-------- activists
Two Puerto Rico websites:
http://www.micronetix.net/virus/facts.htm -- Vieques Libre http://www.viequesvive.com/ -- Vieques Vive
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A crucial Senate vote on reducing the threat of accidental nuclear war is coming up the week of June 5th and we need your help!
From: IRARR84@aol.com Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 14:55:46 EDT
Senator Robert Kerrey (D-NE)is offering an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that would allow the President to take nuclear weapons off alert status and to significantly reduce U.S. nuclear forces -- so long as Russia also takes these steps. Passage of this amendment would allow the US to get rid of Cold War weapons we no longer need or want and save taxpayers billions of dollars currently wasted on unnecessary weapons.
Please call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and ask them to support the Kerrey amendment to allow the President to reduce U.S. strategic nuclear forces below START I levels, and to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
Please forward this message on to friends and family and help spread the word! With your help we can reduce the threat of accidental nuclear war and reduce nuclear weapons world-wide. THANK YOU!
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Priority One Alert - Call until end of Memorial Day Recess (June 5).
Senate vote on Kerrey (Neb.) amendment expected week of June 5th!!
From: "Jim Bridgman" <jbridgman@peace-action.org> Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 11:53:14 -0400
The following message is baesd on discussion from yesterday's Nuclear Weapons Working Group meeting here in Washington, DC and a previous email from Daryl Kimball, Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers[mailto:dkimball@clw.org]
As soon as June 6th , the Senate may debate Sen. Bob Kerrey's (NE) amendment offered to the fiscal 2001 Defense Authorization bill that would allow the President to reduce U.S. strategic nuclear force levels below START I levels (approx. 6000) and take weapons off combat status (i.e. de-alert). Under current law <http://www.clw.org/coalition/xcutfy99.htm>, such actions are prohibited until and unless START II is implemented -- an unlikely near-term prospect. This restriction exists despite the Russian Duma's ratification of START II because of several related protocols that need to be approved (see CRND's Stuck at First START factsheet at bottom for more info). TARGET LIST: Bayh, Byrd, Graham (FL), Lincoln, Chafee, Jeffords, Snowe, Collins, Hagel, Domenici, Warner, Fitzgerald, McCain, Specter, Santorum, Gordon Smith, Thomas, Lugar (call Lugar at district office only please). If your Senator is not on this list, please feel free to call anyway!!! RAP for Republicans: With G.W. Bush's speech this week supporting reductions and de-alerting, you should tell GOP Senators, "A vote against Kerrey's amendment is a vote against George Bush!"
The House rules committee ruled the counterpart amendment sponsored by Allen (D-ME), McGovern (D-MA) and Gendjenson (D-CT), out of order, making the vote on the Senate amendment even more crucial (so it can go on to conference committee).
This year's Allen-McGovern-Gendjenson & Kerrey amendments are somewhat different than the approach that Senator Kerrey pursued last year on the floor and by Allen and Spratt in HASC this year, which was simply striking the restriction on cuts below START I before START II implementation. Kerrey's 1999 floor amendment was defeated 56-44. This vote is on the Peace Action Education Fund 1999 Voting Record at http://www.peace-action.org/99votingrecord.pdf. You can also see <http://www.clw.org/coalition/kerreydebate052699.htm> for the floor debate and roll call vote.
For further information see the following items, below:
* PSR Action Legislative Alert w/capacity for e-mail letters to Congress <http://www.psr.org/>
* "Stuck at First START: U.S. Forced to Maintain its Nuclear Arsenal While Russia's Declines," Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers ISSUE BRIEF, May 15, 2000 <http://www.clw.org/coalition/briefv4n6.htm>
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All-out security effort for GOP convention
By Thomas Ginsberg
5/26/00
Philadelphia Inquirer -MM
The Secret Service is checking rooftops. The FBI is monitoring the Internet. And city police are getting ready to play cat and mouse with protesters.
Unnoticed by most Philadelphians, security preparations for the Republican National Convention are moving into high gear about 10 weeks before the July 31-Aug. 3 event. Thousands of law enforcement officers will land in the city for an operation made particularly complex by the likelihood of civil disobedience and surprise protests.
"Virtually every resource that the FBI has available will be put into play," said Thomas J. Harrington, the assistant special agent-in-charge in the FBI's Philadelphia office. "After the Atlanta Olympics it was bombings that were the main focus. . . . Now protesters have become more of a focus."
At both the GOP event and the Democratic convention in Los Angeles two weeks later, the Secret Service is coordinating the work of dozens of federal, state and local agencies employing thousands of officers - some of whom will be dressed like tourists to mix with their surroundings.
The FBI will focus on intelligence gathering, investigation and prosecution if necessary. City police will police the city, perhaps the most complicated job.
The goal is a smooth, safe convention with minimal inconvenience to city dwellers and delegates. Subway and regional rail lines may run later into the night to handle extra passengers, streets will be closed as briefly as possible, and a caravan of tow trucks will stand ready to clear traffic jams.
"We're not going to shut the city down. . . . We have to live here too," said Thomas G. Spurlock, the Secret Service's assistant special agent-in-charge in Philadelphia.
With a command center in a Pentagon-owned building near 20th and Oregon Streets, the Secret Service will have direct responsibility for security inside the First Union Center, where the convention takes place. Inside and outside the arena its agents will guard every move by two former presidents (George Bush and Gerald R. Ford) and dozens of diplomats and dignitaries, including former first lady Nancy Reagan. Not to mention the presumptive nominee, George W. Bush.
The agency also will coordinate the work of police from 35 states guarding 35 Republican governors. It will oversee members of the Capitol Police arriving with the leaders of the GOP-controlled Congress.
An early word on VP
Spurlock said the agency would check every nook and cranny where the "protectees" will stay, visit or travel; scrutinize high-rise buildings for possible sniper's nests; and possibly move mailboxes and weld manholes shut around hotels or meeting halls. Agents are mapping out motorcade routes and backdoor exits from hotels and meeting spots, a challenge in Philadelphia's narrow downtown streets.
"We'll also have to protect the vice-presidential nominee," said Spurlock, who acknowledged that agents would get an early word on the choice. "We've heard about nobody yet," he joked.
The city's police force will have responsibility for security around the rest of the city and next to the First Union Center, including the 7,600-square-foot "free speech zone" already established in FDR Park across from the arena along South Broad Street. (Information on reserving a spot is available at www.phila.gov/rnc_permit)
Whether protesters bother with the rally site is another question. Few groups have signed up to use it; the largest rallies are planned in Center City, with some activists promising sporadic acts of protest and civil disobedience everywhere.
Several Philadelphia officers traveled to Washington, D.C., in April and New York City on May 1 to observe the protests there over global trade and multinational corporations. The FBI and Justice Department are holding training sessions in Philadelphia in crowd control and tactics for police officers and commanders. They say officers must be ready to respond to varying problems, such as a surprise blockade or protest in a city street.
'Mobile field forces'
Capt. William Fisher, commanding officer of the civil affairs unit, said police had identified several spots protesters may target: the First Union Center, City Hall plaza, the Liberty Bell area, and the delegates' hotels. Police intend to designate a special detention center for any protesters arrested.
At the same time, police will maintain full staffing at the city's 23 precincts during the week, Fisher said. Court sessions have been canceled and new vacation schedules have been offered to free as many officers as possible.
Taking their cue from recent protests in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, police intend to be ready to rush officers to potential flash points around the city in "mobile field forces," said Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell. They could travel in either marked or unmarked vehicles, he said, but he gave no details.
Police said protesters in Seattle, using their own mobile-phone network, dashed from one area to another to avoid police as they blocked streets.
In Philadelphia, police may deploy officers just to keep routes open for their mobile forces, a defense Seattle failed to use, Fisher said.
The tactics mean that both sides may end up playing a game of cat and mouse.
What city police will not do, Commissioner John F. Timoney said, is dress up in Ninja Turtle-like protective garb, or, except as an extreme resort, use gas to quell protesters. "We'll be very circumspect," he said.
Fisher said police would also be cordial but careful when faced with one expected protest tactic: the offering of food or drink by demonstrators hoping to sway police to their side.
"It all depends on the situation at hand," Fisher said. "Nobody eats open, exposed food like doughnuts. There are a lot of kooks out there."
With the First Union Center well-protected by a buffer zone, protesters have been discussing the idea of blockading delegates at their hotels. Fisher called hotel security "a serious concern," but neither he nor Mitchell would discuss the plans for addressing it.
Some activists have hinted at their plans on the Internet, where groups often publicize and discuss their events using e-mail systems called listservs. The FBI regularly reads the listservs, the agents said.
"E-mails are like leads," Harrington said. "We've had a lot of experience with them, whether it's stock fraud or child porn."
Or political organizing. Thomas F. Dowd, an FBI supervising special agent in Philadelphia and an expert on terrorism, said he knew that protesters may be "yanking the FBI's chain" by discussing blockades on the Internet, but that no threat could be taken lightly.
Asked whether security at the convention could include preemptive arrests of protesters, as in Washington in April, Dowd said it depended on whether officials thought that protesters intended to break a law.
Even though street confrontation may now be the primary concern of police, officials still are wary of other threats. They may create a no-fly zone over the First Union Center, particularly to keep TV helicopters away, and possibly will adjust flight patterns to and from Philadelphia International and Northeast Philadelphia Airports.
The FBI will be bringing specialists in terrorism and hazardous materials to Philadelphia, as well as extra computers to be linked with the bureau's Special Intelligence Operations Center in Washington, officials said.
"They'll be able to send even more resources and people," Dowd said, "if we need them."
-------- australia
Australian ISL controversy
Mining Journal
March 26, 1999, Volume 332. No.8524.
http://www.mining-journal.com/MJ/26mar99.htm
Heathgate Resources, a subsidiary of the US energy giant General Atomics Corp., has been given the go-ahead by Australia's federal government to develop the country's first in situ leach (ISL) uranium operation.The Beverley project in South Australia has received environmental approval but still needs an export licence and a state mining lease. Chuck Foldenauer, Heathgate's project manager for Beverley, said the company is confident of winning final approval, probably within six weeks.
Australian environmental groups strongly oppose the project and claim that the ISL process retains waste products underground and is a threat to groundwater supply. However, Environment Minister, Robert Hill, has said that the government has been advised that the Beverley aquifer is unsuitable for drinking water or for stock and irrigation purposes, and is isolated from other groundwater, including the Great Artesian Basin, "making it uniquely suited to ISL technology".
Beverley is located in a remote area of South Australia about 530 km northeast of Adelaide, and has an estimated resource of 21,000 t of uranium oxide. Heathgate expects to spend around A$30 million this year on the construction of a commercial plant and infrastructure, including an airstrip and campsite. According to Mr Foldenauer, commercial production could begin in the second quarter of calendar 2000. Production capacity would be 1,000 t/y of uranium oxide although initial output would probably be about 500 t/y (1 Mlb), depending on market conditions. The company has already secured three commercial sales contracts worth about A$60 million with undisclosed international utilities. Details of prices and volumes have not been given but the contracts are believed to average A$19/lb.
If the project proceeds, General Atomics will be the third uranium producer in Australia. The others are North Ltd's subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA), which operates the Ranger mine and is developing the Jabiluka mine, both in the Northern Territory, and WMC Ltd which operates the Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium mine in South Australia. The country's uranium sector received a fillip following the successful election in 1996 of the current Liberal/National government under the leadership of Prime Minister John Howard, which scrapped the previous Labor Government's restriction of uranium production to three mines - Ranger, Olympic Dam and the now-exhausted Nabarlek mine in Northern Territory.
All uranium projects are now being considered on their merits. In 1997, ERA received government approval to develop its Jabiluka underground mine near Ranger in the Kakadu National Park, despite environmental protests and a recent report from the World Heritage Bureau which recommended that Kakadu be placed on an 'in danger' list. Appeals led by the federal government against that recommendation are due to begin next month.
