canada Institute.
The Clinton administration's plan is an even greater worry for the Chinese, who have only about a dozen land-based missiles that are capable of striking the United States. Beijing has already vowed that it will respond to the plan by expanding its nuclear arsenal.
Clinton administration officials have been telling Moscow that they should cut a deal now and agree to amend the ABM treaty because the terms they would be offered by a future Republican president -- if George W. Bush is elected -- would be far less favorable.
The most logical trade-off, specialists say -- and one that American officials hint Mr. Clinton may in fact propose -- would grant the United States the right to build a limited missile defense to counter possible missile threats from third world nations.
In return, Washington would agree to the Russian demand that both sides make especially deep cuts in long-range nuclear arms as part of a Start III nuclear accord.
The Russians have urged that both sides slash their nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads. The Pentagon has previously argued that the United States needs about 2,500 warheads to meet its military requirements, but Washington could try to mollify the Russians by agreeing to a limit below 2,000 warheads.
A small but influential group of specialists in Russia argues that the trade-off could be in Russia's interest. Mr. Rogov, for example, argued that a small-scale American defense would not dramatically alter the strategic balance if the limitations were carefully defined.
Officially, however, the Kremlin insists that it is not interested. It has warned that it will not agree to revise the treaty and that an American decision to withdraw from the accord would unravel the entire framework of arms agreements.
Russia would not only stop reducing its arsenal of strategic arms, Mr. Putin has warned, but it might also deploy new multiwarhead missiles, abandon the agreement banning medium-range missiles and even withdraw from the accord limiting conventional arms in Europe.
Instead, the Russians have offered only to cooperate on anti-defense systems that protect against shorter-range missiles.
Having staked out such a tough opening position, Mr. Putin may find it difficult to reach a compromise with Mr. Clinton. Nor does it help that Mr. Clinton is nearing the end of his term and has not always been able to prevail in the arms control debate at home.
Some Russian specialists fear that if a deal were stuck at the June summit meeting, Mr. Clinton would find it difficult to persuade the Republican-dominated Senate to support it. They note that the Clinton administration suffered a stinging setback last year when the Senate rejected the treaty banning nuclear tests. If a deal is to be made, they say, it should be cut with a leader who can make it stick.
In fact, after an antimissile failed a crucial test in January, supporters and opponents of the defense system asked the administration to postpone a decision on whether to go ahead with such a system until after the November elections.
"Even if Russia reached an agreement with Clinton, there would be no guarantee that the next American administration would not come to Russia 18 months after that for another round of talks on modifying the ABM treaty and perhaps yet again," said Aleksandr Pikayev, an arms control specialist at the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"If you want to cut off the tail of a cat you should do it once and not three times," he said.
--------
U.N. Blasts Russia on Chechnya
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-UN-Chechnya-Rights.html
GENEVA (AP) -- The top U.N. human rights body accused Russia of widespread violations in Chechnya in a sudden and unexpected show of decisiveness Tuesday.
The resolution, sponsored by the European Union, attacked ``disproportionate and indiscriminate use of Russian military force, including attacks against civilians.'' It also expressed concern at ``serious crimes and abuses'' committed by Chechen forces.
The 53-nation Human Rights Commission called on the Russian government to establish a commission of inquiry and asked a series of U.N. human rights experts to undertake missions to Chechnya. But it stopped short of demands by human rights organizations that the world body set up its own probe.
The resolution was approved by a vote of 25 to 7 with 19 abstentions. Joining Russia in voting against the resolution were China, Cuba, the Republic of Congo, India, Madagascar and Sri Lanka.
The criticism of a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council was an unusual move for the commission, which last week failed even to vote on a motion attacking China's human rights record.
The vote came after negotiations between the EU and the Russian delegation failed to come up with an agreed statement. It took U.N. officials by surprise. They had expected the debate to be adjourned until Wednesday to allow discussions to continue.
``Unfortunately the Russian Federation was not in a position to accept the minimum that this commission must ask for when seriously addressing human rights and international humanitarian law in Chechnya,'' said Portuguese Ambassador Alvaro de Mendonca e Moura, speaking for the EU.
Russia sent troops into Chechnya for a second time last September after militants based in the territory invaded the neighboring region of Dagestan. Chechens also are blamed for four apartment bombings in Russia in September that killed 300 people.
The United States and the EU have been sharply critical of what they call excessive use of force by Russian troops, widespread civilian suffering, and reports of human rights abuses in the campaign against Chechen separatists.
Russian Ambassador Vasily Sidorov said the resolution failed to take account of the serious danger to human rights posed by terrorists in Chechnya. He said it showed ``absolutely no understanding of what human rights means.''
``Armed bandits have unleashed a war against the whole peaceful population of Chechnya,'' Sidorov said.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright welcomed the decision and criticized Russia for blocking a unified commission stand on Chechnya, spokesman James P. Rubin said. Rubin said Chechnya is on the agenda for talks Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is having in Washington with President Clinton and Albright.
--------
Worst Effects of Chernobyl To Come
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-UN-Chernobyl.html
GENEVA (AP) -- The United Nations released a new assessment of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown Tuesday, saying the worst health consequences for millions of people may be yet to come.
``At least 100 times as much radiation was released by this accident as by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined'' at the end of World War II, said a 32-page booklet released to mark the 14th anniversary of the disaster.
Three people were killed in the explosion on April 26, 1986, and 28 emergency workers died within the first three months, the report said. It gave no other death toll, but noted that 106 of the other emergency workers that were first on the scene also were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome.
And, the report said, a total of 600,000 emergency workers who helped in the cleanup and later built a cover to seal the destroyed reactor ``must be constantly monitored for the effects of exposure to radiation.''
The booklet, published by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the three countries most affected by the radiation -- Belarus, Ukraine and Russia -- continue to pay the price.
``Chernobyl is a word we would all like to erase from our memory,'' said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a foreword.
But, Annan added, ``more than 7 million of our fellow human beings do not have the luxury of forgetting. They are still suffering, everyday, as a result of what happened.'' He said the exact number of victims may never be known, but that 3 million children require treatment and ``many will die prematurely.''
``Not until 2016, at the earliest, will be known the full number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions'' because of delayed reactions to radiation exposure, he said.
Annan said response to a U.N. appeal launched three years ago had fallen so short that the original list of 60 projects had been shortened to the nine most urgent.
``These nine projects could, if implemented, make a vital difference to the lives of many people,'' Annan said in appealing for governments and institutions to contribute $9.5 million.
The projects include modernization of a hospital, creation of a network of centers to treat children and decontamination of schools, kindergartens and hospitals in Belarus.
