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-------- britain
BNFL's MOX issues
Sellafield sabotage 'was intended to divert Mox inquiry'
From: Kathy Crandall - kathycrandall@earthlink.net
The Independent
By Steve Connor, Science Editor,
The Independent - 20 June 2000
A worker at British Nuclear Fuels' Sellafield plant tried to sabotage the manufacture of nuclear fuel rods by adding debris to highly radioactive fuel pellets,an inquiry by the company has concluded.
The sabotage, which came to light earlier this year, was done to divert attention from an investigation into falsified safety data, the company believes. The inquiry was ordered to find out who was involved in the fabrication of quality-control data relating to plutonium fuel destined for BNFL's Japanese customers.
BNFL, which operates the nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria, has admitted that the sabotage attempt was potentially more dangerous than the data falsification because the debris - a screw and two pieces of flooring material - might have interfered with the safe operation of the fuel in a reactor. The debris was welded into the hollow stainless-steel tubes alongside the fuel pellets.
Although the contamination was detected in X-ray checks of the finished rods, the incident has added to the company's embarrassment over its lax production controls for mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (Mox) fuel.
BNFL's investigation into the incident found that a worker probably inserted the debris into the empty rods while they stood unattended for several hours in "annex G", an area off a corridor servicing the Mox demonstration facility's "laboratory G", where Mox fuel pellets are loaded into tubes.
The company said it has since changed its operating procedures so that empty fuel rods are no longer left unattended for long periods off a corridor. It admitted it had not been able to prove who was involved in the sabotage attempt, but said it was confident that whoever was responsible for the debris incident was no longer working in the Mox demonstration facility.
John Edwards, the head of Mox business technology development, said the company suspected the motive for the sabotage was to divert attention from the investigation into the data falsificiation. "We believe it was a deliberate act, but not to sabotage the system," Dr Edwards said. The worker must have known the debris would have been found during X-ray checks, he said.
Since the data falsification was revealed by The Independent in September, production of Mox fuel has stopped and BNFL has been told to enforce 15 recommendations by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) by the end of July. All Mox employees are being retrained. BNFL has to gain the NII's approval before restarting Mox production.
---
ILLEGALITY OF STAR WARS CHALLENGED BY DISMANTLING NEW TOP SECURITY ALARMED ANTI-INTRUDER FENCE AT MENWITH HILL, N. YORKS.
PRESS RELEASE - 19 June 2000
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" globalnet@mindspring.com
Three women this morning cut their way into the U.S. National Security Agency Space-War Spy Base at Menwith Hill in an attempt to dismantle the new fence that serves to protect the new and illegal developments in which the base plays a key role.
Anne Lee, a local Otley woman who has been campaigning against the base for several years at the Menwith Hill Women's Peace Camp, Helen John, from the Menwith Hill campaign and also a member of Trident Ploughshares 2000, and Angie Zelter, also of the Trident Ploughshares 2000 non-violent direct action campaign, used bolt-croppers to get through a top security alarmed anti-intruder fence, which has been recently erected in advance of the new role the base will play in anti-ballistic missile (ABM) "defence", or Star Wars. The women were arrested at approximately 10.50 am and are currently being held at the police station on the base.
Angie Zelter said, "This base plays a key role in NATO military intelligence. Even if we get rid of Trident tomorrow, they are still planning to have new nuclear-powered weapons in space. Ballistic missile defence undermines the entire international legal order. The Americans are just running ahead without consulting anyone."
Helen John said, "I'm doing this because I oppose the threat that Star Wars poses to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty. They say the system is for 'defence,' but it can just as easily be used as an offensive weapon against any nation which does anything the United States doesn't like. And they can find out what everyone is doing through the Echelon system, which sifts key target words through the computers here."
Anne Lee said, "There is a threat of terrorist attacks at Menwith Hill, and local people are concerned about this. They've just spent thousands on an anti-intruder system which isn't secure at all."
The women also pointed to the hypocrisy of pretending the decision on deploying the ABM system hadn't been made yet, when millions of dollars have already been spent preparing the ground base and its linked satellites for the new space-based weapons. Menwith Hill won an award for monitoring Iraqi troop communications during the Gulf War, in which over 100,000 Iraqis were killed, and after which thousands of Iraqi civilians and NATO veterans were struck with a multi-symptomed syndrome due to chemical and radiological exposures. Menwith Hill also plays a role in both economic and military espionage. The information it downloads from satellites can also be fed to targeting systems for cruise missiles and other weaponry. Members of Parliament are only allowed to ask very limited questions about the base's top-secret operations.
For More Information Contact the Menwith Hill Women's Peace Camp(aign): 01943-468593 Or the Trident Ploughshares 2000 Press Contact on: 01324 880744 or (07775711054)
-------- bulgaria
IAEA head in Bulgaria to see Kozloduy nuclear plant
BULGARIA: June 20, 2000
Story by Liliana Semerdjieva
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7164
SOFIA - The head of the world's nuclear watchdog the IAEA said on Monday he was having talks in Sofia on how Bulgaria was implementing safety improvements at its Soviet-designed Kozloduy nuclear power plant.
"We have been very active here to help Bulgaria upgrade all its six reactors," Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the United Nations' nuclear body, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said after meeting Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Nadezhda Mikhailova.
Bulgaria, which started talks on joining the European Union in March, has bowed to EU pressure to close its two oldest 440-megawatt reactors at the Kozloduy plant before 2003, several years earlier than initially planned.
A final decision over closure dates of another two ageing blocks, three and four, will be taken by 2002 and Bulgaria hopes that their life may be prolonged if they are upgraded to internationally acceptable safety standards.
Apart from the four 440-megawatt reactors, the Kozloduy plant has two more modern 1,000-megawatt reactors, which went into operation after 1987 and will continue to operate, with a large-scale modernisation programme currently being carried out.
"By 2002 the terms for closing reactors three and four should be agreed which we think should be based on professional expertise," Mikhailova told a news conference with ElBaradei.
"In this content IAEA's mission in Bulgaria is extremely important to us," she added.
ElBaradei, who will visit Kozloduy on Tuesday, said a full IAEA mission would visit the site soon to check the implementation of the safety upgrading programme.
The plant, located on the bank of the Danube River, provides almost half of Bulgaria's electricity.
-------- china
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/6/21/7.text.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release June 20, 2000
STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY
MEETING WITH THE DALAI LAMA
His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama, met at the White House this afternoon with the President and the National Security Advisor to discuss Tibet. The President welcomed the Dalai Lama's commitment to nonviolence and declared his strong support for the Dalai Lama's steadfast efforts to initiate a dialogue with the Chinese government. The President pledged his continued support for the Dalai Lama's effort to encourage dialogue and expressed his hope that the Chinese government will respond favorably. The President reiterated the strong commitment of the United States to support preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural, and linguistic heritage and to the protection of human rights of Tibetans. The President and the Dalai Lama agreed on the importance of strong and constructive U.S.-China relations.
----
GAO Asked to Monitor China
Washington Post
Tuesday, June 20, 2000; Page A07
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Compiled from reports by the Associated Press and Reuters
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/20/114l-062000-idx.html
Lawmakers yesterday stepped up pressure on China to live up to the terms of a trade agreement with the United States, asking congressional auditors to conduct an annual review of Beijing's compliance.
The Senate Finance Committee asked the General Accounting Office to issue its first report on China's conduct no more than 10 months after that nation becomes a member of the World Trade Organization. The congressional watchdog agency would conduct similar reviews on an annual basis. China is expected to join the WTO later this year.