ERA, meanwhile, has continued work on an access decline at Jabiluka which was begun last year. It has now reached 860 m, almost half way to the orebody. ERA also intends to conduct detailed underground drilling and mine planning, and may seek extensions to the known orebody which remains open at depth and to the east. Jabiluka is expected to have a mine life of at least 25 years and a decision has yet to be reached on whether to truck ore to the Ranger mill or build a new mill on site. The first option would restrict project costs to around A$200 million whereas building a new mill would raise total costs to about A$350 million.
Other potential Australian uranium projects not pursued because of previous government policy (and low world uranium prices) include Rio Tinto's Kintyre deposit and WMC's Yeelirrie deposit, both in Western Australia. In South Australia, the Honeymoon deposit, located 75 km northwest of Broken Hill, is a possible second ISL project. Honeymoon is owned by Southern Cross Resources Inc. of Canada.
World mine output of uranium is around 35,000 t/y but this meets less than 60% of nuclear reactor requirements. The balance is made up by secondary supplies. Overshadowing the market has been the prospect of increased sales of blended down, highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium from Russia and sales of surplus uranium from the US Government inventory. This threat helped to push the uranium spot price down to a low of US$8.75/lb last year although prices have since risen to around US$11.50/lb.
-------- china
For Pentagon, Asia Moving to Forefront
Washington Post
Friday , May 26, 2000 ; A01
By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A7981-2000May25
When Pentagon officials first sat down last year to update the core planning document of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they listed China as a potential future adversary, a momentous change from the last decade of the Cold War.
But when the final version of the document, titled "Joint Vision 2020," is released next week, it will be far more discreet. Rather than explicitly pointing at China, it simply will warn of the possible rise of an unidentified "peer competitor."
The Joint Chiefs' wrestling with how to think about China--and how open to be about that effort--captures in a nutshell the U.S. military's quiet shift away from its traditional focus on Europe. Cautiously but steadily, the Pentagon is looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition.
This new orientation is reflected in many small but significant changes: more attack submarines assigned to the Pacific, more war games and strategic studies centered on Asia, more diplomacy aimed at reconfiguring the U.S. military presence in the area.
It is a trend that carries huge implications for the shape of the armed services. It also carries huge stakes for U.S. foreign policy. Some specialists warn that as the United States thinks about a rising China, it ought to remember the mistakes Britain made in dealing with Germany in the years before World War I.
The new U.S. military interest in Asia also reverses a Cold War trend under which the Pentagon once planned by the year 2000 to have just "a minimal military presence" in Japan, recalls retired Army Gen. Robert W. RisCassi, a former U.S. commander in South Korea.
Two possibilities are driving this new focus. The first is a chance of peace in Korea; the second is the risk of a hostile relationship with China.
Although much of the current discussion in Washington is about a possible military threat from North Korea, for military planners the real question lies further ahead: What to do after a Korean rapprochement? In this view, South Korea already has won its economic and ideological struggle with North Korea, and all that really remains is to negotiate terms for peace.
According to one Defense Department official, William S. Cohen's first question to policy officials when he became defense secretary in 1997 was: How can we change the assumption that U.S. troops will be withdrawn after peace comes to the Korean peninsula? Next month's first-ever summit between the leaders of North and South Korea puts a sharper edge on this issue.
In the longer run, many American policymakers expect China to emerge sooner or later as a great power with significant influence over the rest of Asia. That, along with a spate of belligerent statements about Taiwan from Chinese officials this spring, has helped focus the attention of top policymakers on China's possible military ambitions. "The Chinese saber-rattling has gotten people's attention, there's no question of that," said Abram Shulsky, a China expert at the Rand Corp.
The Buzzword Is China
Between tensions over Taiwan and this week's House vote to normalize trade relations with China, "China is the new Beltway buzzword," observed Dov S. Zakheim, a former Pentagon official who is an adviser on defense policy to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
To be sure, large parts of the U.S. military remain "Eurocentric," especially much of the Army. The shift is being felt most among policymakers and military planners--that is, officials charged with thinking about the future--and least among front-line units. Nor is it a change that the Pentagon is proclaiming from the rooftops. Defense Department officials see little value in being explicit about the shift in U.S. attention, which could worry old allies in Europe and antagonize China.
Even so, military experts point to changes on a variety of fronts. For example, over the last several years, there has been an unannounced shift in the Navy's deployment of attack submarines, which in the post-Cold War world have been used as intelligence assets--to intercept communications, monitor ship movements and clandestinely insert commandos--and also as front-line platforms for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iraq, Serbia and other targets. Just a few years ago, the Navy kept 60 percent of its attack boats in the Atlantic. Now, says a senior Navy submariner, it has shifted to a 50-50 split between the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, and before long the Pacific may get the majority.
But so far the focus on Asia is mostly conceptual, not physical. It is now a common assumption among national security thinkers that the area from Baghdad to Tokyo will be the main location of U.S. military competition for the next several decades. "The focus of great power competition is likely to shift from Europe to Asia," said Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a small but influential Washington think tank. James Bodner, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, added that, "The center of gravity of the world economy has shifted to Asia, and U.S. interests flow with that."
When Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of the most thoughtful senior officers in the military, met with the Army Science Board earlier this spring, he commented off-handedly that America's "long-standing Europe-centric focus" probably would shift in coming decades as policymakers "pay more attention to the Pacific Rim, and especially to China." This is partly because of trade and economics, he indicated, and partly because of the changing ethnic makeup of the U.S. population. (California is enormously important in U.S. domestic politics, explains one Asia expert at the Pentagon, and Asian Americans are increasingly influential in that state's elections, which can make or break presidential candidates.)
Just 10 years ago, said Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., commandant of the Army War College, roughly 90 percent of U.S. military thinking about future warfare centered on head-on clashes of armies in Europe. "Today," he said, "it's probably 50-50, or even more" tilted toward warfare using characteristic Asian tactics, such as deception and indirection.
War Gaming
The U.S. military's favorite way of testing its assumptions and ideas is to run a war game. Increasingly, the major games played by the Pentagon--except for the Army--take place in Asia, on an arc from Tehran to Tokyo. The games are used to ask how the U.S. military might respond to some of the biggest questions it faces: Will Iran go nuclear--or become more aggressive with an array of hard-to-stop cruise missiles? Will Pakistan and India engage in nuclear war--or, perhaps even worse, will Pakistan break up, with its nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Afghan mujaheddin? Will Indonesia fall apart? Will North Korea collapse peacefully? And what may be the biggest question of all: Will the United States and China avoid military confrontation? All in all, estimates one Pentagon official, about two-thirds of the forward-looking games staged by the Pentagon over the last eight years have taken place partly or wholly in Asia.
Last year, the Air Force's biggest annual war game looked at the Mideast and Korea. This summer's game, "Global Engagement 5," to be played over more than a week at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, will posit "a rising large East Asian nation" that is attempting to wrest control of Siberia, with all its oil and other natural resources, from a weak Russia. At one point, the United States winds up basing warplanes in Siberia to defend Russian interests.
Because of the sensitivity of talking about fighting China, "What everybody's trying to do is come up with games that are kind of China, but not China by name," said an Air Force strategist.
"I think that, however reluctantly, we are beginning to face up to the fact that we are likely over the next few years to be engaged in an ongoing military competition with China," noted Princeton political scientist Aaron L. Friedberg. "Indeed, in certain respects, we already are." Twin Efforts
The new attention to Asia also is reflected in two long-running, military-diplomatic efforts.
The first is a drive to renegotiate the U.S. military presence in northeast Asia. This is aimed mainly at ensuring that American forces still will be welcome in South Korea and Japan if the North Korean threat disappears. To that end, the U.S. military will be instructed to act less like post-World War II occupation forces and more like guests or partners.
Pentagon experts on Japan and Korea say they expect that "status of forces agreements" gradually will be diluted, so that local authorities will gain more jurisdiction over U.S. military personnel in criminal cases. In addition, they predict that U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea will be jointly operated in the future by American and local forces, perhaps even with a local officer in command.
At Kadena Air Force Base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, for example, the U.S. military has started a program, called "Base Without Fences," under which the governor has been invited to speak on the post, local residents are taken on bus tours of the base that include a stop at a memorial to Japan's World War II military, and local reporters have been given far more access to U.S. military officials.
"We don't have to stay in our foxhole," said Air Force Brig. Gen. James B. Smith, who devised the more open approach. "To guarantee a lasting presence, there needs to be a private and public acknowledgment of the mutual benefit of our presence."
Behind all this lies a quiet recognition that Japan may no longer unquestioningly follow the U.S. lead in the region. A recent classified national intelligence estimate concluded that Japan has several strategic options available, among them seeking a separate accommodation with China, Pentagon officials disclosed. "Japan isn't Richard Gere in 'An Officer and a Gentleman,' " one official said. "That is, unlike him, it does have somewhere else to go."
In the long term, this official added, a key goal of U.S. politico-military policy is to ensure that when Japan reemerges as a great power, it behaves itself in Asia, unlike the last time around, in the 1930s, when it launched a campaign of vicious military conquest.
Southeast Asia Redux
The second major diplomatic move is the negotiation of the U.S. military's reentry in Southeast Asia, 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War and almost 10 years after the United States withdrew from its bases in the Philippines. After settling on a Visiting Forces Agreement last year, the United States and the Philippines recently staged their first joint military exercise in years, "Balikatan 2000."
The revamped U.S. military relationship with the Philippines, argues one general, may be a model for the region. Instead of building "Little America" bases with bowling alleys and Burger Kings that are off-limits to the locals, U.S. forces will conduct frequent joint exercises to train Americans and Filipinos to operate together in everything from disaster relief to full-scale combat. The key, he said, isn't permanent bases but occasional access to facilities and the ability to work with local troops.
Likewise, the United States has broadened its military contacts with Australia, putting 10,000 troops into the Queensland region a year ago for joint exercises. And this year, for the first time, Singapore's military is participating in "Cobra Gold," the annual U.S.-Thai exercise. Singapore also is building a new pier specifically to meet the docking requirements of a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier. The U.S. military even has dipped a cautious toe back into Vietnam, with Cohen this spring becoming the first defense secretary since Melvin R. Laird to visit that nation.
The implications of this change already are stirring concern in Europe. In the March issue of Proceedings, the professional journal of the U.S. Navy, Cmdr. Michele Consentino, an Italian navy officer, fretted about the American focus on the Far East and about "dangerous gaps" emerging in the U.S. military presence in the Mediterranean.
Where the Generals Are
If the U.S. military firmly concludes that its major missions are likely to take place in Asia, it may have to overhaul the way it is organized, equipped and even led. "Most U.S. military assets are in Europe, where there are no foreseeable conflicts threatening vital U.S. interests," said "Asia 2025," a Pentagon study conducted last summer. "The threats are in Asia," it warned.
This study, recently read by Cohen, pointedly noted that U.S. military planning remains "heavily focused on Europe," that there are four times as many generals and admirals assigned to Europe as to Asia, and that about 85 percent of military officers studying foreign languages are still learning European tongues.
"Since I've been here, we've tried to put more emphasis on our position in the Pacific," Cohen said in an interview as he flew home from his most recent trip to Asia. This isn't, he added, "a zero-sum game, to ignore Europe, but recognizing that the [economic] potential in Asia is enormous"--especially, he said, if the United States is willing to help maintain stability in the region.
'Tyranny of Distance'
Talk to a U.S. military planner about the Pacific theater, and invariably the phrase "the tyranny of distance" pops up. Hawaii may seem to many Americans to be well out in the Pacific, but it is another 5,000 miles from there to Shanghai. All told, it is about twice as far from San Diego to China as it is from New York to Europe.
Cohen noted that the military's new focus on Asia means, "We're going to want more C-17s" (military cargo planes) as well as "more strategic airlift" and "more strategic sealift."
Other experts say that barely scratches the surface of the revamping that Asian operations might require. The Air Force, they say, would need more long-range bombers and refuelers--and probably fewer short-range fighters such as the hot new F-22, designed during the Cold War for dogfights in the relatively narrow confines of Central Europe. "We are still thinking about aircraft design as if it were for the border of Germany," argues James G. Roche, head of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s electronic sensors unit and a participant in last year's Pentagon study of Asia's future. "Asia is a much bigger area than Europe, so planes need longer 'legs.' "
Similarly, the Navy would need more ships that could operate at long distances. It might even need different types of warships. For example, the Pentagon study noted, today's ships aren't "stealthy"--built to evade radar--and may become increasingly vulnerable as more nations acquire precision-guided missiles.