--------
Russian Diplomat Talks With Clinton
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-Russia.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia's foreign minister warned anew at a United Nations disarmament conference Tuesday that the United States was on a risky course in considering an anti-missile defense. But he took a softer approach later with President Clinton at the White House.
Standing without a hat or an umbrella in a rain-pelted driveway after an hour with Clinton in the Oval Office, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said his government was open to any suggestions to improve security, And he stressed President Vladimir Putin wants to improve already good relations with the United States when he sees Clinton in Moscow June 4-5.
In fact, Ivanov said he did not directly challenge Clinton for considering a limited defense against missiles that Russia says would cause a dangerous erosion of the arms control process.
``Our position is that security will be better protected if the treaty (that bans national defenses against missiles) is kept intact,'' Ivanov said in Russian. But, in a gesture to Clinton, who has not made a final decision on a limited defense, the foreign minister also said ``we are ready to listen to any suggestions.''
Differences over missile defenses and strong measures taken by the Russians in Chechnya are casting a cloud over summit preparations.
Ivanov tried in his exchange with reporters to paint a brighter picture.
``It is important to look for solutions on a basis of political dialogue,'' Ivanov said. ``But it does not mean we will not have our disagreements. It is quite natural and they can be on a major scale.''
Earlier, in his speech to the United Nations, Ivanov said ``the collapse of the ABM treaty of 1972 would ... undermine the entirety of disarmament agreements concluded over the last 30 years.''
Clinton is expected to urge Putin at their summit meeting to cooperate in amending the treaty. Many conservative Republicans in Congress would go further and scrap the pact and proceed with a spaced-based weapons program.
In the meantime, Russia's parliament has ratified the START II treaty to slash U.S. and Russian arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons about 50 percent and an international ban on nuclear weapons tests that the U.S. Senate rejected.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin extended persistent criticism of Russian operations in Chechnya, saying human rights of civilians were being violated in a mistaken notion that force would end the rebellion in the republic.
Rubin cited deadly attacks on Russian troops as evidence the war was not over and could not be ended forcibly.
Ivanvv acknowledged that ``disagreements do exist'' with the United States on the regional conflict. But he said the problem was the failure of the international community to find ways to deal effectively with regional conflicts.
-------- spying
Albright shifts duties after computer loss
April 25, 2000
By Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200042522114.htm
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright yesterday reassigned two officials and stripped her main intelligence advisers of their security duties over the loss of a laptop computer holding highly sensitive information on nuclear weapons proliferation.
She said that after consulting with the head of the CIA she was shifting the task of protecting national secrets at the State Department to the Diplomatic Security Division.
She also set in motion a series of steps to upgrade security awareness at State, which has been hit three times in as many years by serious security violations.
Last summer, officials discovered a bug had been placed in a seventh-floor State Department conference room and was being monitored by a Russian diplomat caught outside the building with an electronic listening device.
In response, the department tightened some security procedures, limiting visiting reporters to the press area and requiring cleaning staff to be escorted around the building.
In 1998, an unidentified man walked into an office near Mrs. Albright's and left with secret papers that have never been found.
Department spokesman James P. Rubin said, "We are temporarily detailing to other duties the directors of the offices involved in this security breach.
"This is not a finding of fault," he told reporters. "We are not in a position to make decisions concerning culpability or disciplinary action until the investigation is completed."
Mrs. Albright told reporters she will hold a State Department town-hall meeting on May 3 to "discuss ongoing concerns about security. But I'm taking some actions today that will not wait even until May 3rd.
"Recently, a laptop computer containing sensitive information disappeared from a secure area controlled by the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or I&R. Like several other recent serious lapses in security, this is inexcusable and intolerable.
"Such failures put our nation's secrets at risk."
Diplomatic Security, newly authorized to oversee protection of secrets, has been ordered to "intensify a program of annual refresher security briefings with attendance mandatory for all department employees who handle or safeguard classified or sensitive information," she said.
She appointed the assistant secretary of diplomatic security, David Carpenter, as her senior adviser on +security issues.
"Questions of accountability" are to be examined in connection with the laptop disappearance, she said, suggesting that someone might face discipline or punishment for the breach of security.
Mr. Rubin, in his last week as spokesman, said there was no evidence that the laptop or the intelligence data it contained had reached foreign or unfriendly powers.
"It's unclear as to whether it was stolen for the hardware - that is, the laptop - whether it was stolen for the information contained in the laptop, or whether it has simply been misplaced," he said.
The shift of security responsibility from I&R to Diplomatic Security had been discussed several months ago but the then head of I&R, Phyllis Oakley, rejected the suggestion, said Mr. Rubin.
The loss of the laptop has prompted Mrs. Albright to finally act on the suggestion by the inspector general at State to give Diplomatic Security control over the security at I&R.
Congress reacted swiftly to the latest report of security lapses at State. House International Affairs Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman, New York Republican, called for hearings on the issue.
The laptop contained "code word" information, a classification even higher than top secret, regarding sources and methods of weapons proliferation.
Diplomatic Security's main function has been to protect U.S. and foreign diplomats and to fight terrorism.
--------
Albright Shakes Up Staff Over Security Lapses
April 25, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/042500albright-laptop.html
WASHINGTON, April 24 -- Condemning "inexcusable and intolerable" security lapses at the State Department, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright today stripped her Bureau of Intelligence and Research of its right to police itself and reassigned two bureau officials.
The measures came as the Federal Bureau of Investigation led an inquiry into the disappearance more than two months ago of a laptop computer that contained highly sensitive files, including intelligence sources and methods related to weapons proliferation, senior diplomats said.
Dr. Albright targeted the Bureau of Intelligence and Research for punishment, transferring a top administrator and an analyst and placing its overall security under the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, whose tasks include protecting American embassies and envoys.
Asserting that a series of incidents have "put our nation's secrets at risk" and damaged her department's reputation, Dr. Albright directed every employee under her leadership to make security "your top priority in all its aspects all the time."
"Unfortunately, security is not a subject in a university course," Dr. Albright, a former professor, said in a press briefing. "Ninety-nine percent success is a failing grade."
The missing laptop comes four months after officials discovered an eavesdropping device in a State Department conference room, and promptly expelled a Russian diplomat from the country. And in 1998, a man in a tweed sport coat strolled into the executive secretary's office, six doors down from Dr. Albright's office, and walked out with sheaves of classified documents while two secretaries worked nearby.
Administration officials said today they had not yet determined whether the laptop computer, which vanished from a sixth-floor work area of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, was lost or stolen. It is not known whether the computer may have been sought for its hardware or its files, which carried a "code word" classification, higher than top secret.
But department officials appeared to proceed under the assumption that the files, which drew on material culled from sensitive human and electronic sources, were likely to fall into the hands of adversaries.