"It is vitally important that the United States take all necessary steps to ensure that China is fulfilling the commitments that it made to the United States and other WTO members as part of its accession," said Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (N.Y.), the panel's ranking Democrat.
China agreed last year to open a wide range of markets, from agriculture to telecommunications, as part of an agreement ushering it into the WTO.
-------- colombia
Stop military aid to Colombia -- One last call!!!
From: Lisa Haugaard [mailto:lisah@lawg.org]
Still looks like debate will begin with the Wellstone amendment at 11 for an hour and a half. I've just learned that we can expect that someone will raise a point of order challenging the Wellstone amendment because while leadership has declared that military assistance etc. within the Colombia bill is "emergency" and therefore does not need to be offset by cutting other programs within the foreign ops bill, drug treatment within the United States is not considered an emergency and does need to be offset by cutting programs other than those within the Colombia package. What this means about an actual vote on the amendment I do not know at this time; what I do know is that there will be an extensive debate.
Please keep me informed if you hear of additional amendments.
If you have grassroots that could do one last round of phone calls, activate them.
James C. Bridgman Research & Resource Coordinator Peace Action Education Fund mailto:jbridgman@peace-action.org http://www.peace-action.org 202.862.9740x3041 fax: 202.862.9762 1819 H St., NW, #425 Washington, DC 20006
-------- europe
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/6/20/12.text.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
(Office of the Press Secretary)
For Immediate Release
June 20, 2000
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
I welcome the progress the European Union made at the Feira Summit to develop a common European security and defense policy. It will strengthen Europe's ability - and responsibility - to act in times of crisis. It will improve cooperation between the European Union and NATO. It will advance European unity while maintaining the vitality of the transatlantic alliance. I look forward to early implementation of the agreed steps, including the establishment of NATO-EU working groups and regular meetings with non-EU Allies.
I also welcome the EU's commitment to create a standing roster of police officers who can be deployed to support peacekeeping missions. As we have seen in Bosnia and Kosovo, there is a critical need for international civilian police who can fill the gap between local police and military peacekeepers in countries emerging from conflict. We will continue to work with Europe to ensure such forces can deploy rapidly when they are needed.
-------- germ warfare
In Gamble, U.S. Supports Russian Germ Warfare Scientists
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/062000sci-russia-germs.html
OBOLENSK, Russia -- At this sprawling, rundown research complex where Soviet scientists once secretly worked to turn plague, tularemia, glanders and anthrax into weapons, the Clinton administration is taking what many consider a perilous gamble.
The administration has been financing research here and at other institutes throughout the former Soviet Union by scientists who only a decade ago manipulated genes to make deadly viruses and bacteria even hardier and resistant to vaccines and antibiotics.
Since 1994, the United States government has spent $20 million helping some 2,200 scientists at 30 institutes in the former Soviet Union turn their deadly skills to public health and other peaceful research. Administration officials say this money -- which, according to the General Accounting Office may increase to $270 million by 2005 -- is also intended to prevent the Soviet scientists from selling their expertise to Iran, Iraq, and other "rogue" states or terrorist groups trying to acquire germ weapons.
Until recently, most of the support came from the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy. But prompted by the threats of bioterrorism and naturally emerging diseases to American health and the nation's food supply, the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and others have now joined the campaign.
Among the most intriguing newcomers is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, the military group that helped invent the Internet and which is known for supporting avant-garde research. Darpa has cautiously and quietly allocated more than $3 million since 1998 for work, including some here at Obolensk, that in many ways resembles research that was once the source of America's greatest fears.
The administration knows that this assistance could help Russia continue developing germ weapons, if, as some suspect, research continues at its four still-closed military labs. Can the Russians, who doubled the size of their vast covert germ warfare program after signing the 1972 treaty banning such weapons, now be trusted?
"No one really knows," Wendy Orent, an expert on the former Soviet program, concluded last month in American Prospect, a liberal magazine.
But in a report to Congress in January, the Pentagon concluded that the access gained to Obolensk through such assistance gave it "high confidence" that neither Obolensk nor Vector, the former Soviet viral weapons complex in Siberia, was now engaged in activities related to germ warfare.
In fact, the administration maintains that the risk of not helping Russian scientists far outweighs the risk of doing so. Darpa argues that tapping the knowledge of the Russian scientists, who continued making ever deadlier germ weapons two decades after President Richard M. Nixon ended America's program in 1969, will benefit science and strengthen American national security.
Still, the risks are obvious here at Obolensk.
In a way, the place is a monument of sorts to communism's failure. Many of its 90 buildings are half-built; several labs appear abandoned. Weeds have replaced the grass shown in photos of the installation in its prime.
Fifty miles southwest of Moscow but unlisted on Soviet maps, Obolensk until recently was closed not only to foreigners, but also to Soviet scientists who were not part of the germ warfare program. Last month, however, Gen. Nikolai N. Urakov, the institute's long-serving director, invited an American reporter to attend the first large open scientific conference Obolensk has ever sponsored.
The remnants of germ warfare research are still eerily evident: the heavy metal locks on doors on the third and fourth floors of Building No. 1, which confined the most deadly of Obolensk's collection of 2,000 strains of pathogens to air-tight rooms; giant pipes that carried breathable air to scientists in contaminated areas, emergency telephones, fire extinguishers, alarms and even the space suits on display at the building's entrance.
While such suits are still worn on the third floor where scientists still study the most dangerous agents, Russia says that these labs are now dedicated to preventing and curing disease.
American scientists with proper vaccinations have been permitted to visit the "hot" labs in Building 1, the nine-story, glass-and-metal heart of this vast complex.
Aid from the United States, much of it channeled through a multinational group known as the International Science and Technology Center, now pays roughly half of the institute's costs.
Obolensk now employs 1,125 scientists and technicians, about half its peak size.
With $3.45 million in grants from the multinational group, Obolensk has become the second largest recipient of American biological aid after Vector. Andy Weber, a special adviser to the Pentagon's Office of Threat Reduction, told conferees last month that aid to Obolensk rose sharply in 1997 after General Urakov rejected Iranian overtures to share his center's biological expertise with Tehran.
Still, few officials deny the potential danger in American financing of Obolensk's most advanced work. Consider Darpa's $175,000, two-year grant to Igor V. Abaev, a senior researcher and weapons program veteran. His goal is to isolate and compare genomes of Burkholderia, which causes glanders, an inflammatory disease that strikes horses, mules and other animals and sometimes people.
There is no human vaccine to prevent glanders, and once contracted, the disease is not always curable.
Dr. Abaev combines single strands of DNA from two different types of Burkholderia. The DNA parts that are identical, or extremely similar in both strands, then form a double strand with each other. The parts that do not pair up, or pair up poorly, are unique to those species. This process, called subtractive hybridization, enables scientists to identify, and later to clone the fragments that differentiate the two species. This, in turn, produces diagnostic markers that could lead to vaccines designed to emphasize those differences.
"As weapons, such organisms represent a serious potential biological threat," said Stephen S. Morse, program manager in Darpa's defense sciences office. "But because these two species primarily affected horses, American scientists stopped working on them decades ago. As a result, we now know all too little about them."
Only a month ago, he noted, a scientist at the Army's research lab at Fort Detrick, Md., who was trying to develop a glanders vaccine accidentally contracted the disease.
Officials in Washington are still trying to determine what happened.
Dr. Abaev enthusiastically displayed the new equipment that the American grant had enabled him to buy, including a hybridization chamber, which allows him to mix the DNA fragments. Though such machines are standard in the United States, they remain rare in cash-strapped Russia.