Also, the Navy may be called on to execute missions in places where it has not operated for half a century. If the multi-island nation of Indonesia falls apart, the Pentagon study suggested, then the Navy may be called upon to keep open the crucial Strait of Malacca, through which passes much of the oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Japan and the rest of East Asia.
The big loser among the armed forces likely would be the Army, whose strategic relevancy already is being questioned as it struggles to deploy its forces more quickly. "At its most basic level, the rise of Asia means a rise of emphasis on naval, air and space power at the expense of ground forces," said Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University.
In a few years, Pentagon insiders predict, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be from the Navy or Air Force, following 12 years in which Army officers--Generals Colin L. Powell, John Shalikashvili and Henry H. Shelton--have been the top officers in the military. Perhaps even more significantly, they foresee the Air Force taking away from the Navy at least temporarily the position of "CINCPAC," the commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. There already is talk within the Air Force of basing parts of an "Air Expeditionary Force" in Guam, where B-2 stealth bombers have been sent in the past in response to tensions with North Korea.
Parallel With Past
If the implications for the U.S. military of a new focus on Asia are huge, so too are the risks. Some academics and Pentagon intellectuals see a parallel between the U.S. effort to manage the rise of China as a great power and the British failure to accommodate or divert the ambitions of a newly unified Germany in the late 19th century. That effort ended in World War I, which slaughtered a generation of British youth and marked the beginning of British imperial decline.
If Sino-American antagonism grows, some strategists warn, national missile defense may play the role that Britain's development of the battleship Dreadnought played a century ago--a superweapon that upset the balance by making Germany's arsenal strategically irrelevant. Chinese officials have said they believe the U.S. plan for missile defense is aimed at negating their relatively small force of about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
If the United States actually builds a workable antimissile system, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski predicts, "the effect of that would be immediately felt by the Chinese nuclear forces and [would] presumably precipitate a buildup." That in turn could provoke India to beef up its own nuclear forces, a move that would threaten Pakistan. A Chinese buildup also could make Japan feel that it needed to build up its own military.
Indian officials already are quietly telling Pentagon officials that the rise of China will make the United States and India natural allies. India also is feeling its oats militarily. The Hindustan Times recently reported that the Indian navy plans to reach far eastward this year to hold submarine and aircraft exercises in the South China Sea, a move sure to tweak Beijing.
Some analysts believe that the hidden agenda of the U.S. military is to use the rise of Asia as a way to shore up the Pentagon budget, which now consumes about 3 percent of the gross domestic product, compared to 5.6 percent at the end of the Cold War in 1989. "If the military grabs onto this in order to get more money, that's scary," said retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, who frequently conducts war games for the military.
Indeed, Cohen is already making the point that operating in Asia is expensive. He said it is clear that America will have to maintain "forward" forces in Asia. And that, he argued, will require a bigger defense budget.
"There's a price to pay for what we're doing," Cohen concluded. "The question we're going to have to face in the coming years is, are we willing to pay up?"
An Eye on Asia
U.S. forces dedicated to the Pacific region:
U.S. Army Pacific 60,000 soldiers and civilians (two divisions and one brigade)
U.S. Pacific Fleet 130,000 sailors and civilians (170 ships) Pacific Air Forces 40,000 airmen and civilians (380 aircraft in nine wings)
Marine Forces Pacific 70,000 Marines and civilians (two expeditionary forces)
On Foreign Shores
Major U.S. deployments in Asia include:
U.S. Forces Japan
47,000 personnel ashore and 12,000 afloat at 90 locations.
U.S. Forces Korea
37,500 personnel at 85 installations
Training Grounds
The Pacific Command participates in dozens of joint exercises with allied countries each year, including:
1. Cobra Gold: The U.S.-Thai exercise is expanding to include Singapore.
2. Foal Eagle: Brings together U.S. and South Korean troops on the Korean peninsula.
3. Crocodile: A training exercise with Australia at Shoalwater Bay.
4. Rim of the Pacific: Participants include the U.S., Australia, Japan and South Korea (pictured above).
SOURCE: U.S. Pacific Command
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Ignored issue in the Taiwan debate
Washington Times
May 25, 2000
Larry Niksch
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000525161927.htm
The Clinton administration's recent decisions on arms sales to Taiwan came amidst the publicized debate between the administration and its critics, and the reported debate between the Pentagon and the White House, over how best to support Taiwan's security.
This debate intensified in response to China's deployment of 200 missiles opposite Taiwan and projections that the number will reach 600 to 800 by 2005. An added factor was China's White Paper, issued in February, in which China threatened to use military force if Taiwan delayed negotiations on reunification.
Despite the intensification of the debate, it has remained within certain boundaries. The debate over weapons systems is limited to the kind of systems to be sold to Taiwan. All these weapons systems are defensive systems with a heavy emphasis on anti-missile defense systems. There also is a long-range time perspective: Aegis destroyers that Taiwan would not take possession of for five years and a theater missile defense system that could not be put in place for 10 years and perhaps 15.
The debate largely omits consideration of threats and responses in the near term, especially the timeframe of China's missile buildup. In contrast, Chinese officials said after the issuance of the White Paper that China would give Taiwan three to five years to accept its negotiating terms. After Chen Shui-bian's election as Taiwan's president in March, Chinese officials reportedly said they would give him a few months to accept their terms.
There also are questions regarding the effectiveness of the weapons systems proposed for Taiwan. China may be able to overwhelm any missile defense system with a mass attack of hundreds of missiles. None of the systems being debated would give Taiwan the capability to conduct counterstrikes against the launch sites of Chinese military operations.
The debate has contained no discussion of that old but crucial concept of deterrence, especially the question: If China continues to build up its military power opposite Taiwan, what combination of military and diplomatic measures would provide the highest probability of deterring China from deciding on the military option?
The limitations of the debate will not be altered so long as it pays no attention to the issue of the adequacy of the U.S. force structure in the Western Pacific to influence the situation in the Taiwan Strait. No future decisions on arms sales to Taiwan will replace two fundamental roles that only U.S. forces in the Western Pacific can play. Only U.S. forces would have the capabilities to respond immediately to a Chinese attack by striking at bases and missiles launch sites that would be the sources of the attack, thus limiting the damage to Taiwan. Equally, and perhaps most important, only U.S. forces would constitute an effective deterrence against a Chinese decision to use military force. If China continues to escalate its threats and military buildup, Beijing will examine closely the indicators of U.S. intent and military capabilities. Chinese analysts and policy-makers increasingly will link U.S. intent with U.S. military capabilities in the region, especially if, as expected, the United States continues its policy of maintaining ambiguity regarding its commitment to Taiwan's defense. The need for debate and consideration of this issue stems from a central fact: The current U.S. force structure in the Western Pacific is not capable of responding quickly and effectively to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, especially a massive missile and air attack that Chinese military strategists reportedly are stressing in their planning. Under a 1995 policy of maintaining 100,000 U.S. military personnel in the Western Pacific, the current force structure is intended primarily to reassure U.S. allies of U.S. commitments. U.S. forces are designed to fight a ground war on the Korean Peninsula and thus include about 50,000 ground troops.
U.S. air and naval forces available for a Taiwan contingency are thin: one carrier battle groups with about 65 fighter aircraft, about 100 fighters in Japan and no heavy bombers (withdrawn from Guam in 1991). The 1996 tensions in the Taiwan Strait illustrated this inadequacy when the 7th Fleet had to swing a carrier thousands of miles from the Western Indian Ocean, taking several days, in order to assemble a two-carrier force off Taiwan. The inadequacy also is pointed up by comparison with the U.S. naval and air forces in the Persian Gulf conflict in 1991 (six carrier battle groups and about 880 combat aircraft) and near Yugoslavia in 1999 (323 strike aircraft, combined with 213 allied strike aircraft).
The static nature of the U.S. force structure in the Western Pacific now is in the context of a major strategic shift in the region. The Taiwan Strait is superceding Korea as the most likely military threat to U.S. security interests. This is due not only to the Chinese military buildup opposite Taiwan and prospects it will continue but the substantial decline in North Korean conventional military capabilities facing South Korea: obsolete offensive weaponry, declining big unit military exercises, marginal supplies of fuel and food, poor morale, and the deteriorating physical and mental state of North Korean draftees owing to a decade of malnutrition.
North Korea appears no longer capable of launching a massive invasion across the Demilitarized Zone. There is evidence North Korean political and military leaders are well aware of this situation. The loss of the invasion option greatly limits Pyongyang's options for using missiles and nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies.
The current "100,000 man" policy robs the United States of flexibility to reorient U.S. forces to the new strategic situation. A continuation of the "100,000 man" policy in the face of a continuation of China's military buildup facing Taiwan will create the crucial danger of an erosion of deterrence. Recent history reminds us of the failure of the United States to strengthen military forces near the Persian Gulf in 1991 in order to deter Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait.
Regardless of the scale of future arms sales to Taiwan, the real U.S. policy choice is:
(1) Continue the existing Western Pacific force structure and hope that China's admission to the World Trade Organization and economic ties with the United States will soften Chinese policy toward Taiwan. This is a risky bet.
(2) Restructure U.S. forces by adding considerably more air and naval forces that could include at least one more carrier battle group, additional strike fighters and tomahawk missile launching submarines, and heavy bombers. This undoubtedly would require reductions in U.S. ground forces in Japan to balance the burden to Japan of basing new U.S. air and naval units.
A fundamental restructuring of U.S. forces in the Western Pacific would involve major planning, basing, and financial decisions. The issue thus needs to be a central element in the U.S. debate over Taiwan policy.
Larry Niksch is a specialist in Asian affairs for the Congressional Research Service.
-------- depleted uranium
U.S. Forces admit depleted uranium bullets stored in Okinawa
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 18:22:42 +0900
From: Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>
TOKYO MAY 26 JPS -- The U.S. Air Force in Japan has stored depleted uranium bullets in the U.S. Kadena arsenal depot in Okinawa Prefecture, Akahata on May 26 reported.
In answer to a question at a news conference on May 24, James Smith, commander of the 18th Wing of the U.S. Air Force in Japan said that depleted uranium bullets are for 30mm guns on A-10 Thunderbolt attackers deployed in the U.S. Forces in South Korea. But he did not make clear the how much and where they are stored. Smith said that the U.S. Forces have no intention to remove the depleted uranium bullets from Okinawa.
In Okinawa from 1995 to 1996, the U.S. Marines had misfired total of 1,520 depleted uranium bullets, and these accidents caused a great controversy and anxieties among the people.
Depleted uranium bullet can easily pierce through an armored plate such as a tank because it has a greater specific gravity of depleted uranium to strengthen its power. The use of such a bullet is strictly restricted in the U.S. because of a possible diffusion of its radioactivity. (end item)
----
Local assembly in Okinawa denounces U.S. Marines
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 18:22:42 +0900
From: Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>
TOKYO MAY 26 JPS -- A local assembly in Okinawa on May 25 expressed strong condemnation of U.S. Marines, firing exercise at a civilian sugar-cane field.
The unanimous resolution was adopted by in the Higashison Village Assembly. It demands that the U.S. Forces find the cause of what happened and immediately end firing exercises in the Northern Training Area to protect lives of local residents and the environment.
The village assembly also demands an apology from the U.S. Marines, thoroughgoing safety education and discipline of the Marines, compensation, installment of fences to divide the U.S. military facilities from residential areas and a ban on Marine vehicles going into civil roads in the farming area.
----
Alternative Natural Therapies Backed Up By Hard Science
From: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 04:35:21 -0400 (EDT)
I'd suggest that anyone that's been exposed/poisoned by DU or for that matter ANY human being that wants to be healthy, either by preventing disease & enhancing immunity or mitigating or reversing any disease or injury they have, educate themselves as to the validity of alternative natural therapies most of which are backed up by hard science. This includes DU exposure. Please see the web site of Gary Null at: http://www.garynull.com Null has worked with Gulf War vets who've been poisoned by DU & other agents and has produced a documentry on it, contact info for interested parties is listed at the web site. He's also worked with many GW Vets & had much success in restoration of health IF the person chooses to remain on the protocol.