"We are talking about extremely sensitive information here," said James P. Rubin, the department's spokesman. Various agencies are still examining the implications of losing such files, Mr. Rubin said.
Dr. Albright ordered the transfer of two employees from Intelligence and Research, pending the results of the investigation. Administration sources identified those reassigned as Nancy May, the acting executive director of the bureau, and Allen Locke, director of the bureau's office of analysis for strategic, proliferation and military issues.
Neither official responded to requests for comment. The temporary transfer was "not a finding of fault," Mr. Rubin said.
Dr. Albright also ordered all senior supervisors at the department to review their security practices and demanded an intensified program of annual refresher classes for people who handle classified information. Moreover, she said she would work with lawmakers to possibly establish a new senior position at the department to handle security matters.
Lawmakers from both parties have prodded Dr. Albright to better safeguard the nation's secrets. Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, Republican of New York, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, announced last week that he would hold hearings into security failures at the department.
Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a Delaware Democrat, praised today's steps to "shake people out of their lethargy." But Mr. Biden also faulted cutbacks in the State Department's budget, including a Republican-led move this month to cut international financing more than 10 percent.
The reduction will "surely harm" the agency's "ability to assure robust information security," he said.
The laptop incident spotlighted the struggle of a relatively obscure, often-criticized bureau that seeks to provide independent intelligence to the secretary of state and her deputies, while functioning in the shadows of the deep-pocketed Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
Among the larger intelligence services, the State Department's bureau, with shrinking personnel and an antiquated computer system, has long been viewed as an institutional stepchild with an unmotivated staff.
Toby Gati, a former assistant secretary of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, charged that her office had been neglected by Dr. Albright and her top aides. Mrs. Gati said staff toiled under the constant mantra of "doing more with less."
"Neither the secretary nor her deputy cared a whit about Intelligence and Research, nor have they made much use of its full potential," said Mrs. Gati, who led the bureau from 1993 to 1997.
A senior State Department official said a lack of resources was no excuse. "The issue is, with whatever assets they have, do they have proper security procedures," the official said.
Classified information is stored on laptops by intelligence officials at other agencies, including the C.I.A. and Pentagon. And there have been similar security breaches.
In 1993, Aldrich H. Ames, a C.I.A. employee later convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, left a laptop in a hotel lobby in Turkey that was later revealed to have contained classified cables and memos.
-------- ukraine
Worst Effects of Chernobyl To Come
APRIL 25, 18:01 EDT
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=EUROPE&STORYID=APIS7431BH00
GENEVA (AP) - The United Nations released a new assessment of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown Tuesday, saying the worst health consequences for millions of people may be yet to come.
``At least 100 times as much radiation was released by this accident as by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined'' at the end of World War II, said a 32-page booklet released to mark the 14th anniversary of the disaster.
Three people were killed in the explosion on April 26, 1986, and 28 emergency workers died within the first three months, the report said. It gave no other death toll, but noted that 106 of the other emergency workers that were first on the scene also were diagnosed with acute radiation syndrome.
And, the report said, a total of 600,000 emergency workers who helped in the cleanup and later built a cover to seal the destroyed reactor ``must be constantly monitored for the effects of exposure to radiation.''
The booklet, published by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the three countries most affected by the radiation - Belarus, Ukraine and Russia - continue to pay the price.
``Chernobyl is a word we would all like to erase from our memory,'' said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a foreword.
But, Annan added, ``more than 7 million of our fellow human beings do not have the luxury of forgetting. They are still suffering, everyday, as a result of what happened.'' He said the exact number of victims may never be known, but that 3 million children require treatment and ``many will die prematurely.''
``Not until 2016, at the earliest, will be known the full number of those likely to develop serious medical conditions'' because of delayed reactions to radiation exposure, he said.
Annan said response to a U.N. appeal launched three years ago had fallen so short that the original list of 60 projects had been shortened to the nine most urgent.
``These nine projects could, if implemented, make a vital difference to the lives of many people,'' Annan said in appealing for governments and institutions to contribute $9.5 million.
The projects include modernization of a hospital, creation of a network of centers to treat children and decontamination of schools, kindergartens and hospitals in Belarus.
-------- us military
Albright, at the U.N., Defends U.S. on Arms Plan
April 25, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/042500testban-treaty.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/04/25/MN80865.DTL
UNITED NATIONS, April 24 -- Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright tried today to convince the world that the United States is not threatening to undercut a quarter century of progress on arms control by developing a new antimissile defense system that has drawn criticism from both Russia and China.
"If the Clinton administration were bent on sabotaging the ABM treaty and strategic arms control," she told an international arms-control conference, "we have surely gone about it in a strange way -- in the open, with care and in consultation not only with Congress, but after extensive discussions with our allies and other countries, Russia and China emphatically included."
In a speech at the opening of a conference called to review a treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons, Dr. Albright also said the United States had reduced its nuclear arsenal by 60 percent since the end of the cold war, and had joined in cutting NATO's nuclear stockpile by 85 percent. She spurned calls for the quicker elimination of nuclear arms.
"Unfortunately, none of us has it within our power to create overnight the conditions in which complete nuclear disarmament is possible," she said. The speech offered no new initiatives but was more of an accounting of how the administration wants to define its record.
Dr. Albright walked into an almost solid wall of criticism of the United States at the General Assembly hall because of what is widely perceived as the slow pace of nuclear disarmament more than a decade after the end of the cold war and because of the fears that the proposed American antimissile defense system will start a new arms race.
Furthermore, the United States, which last fall saw the Senate reject another crucial accord, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, after the administration had fought for its approval by United Nations members in 1996, is seen as setting a bad example for other countries that can now cite political pressures for refusing to sign.
"The Clinton administration's legacy is the re-legitimating of nuclear weapons after the end of the cold war," said Daniel Plesch, director of the British American Security Information Council, an independent research group in Washington and London.
India and Pakistan, which tested nuclear weapons in 1998, and Israel, which is assumed to have nuclear arms, also were criticized today, and heard demands that they adhere to the treaty to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. The treaty, which came into effect in 1970, has been ratified by 187 countries. Only India, Pakistan, Israel and Cuba have refused to sign.
"Nuclear testing has no place on our planet," said Brian Cowen, Ireland's foreign minister. "The time to rid the world of these weapons is now."
Nuclear arms are the only weapons of mass destruction not banned by international treaties. The United States and Russia have a majority of the world's nuclear warheads.
Mr. Cowen's speech was one of the day's toughest, but his sentiments were echoed by other governments, independent arms control groups and former American arms-control officials.
Republicans in Congress, including Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have been especially harsh in attacking international arms control agreements, and independent experts say they are puzzled by that development.