Another joint project generating excitement and concern is a $500,000 grant from the International Science and Technology Center to a collaboration that includes Nikolai A. Staritsin, an expert on anthrax, the former Soviet Union's germ weapon of choice, and American researchers at the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The scientists are using DNA fingerprinting, molecular typing, plasmid profiling and other modern techniques of molecular epidemiology to identify anthrax strains by region and to help scientists distinguish among virulent and nonvirulent strains. They hope to improve their understanding of what specifically causes anthrax outbreaks.
Although the United States and Russia have vaccines to prevent the disease and antibiotics that supposedly cure it, Dr. Staritsin said much remained unknown about the DNA fragments already examined, including the reason some genes were latent and others were not.
While both the United States and Russia made weapons from anthrax, Ken Alibek, a senior scientist who defected from the Soviet secret program, argues that Russian scientists have produced anthrax strains that are hardier and more virulent than those from the United States.
Scientists from the United States first understood just how advanced the Russians were in the mid-1990's when Dr. Staritsin and Andrei Pomerantsev, another Obolensk scientist, reported that they had transferred genes from Bacillus cereus, a bacterium that normally does not cause disease in humans, into anthrax, which if untreated, is highly lethal.
Hamsters that were given this new agent did not respond to Russia's own vaccine against anthrax. This news caused furious debate among Western scientists, who wondered why the Russians were bothering to create such a strain, and deep anxiety over whether the United States' own vaccine would be able to block the new Russian creation. Washington has been eager to obtain a sample of the strain ever since.
Dr. Staritsin insisted in an interview that he and his colleagues had not tried to develop a modified disease impervious to anyone's vaccine or antibiotics when they performed the manipulation in 1993.
They decided to transfer the genes, he said, because the two organisms were "closely related and often found in soil in close proximity." They feared that one day the two organisms might naturally exchange genes without any external intervention. "We wanted to understand what the result might be," he said.
In any event, he said, the new strain was too unstable to be useful in weapons.
Some will view this work as evidence that Russian scientists "were trying to make an even nastier weapon," one American said. "Others will not. How do you gauge intent?"
Whether Russia is honoring President Boris N. Yeltsin's 1992 pledge to end the secret germ warfare program may never be known. But in Dr. Staritsin's case, concerns are diminishing, United States officials say. Shortly before the Obolensk conference, he and a Russian colleague traveled to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and to Fort Detrick to give American scientists samples of two rare Russian strains from Obolensk's collection of 3,000 anthrax strains, believed to be the world's largest.
Though the "Tzenkovsky" strains, named for their late 19th-century Russian inventor, are nonvirulent and hence, usable only in vaccines, the exchange established the legal and scientific precedents for future trades of virulent strains, like the genetically modified strain that American scientists have long coveted. The exchange will probably occur later this year or early next, Russian and American experts say.
"They didn't need us to do their research," said an American scientist as he sipped one of the endless tiny glasses of vodka that lined a dinner's banquet table during the conference.
"They were way ahead of us in many areas despite their obsolete equipment and bulldozer investigative techniques. So we have every interest in helping them overcome their past and join the world's transparent scientific community."
-------- imf / world bank
Economic reversal gives Putin a lift
Washington Times
June 20, 2000
By David Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-2000620224254.htm
A string of upbeat economic reports has given Russia and its new president, Vladimir Putin, political breathing room after a decade of decline.
The nation said yesterday it will be able to meet its foreign debts without any new international loans this year, just the latest sign that the economy has reversed a 10-year economic skid.
Bolstered by oil and weapons sales abroad and a weak ruble at home, Russian domestic output increased 3.2 percent in 1999, and Prime Minister Vladimir Kasyanov told a St. Petersburg conference last week that growth this year was running at a 10 percent annual clip - twice the U.S. pace.
"To say that the Russian economy is ready to charge into the future would be a gross overstatement," said Stephen Gardner, an instructor in economics and Russia studies at Baylor University and head of the school's McBride Center for International Business.
"But I think most people who are watching the situation are more optimistic about the Russian economy than they have been for several years now," Mr. Gardner said.
"It's pretty clear that Russian industry continues to benefit very strongly from the [1998 ruble] devaluation," said Roland Nash, director of research in the Moscow office of Renaissance Capital, which sponsored the conference where Mr. Kasyanov spoke.
The positive economic news - in sharp contrast to the disastrous retreats of the Boris Yeltsin years - could prove a boon to Mr. Putin, extending his political honeymoon at home and increasing his options abroad.
While public health and personal consumption figures have not turned around, a number of key economic indicators are moving in the right direction, including unemployment, inflation and foreign-debt reserves.
The prime minister said Russia's hard-currency reserves have reached about $20 billion, their highest level since the August 1998 collapse, when the government let the ruble plunge and defaulted on some of its debts.
Mr. Gardner said that the economic boost has not reached the average Russian, but that companies in several sectors are displaying a new competitiveness.
"I don't know if you'd call it a leaner, meaner Russia, but you do get the sense that Russia has finally made the basic economic adjustments that it had to make if it was ever to take off," he said.
Mr. Putin has tried to walk a fine line on the economy, telling potential foreign investors that his country is an emerging Eurasian tiger while warning his constituents at home that Russia will need more than a decade of double-digit growth to achieve broad-based prosperity.
He told Spanish business leaders during a European tour last week that Russia had recouped all of the economic losses that followed the surprise ruble devaluation of 1998.
The 77-percent drop in the value of the ruble since 1998 has made Russian exporters more competitive abroad and Russian domestic producers better able to compete with foreign consumer goods. For example, Baltika, a Russian-made brand, has replaced imported rivals as the market leader in the booming Russian beer market.
Yesterday's announcement concerning Russia's foreign debts shows how the economy's surge has given Mr. Putin new leverage.
Relations between the Russian government and the International Monetary Fund have been notoriously prickly over the years, with Moscow desperate for foreign cash infusions even as multiple scandals broke out over the government's handling of IMF money.
But the Russian treasury has benefited from higher oil prices abroad and improved domestic tax receipts, giving Mr. Putin room to maneuver with foreign creditors that Mr. Yeltsin and his policy team never enjoyed.
Russian economic experts say the country's recovery remains fragile.
A much-touted economic reform program being drafted by Putin adviser German Gref has been repeatedly delayed and now is not expected to reach the president's desk until the end of this month.
The arrest of business "oligarch" Vladimir Gusinsky, chairman of the Media-Most media empire, sent prices falling on the Russian stock exchange as it raised doubts about the new president's commitment to democracy and free markets.
Even Mr. Kasyanov conceded in St. Petersburg last week that banks and other basic industries still face painful reforms if the Russian recovery is to be sustained.
Charles Frank, acting president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told the St. Petersburg conference that the country's oligarch-dominated gas and electricity monopolies must be broken up, and that insolvent banks had to be closed down.
"Economic growth will not be sustained over the long term unless the government begins now to implement a credible program of reform in energy, banking and industry," Mr. Frank said.
---
More Money for Debt Relief
New York Times
June 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/20tue2.html
Last year the United States and other industrialized countries pledged to provide $27 billion to reduce the foreign debt of 36 of the world's poorest nations, if those countries adopt sound economic policies and use the savings for health, education and other basic needs. Debt relief has bipartisan supporters, including humanitarian aid groups and religious conservatives. Washington pledged to pay only 4 percent of the wealthy nations' total, or $920 million over four years, with most of the money up front.
But today in both the House and Senate, votes are scheduled that are likely to slash Washington's contribution to debt relief.
This imperils the whole project, as several other nations will meet their commitments only if Washington meets its own.
Debt relief is crucial because poor countries use up to 60 percent of their government budgets to service debt on loans taken out decades ago that will never be repaid.