Mainstream pharmeceutical, allopathic "health" practice is NO WHERE near as successsful in treating any disease there is- immune suppression which is strongly related to cancer, arthritis, lupus, AIDS, heart disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, DU exposure- as are many alternative, natural homeopathic approaches. The heart of the problem and the reason for the existence, much less massive institionalized practice of allopathic[drug based] approaches is two fold. One obviously is huge $, the other closed minds and a medical school education which is funded by over 60% by the pharmeceutical industry.
Please read & study this web site, get the video & educate yourself via other sources- DO NOT trust maninstream MDs or other "health" practitioners who are illiterate when it comes to what constitutes health & how one goes about restoring it or preventing disease. Once learned, the fundamentals are amazingly simple. People just have to know & do them.
Another good site is either of the following 2: http://www.preventcancer.org or http://www.preventcancer.com The book "The Politics of Cancer" by Dr Samuel Epstein, is avalable in bookstores & via http://www.amazon.com is a great place to start educating oneself as to the nature, economically & ideologically of the medical-industrial complex.
Again, the site is: http://www.garynull.com
-Bill Smirnow
-------- europe
Clinton hoping for breakthrough in arms control, but chances slim
Pioneer Planet
Published: Sunday, May 28, 2000
STEVEN THOMMA WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/4/news/docs/004075.htm
WASHINGTON, With time running out on his presidency, President Clinton heads to Europe today looking for a nuclear arms control agreement but facing hostility from America's European allies, from Russia and from the Republican Party.
Although his aides are publicly trying to lower expectations of a breakthrough, Clinton is seeking a compromise with Russia that would slash the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, amend a key 1972 arms treaty and open the way for the United States to develop a limited defense against ballistic missile attacks from so-called rogue nations such as North Korea and Iraq.
Without such a deal, Clinton faces the prospect of leaving office as the first president in a generation who did not negotiate a major arms control agreement. But aides to new Russian President Vladimir Putin have signaled their opposition to amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, GOP congressional leaders have said they will veto any arms agreement Clinton negotiates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have questioned how deeply America's nuclear arsenal should be cut.
Much more than an arms control agreement is at stake, however. Clinton will travel to four countries -- Portugal, Germany, Russia and Ukraine -- and he will face growing doubts about U.S. foreign policy. In his first summit with Putin, he will meet an energetic and somewhat enigmatic leader who wants both continued economic support from the West and a stronger, more independent Russia.
While stressing Moscow's interest in good relations with the West, Putin has ignored Western criticism of Russia's war against Chechnya and moved to improve relations with states such as Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria.
Republicans fear that in Clinton's eagerness to negotiate a sweeping arms deal, he will trade away any chance for the United States to develop an effective missile defense and turn a blind eye to Russian domestic and foreign policies that challenge American interests.
Clinton, however, is under increasing pressure -- much of it from GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush -- to cut an arms control deal with Putin. The Texas governor has proposed offering the Russians even deeper cuts in nuclear weapons in exchange for greater freedom to field a far more ambitious missile-defense system that would protect not only the United States but also American allies and overseas military bases.
``The administration's whole position is purely political,'' said Spurgeon Keeny, an arms control negotiator under presidents from Kennedy to Carter and now president of the Arms Control Association, a group that supports deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals but opposes amending the ABM Treaty. ``They must be trying to take an issue away from the Republicans in the upcoming presidential campaign.''
``The pressure is coming from the Republicans,'' said Marshall Goldman, the associate director of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies.
The White House itself is not above using the upcoming presidential election as a bargaining chip with the Kremlin. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger all but warned Putin he could get a more favorable deal from Clinton than he might get with the next president.
``They have to decide whether they want to reach an agreement now that will assure them that a limited (missile defense) system will take place,'' Berger said, ``or whether they want the possibility that a future president might go forward . . . perhaps even a more Star Wars-oriented (missile defense) system that would be more threatening to the Russians in the absence of an ABM treaty. That's a calculation they have to make.''
The treaty the Clinton administration is asking Russia to amend prohibits either country from building more than a very limited system to shoot down incoming missiles. The treaty cemented the policy of ``mutual assured destruction,'' under which each country remained vulnerable to missile attack -- and thus assured that neither would dare strike first.
But 28 years later, the threat to the United States is considerably different, said Henry Kissinger, who as Richard Nixon's national security adviser helped negotiate the ABM treaty and now supports proposals to amend it or end it to allow a missile defense.
``Today the threats have moved into many different areas,'' Kissinger said.
The United States now faces the possibility of missile attack not just from Russia or China, but also from rogue nations such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq that could develop missiles capable of hitting American cities in the next 15 years, according to a recently declassified analysis by the National Intelligence Council.
The most dramatic concession to win Russian agreement on a missile defense system would be to agree to reduce each country's nuclear arsenals more than the Pentagon wants.
Both countries are committed to cutting their arsenals to, at most, 3,500 warheads under the Start II treaty. Looking ahead to a Start III treaty, the United States proposed cutting back to between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads. But the cash-starved Russians can barely afford to maintain their nuclear stockpile and want to reduce to 1,500 warheads.
``If we agree to reduce the number, they might let us have the ABM treaty,'' said Harvard University's Goldman. ``But if he does that, that will just create anger among the military and the hard-liners who say we've got to keep our missile strength.''
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that any agreement to amend the ABM treaty would effectively recommit the United States to a pact he says died with the Soviet Union. He vowed that any agreement would be ``dead on arrival'' in the Senate.
Another possible outcome is that Clinton could approve development of the missile defense system even without Russian approval or agreement -- and end up driving Russia and even China to start building more missiles so they could ensure their ability to overwhelm the American defenses.
``If the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty, Russia will withdraw from Start II and will go in for new (multiple warhead missiles),'' Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Committee on Defense in the Russian Duma, said during a recent visit to Washington.
That's just the sort of response that has U.S. allies in Europe, particularly France and Germany, worried. Fearful of upsetting the balance that has kept the peace for a generation, European leaders will express their opposition when they meet with Clinton at a U.S.-European summit in Lisbon.
Said Goldman: ``We get relatively few benefits from the whole thing. We pay enormous costs. And it stirs up a hornet's nest.''
-------- food irradiation
USDA Proposes Irradiation of Fruit, Veggie Imports
Friday May 26 12:04 PM ET
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000526/hl/usda_1.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Zap those fruit flies. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed on Thursday to allow irradiation of imported fruits and vegetables to control the highly destructive agricultural pest.
Last year, the department approved irradiation to curb illness-causing bacteria on meat.
Many companies have been slow to adopt the technology because of fears of a possible consumer backlash, even though many researchers believe irradiation would enhance meat safety.
Allowing irradiation of imported fruits and vegetables would provide an alternative to current treatments for controlling fruit flies. USDA said.
The federal agency will hold a two-month comment period on its proposal.
-------- france
French court to rule on Chernobyl case in June
FRANCE: May 26, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6851
PARIS - A special French court will decide on June 15 if it will take up a case against ex-cabinet ministers accused of failing to warn the public about the dangers of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, judicial sources said on Thursday.
The novel case was brought by Yohann Van Waeyenberghe, 31, from the Champagne capital of Reims, who claims his thyroid cancer was caused by fallout in eastern France from the 1986 disaster.
The complaint, the first such legal action in France, aims to have then Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Health Minister Michele Barzach and Environment Minister Alain Carignon tried by the High Court of Justice of the Republic.
Van Waeyenberghe asked that the three politicians "recognise their stupidity" in not issuing explicit warnings of the dangers of the fallout from the explosion of one of the reactors of the Ukrainian nuclear plant in April 1986.
A radioactive cloud swept from Chernobyl across much of eastern and western Europe after the blast, the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster.
Van Waeyenberghe said in his complaint that he would show his medical condition was a result of the disaster.
The High Court of Justice of the Republic exists solely to try serving or past government members for offences committed while in office.
Last year, it acquitted former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius on charges of knowingly allowing AIDS-tainted blood to be used for transfusions.
Soviet officials originally tried to play down the seriousness of the disaster, which official data show killed thousands of people and affected millions more in Ukraine alone.
-------- imf / world bank
All-out security effort for GOP convention
5/26/2000
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Thomas Ginsberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Secret Service is checking rooftops. The FBI is monitoring the Internet. And city police are getting ready to play cat and mouse with protesters.
Unnoticed by most Philadelphians, security preparations for the Republican National Convention are moving into high gear about 10 weeks before the July 31-Aug. 3 event. Thousands of law enforcement officers will land in the city for an operation made particularly complex by the likelihood of civil disobedience and surprise protests.
"Virtually every resource that the FBI has available will be put into play," said Thomas J. Harrington, the assistant special agent-in-charge in the FBI's Philadelphia office. "After the Atlanta Olympics it was bombings that were the main focus. . . . Now protesters have become more of a focus."
At both the GOP event and the Democratic convention in Los Angeles two weeks later, the Secret Service is coordinating the work of dozens of federal, state and local agencies employing thousands of officers - some of whom will be dressed like tourists to mix with their surroundings.
The FBI will focus on intelligence gathering, investigation and prosecution if necessary. City police will police the city, perhaps the most complicated job.
The goal is a smooth, safe convention with minimal inconvenience to city dwellers and delegates. Subway and regional rail lines may run later into the night to handle extra passengers, streets will be closed as briefly as possible, and a caravan of tow trucks will stand ready to clear traffic jams.
"We're not going to shut the city down. . . . We have to live here too," said Thomas G. Spurlock, the Secret Service's assistant special agent-in-charge in Philadelphia.
With a command center in a Pentagon-owned building near 20th and Oregon Streets, the Secret Service will have direct responsibility for security inside the First Union Center, where the convention takes place. Inside and outside the arena its agents will guard every move by two former presidents (George Bush and Gerald R. Ford) and dozens of diplomats and dignitaries, including former first lady Nancy Reagan. Not to mention the presumptive nominee, George W. Bush.
The agency also will coordinate the work of police from 35 states guarding 35 Republican governors. It will oversee members of the Capitol Police arriving with the leaders of the GOP-controlled Congress.
An early word on VP
Spurlock said the agency would check every nook and cranny where the "protectees" will stay, visit or travel; scrutinize high-rise buildings for possible sniper's nests; and possibly move mailboxes and weld manholes shut around hotels or meeting halls. Agents are mapping out motorcade routes and backdoor exits from hotels and meeting spots, a challenge in Philadelphia's narrow downtown streets.
"We'll also have to protect the vice-presidential nominee," said Spurlock, who acknowledged that agents would get an early word on the choice. "We've heard about nobody yet," he joked.
The city's police force will have responsibility for security around the rest of the city and next to the First Union Center, including the 7,600-square-foot "free speech zone" already established in FDR Park across from the arena along South Broad Street. (Information on reserving a spot is available at www.phila.gov/rnc_permit)
Whether protesters bother with the rally site is another question. Few groups have signed up to use it; the largest rallies are planned in Center City, with some activists promising sporadic acts of protest and civil disobedience everywhere.
Several Philadelphia officers traveled to Washington, D.C., in April and New York City on May 1 to observe the protests there over global trade and multinational corporations. The FBI and Justice Department are holding training sessions in Philadelphia in crowd control and tactics for police officers and commanders. They say officers must be ready to respond to varying problems, such as a surprise blockade or protest in a city street.
'Mobile field forces'
Capt. William Fisher, commanding officer of the civil affairs unit, said police had identified several spots protesters may target: the First Union Center, City Hall plaza, the Liberty Bell area, and the delegates' hotels. Police intend to designate a special detention center for any protesters arrested.
At the same time, police will maintain full staffing at the city's 23 precincts during the week, Fisher said. Court sessions have been canceled and new vacation schedules have been offered to free as many officers as possible.