"What appears anomalous to me is that historically, the Republican Party has led in the area of arms-control strengthening," Jonathan Granoff, co-chairman of the American Bar Association's committee on arms control and disarmament, said in an interview today. "The scuttling of arms control through ballistic missile defense or through the undermining of the commitment to nuclear disarmament contained in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty is against the heritage of the Republican Party."
Thomas Graham Jr., who was the Clinton administration's special representative for arms control from 1994 to 1997 and is president of the independent Lawyers' Alliance for World Security, said that much of the annoyance with the United States stems from commitments all nuclear powers made five years ago to work harder on eliminating nuclear weapons in return for international agreement to make the nuclear nonproliferation treaty permanent.
"Many non-nuclear weapons states -- particularly nonaligned countries, but also some Western countries, indeed even some NATO countries -- believe that the nuclear weapons states have not lived up to commitments that they made in exchange for everyone else agreeing" to make the treaty permanent, Mr. Graham said. "If that doesn't change over the next few years, it could have a very negative effect on the long-term viability" of the treaty.
Although the conference here is focused on the treaty to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, much attention was also given today to the perceived threats to the antimissile accord.
Antonio Monteiro, Portugal's representative, speaking for the European Union, called the ABM treaty "one of the pillars of strategic stability" and said it must be preserved.
Secretary General Kofi Annan also joined in voicing concerns about the disruptive potential of a missile defense system -- without mentioning the United States -- when he said in a speech opening the conference this morning that "it could well lead to a new arms race."
--------
Missile Defense Cost Reported
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Missile-Defense.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Erecting a missile defense system to give the nation limited protection from ballistic missile attack would cost nearly $60 billion through the year 2015, according to a congressional report released Tuesday.
The Congressional Budget Office said that if successfully engaged a national defense system would defend the entire country against several dozen missiles.
It cautioned, however, that many believe that a country just developing long-range missiles could use simple countermeasures rendering a missile defense system impotent.
The report, said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., ``confirms my fears that we are rushing into a decision on national missile defense without knowing everything we should about the financial, technological and diplomatic implications.''
But Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., a leading proponent of missile defense, said there was ``no way'' it would cost $60 billion. He said that while ``you can't put a price tag on protecting American cities,'' the CBO estimate was ``totally out of line, out of synch with anything I've seen.''
The Clinton administration, pressured by the Republican-led Congress which says the country is dangerously vulnerable to missile attack from rogue nations, has conditionally agreed to a limited missile defense system.
The president is expected to make a decision this fall, after the Pentagon in June conducts another test of the anti-missile system, on whether to go ahead with plans to have the system operating by a target date of 2005.
Beyond several testing failures and the costs -- the administration is seeking $1.9 billion in the 2001 budget -- a national missile defense is strongly opposed by Russia and China.
Russia says the system would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and President Vladimir Putin has warned that deployment could jeopardize Russian adherence to other arms reduction treaties. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday said a U.S. missile defense system could lead to a new arms race.
According to the non-partisan CBO, building the first phase of a national missile defense would cost $29.5 billion, $3.9 billion more than the administration has estimated.
The first phase would include locating 100 interceptors in central Alaska, constructing a high-resolution X-band radar and upgrading several existing early-warning radars.
The second phase, to be deployed by 2010 under current plans, would use satellites that could track not only powered-flight missiles but also those gliding through space. The third phase would add 150 interceptors, some at a second site currently planned for Grand Forks, North Dakota.
The administration has not yet estimated the cost of the last two phases. The CBO said the second phase would cost another $6.1 billion and the third phase $13.3 billion through 2015. It said another $10.6 billion would be needed for space-based sensors, satellites that could have other missions besides supporting missile defense.
``The costs are going up, up and away,'' said Daryl Kimball of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, an advocacy group that believes a national missile defense is unlikely to work even against a minimal threat.
``Congress and the American people, once they realize this, will experience a bit of sticker shock,'' he said.
But advocates of the system say the cost is justified in light of the increasing threat of long-range missile attack from such nations as North Korea and Iran.
President Reagan in the 1980s proposed the far more ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative, or ``Star Wars,'' a space-based anti-missile system.
------
US Defends Record on Reducing Nukes
April 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-UN-Nuclear-Treaty.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United States is defending its record in reducing its nuclear arsenal against criticism that the world's nuclear powers aren't doing enough to rid the world of the deadly weapons.
In a speech Monday to a conference reviewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pledged U.S. commitment to disarmament and rejected suggestions that the United States was ``turning its back on arms control.''
The treaty, which went into force in 1970 and has been signed by 187 countries, committed the nuclear nations to pursue disarmament while the non-nuclear states agreed not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.
``We share the frustration many feel about the pace of progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons,'' Albright said. ``But we also know that if countries demand unrealistic and premature measures, they will harm the NPT and set back everyone's cause.''
Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the four-week conference by warning that another cornerstone of arms control -- the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- was being jeopardized by suggestions that a limited missile defense system be allowed.
The United States wants to amend the ABM treaty to build a limited missile-defense system against possible attacks from ``rogue states.'' President Clinton is expected to make a decision this summer.
Russia has vehemently opposed the plan, which it says would make its own forces ineffective and trigger a new arms race.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told the conference today that Russia would only consider further reductions in strategic offensive weapons if the treaty is preserved without modification.
He invited the United States to join an alternative system to counter threats from rogue states -- a missile nonproliferation control system that could be worked out within the norms of the ABM treaty.
But at a press conference today, a senior adviser to Clinton and Albright said talks on amending the ABM treaty shouldn't be rejected outright. Modifying the treaty would enable it to deal with new threats from North Korea and Iran that didn't exist when the treaty was negotiated, said John Holum.
Annan, however, voiced the Russian concerns on Monday by warning that a missile defense system could trigger an arms race and create incentives for missile proliferation.
``It is my hope that all states will take great care to weigh these dangers and challenges before embarking on a process which may well reduce, rather than enhance, global security,'' Annan said.
Albright defended amending the ABM treaty to protect the United States against the handful of missiles that could be launched by countries such as North Korea or Iran.
``The treaty has been amended before, and there is no good reason it cannot be amended again to reflect new threats from third countries,'' she said.
Clinton is expected to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin at a June summit in Moscow to cooperate in changing the ABM treaty. Many conservative Republicans in Congress would go further by scrapping the pact and proceeding with a spaced-based weapons program.
At the conference's opening session, a new coalition of seven countries -- backed by another 50 nations -- issued a united position on pressing forward with nuclear disarmament, particularly among the nuclear powers.
The coalition, which includes Mexico, South Africa, Ireland, Sweden, Egypt, New Zealand and Brazil, proposed that nuclear states pledge not to use nuclear weapons first. It also asked them to speed up removal of warheads from missile launchers, end deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons and expand nuclear-free zones.