The burden helps condemn these nations, which are mostly in Africa, to a cycle of poverty. In 1996 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund began a limited program of debt relief that helped only four nations, but now the program is expanding. Wealthy nations have agreed to forgive their own debtors and chip in to cancel debt owed to regional banks like the African Development Bank. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Jesse Helms, authorized $600 million in debt relief for the next three years.
But Congress is now likely to approve far less. Alabama's Sonny Callahan, a Republican, has recommended that his House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations approve only $69 million. The Senate meanwhile will vote on a foreign operations package that includes only $75 million for debt relief.
These votes would leave the United States looking foolish at the next meeting of industrialized nations in July, where Washington could find scant support for its own initiatives.
More important, countries that have sweated to meet all the criteria for debt relief are waiting.
Bolivia will lose $35 million this year because of the delay. Some in Congress are counting on a last-minute deal at the end of the fiscal year to restore the money. This is a gamble the world's poorest nations cannot afford.
Congress should restore the administration's full request. If it does not, Mr. Clinton should veto the foreign operations bill, which is likely to contain other objectionable provisions worthy of a veto.
---
Russian money laundering case 'stymied'
USA Today
06/19/00- Updated 11:03 PM ET
By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsmon15.htm
WASHINGTON - Despite promises to fight corruption, the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is refusing to hand over to U.S. and Swiss investigators documents that detail possible money laundering by Kremlin authorities, U.S. officials say.
While Putin's government has granted interviews with mid-level Kremlin authorities, Russia's Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, has refused to deliver ledgers from Russia's Central Bank or allow bank officials to be interviewed. As a result, a federal probe into whether more than $7 billion was illegally diverted out of Russia is ''stymied,'' say U.S. officials directly involved in the investigation.
There is little chance the extent of the money laundering will ever be learned, they add.
''It will be extremely difficult to make this case without ample cooperation from the Russians,'' said Charles Intriago, a former federal prosecutor and publisher of the Miami-based Money Laundering Alert Newsletter. ''Usually, the higher the criminal activity extends, the greater the resistance.''
U.S., Swiss and British officials are investigating whether the Kremlin and Russian mafia may have directed more than $7 billion, including money from International Monetary Fund loans, out of the country through the Bank of New York and other institutions.
Bank of New York has not been accused of any wrongdoing and is cooperating with the investigation.
National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said, ''The anti-corruption issue is one we have raised repeatedly, one we take seriously and one we've asked the Russian government to take appropriate steps on.''
Russian Embassy spokesman Mikhail Shurgalin denied Moscow was not cooperating: ''Under no circumstances can I agree ... that officials of my government are refusing to fight corruption.''
Putin, who was elected March 26, said battling corruption would be a priority. But he has granted former President Boris Yeltsin immunity from prosecution.
Investigators need Russia's help to corroborate testimony from Lucy Edwards, a former Bank of New York vice president, and her husband, Peter Berlin. In exchange for a reduced charge, investigators say, Edwards and Berlin have detailed how Russian banks used Bank of New York to launder funds and named other Bank of New York employees who helped.
Investigators say they have established several ''SUAs,'' or specified unlawful activities, such as wire fraud, that are essential for a money-laundering prosecution.
Meanwhile, Swiss prosecutors say Putin's government is ignoring them also. They have indicted Kremlin official and Putin friend Pavel Borodin on their own money-laundering charges.
-------- iraq
Mass civil disobedience on tenth anniversary of sanctions on Iraq
Andrea Needham and Gabriel Carlyle
voices in the wilderness
http://www.ecn.org/freedom
From: "Viviane Lerner" vlerner@interpac.net
August 6th will mark the tenth anniversary of UN sanctions on Iraq. Sanctions have led to a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, with huge increases in child malnutrition and mortality rates. Last year, UNICEF reported that there had been half a million excess deaths of children under five during the period 1991-98. Most of these deaths were primarily associated with sanctions.
To mark the tenth anniversary, and to highlight our government's complicity in the ongoing suffering, voices in the wilderness and other groups are organising mass nonviolent civil disobedience in central London on Monday August 7th (see also back page of this issue of Freedom). This will take the form of a procession from Trafalgar Square, culminating in a die-in to represent the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in Iraq as a result of sanctions. The demonstration will be calling for an immediate lifting of economic sanctions on Iraq. Actions will take place on the same day in Washington DC, and at Faslane, Scotland. We are asking you to spread the word about this event. If you produce a newsletter, we would be very grateful if you could put in a listing about tile day, or tell your members at meetings. We are able to supply leaflets for inclusion in mailings, or could offer a speaker to talk about the issues around sanctions as well as the event on August 7th. In addition to the civil disobedience on Monday 7th, there will be a vigil in central London (venue yet to be decided) from 1pm to 4pm on Sunday 6th August followed by an evening of non-violence training, action planning and a legal briefing (accommodation will be provided). We would also welcome your input at organising meetings: the next one is on Tuesday 20th June at 7.30pm, at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square in London (nearest tube Holbom).
-------- korea
Talk of South Korea pullout discouraged
Washington Times
June 20, 2000
By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200062022758.htm
Senior congressional and administration officials said yesterday that now is not the time to talk of withdrawing American troops from South Korea, noting North Korea still brandishes thousands of hair-trigger troops on the border.
Pyongyang's oft-repeated demand to remove 37,000 U.S. troops received some impetus last week after the North's Kim Jong-il and the South's Kim Dae-jung met in Pyongyang and agreed to a warming of relations.
Then on Saturday, Sen. Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, fueled the debate further by saying the administration should start considering a pullout.
But officials said yesterday such talk is premature.
"You keep them there to ensure success," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. "It's a long time between now and a less-dangerous, or a non-dangerous, peninsula. The North Koreans still have a massive military, and one meeting does not make a unified Korea.
"I would not move one troop until there was really substantial unification, and that would be sometime down the stream," he said.
Asked what the 50-year U.S. deployment has achieved, Mr. Skelton said: "It's achieved a democratic South Korea, and if North Korea comes around and a unification occurs, it will have achieved a new country. But that's way downstream.
"If we weren't there, North Korea would now be in Pusan again," added the congressman, referring to the early days of the Korean War, when North Korean forces pushed the South's army and U.S. troops down the peninsula to what became the Pusan perimeter.
A spokesman for Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the senator opposes any withdrawal.
"He believes that U.S. troops should remain in Korea for the time being because of the threat posed there," the spokesman said. "We don't think there should be a precipitous change in our force structure in Korea right now."
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: "I believe we should keep troops in South Korea as long as South Korea wants our troops in their country and as long as it is in our national interests to have them there. Both of these criteria are met at this time."
At the U.S. State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said no forces change is anticipated.
"We very much welcome the change in atmosphere and the prospect for reduction of tensions on the peninsula," he said. "But our troops are there as long as we and the South Koreans think they're necessary for defense, and that situation hasn't really changed at this stage."
Last week, Gen. Henry Shelton, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said, "it's probably premature to leap to any conclusions" about trimming troops there.
"For the foreseeable future, we do not see removing any troops from South Korea," said Lt. Cmdr. Terry Sutherland, a Pentagon spokesman.
Pentagon officials point to the sentiments of South Korea's president, who wants U.S. soldiers to remain even after any unification.
Mr. Helms seemed to go further than any other senior official when he endorsed at least a discussion of force reduction.
"Yes, sir, it's time to consider it," Mr. Helms told CNN. "And after deliberation, we can determine whether it's time to bring them out. It's too early for anybody to say we ought to bring them out now."
He added, "If it's a temporary lull, we'll have to leave the people there for a while. But if it's for real, then we ought to make plans to bring those folks home."