Taking their cue from recent protests in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, police intend to be ready to rush officers to potential flash points around the city in "mobile field forces," said Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell. They could travel in either marked or unmarked vehicles, he said, but he gave no details.
Police said protesters in Seattle, using their own mobile-phone network, dashed from one area to another to avoid police as they blocked streets.
In Philadelphia, police may deploy officers just to keep routes open for their mobile forces, a defense Seattle failed to use, Fisher said.
The tactics mean that both sides may end up playing a game of cat and mouse.
What city police will not do, Commissioner John F. Timoney said, is dress up in Ninja Turtle-like protective garb, or, except as an extreme resort, use gas to quell protesters. "We'll be very circumspect," he said.
Fisher said police would also be cordial but careful when faced with one expected protest tactic: the offering of food or drink by demonstrators hoping to sway police to their side.
"It all depends on the situation at hand," Fisher said. "Nobody eats open, exposed food like doughnuts. There are a lot of kooks out there."
With the First Union Center well-protected by a buffer zone, protesters have been discussing the idea of blockading delegates at their hotels. Fisher called hotel security "a serious concern," but neither he nor Mitchell would discuss the plans for addressing it.
Some activists have hinted at their plans on the Internet, where groups often publicize and discuss their events using e-mail systems called listservs. The FBI regularly reads the listservs, the agents said.
"E-mails are like leads," Harrington said. "We've had a lot of experience with them, whether it's stock fraud or child porn."
Or political organizing. Thomas F. Dowd, an FBI supervising special agent in Philadelphia and an expert on terrorism, said he knew that protesters may be "yanking the FBI's chain" by discussing blockades on the Internet, but that no threat could be taken lightly.
Asked whether security at the convention could include preemptive arrests of protesters, as in Washington in April, Dowd said it depended on whether officials thought that protesters intended to break a law.
Even though street confrontation may now be the primary concern of police, officials still are wary of other threats. They may create a no-fly zone over the First Union Center, particularly to keep TV helicopters away, and possibly will adjust flight patterns to and from Philadelphia International and Northeast Philadelphia Airports.
The FBI will be bringing specialists in terrorism and hazardous materials to Philadelphia, as well as extra computers to be linked with the bureau's Special Intelligence Operations Center in Washington, officials said.
"They'll be able to send even more resources and people," Dowd said, "if we need them."
-------- india / pakistan
TWO YEARS AFTER THE ATOMIC TESTS:
A LACK OF DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
by Bernard Imhasly
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
NZZ Background on World Affairs, May 2000
From: South Asians Against Nukes Post, Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
26 May 2000
With their nuclear tests of May 1998, India and Pakistan crossed a threshold to become acknowledged nuclear powers. Their euphoria was followed by the sobering reality of sanctions - and by the knowledge abroad that the two countries had been working toward the tests for a long time. Because of a lack of democratic debate, India today does not quite know how to reconcile its new status as a nuclear power with its older one as an apostle of disarmament.
On 28 April, a fire broke out in India's second-largest munitions dump, near the city of Bharatpur in the state of Rajasthan. The blaze destroyed at least 12,000 tons of munitions, including ground-to-air and anti-tank missiles. In the fireworks, during which thousands of grenades rained down on some 20 villages in the area around the depot, two people were killed and countless others injured. The inferno, which had broken out while the ambient temperature was well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, caused damage estimated at the equivalent of 88 million dollars.
In violation of regulations, the elephant grass which grows around the explosive munitions stored in the open had not been cut for two years. The question in many inhabitants' minds after this huge accident was openly voiced in India's Parliament by Deputy Eduardo Faleiro: What would have happened if a similar incident had occurred at a nuclear storage depot?
Highs and Lows
India's atomic tests of 11 and 13 May 1998, followed by Pakistan's on 28 May, triggered euphoric reactions in both countries before a sobering-up process began when sanctions were imposed on them. But the sanctions had widely divergent impact: Pakistan's economy threatened to collapse under their weight, while the incomparably larger Indian economy, strengthened by decades of import substitution, was able to shrug them off.
Indeed, the sanctions strengthened the national applause of the tests, which drowned out the isolated voices of anti-nuclear forces. When the latter carried out a protest march lasting several weeks and extending from the testing ground in Rajasthan to Buddha's traditional territory in Bihar, participation was thin and the media barely reported on the event.
Subsequently, there was no national pro-and-con debate about atomic weapons, and the enormous costs to a poor country of creating an adequate control system for nuclear weapons came up for very little discussion. Questions about the lack of facilities for civil defense or protection against radiation are met with the same shrug of the shoulders as those concerning the truth or falsity of frequent reports about "leaky" nuclear power stations.
For decades, official India had trumpeted its policy of unconditional rejection of atomic weapons. The government underscored this stance with its decision not to translate the technical competence shown in its 1974 atomic tests into a nuclear arsenal. But, as author Arundhati Roy expressed it, the second series of tests in 1998 marked "the end of a fantasy": India, too, had accepted the Bomb as the ultimate emblem of power.
This was accompanied by the end of an illusion. Several studies, especially that of American political scientist George Perkovich ("India's Nuclear Bomb"), have since demonstrated that the government's long years of moral wrestling between idealistic rejection and "realistic" acceptance of the atomic bomb was nothing but a highly effective public relations show. To demonstrate that the 1998 tests had not been a mere upwelling of nationalism, the government headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party opened its archives. And what was revealed was that India's acquisition of nuclear arms had been systematically prepared for over decades and had received the political approval of all its governments.
Behind Closed Doors
The silence of those in India who oppose nuclear power is doubtless also an expression of shock at the revelation that, in an ostensibly democratic state, a small group of insiders makes all the crucial decisions and had been able to fool the public and Parliament for many years. Critics' tongues were not loosened even when the government made public an aggressively formulated draft of a nuclear doctrine last August. The projected doctrine assured the world that India would not carry out a nuclear first strike and imposed upon itself the limit of a "minimal deterrent" - but the flexibility built into the definition of that minimum did nothing to reassure outsiders. And the formulation of the country's second-strike capability leaves a fearful question hanging in the air: Might that capability be used at the mere threat of an enemy's nuclear first strike? Moreover, the capability is conceived in the form of a triad of land, air and sea-based carrier systems involving enormous investments and maintenance costs.
Here, too, criticism has been voiced primarily from abroad, while it has been limited in India itself to a few journalists and academics. According to political scientist Amitabh Mattoo, this is the result of a decades-long hide-and-seek game played by a numerically tiny establishment, which has hindered the formation of an open, broad-based public opinion in the name of national security.
The lack of a diverse public voice actively interested in nuclear policy is especially evident in the weakness of the running debate on Indian accession to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT). The government enjoys trumpeting its increased power, but seems baffled about what to do with its newly won nuclear trump. It made no effort to be admitted as an observer to the review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty currently running in New York, in order at least to establish contacts with the nations of the "new agenda coalition." In its drive to be recognized as a nuclear power - possibly to be accompanied by a seat on the UN Security Council - Delhi has also avoided any criticism of Washington's plans for a National Missile Defense system.
The Indian government is so torn between acceptance and rejection of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that it could not even bring itself to welcome the recent ratification of the pact by its Russian allies. Nor can Delhi decide whether the NTBT would tie India's hands while the other nuclear powers would be able to expand their capabilities through test simulations, or whether the treaty is a genuine instrument of disarmament capable of imposing limits on America's upgrading of its armaments through its "stockpile stewardship program."
Tilting at Windmills
Pakistan too, its nuclear policy fixated on India in any case, is undecided whether it should sign the NTBT. Doing so could win it some urgently needed diplomatic points in the West. But Islamabad cannot shake the fear that India, by continuing to stand on the sidelines, might score some strategic advantage. Pakistan's military regime accepts that its nuclear arms program must be allowed to continue gravely undermining the country's economy, because its members are firmly convinced that nuclear parity with India is a way to finally neutralize the enemy's superiority in the realm of conventional armaments.
Even after its defeat at Kargil, Pakistan continues to value the usefulness of such military actions on the grounds that the risk of a nuclear escalation sharply lowers the probability of a conventional war. Pakistan cannot win such wars - but it could win locally limited mini-wars under the shadow of its nuclear umbrella. The head of Pakistan's disarmament agency recently opined that "only when an atmosphere of confidence is created, will South Asia be capable of relinquishing its atomic weapons." But the creation of such an atmosphere is very remote indeed. As long as the Kashmir dispute remains unresolved, the diplomat clearly stated, the idea of a disappearance of nuclear weapons from the subcontinent is "nothing but tilting at windmills."
----
Pakistan Vows to 'Consolidate' Nuclear Capability
Reuters
May 26, 2000 Filed at 1:11 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-pa.html
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan, which U.S. officials say may be preparing new nuclear tests, said on Friday it would consolidate its nuclear capability demonstrated by its atomic explosions two years ago.
The statement by a government spokesman came after military ruler General Pervez Musharraf chaired a meeting of the National Command Authority (NCA) set up in February to command and control Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
``The (NCA)...reaffirmed Pakistan's resolve to consolidate its nuclear capability as a means of deterring aggression,'' a government statement quoted the spokesman as saying ahead of Sunday's second anniversary of the country's tit-for-tat nuclear tests after similar tests by arch-rival India.
The statement coincided with the current visit to Islamabad by U.S. Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering to discuss issues including security and Pakistan's tense relations with India.
U.S. officials voiced fears this week that Pakistan could be making preparations to conduct more nuclear tests, but Islamabad has denied it.
Pakistan says it will abide by a unilateral moratorium on testing it announced after the May 28, 1998, tests and follow a policy of ``responsibility and restraint.''
General Musharraf told a news conference on Thursday, however, that Pakistan should not be stopped from testing if India carried out more tests.
The government spokesman said Friday's inaugural meeting of the NCA also ``reaffirmed Pakistan's nuclear policy of responsibility as restraint, consistent with its obligations as a de facto nuclear power.''
``It also discussed a number of policy issues including proposals relating to command, control and restructuring of strategic organizations,'' the spokesman said, without giving any details.
The NCA includes key cabinet ministers, heads of armed forces and senior scientists.
---
Pakistan Presses Kashmir Issue
Associated Press
May 26, 2000 Filed at 10:07 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Pakistan-US.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering on Friday launched a two-day visit to Pakistan to discuss issues that include nuclear testing, terrorism and Pakistan's troubled relations with neighbor India.
Pickering met Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who urged the United States to press neighboring India to start talks on the disputed Kashmir region -- the flashpoint of two previous wars.
``The U.S. should prevail upon India to agree to Pakistan's sincere offer of a dialogue to resolve all outstanding problems, particularly the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir,'' a Pakistan statement said.
India demands that Islamabad first withdraw Muslim militants from its Kashmir territory before talks are held. Pakistan says its support is political and moral.
Pickering's visit comes at a time of strained relations between Pakistan and the United States, two Cold War friends who have been struggling to define their post-Cold War relationship.
Washington is pressing both Pakistan and India to sign the global test ban treaty, especially given reports this week of fresh U.S. warnings being issued to Pakistan against conducting nuclear tests.
India and Pakistan conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998 and declared themselves nuclear powers, generating international worries about a nuclear arms race on the Asian subcontinent.
On Thursday, Musharraf told reporters that Pakistan has no plans to conduct any nuclear test. However, he warned that Pakistan will respond if India conducts one.
The United States also wants Pakistan to use its influence with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to hand over Osama bin Laden, accused by the U.S. of masterminding deadly bombings of its embassies in East Africa in 1998.
For its part Pakistan says the U.S. has been a fair-weather friend, embracing Pakistan during the 1980s war in Afghanistan, encouraging Islamic militants to the region to fight against invading Soviet soldiers and then turning its back on the area and becoming Pakistan's biggest critic.
---
Musharraf Pledges Return of Democracy
Washington Post
Friday, May 26, 2000; Page A24
Associated Press
WORLD In Brief by Virginia Hamill
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-05/26/080l-052600-idx.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan--For the first time since toppling Pakistan's civilian government, Gen. Pervez Musharraf said unequivocally he would honor a Supreme Court order to return the country to democratic rule in three years.