Foreign Minister Rosario Green of Mexico acknowledged the process of nuclear weapons elimination would take time. But she said nations have a responsibility to do interim measures ``to lessen the prospect of the unleashing of nuclear weapons whether by design or accident before they are eliminated.''
-------- us nuc facilities
-------- idaho
ALLIANCE BLASTS COMMENTS ON INCINERATOR; DOE CLAIMS MISUNDERSTANDING
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2000/nn10606.htm
HAILEY, Idaho (AP) - The Snake River Alliance on Monday blasted top officials at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory for indicating that a controversial radioactive waste incinerator has only been delayed, not scrapped.
Alliance President David Kipping of Hailey accused Deputy INEEL Manager Warren Bergholz and Bernie Meyers of Bechtel BWXT, which runs the site, of ignoring any recommendations from a special scientific panel charged with assessing alternatives even before the panel is appointed.
"I thought the era of arrogance and gross contempt for the public was behind us," Kipping said.
But Beverly Cook, who heads Energy Department Idaho Operations Office, said last week's comments by Bergholz and Meyers left a false impression.
Bergholz said alternatives to incineration would be evaluated by the panel that Energy Secretary Bill Richardson promised to appoint three weeks ago when he agreed to put construction of the incinerator on hold to settle legal challenges lodged by activists in western Wyoming.
But Bergholz also said that for a number of reasons incineration appears to be the only viable method of processing at least some of the plutonium-contaminated waste stored at INEEL because it is tainted with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. He said incineration is the only permitted method for disposing of PCBs.
Kipping called the statement evidence that the government had prejudged the results of the special panel. Cook rejected that characterization.
"While no viable alternatives have been identified to date, the Idaho Operations Office will not prejudge the work of the panel or the outcome of its deliberations," she said.
"It is regrettable that an isolated statement from one officials from this office may have given the false impression that the panel's deliberations and conclusions could in any way be predetermined," Cook said in a statement.
Kipping countered that last week's comments cast doubt on any government objectivity in finding an alternative to incineration.
Bergholz said the settlement was agreed to so that construction of other waste processing facilities could still met deadlines in the court-enforced 1995 waste cleanup agreement between the state and federal governments.
Since the bulk of plutonium-contaminated waste at INEEL can be handled without incineration, he said delaying the incinerator was logical.
The treatment plant is to begin operating by April 2003, processing most of the estimated 65,000 cubic meters of long-lived, low-level waste so it can be moved out of Idaho by 2019. That facility will simply crush and repackage waste for shipment to the federal dump in New Mexico.
-------- tennessee
Ridge group lists ill workers' needs
By Frank Munger
Knoxville News-Sentinel
Oak Ridge bureau
04/25/2000
From: brooks@icx.net (Alfred Brooks)
OAK RIDGE - Unlimited medical care, a special health clinic and recovery of lost pension benefits should be part of the compensation program for Oak Ridge workers whose illnesses were caused by the Cold War workplace.
That's the message from the Coalition for a Healthy Environ-ment, an organization that repre-sents many of the former workers and others who believe their health has been affected 'by the Oak Ridge nuclear facilities.
Harry WiUiams, an ex-worker at the K-25 site and president of CHE, outlined the Oak Ridge con-cerns and issues that the group feels need to be addressed in a letter to U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson recently unveiled an updated version of the Clinton administration's proposal for com-pensating sick workers, including the possibility of lump-sump pay-ments of $100,000 or more and long-term medical care. Among the CHE's wishes are:
· Funding for a community-based health-research program, combining clinical care with research to help deter-mine the causes of illnesses.
· Independent physicians. '"We believe that doctors face a dilemma when their insurance pay or provider is also the self-insured dominant employer," Williams wrote. "An added tension is created when the physicians they rely on for experience in occupational medi-cine ... are the company doctors of that same employer."
· Unlimited health benefits for sick workers as long as they live.
· Wage replacement for sick workers at a higher level than currently available under workers compensation law in Tennessee.
· Benefits that are not taxed, even if they represent wage replacement.
· Reduced burden of proof on workers who believe their illnesses are work-related. "At the present time, workers are expected to prove that their exposures occurred," Williams wrote. "This in spite of admissions by the DOE that records were and are inadequately kept."
· Elimination of DOE's right to self* regulate itself on environmental and health issues.
· A compensation package for family members of sick workers and community residents who may have become ill because of off-site exposure to pollutants from the federal nuclear facilities.
Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1 @knoxnews.lnfl.net
-- "Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely."- Thomas Babbington, Lord Macaulay Southey's Colloquies on Society (1830)
"The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke (attributed)
-------- us nuc waste
BLUE RIBBON PANEL CHECKS ALTERNATIVES TO BURNING RADIOACTIVE WASTE
AmeriScan: April 25, 2000
Environment News Service (ENS)
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2000/nn10607.htm
WASHINGTON, DC, April 25, 2000 (ENS) - A panel of top level scientists has been named to evaluate and recommend new technology initiatives to establish alternatives to radioactive mixed waste incineration. The panel is a critical component of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's decision earlier this year not to proceed with the construction of an incinerator at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The task force will assess technologies that could treat low-level, alpha low-level and transuranic wastes contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous materials. This includes up to 14,000 cubic meters of wastes that the DOE was going to burn at INEEL.
The seven member panel includes Nobel Prize winning chemist Dr. Mario Molina, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The panel will be chaired by Ralph Cavanagh, senior staff attorney at the San Francisco office of the conservation organization the Natural Resources Defense Council. Other panel members are: Dr. Carl Anderson, manager of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's hazardous waste permitting and corrective action program; Andrew Athy, Jr. a Washington, DC attorney; Gretchen Long-Glickman, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies based in Millbrook, New York; Paul Bardacke, a New Mexico attorney; Robert Budnitz, president of Future Resources Associates, an expert in the field of nuclear materials hazards who served on the National Research Council Committee on Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards.
----
Clinton Vetoes Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act
U.S. Newswire
25 Apr 19:44
To: National Desk
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2100
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0425-143.html
WASHINGTON, April 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released by the White House today:
TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
I am returning herewith without my approval S. 1287, the "Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2000."
The overriding goal of the Federal Government's high -- level radioactive waste management policy is the establishment of a permanent, geologic repository. This policy not only addresses commercial spent nuclear fuel but also advances our non-proliferation efforts by providing an option for disposal of surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons stockpiles and an alternative to reprocessing. It supports our national defense by allowing continuing operation of our nuclear navy, and it is essential for the cleanup of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex.
Since 1993, my Administration has been conducting a rigorous world-class scientific and technical program to evaluate the suitability of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, site for use as a repository. The work being done at Yucca Mountain represents a significant scientific and technical undertaking, and public confidence in this first-of-a-kind effort is essential.