The United States is spending $3.2 billion this year to maintain the 37,000 troops in South Korea. The presence is principally made up of the 8th Army, headquartered in Seoul, the same component that waged war against North Korea and communist Chinese troops between 1950 and 1953. Its major units are the 2nd Infantry Division and the 19th Theater Army Area Command.
South Korea is also home for the 7th Air Force at Osan Air Base. The command is composed of 10,000 airmen and 100 operational units, including the 51st Fighter Wing.
The Americans there train on a razor's edge, poised for battle in terrain the Pentagon estimates is one of the most likely spots for war to break out. But even these forces cannot avoid readiness woes afflicting the armed forces, in the form of aging equipment and spare-parts shortages.
"Our readiness rate is pretty good. It's not as high as I like to see it," Lt. Gen. Charles R. Heflebower, the 7th Air Force commander, told The Washington Times.
Much of North Korea's million-man, active duty army is dug in close to the 38th Parallel dividing the reclusive, autocratic North and the democratic South. An invasion would be accompanied by a massive barrage of artillery fire that would reach the capital of Seoul and U.S. troops stationed along the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas.
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White House ends embargo on trade with North Korea
Washington Times
June 20, 2000
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-2000620222331.htm
The Clinton administration yesterday lifted a 50-year embargo on trade with communist North Korea just days after the first meeting of the heads of North and South Korea.
The decision will allow American individuals and companies to export and import consumer goods to and from North Korea and transfer money. U.S. ships and planes will now be allowed to dock and land in North Korea for the first time since the 1950-53 Korean War.
But since North Korea remains on the State Department's list of nations sponsoring terrorism, the United States will continue to oppose any loans by the World Bank or International Monetary Fund, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday. Also yesterday, U.S. drug policy chief Gen. Barry McCaffrey, on a trip to China, cited growing evidence that North Korea produced opium and methamphetamines.
The announcement lifting the embargo leaves in place trade rules barring any exports of U.S. technology or equipment that could have a military application.
"The actual opportunity for trade may be limited by the state of the North Korean economy," said Mr. Boucher. Most North Koreans are too poor - there has been widespread famine and hunger for several years - to purchase American products.
And the shoddy state of North Korea's manufacturing facilities as well as infrastructure such as roads, power grids and ports, makes it unlikely it will be competitive in U.S. markets.
However, the easing of sanctions will allow South Korean firms to beef up their use of extremely cheap North Korean labor to manufacture products that they will now be able to export to the United States, said Selig Harrison, a Korea expert at the Century Foundation in Washington.
"The cost of labor in North Korea is one-tenth that of South Korea," said Mr. Harrison. "Two hundred and fifty South Korean companies already have production contracts with North Korea. They send parts to be assembled in the North and then shipped back to the South. These goods were previously barred from the United States."
North Korea has been furious over what it saw as a U.S. failure to live up to a promise it made in 1994 when the two countries signed a nuclear framework accord: North Korea agreed to freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program in return for an end to the U.S. trade embargo, said Mr. Harrison.
Then in September, President Clinton once more promised to end the trade embargo, this time in return for a North Korean moratorium on long-range missile testing.
Administration officials say the North Koreans have largely lived up to the freeze of their nuclear program and have not tested another long-range missile.
Asked yesterday why it took nine months for the trade embargo to be lifted, Mr. Boucher said it was because it required rewriting complex rules.
However Mr. Harrison said the delay was due to Clinton administration fears of Republican opposition on the Hill.
It was only after the summit of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the thaw it produced that "the administration felt it had the cover to drop the sanctions," said Mr. Harrison.
"That makes sense," said a Republican congressional aide yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
"Those guys are chicken. They've muted the next-day reaction. No one wants to dump on good news" coming so close to the historic North-South summit meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.
"But the fundamental problems with North Korea are still there," said the Republican aide. "They still possess the capacity to hit us with a weapon of mass destruction, they still play brinkmanship and are still capable of very bad acts. They are not a reliable partner at all."
He also noted that the lifting of sanctions was due to take place after the visit of a high-level North Korean official to Washington.
"He never came, never showed up," said the Republican official, "but we gave them something when they haven't met the original condition."
The new trade rules published yesterday in the Federal Register require all importers of goods from North Korea to apply for a license with the federal Office of Foreign Assets Control and prove that their North Korean supplier is not linked to any military groups - a cumbersome task that could well put a damper on trade.
A previous U.S. agreement to allow imports of magnesite, a mineral used to produce high-quality steel, never got off the ground due to North Korea's poor infrastructure, said several experts.
The new rules also leave property and assets of North Korea in the United States that were previously blocked by the U.S. government still blocked for now.
Meanwhile, Gen. McCaffrey, during a visit to China, said over the weekend that there was "considerable" evidence the North Koreans were "manufacturing methamphetamines in serious amounts and have been smuggling it out to other nations, sometimes using official actors."
"Whether that is state-sponsored or individual criminal activity is hard to determine," he said Saturday in Beijing.
Methamphetamine, nicknamed "the poor man's cocaine," stimulates the nervous system and becomes quickly addictive with use.
Gen. McCaffrey said the drugs produced in North Korea and smuggled out of the country were a threat to Asia.
"Clearly, we want to be supportive of an attempt to eliminate that problem," he said.
Gen. McCaffrey also accused North Koreans of producing "a considerable amount of opium" although he admitted "on a world scale, it's sort of minor."
---
New (Friendly) Craze in South Korea: The North
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By CALVIN SIMS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/062000korea-summit.html
SEOUL, South Korea, June 19 -- Suddenly, South Koreans are enthralled with all things North Korean.
Since the two nations vowed to pursue peace and reconciliation last week, sales clerks at the vast Kyobo bookstore in central Seoul have been working overtime to meet an explosive demand here for books about North Korea and Communism.
Across the street, department stores and fashion outlets have been selling out of sunglasses and drab worker's uniforms similar to those that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, wore at the talks in Pyongyang with the South Korean president, Kim Dae Jung.
And at a nearby Samsung consumer electronics store, the company's first color television assembled in North Korea went on sale today to rave reviews.
Recent public opinion polls show that a majority of South Koreans surveyed now have a good impression of North Korea and its leader after the talks.
Social commentators here are calling South Korea's new fascination with its estranged northern neighbor an unexpected case of "Kim Jong Il fever." But whatever the diagnosis, the summit meeting last week has forced South Koreans to reassess the decades-old cold war view of North Korea as a mortal enemy.
"In high school, we were taught that North Koreans were all Communists and therefore very bad and dangerous people," Cho Jae Hyung, 17, said as he flipped through titles like "Will Spring Come to Pyongyang?" "A Very Special Leader: Kim Jong Il" and "Che Guevara" at the bookstore.
"But I saw Kim Jong Il on television, and he seemed like a very modern, practical and intelligent man," Mr. Cho said. "Now, I'm not sure what to believe about North Korea, but I know that what I was told in the past is not exactly the truth."
For many South Koreans, especially older people who lived through the Korean War, overcoming a half century of deeply ingrained fear and animosity toward North Korea will not come easy. Many South Koreans were stunned and confused by the abrupt thawing of relations between the two countries, which agreed to cease aggression on the Korean peninsula and forge economic and other ties.
Especially puzzling for many South Koreans is Mr. Kim, the North Korean leader who they were long told was a reclusive, bellicose dictator. But for many, he came across on television as a warm, gracious and charismatic host during the Pyongyang talks. Many South Koreans remain uncertain whether to embrace North Korea as a long-lost brother or reject it as a charlatan preying on their sensibilities.