The court's ruling was part of a decision that upheld the military takeover in Pakistan Oct. 12. The court said the army was driven to take power by a civilian government rife with corruption and incompetence.
"We will hand back power to the civilians in three years. This is the Supreme Court decision," Musharraf said at a news conference.
The Supreme Court also gave Musharraf sweeping powers to change Pakistan's constitution, which he told reporters he would do. Musharraf is believed to favor a constitution that gives the military a role in governing the country. Pakistan's 53-year history has been marked by periods of army rule, and it is the only military-run country known to possess nuclear weapons.
-------- iraq
Death Rates Rising in Iraqi Children
Report shows child death rate doubled
Friday May 26, 2000 Reuters News
From: "Dan Fahey" mtpdu@dclink.com
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Since the end of the Persian Gulf War, child and infant death rates in Iraq have more than doubled, according to a new report.
The jump in death rates coincided with the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations (UN) against Iraq. However, in the northern, mainly Kurdish region of Iraq, where more humanitarian aid has gotten through, child and infant death rates have declined. Dr. Mohamed M. Ali, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, led the study.
In the May 27th issue of The Lancet, Ali's team reports that between 1989 and 1999, infant and child death rates rose in southern and central Iraq, reversing a decline that began in the 1970s. During the same period, deaths among infants and children younger than age 5 in the north fell to levels more than 40% lower than those in the south.
A variety of reasons for the increase in child deaths is cited in the paper; Ali and his colleagues note that since 1991, most Iraqi hospitals have remained in a state of disrepair, and contaminated water supplies have caused an upswing in communicable diseases. In fact, they write, most Iraqis in the southern and central regions do not have access to clean drinking water, and general malnutrition has resulted in more low birth weight babies.
In 1995, the UN adopted a program in which Iraq could trade oil for food and other humanitarian aid. This aid, Ali's team explains, has been ``distributed more rapidly'' in the Kurdish region.
In an editorial, The Lancet contends that the Iraq ''disaster'' is mainly the fault of Saddam Hussein, but that the UN ``has become a secondary perpetuator of it.'' Continuing suspicion of the Iraqi leader's intentions, the editorial states, have put on hold any requests to the UN for aid that might be weapons-related.
The ``courageous policy,'' according to the journal, would be to suspend the sanctions against Iraq, lest young, resentful Iraqis ``grow up to be as aggressive as their current leader.''
SOURCE: The Lancet 2000;355:1837, 1851-1857.
----
HALL CALLS FOR SMARTER U.N. SANCTIONS THAT SPARE INNOCENT IRAQIS
From: "Dan Fahey" mtpdu@dclink.com
Congressman Tony P. Hall
www.house.gov/tonyhall/
U.S. House of Representatives
1432 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
April 24, 2000
Suffering -- especially among children -- is real and severe, says first US official to examine Iraq's humanitarian situation since Gulf War
WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, today called for an end to efforts to demonize Iraq's people - and for a more effective response to their suffering from officials charged with supervising Iraq's purchase of humanitarian supplies. He also said that lifting sanctions at this point would be irresponsible.
Hall visited Iraq April 16-20, touring hospitals, schools, clinics and water-treatment plants in Baghdad, Basra, Babylon, Samawah and Nasiriyah. He was accompanied in Iraq by representatives of the Red Crescent, Red Cross, UNICEF, and others and met with aid workers, Western diplomats, and Iraq's Minister of Health. His statement on his trip to Iraq follows:
"Iraq's people are suffering terribly, and it was heartbreaking to see their pain firsthand. I left Iraq convinced that a great deal more could be done to address its people's humanitarian needs, and I am determined to do all I can to persuade the U.S. Government to take these steps.
"But, like the majority of American citizens, I remain concerned about the military threat Iraq continues to pose to its neighbors and the world - and convinced that until progress is made on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, lifting sanctions would be irresponsible.
"I wish that I could support lifting sanctions: many religious leaders, aid workers, and other people I respect oppose them. I am troubled, though, that some opponents of sanctions don't focus as much attention on Iraq's government as I believe they should.
"While sanctions clearly have played a role in Iraqis' suffering, though, lifting them would not provide much comfort to citizens there. If Iraq's government would show it is serious about easing its people's suffering - instead of using their problems to support its bid to end sanctions - it would be easier for me to see sanctions as the primary culprit. Or, if Iraq would show good faith in keeping the promises it made at the end of the Gulf War, perhaps that would prompt good faith measures by the United Nations -- such as adding a sunset provision to some of the economic sanctions.
"I am hopeful that Iraq is realizing the long-term human cost of its strategies, and I will look for signs that it will set more humane priorities in the near future. For example, trying to mask dual-use or other prohibited items by inserting them into contracts for humanitarian goods is counterproductive. Iraq's government knows those efforts only result in the delay of needed food, medicine and other humanitarian items. I was also troubled by Iraq's recent attempt to reject Canada's offer of a significant contribution to Unicef's operations there.
"That said, I also believe the U.N.'s Sanctions Committee, and particularly its U.S. representatives, ought to use much better judgment. For example, American officials tell me that only a small percentage of items raise security concerns - but those concerns hold up entire shipments of humanitarian goods. Surely, the U.N. could employ a line-item veto approach -- allowing what is permitted under the sanctions, barring what is not, and paying only for what is sent to Iraq. If the U.N. Sanctions Committee's top priority were humanitarian, as I believe it should be, this would be a way to quickly resolve many of the causes of Iraqis' difficulties.
"I appreciate the high priority my country puts on security considerations. But there are humanitarian standards that are equally central to America's character. There also are political realities that should make us think twice about the wisdom of a crippled nation in this dangerous Middle East neighborhood. I hope that U.S. policymakers can better balance these competing concerns and redouble efforts to heal this festering sore.
"There are some confidence-building measures the United States could take, to demonstrate its concern for Iraqis' suffering. For example, I hope our government will support a scientific study by the World Health Organization of the effects of depleted uranium (DU) and other potential pollutants on Iraqi civilians -- who are suffering very high rates of leukemia. Not only could work like this engage representatives of the international community and Iraqis in constructive work together; it also could yield health benefits for American veterans of the Gulf War as well as Iraqi civilians.
"I fear that no matter how quickly sanctions are lifted, the future of most of the people I met in Iraq will be bleak. That is because its children are in bad shape, with a quarter of them underweight and one in 10 wasting away because of hunger and disease. The leading cause of childhood death, diarrhea, is 11 times more prevalent in Iraq than elsewhere - and while polio has been wiped out throughout the Mideast, it has returned to plague Iraq's people. Schools and water systems -- the infrastructure any nation's future depends upon -- are decrepit and hospitals lack basic medicine and equipment. Ordinary civilians have exhausted their resources and their health trying to survive on $2-6 per month.
"The country's isolation has made it easy for some to demonize its people, and for Iraq's government to denounce Westerners. Blocking Iraqis' access to outside information contributes nothing to positive change, and this policy's result is innocent people who seem angry and past hoping for a different life. A Christian minister working in Iraq summed up the situation this way: 'The children in Iraq no longer know how to dream,' he said.
"It will take Iraqi people a generation to recover from their present situation. Sanctions imposed by the United Nations are partly to blame, but it is the stalemate - and not the sanctions - that causes Iraqis to suffer. I want to see all concerned look harder for ways to rebuild the confidence needed to end this stalemate.
"Finally, I want to commend the superb work that UNICEF, Care, and other organizations are doing under difficult circumstances. I particularly appreciated the efforts of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society in helping to make my trip a success."
Hall first became involved in humanitarian work when he served in the Peace Corps 30 years ago. In recent years, he has focused his legislative and other efforts on fighting hunger and the other problems that affect the poor of the United States and other nations and has recently visited North Korea, Sierra Leone, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Sudan.
-------- israel
Biggest Ever Anti-Nuke Protest at Israeli Dimona
Knesset Member, Organizations Call for the Release of Mordechai Vanunu
Fri, 26 May 2000 23:05:59 -0200
From: otherisr@actcom.co.il
Almost 200 people marked Women's International Day for Disarmament and Peace at a protest demonstration near Israel's major nuclear reactor in Dimona today, calling for Israel to dismantle its nuclear weapons and to open all its nuclear facilities to independent local and international inspection. This was the largest anti-nuclear protest ever to take place in Israel, as well as the most diverse in composition.
The Dimona demonstration and rally were organized by a coalition of women's, green and human rights organizations and movements, including Green Action, the Movement of Democratic Women in Israel, the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu and for a Middle East Free of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons, One Out of Nine, Adala (Justice), the Association for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, Hadash (Israeli Communist Party), Physicians Against Nuclear War, New Profile, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Alternative Information Center, the Lesbian Feminist Community and for the first time - the Hebrew Israelite Community, a Black Hebrew community based in Dimona city.
The participants heard speeches by Knesset Member Issam Makhoul (Hadash), who in February of this year initiated the first ever parliamentary debate on Israel's nuclear policy; Nuri al-Ukbi, founder of the Association for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, who spoke on behalf of the Bedouin residents in the Dimona area; Rela Mazali, whose New Profile organization challenges the militarization of Israeli society; Dr. Perla Perez of Physicians Against Nuclear War (a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization); U.S. anti-nuclear activist Felice Cohen-Joppa, editor of the Nuclear Resister newsletter; author Yael Lotan and nuclear physicist Daniel Rohrlich of the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu and others.
While nearly all speakers called for the immediate release of imprisoned nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu - and were enthusiastically applauded - the crowd was visibly moved by the personal statement of Mary Eoloff, Vanunu's adoptive mother. "We had a wonderful visit with Mordechai yesterday," she told the protesters, "and he asked me to tell you this: Nuclear weapons will lead to a second holocaust. The Dimona reactor is a second Auschwitz. The State has no right to kill civilians, but that is exactly what these weapons are for - killing civilians." Eoloff likened Vanunu's disclosure of Israel's nuclear secrets to a person breaking into a burning house to save the people inside. "For this, he was silenced and imprisoned," she said, saying that he appreciated all efforts that are made for his release and all protests against nuclear weapons, and urged Israelis to continue and expand their anti-nuclear struggle.
A poem by prominent Israeli author Orly Kastel-Bloom, "Whistles", which ridicules government statements that Israel's nuclear facilities are absolutely safe, was read, and dedicated to the memory of Yafka Gavish and Inbal Perlson, two Israeli anti-nuclear activists who had for years protested at Dimona.
The rally ended with a short performance by a band from the Hebrew Israelite Community in Dimona, who dedicated their song to Mordechai Vanunu. Improvising while singing He Has the Whole World in His Hands, they led the participants in a new verse: "He Has Mordechai Vanunu in His Hands".
Rayna Moss
The Other Israel is the newsletter of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace pob 2542, Holon 58125, Israel - ph/fx: +972-3-5565804; http://members.tripod.com/~other_Israel/
----
Former Israeli Soldier [JHU Professor] Recalls Israel's Brutality in Lebanon
From: "Max Obuszewski" mobuszewski@afsc.org
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 17:37:49 -0400
The next step for Israel
By James Ron,
5/25/2000,
Boston Globe letter@globe.com
Letters to the Editor
Many hope that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon will bring peace to the troubled border. But without acknowledgment of the destruction visited on Lebanon by Israel over the last 32 years, some Lebanese will not forgive and forget. Guerrillas will continue to fire rockets over Israel's northern frontier, triggering retaliations and more fighting. If the international community pushes Israel to acknowledge and compensate its Lebanese victims, however, the hostilities will finally end. I'll take a first step by apologizing for my own misdeeds.
My first Lebanon raid was in 1986. I was a 19-year-old Israeli conscript, and my paratroop platoon was sent to a village whose name I can't recall. I provided security for two Lebanese militiamen and their Israeli handler. We broke down the door of a home, shoved the family aside, and pulled a middle-aged man outside. After blindfolding him and tying his hands behind his back, we took him to a secluded alley, forced him to his knees, and put a gun to his head, threatening to shoot if he didn't talk. A UN peacekeeper appeared and put an end to that incident, but there was more to come.