Unfortunately, the bill passed by the Congress will do nothing to advance the scientific program at Yucca Mountain or promote public confidence in the decision of whether or not to recommend the site for a repository in 2001. Instead, this bill could be a step backward in both respects. The bill would limit the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to issue radiation standards that protect human health and the environment and would prohibit the issuance of EPA's final standards until June 2001. EPA's current intent is to issue final radiation standards this summer so that they will be in place well in advance of the Department of Energy's recommendation in 2001 on the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site.
There is no scientific reason to delay issuance of these final radiation standards beyond the last year of this Administration; in fact, waiting until next year to issue these standards could have the unintended effect of delaying a recommendation on whether or not to go forward with Yucca Mountain. The process for further review of the EPA standards laid out in the bill passed by the Congress would simply create duplicative and unnecessary layers of bureaucracy by requiring additional review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Academy of Sciences, even though both have already provided detailed comments to the EPA. This burdensome process would add time, but would do nothing to advance the state of scientific knowledge about the Yucca Mountain site.
Finally, the bill passed by the Congress does little to minimize the potential for continued claims against the Federal Government for damages as a result of the delay in accepting spent fuel from utilities. In particular, the bill does not include authority to take title to spent fuel at reactor sites, which my Administration believes would have offered a practical near-term solution to address the contractual obligation to utilities and minimize the potential for lengthy and costly proceedings against the Federal Government. Instead, the bill would impose substantial new requirements on the Department of Energy without establishing sufficient funding mechanisms to meet those obligations. In effect, these requirements would create new unfunded liabilities for the Department.
My Administration remains committed to resolving the complex and important issue of nuclear waste disposal in a timely and sensible manner consistent with sound science and protection of public health, safety, and the environment. We have made considerable progress in the scientific evaluation of the Yucca Mountain site and the Department of Energy is close to completing the work needed for a decision. It is critical that we develop the capability to permanently dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, and I believe we are on a path to do that. Unfortunately, the bill passed by the Congress does not advance these basic goals.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
----
Wyoming Company Wants to Handle Atlas Radioactive Waste
Tuesday, April 25, 2000
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/04252000/utah/44093.htm
A Wyoming-based company wants to move the radioactive tailings at the Atlas uranium mill near Moab to its vacant uranium mill just north of Lake Powell in southern Utah.
"Since Shootaring is a licensed mill with a permitted tailings facility, it is a logical place to relocate the Atlas tailings," said Hal Herron, president of Plateau Resources, which owns the mill and a nearby uranium mine.
The move would eliminate the need for the construction of a disposal site for the radioactive waste and the costs associated with monitoring a new waste dump. Herron estimated the project would generate more than 200 jobs in Garfield and Grand counties during the course of the six- to eight-year cleanup project.
Plateau Resources has requested the Nuclear Regulatory Commission amend its Shootaring Canyon license to allow the company to accept the Atlas waste tailings.
The Riverton, Wyo.-based company has kept its Shootaring Canyon mill on standby status at a cost of about $1 million a year pending a rebound in uranium prices.
Meanwhile, state and federal officials are negotiating the future of the Atlas mill tailings. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson has proposed a deal that would transfer jurisdiction of the site from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Department of Energy, which would fund the massive cleanup with royalties from oil and gas production.
The NRC has proposed capping the tailings in place, something vehemently opposed by state and local officials.
Richardson's idea, which has the support of congressional delegations from Utah and downriver states such as Arizona and California, is still pending in Congress. The cleanup is expected to cost somewhere between $150 million and $300 million.
Utah officials want the tailings moved by rail to a site near the Moab airport, about 15 miles north of town, where the waste could be disposed of in underground cells that pose no risk to the Colorado River, humans or wildlife.
Environmentalists are wary of Plateau Resources' proposal, wondering if it is an attempt to take the mill tailings for reprocessing.
The Shootaring Canyon mill, completed in 1982, was the last uranium mill constructed in the United States. After a test run of 60 days, the mill was shut down and has been maintained in standby status ever since. Some 200,000 tons of uranium ore containing 600,000 pounds of uranium are now stockpiled at the site.
-------- us nuc weapons
Pentagon rejects new missile defense cost estimate
United Press International -
April 25, 2000 18:08
By PAMELA HESS
WASHINGTON, April 25 (UPI) -- The Pentagon disputes the accuracy of a new congressional report that says the proposed national missile defense system will cost $4 billion more than the Defense Department estimates.
"This is a comparison of apples to golden apples," said Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon.
The Congressional Budget Office today issued a report saying the true cost of NMD is likely to be $30 billion by 2015, rather than the $26 billion the Pentagon estimates.
That figure covers 100 interceptor missiles, a new X-band radar and upgrades to five existing radars. If President Clinton approves the system this summer, the Pentagon could begin deploying missiles in 2005, with the full complement on alert by 2007.
That system, if it works as planned, will only be good against an attack of around 10 long-range ballistic missiles or less. The interceptors will take off to meet enemy missiles while they are still in space, slamming into them and destroying them with the sheer force of impact alone.
The new cost figures come at a critical time for the program: President Clinton is less than six months away from deciding whether to deploy the system. He must decide by this fall in order to meet a 2005 deployment date, the year intelligence estimates say the United States is likely to face a hostile missile threat. Clinton will base his decision on the threat, technical readiness, implications for arms control efforts and cost.
The new estimates from CBO come on top of a cost hike reported by the Pentagon itself earlier this month. Until early April, the only price tag the Pentagon would offer was a limited one -- $12.7 billion-covering only the years between 1999 and 2005, with just 20 interceptor missiles. It estimates it will spend $30 billion by 2026 on the system, including operating it for 20 years.
But on April 7, the Pentagon told Congress that a better cost estimate for the system through 2005 is $20.2 billion, which covers the program from its inception in 1991 to the deployment of 20 interceptors.
Moreover, Lt. Gen. Ron Kadish, head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told a Senate panel this month that the cost estimate could change again after another flight test is conducted in June.
Bacon asserted today the Congressional Budget Office estimate includes more flight tests than the Pentagon has planned and allots more money for military construction in Alaska, where the system is expected to be deployed.
"CBO looks at a much more robust system," Bacon said.
The CBO also costs out the price of a larger system, also on the Pentagon drawing boards. For 250 missiles, nine new X-band radars, six upgraded early warning radars, plus a new complement of low-Earth orbit satellites designed to track enemy missiles as they streak across space, CBO says the total cost will be about $60 billion through 2015.
The Pentagon has not released cost estimates for the more advanced system. And it could continue to grow in scope, if a powerful group of Republican Senators get their way.
In an April letter to Clinton, 25 Senators wrote they believe the United States needs to deploy ship-based interceptor missiles "to achieve a fully effective defense against the full range of possible threats."