Overhearing a reporter's request to a shopping mall vendor for "Kim Jong Il" sunglasses, which have a half tint, Han Choon Ja, a 63-year-old homemaker, became enraged. "Why would you want to wear the same glasses as that evil man?" she said. "He was only putting on a show for the television cameras. We still can't trust him."
But Hwang Chang Seok, the sunglasses vendor, told the woman that South Koreans who imitate Mr. Kim's choice of eye wear were helping to reduce the fear and tension between the two countries.
"One week ago, people considered Kim Jong Il a monster, and now they think his glasses are really cool," Mr. Hwang said. "It might sound funny, but I think that's real progress toward reunification."
Still, opposition party leaders have expressed concern that the "euphoric unification fever" that is gripping the nation is leading to unrealistic expectations.
"The most undesirable effect of the inter-Korean summit is that the nation is now seized by a euphoria as if the threat of a war has disappeared and unification is already achieved, while there exist no real changes," said Lee Hoi Chang, head of the conservative Grand National Party.
Mr. Lee said that given the euphoria, South Koreans might start to question the need for the 37,000 American troops that have been stationed in the South since the end of the Korean War in 1953. And indeed such questioning has already started in the aftermath of the summit agreement.
But for now, it appears that most South Koreans have a favorable opinion of Kim Jong Il. In a survey conducted by the Chosun-Ilbo, a conservative daily, and Gallup Korea, 88 percent of those polled said they had a good impression of the North Korean leader.
A separate survey conducted by the Korean Broadcasting Institute last week showed that Mr. Kim had a 50.2 percent popularity rating for his political trustworthiness, compared with a 15.1 percent rating just before the summit meeting.
At Kyobo books, the manager, Cho Jae Hyung, said that after the summit meeting books on North Korea and Communism were in such high demand that the store had to reorder many titles and set up a special section to display them.
He said people of all ages had expressed interest in the books, which before the summit talks were not very popular but are now among the store's top sellers.
"I think people are very optimistic about the changes that are occurring in Korea, but they are also a little scared like I am," said Lee Kicheol, a graduate student, who was browsing the North Korea section. "For many of us, this is the first time that we've honestly thought of North Korea as a friend, and we want to read as much as possible about this place and this man."
A sales clerk for Samsung consumer electronics, Kang Kyung Hyung, said the store was flooded with customers today inquiring about the company's first television made in North Korea. "Customers mainly wanted to know if there was a difference in quality between models made in the North or here in the South," Mr. Kang said. "Some people were afraid to buy it, but others were very enthusiastic about purchasing something from the North."
"Some people said they were buying a piece of history, while others said they were trying to show their support for North Koreans, who are less fortunate than us," he said.
A sign posted above the 20-inch television, which sells for a little less than $200, read, "In honor of the successful South-North summit meeting, we are pleased to announce the sales of color televisions made in North Korea."
Samsung said the North Korean televisions were indistinguishable from models made in South Korea, except for a label on the back that indicates that the device was made in the Daedongkang plant in North Korea.
Cho Sung In, a Samsung spokeswoman, said that as part of a "corporate good will" program to increase economic ties with North Korea, Samsung ships the television parts to North Korea, where it pays a government-owned factory to assemble the sets.
So far, Samsung, which makes no money on the deal, has received 2,000 North Korean televisions, which were tested in the South to insure quality.
The company is considering investing as much as $1 billion in a fully integrated consumer electronics plant in North Korea to take advantage of the country's highly skilled, low-cost labor force.
---
S. Korea Cuts War Commemoration
New York Times
June 20, 2000 Filed at 1:15 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Koreas.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Amid warming relations with communist North Korea, South Korea said Tuesday it had canceled a massive military parade and battle reenactments to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Korean War.
The plans were replaced by more benign ceremonies, such as seminars, wreath-layings, photo exhibitions, and luncheons and dinner parties for domestic and foreign veterans, said Seoul's Defense Ministry in a news release.
``We decided to change our plans in order to assure the successful implementation of the summit agreements,'' the ministry said, adding the change will help promote harmony and reconciliation with North Korea.
South Korea also will ship 23,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea by midnight for arrival on late Wednesday, which is the last batch of 200,000 tons of fertilizer it promised to the hungry North last month as a goodwill gesture.
The moves followed a series of measures taken by both Koreas to improve ties after the historic June 13-15 summit in Pyongyang in which South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pledged to work toward peace.
The official Korean Veterans' Association, headed by a former defense minister, endorsed the government decision, but some veterans angrily accused the Seoul government of trying too hard to please North Korea. ``It's as if the government were telling the people to forget the war without even getting an apology from North Korea for starting the war,'' said Choi Chong-tae, 70, leader of a group of decorated war veterans.
It would be ``shortsighted'' for South Korea not to properly recognize veterans' sacrifices because of political motives, said Manert Kennedy, 70, a former U.S. Marine sergeant from Boulder, Colo., who fought in the 1950-53 Korean War.
``As a person who saw considerable bloodshed and agony both on the part of worriers, veterans, and the civilian population, I think it is wrong to ignore that suffering without some sort of recognition,'' said Kennedy, a survivor of the 1950 Chosin Reservoir battle.
South Korea had originally planned to stage a military parade in downtown Seoul on June 25, the 50th anniversary of the Korean War's outbreak, and reenact major battles, including U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Inchon Landing in September 1950.
North Korea started the three-year war that claimed the lives of at least 36,900 U.S. soldiers and at least 58,000 South Korean troops. The war's total military and civilian casualties are estimated at more than 4 million.
Before the summit, North Korea accused Seoul and Washington of planning the events to drum up another war against the North. But Kim Jong Il said, during the summit, that North Korea's war anniversary programs were canceled in a peace gesture.
The two Koreas have since stopped loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries and Red Cross officials will meet Friday at a border village to discuss reuniting separated families.
Despite the thawing relations, the two Koreas still have sensitive issues to resolve such as suspect nuclear weapons development and long range missile of North Korea and the presence of 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.
Police on Tuesday detained six activists and two photographers on charges of trespassing on the Koon-Ni bombing range off the west coast despite red flags declaring the zone off-limits to civilians because of an impending bombing exercise.
The U.S. Air Force range has been a constant source of friction with villagers who claim that noise from the bombing exercises threatens their health. Villagers demand a closure of the range, but the Seoul government rejected it.
Meanwhile, the 8th U.S. Army in Seoul said it had not changed any plans for its own war anniversary events. Up to 1,000 U.S. and other allied nations' veterans were invited to Korea for ceremonies that will continue for three years.
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S. Korea scales down War commemorations
USA Today
06/20/00- Updated 12:06 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#taiwan
SEOUL, South Korea - In a gesture aimed at easing tension with North Korea, South Korea said Tuesday it has canceled a massive military parade and battle-scene reenactments to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. The decision followed a series of gestures from both Koreas to improve ties following their historic, three-day summit last week, which ended with pledges to work together to end half a century of hostilities. The official Korean Veterans' Association endorsed the government decision. But some veterans angrily accused President Kim Dae Jung of trying too hard to please North Korea, which they say has often repaid humanitarian aid from the South with armed infiltrations and a military buildup.
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North Korea Bans Eased
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/00/06/20/news/world/korea-sanctions-rts.html
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The United States formally eased 50-year-old sanctions against North Korea today, in keeping with an announcement by President Clinton in September. The action was a reward for North Korea's agreement not to test long-range missiles.
Trade in most goods between the countries is now allowed, as are direct personal and commercial financial transactions, investments, cargo shipments cargo and commercial flights. Exporting military goods and sensitive technology to North Korea remains banned.