The next day we performed a mock execution on a 10-year-old Lebanese boy. We forced his family into the kitchen and dragged him to a nearby orchard. My lieutenant pressed the child's face into the dirt while I jammed my rifle against his skull.
Although the officer threatened to shoot his head off, the boy did not respond, keeping silent even after we threatened to throw him from the roof of his three-story home.
I was a recent transfer from another unit, and my colleagues were more familiar with the drill. I watched and learned as they blew off doors with explosives, poured sacks of flour onto dirt floors, scattered utensils, broke dishes, and rifled through drawers. For days we ransacked the village, searching for signs of guerrilla presence. The elderly, female, and young villagers were trapped in their homes, ordered to observe a 24-hour curfew. Their men were gathered in a central square, blindfolded, and hauled off for questioning. When another soldier and I expressed reservations, we were ridiculed by our colleagues. More often than not, however, we thought little about the villagers we were tormenting.
Casual brutality was not limited to lower-income recruits. Omri, child of an intelligence officer, liked to fire bursts toward villagers peeking through doorways. Rafi, son of a liberal parliamentarian, kicked a cup of hot tea into an elderly man's face. Several were from kibbutzim, others from middle-class families, and our lieutenant was devoutly religious. We were one of the standing army's elite and disciplined units.
My experience was a small part of a long-running conflict. During the 1947-49 war, more than 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes to the new Israeli state, and many fled to Lebanon. In the late 1960s, Palestinian guerrillas began raids from Lebanon, provoking powerful retaliations.
After their main Jordanian base was crushed in 1971, Lebanon became a center of guerrilla activity. Palestinian attacks killed 332 Israelis between 1967 and July 1982. In return, Israel killed 5,000-6,000 Lebanese and Palestinians. The fighting helped trigger a 15-year Lebanese civil war that claimed 75,000-120,000 lives.
During the 1970s, Israeli shelling emptied dozens of villages and drove an estimated 300,000 civilians into Beirut's slums. Northern Christian militias received Israeli arms and training, while Syria supplied Israel's opponents. In the south, Israeli-paid gunmen acted as informants, interrogators, and enforcers. Israel's strategy was to disrupt Palestinian guerrillas by punishing the surrounding Lebanese population; the result was deeply felt Lebanese anger.
Israel invaded in 1982 to end Palestinian political ambitions. Jewish nationalists were eager to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and many believed this first required smashing the Palestinians' Lebanon base. One goal of the invasion, later publicized by Israeli journalists, was to deport Palestinian refugees from Lebanon with Christian militia help. The plan later collapsed, along with Israel's other grand designs.
During the invasion's first months, Israel killed 12,000-15,000 persons and lost 360. Although the Israeli casualties were combatants, most of their victims were civilians. Israel pounded Palestinian camps and Lebanese slums to drive the guerrillas out, turning neighborhoods into rubble.
Israel's allies doubled as death squads, massacring hundreds in Tel el-Zatar, Sabra, Shatila, el-Khiam, and elsewhere. Palestinian fighters were eventually driven from Beirut, but Israeli brutality helped create new enemies. Islamist fighters began to attack Israeli troops and fire rockets into Israel, stimulating further reprisals. When Jewish civilians were forced into shelters, journalists diligently conveyed their suffering. They did not give Israel's victims equal attention, however. With television dwelling on Israeli rather than Lebanese pain, the more plentiful Israeli-induced casualties became remote statistics.
How do nations move beyond such conflicts? Recent history suggests that political deals are not enough, and that truth-telling is vital. Consider South Africa, where a commission requires former abusers to acknowledge their crimes in return for amnesty.
Or consider El Salvador and Guatemala, where commissions have publicized definitive accounts of official wrong-doing, helping the political healing. The international community has advocated reconciliation through truth-telling and accountability in Argentina, Congo, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Indonesia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and now Sierra Leone. In these and other cases, war termination can be helped by official recognition of victims' pain, apologies, and compensation. Why should Lebanon be different?
If Israel wants a peaceful border, it must do more than withdraw from a mess it helped create. Palestinians and Lebanese languishing in camps and slums still harbor great bitterness toward Israel. If it wants to end this anger, Israel should recognize and compensate those it harmed. If Israel will not do so on its own, the international community should pressure it to do so. If other countries can face up to their unpleasant pasts, why not Israel?
Let me begin by asking forgiveness from the 10-year-old whose name I never knew and from the village whose name I no longer remember.
James Ron, assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, is a field investigator for international human rights groups.
-------- korea
N. Korea Reactors May Be Delayed
By The Associated Press
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-NKorea-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A prolonged strike by North Korean workers may further delay construction of two internationally financed nuclear reactors in the communist country, South Korean officials said Friday.
About 350 South Korean experts and workers, assisted by 200 North Korean laborers, are building two Western-provided nuclear power plants in the North. It is part of a 1994 agreement aimed at freezing Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program and replacing Soviet-designed reactors.
The U.S.-endorsed agreement calls for the first reactor with a rated capacity of 1,000 megawatts to be built by 2003 and the second with the same capacity by the next year.
But the $4.6 billion project -- bankrolled mostly by South Korea and Japan -- is lagging far behind schedule. Western officials now say several years of delay is inevitable.
The delay so far has been caused by military tension on the Korean Peninsula and the North's firing of a long-range missile over Japan in 1998.
A further delay is feared after North Korea pulled half of its 200-man work force from the construction site in Sinpo in the country's northeastern region in late March, demanding pay hikes, Seoul officials said. Seoul's state utility, Korea Electric Power Corp., is the prime contractor and has no immediate plan to send substitute manpower from the South, the officials said.
Under the deal, the North Koreans have been hired for $110 a month since 1997, with annual pay hikes of no more than 2.5 percent. South Korean officials said that North Korea is threatening to pull out the rest of its work force unless the pay is raised to up to $600 a month.
They said the strike may affect their plan to hire up to 1,000 North Koreans by year's end.
North Korea's ruling communist party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, on Friday denounced the United States for the delay in the reactor project, saying that it would consider a ``countermeasure.''
-------- japan
Buckets used after nuclear accident
Yomiuri Shimbun,
May 26, 2000
From: Peter Diehl p.diehl@sik.de
MITO -- Workers at JCO Co.'s nuclear fuel processing facility in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, used stainless steel buckets to collect uranium solution that was leaking from a pipe at a facility near the uranium-reconversion complex where the nation's worst-ever nuclear accident occurred in September, it was learned Thursday.
When prefectural officials inspected the facility--which was used to process fuel for light-water reactors--in November, they discovered a damaged valve in a solvent-extraction device and uranium solution leaking from a nearby pipe, they said. According to the officials, the leakage was being caught in 20-liter buckets, which were of the same type as those used at the uranium-reconversion complex. Several of the buckets were filled to more than 50 percent of capacity.
The inspectors also found that the solution and precipitation devices had been illegally modified and did not conform with the law regulating nuclear reactors and other facilities, the officials said.
-------- russia
UN: Russia Renews Call For Deep Nuclear Cuts
Radio Free Europe
By Robert McMahon
26 May 2000
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/05/F.RU.000526133300.html
Russia has opened a new session of a disarmament conference in Geneva by calling on the U.S. to join it in making deep cuts to nuclear warheads. But the U.S. national security adviser says he does not expect any major agreement on nuclear cuts at the upcoming summit of the U.S. and Russian presidents. UN correspondent Robert McMahon reports.
United Nations, (RFE/RL) -- Russia has opened the latest session of the UN's Conference on Disarmament by calling for deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons as an alternative to amending the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) pact.
Russia's envoy to the disarmament conference in Geneva, Vasily Sidorov, on Thursday reaffirmed Moscow's position the 1972 ABM treaty is a key element of strategic stability and a condition for reducing strategic nuclear weapons.
Sidorov expressed concern at U.S. plans to move forward with a national missile defense plan that would require changes to the ABM treaty. The United States says the missile defense system would protect the country from attacks by rogue nations.
Sidorov told the conference it also had the opportunity to build on the momentum he says was gained at the recently concluded non-proliferation treaty conference in New York. That treaty is aimed at controlling and eliminating nuclear weapons. This year the five nuclear powers for the first time pledged an "unequivocal" commitment to eliminate their nuclear arms.
The Russian envoy's remarks in Geneva come slightly more than one week before U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold their first summit meeting in Moscow.
Clinton and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed in 1997 to seek deeper arms reductions after Russia ratified the START II agreement. START II, which would reduce arsenals to between 3,000 and 3,500 strategic nuclear warheads, was approved by the Russian Duma last month.
Russia is now seeking in the next round of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks to reduce nuclear arsenals to 1,500 strategic warheads. But the United States has repeatedly said it was seeking cuts only as low as 2,000 warheads.
Sidorov said on Thursday Russia is willing to cooperate with the United States on countering the threat of rogue states. And as part of this process, he said, it could avoid any weakening of the ABM treaty.
"There is a real alternative to the destruction of the ABM treaty, and it is taking up, gradually, a clear shape. It is based on further deep reductions in nuclear weapons, collective steps to counter the threat of the proliferation of missiles and missile technologies, cooperation concerning non-strategic missile defense systems on the basis of the 1997 New York arrangements, the joint analysis of the real scope of 'new' missile threats, (and) strengthening confidence-building measures in international affairs."
But Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, told reporters in Washington on Thursday that he doesn't expect any breakthroughs at the summit in connection with the ABM or START issues.
"I've never expected an issue as complex as this to be resolved in this summit. This is the first time that President Putin and President Clinton will have an opportunity to discuss this. These are serious issues. And they involve both whether we can agree to modifications in the ABM Treaty, whether we can make further progress on the START THREE process that President Yeltsin and President Clinton set as an objective in Helsinki in 1997. Hopefully, we will have some greater degree of understanding of each other's position."
During the non-proliferation conference (NPT) that ended last week, a number of UN member states and non-governmental organizations criticized Russia and the United States for the slow pace of arms reduction talks. Both countries are still believed to possess about 30,000 nuclear warheads between them.
The president of the NPT conference, Algerian ambassador Abdallah Baali, told reporters this week the final statement by the nuclear powers was important. But he said there were also concerns about the dangers posed by the United States and Russia still possessing thousands of nuclear weapons.
"It would be a very dangerous situation. I think it's absolutely vital that the Russians and the Americans come to an agreement."
The UN disarmament conference that got underway in Geneva on Thursday is the world's only multilateral disarmament forum. The 66 member states to the conference will now meet for seven weeks and are scheduled to hold another session late in the summer.
---
Russia Wants Missile Defense Off Agenda Altogether
By Reuters
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-ru.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior Russian general said on Friday that Moscow wanted to drop the issue of changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty altogether in talks with Washington.
Interfax news agency quoted Valery Manilov, the first deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, as saying Washington's proposals to change the treaty to let it deploy a limited Star Wars style anti-missile shield, were unacceptable.
``Therefore we are carrying out all our talks with the American side -- not with the goal of finding a way to resolve the issue of changes to the ABM treaty -- but to have this issue struck off the agenda,'' Manilov was quoted as saying.
He was speaking a day after U.S. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger acknowledged publicly that Washington does not expect a deal on the ABM treaty to emerge from a June 3-5 Moscow summit between the countries' two presidents.
It seemed unlikely Manilov meant ABM discussions should be avoided at the summit.
Washington has been asking Russia to agree to make changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to allow the United States to deploy a system to shoot down enemy missiles.
Moscow says that would threaten three decades of arms control deals in which both sides agreed to limit their defenses so they could reduce their stockpiles of nuclear missiles without worrying that the enemy would gain an undue advantage.
Changes to ABM would bring about ``the destruction of the balance between offensive and defensive weapons, which would inevitably lead to a new arms race,'' Manilov said.
With no hope for a breakthrough on arms control, U.S. officials say Clinton will focus on basic themes, such as the importance of free speech, democracy and free-market reforms.
``Russia has a chance for a fresh start,'' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday in London.
``As President Clinton will make clear, if the new leaders back their promises with performance we will enthusiastically support Russia's efforts to integrate itself into the world economy and encourage appropriate investments on Russian soil.''