"The threat is dynamic, and the U.S. response must be dynamic as well," stated the letter, which included Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott R-MS., and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va.
The letter also warns Clinton to be careful in his negotiations with the Russians on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which must be amended to allow for the U.S. NMD system as configured. If it is not changed appropriately, the United States may be forced to abandon the treaty altogether, which has been the cornerstone of arms control between the two countries for almost 30 years.
But the senators warn that if the ABM treaty is not dramatically overhauled to allow a robust missile defense system, they will not ratify the changes in the Senate.
"Without significant changes to your approach, we do not believe an agreement submitted to the Senate for consideration should be ratified," the letter states.
The United States must decide by this fall whether it will break ground to begin construction of a radar in Alaska in the spring of 2001, the first step toward deploying NMD in 2005. That act alone will constitute abrogation of the treaty.
If construction does not begin in 2001, the NMD system would be delayed by at least a year, said Deputy Defense Secretary Rudy de Leon yesterday at a Pentagon lunch with reporters.
NMD is a lightning rod for all kinds of criticism. Earlier this month, a panel of independent scientists attacked the system, saying a determined enemy that understands NMD's limitations can easily defeat it.
The Defense Department announced last month the next flight test of the interceptor system has been pushed back by two months, to the end of June rather than in April as previously planned. The last test in January missed a mock enemy warhead, and the Defense Department needs extra time to make sure it doesn't make the same mistakes in the next test.
The miss was tied to a plumbing problem, which made the infrared seeker on the interceptor fail in the all important final seconds of flight.
It will be the third flight test of an interceptor and a success is crucial: The Pentagon has said it needs two intercepts to be confident saying the technology is ready for deployment, a judgment it is scheduled to render to Clinton in August. An intercept test in October - the first try - scored a direct and so far the only hit.
------
Amid Nuclear Talks, New Plans for Better Weapons
Paris, Tuesday, April 25, 2000
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Service
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/FPAGE/pact.2.html
WASHINGTON - While American and Russian negotiators work on a new treaty to reduce sharply the number of strategic nuclear weapons, the U.S. Navy is upgrading a 20-year-old submarine-launched missile warhead to enable it to destroy any remaining super-hardened Russian missile silos, according to government officials and private analysts.
More than 2,000 of the aging W-76 warheads will soon be going through the Energy Department's service-life extension program to be put back in submarines beginning in 2005.
Each warhead has a destructive power more than three times greater than that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. After they are refurbished with new arming, fusing and firing systems, the W-76 warheads will have a greater destructive effect on their buried, reinforced targets than when they first went to sea in 1977.
As the number of strategic land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles is reduced, ''the U.S. must maintain the number of hard-target killers we have on alert,'' a senior Pentagon officer with responsibility for nuclear weapons said recently. Upgrading the W-76 warheads is in line with that need, he said.
At a conference on the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in New York that opened Monday, officials expect delegates from the signer countries to raise questions about the upgrading of the U.S. stockpile. The delegates will review the records of Russia and the United States in moving toward elimination of nuclear weapons, as envisioned by the 1968 treaty.
A total of 187 countries have ratified the nonproliferation treaty, which took effect in 1970; India, Pakistan, Israel and Cuba have not. The treaty allowed only the five declared nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain - to keep their weapons, while pursuing disarmament.
Although the START-2 treaty - which provides for reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads - has been ratified by the U.S. Senate and the Russian Parliament, and negotiations are under way on START-3, both Russia and the United States are expected to draw criticism from other signer countries for not disarming fast enough and for keeping stockpiles of thousands of warheads.
The Russian decision to store rather than destroy 20,000 tactical nuclear weapons it has withdrawn from deployment will be a subject of concern at the New York conference.
Countries in Asia and Europe, where such weapons could be used, are particularly critical of Russia's refusal to destroy the battlefield nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union took the weapons out of deployment in Eastern Europe during the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev in response to the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. tactical weapons from Europe and Asia.
Delegates to the conference are also expected to complain about U.S. plans to refurbish and upgrade its 6,000 deployed strategic warheads, such as the W-76, and Washington's intention to maintain in an ''inactive reserve'' weapons withdrawn from deployment when the START-2 limit of 3,500 warheads goes into effect.
Questions will also be raised about Washington's ''war reserve'' of 4,000 plutonium triggers, taken from dismantled weapons, which could be converted into nuclear warheads within a year. Triggers from U.S. tactical weapons withdrawn from Europe in 1991 are in that reserve.
----
New Report Finds Proposed Anti- Missile System Unready, Unwise:
Cites Rising Cost Estimates for NMD
* PRESS RELEASE
*Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers
Council For a Livable World Education Fund
website: <http://www.crnd.org>
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 25, 2000
CONTACT: Stephen Young 202-546-0795 x102; or John Isaacs, 202-546-0795 x131
(WASHINGTON, DC) The "limited" national missile defense system proposed by President Clinton fails to meet the four criteria that the President has outlined as the basis for the deployment decision later this year, concludes a new study released today in Washington. The broadest and most in-depth study on the subject to date, Pushing the Limits: The Decision on National Missile Defense, was produced by the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers and the Council for a Livable World Education Fund. The 57-page report presents a comprehensive analysis of each of the criteria, examines the history of national missile defense in U.S. politics, and warns of the impact employing such a faulty system would have on the future of U.S. security.
The report finds that a precipitous decision to deploy unproven and very costly missile defenses later this year "will diminish overall U.S. and international security, increasing rather than reducing nuclear dangers."
President Clinton has said he will decide later this year whether to endorse deployment of a national missile defense that is designed to detect, intercept, and destroy a small number of long- range missiles that might be fired at the U.S. He has said his decision will be based on four criteria: the readiness of the technology, the impact on arms control and international relations, the cost, and the nature of the missile threat.
Estimates of the cost of the proposed, ground-based national anti-missile system have increased dramatically beyond early estimates, according to Pushing the Limits. "The public and the policy makers may soon feel NMD 'sticker shock,'" warns report author and Deputy Director of the Coalition, Stephen Young. "It is unwise to commit to deploy and invest tens of billions of dollars on national missile defense when the technology remains unproven and appears unlikely to work against even a minimal threat," says Young.
A new cost estimate released today by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) puts the total cost of building and deploying the three phases of Clinton's proposed "limited" national missile defense system at $59.4 billion from 1996 through 2015. The new CBO estimate raises the cost projection for the first phase of the system by over 15%, to $29.5 billion. Until now the Pentagon had projected the cost of building and running a single site of 100 interceptors at $25.6 billion through from 1996 through 2015.