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Russian Agency Sells Close-up Images From Far Away
New York Times
June 20, 2000
Competition in the commercial spy business's outer-space satellite imagery sector is heating up as Russia enters the fray. A sample photo, showing New York harbor, was taken by a Russian military spy satellite hundreds of miles up and was just made available commercially in the United States by Central Trading Systems, in Huntington, N.Y.
Moscow is thus beginning to match in sharpness the images taken by the reconnaissance satellite of Space Imaging, a company based in Thornton, Colo.
The company launched its craft in September, offering the first close-up commercial images from space with a resolution down to one meter, or about three feet. At that resolution, cars, roads, buildings, tanks, ships, jets and missiles can be distinguished.
The Russians are now responding with data that they say goes from the present back to 1992. "Substantial areas of the U.S., Europe and the Middle East as well as selected areas in South America and the Far East are included in the archives and available," said a statement from Central Trading.
This is likely to affect American sales, too. In 1996, American supporters of Israel helped pass a law limiting the sharpness of American images of Israel to the best obtainable by any foreign company. Now the Russian entry is seen as likely to end the ban.
Supplying the Russian satellite imagery is an agency called Sovinformsputnik, which has a Web site, www.sovinformsputnik.com. The site offers samples of the one-meter imagery and allows customers to submit orders for images.
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A Warning From Putin and Schröder
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By JOSEF JOFFE
http://www.nytimes.com/00/06/20/oped/20joff.html
HAMBURG, Germany - For the "last remaining superpower," it is time to ask the Ed Koch question, "How am I doing?" The answer is, "O.K., but not great." Ten years after victory in the cold war, the United States is still No. 1 by any conceivable measure. But the lesser actors -- Russia, Europe, China -- are beginning to make true what history and political theory have predicted all along: Great power will generate "ganging up." Nos. 2, 3 and 4 will seek to balance against Mr. Big.
Just last week, President Vladimir Putin of Russia swept into Berlin, where he deftly executed a classic gambit of Muscovite diplomacy. This is the age-old attempt to forge privileged relations with Germany, the traditional holder of the European balance. He wooed, and he won. "Germany," Mr. Putin intoned, "is Russia's leading partner in Europe and the world." Chancellor Gerhard Schröder cooed back; he, too, was all for a "strategic partnership" with Russia.
One motive is obvious. Both Europe and Russia intensely dislike the American missile defense project, and for good reasons. If it works (which it won't for many years, if ever), the "Son of Star Wars" will further magnify American dominance by devaluing the nuclear arsenals of Russia, China and Europe. No wonder Mr. Putin and Mr. Schröder together trained their guns on the anti-missile bubble in the sky.
The more general thrust is obvious, too. The purpose is not to resume the old game of the 18th and 19th centuries, which was to harness alliances or even go to war to lay low the hegemonist du jour. It is to contain and constrain what the lesser powers see as excessive clout on the part of No. 1.
In the past, the United States was rarely mentioned by name. Russians and Chinese kept inveighing against a "unipolar world" and a "single model of culture." The enemy was "hegemonism" and "repeated imposition" by you-know-who. Now, as usual, it is the French who thunder where others grumble. Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine likes to call the United States a "hyperpower" given to "unilateralist temptation" because "there is no counterweight."
Last week, the European Union's external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, made it explicit: Europe had to grow into a "serious counterpart" to the United States. In fact, that process is well under way. According to the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, monetary union, begun in 1999, was an "eminently political act" by which Europe had "opted for an autonomous path." Shamed by its impotence in the Kosovo bombing, the European Union last December vowed to field an intervention force of 60,000 capable of slugging it out without the United States.
None of this should come as a surprise. Subtly and cautiously, the lesser players are acting out the oldest game of nations. Primacy provokes, and power begets power. What is No. 1 to do?
The most critical item is a change of consciousness. America is so far ahead of the crowd that it has forgotten to look back. Yes, the president and his minions are diligently working the global diplomatic circuit. Public opinion, as the surveys keep demonstrating, remains internationalist. But Congress has come down a long way from the days of Senators Arthur Vandenberg and J. William Fulbright. Now, it is obliviousness with a dollop of yahooism. Why else would Congress have foisted Star Wars, the Sequel on President Clinton -- without looking at the feasibility (low), the costs (very high) and the toll on American leadership (soaring).
Sure, when you are eyeing that megamerger or I.P.O. bulging with zillions, the rest of the world looks both boring and ornery. But this world -- this wondrous system of open trade and collective defense that the United States built in the 1950's -- won't manage itself. Nor will it long withstand America's unilateralist reflexes like the missile defense system or the micromanagement of the Kosovo war by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Obsessive second-guessing by the brass back in Washington not only riled European souls, but also humiliated the NATO commander at the time, Wesley Clark, who happens to be an American. Why stick to the alliance if it becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pentagon?
One assumes that the "last remaining superpower" will want to remain one. But if so, the United States might recall the best tradition of its postwar grand strategy. It wasn't just sheer size and weight that shaped this most brilliant chapter of American diplomacy. It was the bipartisan conviction that power comes with responsibility, and that responsibility must defy short-term self-interest or the domestic fixation of the day.
Hence that marvelous alphabet soup of international institutions from NATO to GATT and the I.M.F. that turned America into the "indispensable power" celebrated by Madeleine Albright. Why? Because this No. 1 was the first in history to lead rather than rule. Others followed because the United States was a supply-side hegemon -- it provided the world with essential public goods like stability and free trade.
To heed the needs (and sensibilities) of others is the best defense against "ganging up," and that is as true in domestic as in international politics. Great leaders shun both imposition and indifference.
The proper maxim for Mr. Big is: "Do good by others to do well for yourself." Great powers remain great if they promote their own interests by serving those of others.
Josef Joffe is co-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit.
-------- spying
Promotion at CIA Predicted
Washington Post
Tuesday, June 20, 2000; Page A07
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Compiled from reports by the Associated Press and Reuters
President Clinton's nominee for the number two position at the Central Intelligence Agency is expected to be John E. McLaughlin, a career agency official who currently heads its intelligence division, government sources said.
CIA Director George J. Tenet likes to refer to McLaughlin as "the smartest man in America." The White House declined to comment on its choice for deputy director.
The nominee would fill the vacancy left by Air Force Gen. John A. Gordon, who this month will take charge of the new semi-autonomous agency created in the Energy Department to oversee U.S. nuclear programs.
The Senate hastened its consideration of Gordon's nomination after two computer hard drives containing nuclear secrets went missing at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. They were found on Friday under questionable circumstances.
----
USA Today
06/20/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Officials at the CIA are mourning the death of an analyst described as a "rising star." John D. Muskopf Jr., 28, was fatally shot in the head and neck Saturday during a robbery. District of Columbia police believe he refused to surrender his money to the gunman. Muskopf was a nuclear engineer who joined the CIA almost three years ago.
-------- terrorism
U.S. Declares 'Rogue Nations' Are Now 'States of Concern'
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/062000state-concern.html
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- After years of directing sanctions and suspicion toward defiant governments from North Korea to Iran, the Clinton administration abruptly declared today that "rogue nations" no longer exist.
There are, instead, "states of concern." They are the very same states as before -- no less dangerous or unpredictable -- but possibly more easily swayed by gentler American terms, officials said.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright disclosed the change in the official lexicon today when she was asked about "the rogue state" of North Korea and its "rogue leader," Kim Jong Il. "First of all, we are now calling these states 'states of concern,' " Dr. Albright told a radio interviewer on the same day the administration moved to ease trade restrictions against North Korea, a former battlefield foe that is continuing to develop weapons that may one day be capable of striking the United States.