---
Arms, economics on Clinton-Putin agenda
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, May 28, 2000
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20000527summitnatworld1.asp
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton leaves tomorrow for what is likely to be his last trip to Europe while in office. He goes without a clear national consensus on what his goals should be while there.
In addition to meetings with European leaders in Portugal and Germany, Clinton will be honored for his work in trying to make Europe united, peaceful and free.
But he also will have his first one-on-one meeting with Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin. Both sides say it will be a high-stakes meeting, but both sides purposefully are sending mixed signals regarding what they hope to accomplish.
Clinton would like an agreement with Russia that reduces the number of nuclear warheads from about 3,200 to 2,000 and also an acceptance of the planned limited development of a U.S. missile defense system. But he would face enormous backlash back home if either happens.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., said any agreement that Clinton and Putin reach in Moscow would be "dead on arrival" in the U.S. Senate.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has taken the unusual step of holding a news conference to warn Clinton not to sign any accord that might limit development of a missile defense system, which Russia now opposes on grounds that it could upset the so-called balance of power and give the United States an edge.
Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said Clinton "must resist the temptation" to polish his legacy by a last-minute arms control deal with the Russians because the American people have not yet had the proper national debate about the next chapters in defense and arms control.
In fact, there are few foreign policy players in Washington who don't have a firm opinion about what Clinton should do while he's overseas for the next week.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has vowed that the two leaders -- one about to exit the world stage and the other just entering -- will talk about arms control.
But neither is the administration specifically ginning up expectations for either a new understanding about the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which many observers see as banning missile defense system development, or cutting the number of nuclear weapons by creating a new Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, or START III agreement.
Conservative Republicans are worried that Clinton and Putin will reach a new agreement to support the ABM Treaty, which some of them think should instead be junked because they believe that it will impede development of the $60 billion missile defense system.
For their part, administration officials point out that former President George Bush negotiated the START II accord just as he was leaving office, although it was mainly a done deal by then.
Russian officials are edgily saying it's good for Clinton and Putin to meet, but that Putin has his own agenda, and they stress that this is a meeting of equals.
Fiona Hill, director of Strategic Planning for the Eurasia Foundation and author of books on Russia, said there is a clear recognition in the Kremlin that Clinton is a lame duck. On the other hand, a Republican administration would assuredly emphasize missile defense despite Russian opposition.
To show good faith, Putin recently pushed through the Russian Parliament's lower house, or Duma, ratification of the long-delayed START II arms control treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. Senate has so far refused to ratify. Putin would love to make a joint statement with Clinton in support of the ABM Treaty.
Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, said Clinton also wants to celebrate his European policy this week, even though "major" trade disputes remain and there is not yet agreement over how to handle infectious diseases.
Nonetheless, Clinton is proud that NATO has been enlarged, that it took an active role in ending the bloodshed in Kosovo, that the war in Bosnia was stopped, and that he is attending his 14th U.S.-European Union summit -- a record.
While in Germany, Clinton will meet with other leaders at a good-governing conference and receive the Charlemagne Prize -- its 50th year of honoring leaders who have made "major contributions to European unity and world peace."
Then Clinton goes on to Moscow and Kiev. While there have been economic setbacks in Russia, Berger said, the fact that it just completed its first democratic transfer of power in a thousand years is cause for celebration.
Clinton is visiting Ukraine to try to give its new leaders confidence in a free-market system. Berger said Clinton's message in Kiev is simple: "Your success, Ukraine, is important to us."
Berger noted that Clinton and Putin won't have just one meeting this year, but will meet again in July at the G-8 economic meeting in Okinawa and in the fall at the United Nations as well as at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation forum -- time enough to negotiate the framework of an arms-control pact.
Clinton will talk about many issues besides U.S.-Russian arms control with Putin, Berger said. Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction will also be discussed, he said, as will "our continuing concerns about Chechnya."
Russia's war against its breakaway republic has dismayed the Clinton administration, as have the chaos of Russia's economic system and its restrictions on press freedoms, Berger said.
On the other hand, the administration is wary of having a lackluster summit that accomplishes little. That could renew criticism of Clinton's Russia policy -- mainly the complaint that, following a much-hailed summit with former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Vancouver, B.C., soon after Clinton first took office, little has happened because of what the critics regard as a lack of administration follow-through.
Many Russians blame the United States for their new poverty, arguing that U.S. policy has forced economic reforms upon Russia, including privatization of industries, without adequate infrastructure to sustain them.
As a result, unemployment is high, wages are low, pensions are almost gone, subsidized bread is a thing of the past and misery is rampant.
To be sure some summit results are clear, Berger said. "I hope that we will be able to reach an agreement by the summit that will result in the destruction of 34 tons of military-grade plutonium on each side."
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Albright: Russia Future Unclear
Associated Press
May 26, 2000 Filed at 9:07 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-Russia-Albright.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000526/09/int-us-russia-albright
LONDON (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday it is too soon to gauge which direction Russia will take under President Vladmir Putin, but warned that the depth of U.S. investment will depend on his stand on economic reform, democracy and human rights.
Speaking ahead of a June 4-5 summit in Moscow between Putin and President Clinton, Albright welcomed the new Russian administration's ``ambitious agenda.'' But she said its capacity to reform is so far unproven and its commitment to democratic values and human rights ``still to be measured.''
``President Clinton will make clear at the summit: If its new leaders back their promises with performance, we will enthusiastically support Russia's efforts to integrate itself into the world economy and encourage investments on Russian soil,'' Albright said in a speech at the London School of Economics.
Predicting the future of Russia's economy, she said, can be like ``one of those traditional English mystery novels.''
``There is a sense of anticipation, but also a nagging feeling that you may have read the same book -- albeit with a different cover -- before. Doubts will dissipate only after the first chapters have been read,'' she said.
The White House says the Moscow summit will not be an occasion to resolve major differences over nuclear arsenals or U.S. plans to build a national missile defense system. However, it has raised the prospect of an agreement to destroy 34 tons of military grade plutonium on each side.
Talks also will focus on Russia's relationship with Europe and the Chechnya conflict, which Albright, returning from a NATO foreign ministers' summit in Italy, said is endangering Russia's democracy and is ``an obstacle to its integration.''
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Russia Gen. Against Changing Treaty
New York Times
By The Associated Press,
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-US-Summit.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- With a U.S.-Russia summit a week away, a top Russian general on Friday spoke out against compromise on one of the main disputes between the two countries -- U.S. efforts to change the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Col. Gen. Valery Manilov said ABM treaty changes, vigorously opposed by Russia, should be ``taken off the agenda'' of the June 3-4 summit with President Vladimir Putin. A U.S. official meanwhile said no arms control breakthrough was expected during the visit.
``We are conducting all those talks with Americans not in order to find a way to change the ABM treaty but in order to take it off the agenda altogether,'' Manilov, first deputy chief of the general staff, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The U.S. wants to modify the ABM treaty, which bars nationwide missile defenses, to allow a limited national missile defense against attacks by so-called rogue states such as North Korea. Russia opposes the changes, fearing they would undermine the deterrent value of its arsenal.
A U.S. official, who spoke to reporters Friday, confirmed that no ABM agreement had been reached despite recent visits to Moscow by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.
``The Russians have so far given no go-ahead, no indication that they are ready to accept the amendments to the ABM treaty,'' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
With Russia appearing to hold its ground on the ABM, no quick progress is expected on further nuclear arms cuts under the proposed START III treaty, the official said.
Analysts say Washington may offer Russia deep arms cuts in exchange for the ABM changes. Russia, burdened by the cost of maintaining its nuclear arsenal, is eager for such cuts.
Putin has threatened to abandon all arms treaties with the United States if Washington follows through on the missile defense system.
After years of delay, the Russian parliament recently approved the START II Treaty, which would roughly halve U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to some 3,500 warheads each.
But the U.S. military has expressed reservations about Russia's proposal to reduce each side's arsenal to 1,500 warheads.
Clinton and Putin will have an opportunity to continue efforts to reach arms control agreements at another three meetings they are expected to have later this year, the U.S. official added.
Along with arms control, Clinton and Putin have many other issues to discuss, he said.
In particular, Clinton plans to reiterate U.S. calls for Russia to stop its military action in Chechnya and to negotiate a political solution, the U.S. official said. He would also like to hear Putin's plans for reforming the Russian economy and the government structure and discuss Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
In view of the recent raid of Russian police on the Media-MOST company that has prompted fears of a government crackdown on the news media, Clinton plans to ``underscore our belief that free press is an absolutely essential and critical element in the development of democratic society,'' the U.S. official said.
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VERY BAD NUCLEAR NEWS FROM RUSSIA -
WORLD'S NUKE WASTE APPARENTLY SET TO BE IMPORTED TO RUSSIA
May 26, 2000 Moscow
ECODEFENSE! Antinuclear campagn of the Socio-Ecological Union Int'l For more information in Moscow - 2784642, 7766546, Vladimir Slivyak
GOVERNMENT PRINCIPALLY APPROVED IMPORT OF NUCLEAR WASTE!
According to reports in Russian mass-media, Russian government approved yesterday new 50-years strategy for nuclear development prepared by Minatom (ministry of atomic power). Strategy includes the import of nuclear waste from all over the world to Russia.
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ENS report of May 24 explaining details of new Minatom' strategy
Russia's 50 Year Nuclear Plan: 23 New Reactors, Import Waste
MOSCOW, Russia, May 24, 2000 (ENS) - Russia's Minister for Atomic Power, Dr. Evgeny Adamov, is expected to propose Thursday that Russia build 23 new nuclear reactors and change its laws to allow the import of nuclear waste. Presently, Russian law on nature protection bans the import of nuclear waste.
Adamov will present his ministry's new program of nuclear development for the next 50 years to the new government of President Vladimir Putin in a speech tomorrow.
A nuclear scientist who has specialized in reactor design, Dr. Evgeny Adamov was appointed by then Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1998 to his position as Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation. (Photo courtesy Uranium Institute)
According to confidential documents obtained by environmental groups EcoDefense! and the Anti-nuclear campaign of the Socio-Ecological Union, Adamov's national strategy for nuclear development includes 23 new nuclear reactors to be built before the year 2020. Russia currently operates 29 nuclear power plants. The text of Adamov's speech obtained by environmental groups details Adamov's strategy of nuclear development for Russia. In this strategy, the Minatom minister proposes to decrease the consumption of natural gas and increase nuclear power generation to replace natural gas.
In his speech, Adamov will state that Russia will run out of natural uranium in 60 years if government agrees to his proposed strategy.
Investment needed for implementing of this strategy is US$32 billion. According to the text of Adamov's speech, expenses will be covered by increasing prices for electricity and import of nuclear waste from all over the world to Russia.
Vladimir Slivyak, antinuclear campaigner for EcoDefense and Socio-Ecological Union who received the confidential documents, is opposed to the Adamov strategy for Russia's nuclear future. He supports development of renewable energy instead.
"New nuclear developments projected by Minatom include 23 new dangerous, expensive and not needed reactors," said Slivyak. "At the same time, energy-efficiency technologies just doesn't exist on industrial scale in Russia. Development of renewable sources of energy would provide Russia will great amount of electricity as well. But efficiency and renewables doesn't have as great lobbyists as one of richest corporations of the world - Minatom - has."
The amount of spent nuclear fuel accumulated in Russia is about 14,000 tons, Slivyak estimates. Minatom's new strategy allocates only about US$3.6 billion in 30 years for nuclear waste management - lowest ever amount, Slivyak warns.
The documents obtained by the environmentalists are new, but Dr. Adamov's position on Russia's nuclear future is well known.
In a September 1999 speech to the Uranium Institute annual symposium in London, he said, "At the beginning of a new century we have two different options for the future of nuclear power. One option is to have the same level of nuclear power that we have now. In reality this means decreasing the participation of nuclear in resolving energy supply and environmental problems. However, for people who are more optimistic, as I am, about the future of nuclear power, I think we can not only investigate but also justify another model of development for nuclear, involving large scale deployment of nuclear energy technology." In the same speech, Dr. Adamov showed that he too has questions about nuclear waste disposition that he believes can only be reso