The report also points out that the proposed system does not meet the "technical readiness" criteria. With only three of 19 scheduled tests performed, it has not been shown to work under real-world conditions. A sound decision on technical readiness for deployment cannot be made this year, according to the report. Other anti- missile systems have been put through far more rigorous testing. The "Safeguard" missile defense system, deployed in 1975 and canceled after one day of operation, was put through 165 missile flight tests. The "Patriot" theater missile defense system was tested 114 times.
"The operational effectiveness of the system cannot be demonstrated by the end of this year, even if the third test is successful because the system will not have been tested against realistic countermeasures," says Young.
Some officials maintain that a new missile threat to the U.S. might potentially emerge by 2005, but the joint Coalition/Council study points out that the maturation of the threat is not certain. North Korea has agreed to freeze its missile flight test program and may improve relations with the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. Rather than deploying an unproven missile defense, the United States can and should pursue diplomatic, political, and economic tools to prevent or delay the maturation of any new missile threats, according to the report.
The new Pushing the Limits report points out that it would be far cheaper, even for countries like North Korea, to develop countermeasures that could overwhelm or confuse the proposed system than it would be for the U.S. to increase the capabilities of its missile defense.
The Clinton administration insists the proposed system should not affect arms control goals. It seeks modifications to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to allow for the system. Russia has rejected proposals to modify the ABM Treaty. On April 14, President Putin warned that if the U.S. withdraws from the ABM Treaty, "... we will have the chance and we will withdraw not only from the START II treaty, but from the whole system of treaties on limitation and control of strategic and conventional weapons.''
"Authorizing deployment could put at serious risk the nuclear non-proliferation regime and efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons," said Young. This week, many of the 180+ nations at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference will express concern about the negative impact of national missile defense.
The Pushing the Limits report notes that in response to deployment, China is likely to expand its relatively small strategic nuclear arsenal, increasing tensions across Asia. In addition, the report also emphasizes that America's NATO allies have all expressed concerns about U.S. plans for missile defense.
"A precipitous decision to deploy would strain relations with our allies, ignite a new nuclear arms race, encourage a stronger Russian-Chinese strategic partnership, hurt international efforts to address ballistic missile threats, and severely weaken the global nuclear non-proliferation regime," warns Young.
The Pushing the Limits report recommends that the president should allow the time necessary to reach an understanding with Russia on how best to reduce potential new missile threats while simultaneously achieving verifiable reductions in existing nuclear arsenals and reducing the risk of accidental nuclear war.
On April 17, a group of 25 Senators, including Senate Majority Leader Lott (R-MS), wrote President Clinton that they will reject a U.S.-Russian agreement to further reduce nuclear arsenals and modification of the ABM Treaty if it does not allow the U.S. to develop even more expensive - and as yet unproven and unworkable- sea- and space-based national missile defenses. In 1996, the Senate Budget Committee conservatively estimated that such a layered system would cost $124 billion to build and maintain through 2015.
"If the most extreme supporters of missile defense are allowed to have their way, the United States would throw away the historic opportunity to reduce verifiably the real threat of thousands of Russian nuclear-armed missiles for the sake of trying to build a fantastical 'Star Wars' defense system that will cost taxpayers over $100 billion and take many more years to develop," notes John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World.
- 30 -
The Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers is an alliance of 17 nuclear non-proliferation and arms control organizations committed to a practical, step-by-step program of action to reduce nuclear dangers. The report, Pushing the Limits, is available on the Web at <http://www.clw.org/coalition/libbmd.htm >
----------
"White House Missile-Defense Program Would Cost $60 Billion, Report Says"
April 25, 2000
By Carla Anne Robbins and Greg Jaffe, Staff Reporters
The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- A new Congressional Budget Office estimate puts a nearly $60 billion price tag on the Clinton administration's proposed national missile-defense program.
The Pentagon's cost projections for the program have risen steadily over the past year, as U.S. planners have projected the need for more interceptors, more capabilities and an additional missile-interceptor site. The cost of the system is a politically sensitive topic, especially for President Clinton, who harshly criticized earlier Republican-championed programs as wasteful and ill-conceived.
Until now the Pentagon had only projected the cost of building and running a single site of 100 interceptors at $25.6 billion through 2015. The new CBO estimate, which will be released Tuesday, raises the cost projection for that first phase by nearly $4 billion to $29.5 billion. The report also includes the cost of upgrading the capabilities of the first site and building and operating a second site -- for a total of 250 interceptors -- raising the price of the two sites to $48.8 billion.
According to the CBO another $10.6 billion will also have to be spent to build and operate 24 low-orbit infrared satellites considered essential to the program's ability to discriminate between incoming warheads and decoys intended to confuse the system.
Together, the total cost of building and operating the system would be $59.4 billion, according to the nonpartisan CBO report.
During the 1996 presidential campaign, Mr. Clinton criticized Republican calls for missile defense, citing another CBO study, which put a price tag of as much as $60 billion on a combination ground- and space-based missile-defense plan championed by his rival, Bob Dole.
Under strong pressure from a GOP-led Congress, Mr. Clinton has since given a conditional endorsement to a limited national missile-defense program -- intended to counter a small number of missiles launched by so-called rogue states -- while playing down the potential cost of the project.
With the White House pledged to make a final decision on whether to deploy the system, the political debate over missile defense is becoming white hot, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Longtime opponents argue that the technology still isn't ready for the task. And they warn that the effort could unravel the entire international arms-control regime. The U.S. has failed so far to persuade Moscow to renegotiate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, which bars either country from building a national missile-defense system.
At the same time, missile-defense backers have accused the administration of intentionally "dumbing down" the program by ruling out both sea-based and space-based technologies, which are even more fiercely opposed by the Russians. A growing chorus of Republican critics have been urging Mr. Clinton to hand over a final decision on deployment to the next president, rather than going ahead with a program they see as insufficiently ambitious.
As a measure of the cost sensitivities, Lt. Col. Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, questioned the CBO's examination of a two-site system. While Pentagon planners have projected the need for a two-site system as the threat from rogue states grows, he said, "the current plan is for a single site with 100 interceptors."
Criticism from all sides intensified after the system failed to hit its target in a January test. A few weeks later, the Pentagon's chief tester, Phillip E. Coyle, warned in a report to Congress that the Pentagon was putting "unrealistic pressure" on project managers by moving too quickly toward a recommendation on whether the national missile-defense program is ready for deployment.
International anxiety over missile defense was on display at Monday's opening meeting of a month-long United Nations review conference on the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, or NPT.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that pressure to deploy national missile defenses "could well lead to a new arms race." Mr. Annan didn't cite the U.S. specifically, but the criticism was still clear.
Speaking later in the day, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright defended U.S. efforts, saying that "there is not enough understanding" of the threats posed by countries such as North Korea and Iran.