Richard Boucher, the department's spokesman, said the shift signaled a change in the administration's approach to an unofficial gallery of nations -- from Libya to Cuba -- where internal reforms might best be advanced by a more nuanced American vocabulary.
"What we see now is a certain evolution" among the nations formerly known as rogue, Mr. Boucher said. "Some places that were described that way have embarked upon a more democratic internal life. Others have been willing to address some of the issues that are of primary concern to the United States."
Mr. Boucher praised such developments as the sweeping victory by reformist candidates in Iran's parliamentary elections in February and Libya's decision to turn over two suspects for trial in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
And, most recently, there were the overtures by Kim Jong Il -- first to halt missile testing and, then earlier this month, to stage a summit meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Dae Jung -- that sent American officials reaching for the thesaurus.
"If we see a development that we think is in the U.S. interest, we will respond," said Mr. Boucher, who went on to trip over his own new terms. "If we see states of concern that continue to be of concern because they are not willing to deal with some of the issues we are concerned about -- whew."
Richard N. Haass, the director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, said the administration limited its options by referring to rogue nations. The term is often applied to the seven countries listed by State Department as sponsoring terrorism: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
"It seemed willy-nilly to lead to a sanctions-dominated foreign policy, when the evidence suggested that sanctions are rarely effective," Dr. Haass said.
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'Rogues' out in parlance at State
Washington Times
June 20, 2000
By David Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200062022257.htm
Goodbye, rogues. Hello, "states of concern."
By semantic fiat, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright yesterday disclosed that the U.S. government has banished "rogue" nations from the face of the earth.
Saying the evocative phrase had outlived its usefulness, the State Department declared that the nations formerly known as rogues -Iraq, Libya and North Korea prominent among them - would henceforth be known as "states of concern."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, in an explication that took up a good-sized chunk of his daily briefing yesterday, said the shift was not intended to be "an enormous policy step."
Mr. Boucher said the change reflected the reality that not all rogue states are equally roguish.
Rogue nation Libya has made some tentative steps to address international concerns on terrorism and rogue nation North Korea just held a summit with archrival South Korea, Mr. Boucher noted. Rogue nation Iraq, by contrast, remains largely unrepentant in U.S. eyes.
"The point is not to categorize or re-categorize anybody," the department spokesman said, declining to itemize just which country qualifies as a "state of concern. "The point is to deal with each country on the basis of what we can accomplish in terms of what we care about."
But it remains to be seen whether "states of concern" will have the linguistic legs of rogue nation - a phrase that shows up in The Washington Times database 227 times since the beginning of 1999, or once every 1.92 days.
Even Mr. Boucher seemed to have a little trouble getting his tongue around the newly correct phraseology.
He said the United States was still prepared to respond forcefully "if we see states of concern that continue to be of concern because they are not willing to deal with some of the issues we are concerned about."
---
Punish Greece for terrorism
USA Today
06/20/00- Updated 08:16 AM ET
By Wayne Merry
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/ncguest1.htm
The brutal murder of British defense attaché Stephen Saunders in Athens on June 8 is a reminder that one of the most persistent and inexcusable terrorist nests in the world is in friendly Greece. Only 12 years ago, our own defense attaché, Navy Capt. William Nordeen, was murdered in the Greek capital in a crime that remains unpunished and, for practical purposes, uninvestigated.
In the aftermath of bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, Congress created the National Commission on Terrorism to examine the worldwide threat. The commission's most courageous act was its blunt assessment that terrorism in Greece justifies sanctions against that country: denying its citizens visa-free U.S. entry and blocking arms sales. But Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hurriedly responded that no such actions would be taken.
What is the problem? For 25 years, an extreme nationalist group with left-wing rhetoric called "November 17" has conducted an unbroken campaign of killings and bombings against prominent Greeks, Americans and other foreigners.
For many years, U.S. taxpayers have spent more money on embassy security in Athens than in any other capital in the world. Our embassy in the Greek capital is a fortress; our diplomats live in justifiable fear for their lives.
November 17 is a skilled, determined and successful group of political assassins, but it could not survive without official tolerance. Greece has the undisputed worst counterterrorism record on Earth. In a quarter-century, not a single member of November 17 has been officially identified, let alone caught.
Not simple incompetence
The commission identified 146 terrorist acts against U.S. interests in Greece since 1975, with only one case solved. A record that bad is neither an accident nor the product of police incompetence. It is a policy.
Why would the "birthplace of democracy" accommodate domestic terrorists? Because arrests and public trials would expose skeletons in the closet of the ruling PASOK party, in power for 20 of the past 23 years. There is clear evidence of ties between PASOK and November 17 in their early years. Prime Minister Costas Simitis today certainly has no direct connections with the terrorists, but he is unwilling to face up to his party's ugly history. So Greece's terrorism policy is one of benign neglect, even appeasement.
For years, Washington has attempted to jawbone Greek authorities into action, without effect. The Clinton administration offered aid and joint efforts in counterterrorism without grasping that Athens does not want to catch the terrorists. Greek leaders also know how to read political signals from Washington and respond accordingly. When President Clinton visited Greece last November, he could have raised the terrorism issue, but did not. Albright's light-speed promise of no sanctions was received smugly in Athens.
Act against an ally
Now Saunders, another innocent victim, is dead, but he will not be the last, unless Greece pays a price for inaction. The commission has pointed the way: Designate Greece as "not cooperating fully on counterterrorism" under an existing law that would prohibit weapons sales. Such action against an ally would send the best possible message to other governments that America is serious about terrorism.
This would be bitter medicine for Athens, but the point of medicine is to cure a disease. Congress can do Greece no better favor than to administer a dose of effective counterterrorism. In parallel, London and Brussels must demand that Athens live up to its claim to be a European, rather than a "Balkan," country.
American friends of Greece, including Greek-Americans, should commit this act of true friendship. Would the United States be a villain in Greek eyes and vilified in the overheated Athenian media? Certainly, but the cancer would be rooted out - and lives saved.
Wayne Merry, a former State Department official who served in Athens, now is senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.
-------- uranium
Uranium prices to firm: ABARE Source: AAP
Australian Financial Review
Published: Tuesday Jun 20, 1:33 PM
http://www.afr.com.au/update/20000620/A21494-2000Jun20.html
Uranium prices are expected to firm as global consumption of the mineral exceeds production, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) said today.
"Consumption is forecast to remain steady because the rate of stock drawdown and supplies from secondary sources are expected to fall in 2001," ABARE said in its commodities report.
"The principal factors contributing to downward pressure on uranium prices are the steady release of product from the US Enrichment Corporation (USEC) inventory and the apparent continued running down of utility stocks."
However Russian weapons-grade material appears not to have had a significant impact on the market since an agreement was reached on its disposal in 1999.
Australia, Canada, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are expected to show a significant increase in primary production of uranium in 2000/2001, ABARE said.
"However action was taken last year by the major producers last year to restrict output, despite some having expanded production capacity," the report said.
Despite contract prices easing, Australian production is estimated to have risen by 30 per cent in 1999/2000, exports are up 35 per cent and earnings are up by as much as $360 million.
"In 2000/01, production and exports are set to rise further to 9,400 tonnes of uranium, with export earnings rising to $440 million," ABARE said.
"The increase in Australian production is the result of investment in expanded processing facilities at both Olympic Dam and Ranger mines and also of the benefits of long-term contracts being in place."
Uranium production rates for most major producers remained below capacity through the first half of 2000.
"Near term, no further producer cutbacks or buying activity is anticipated," ABARE said.
"Nor is discretionary buying expected from utilities seeking to boost stocks at low prices, despite their having run down stock levels significantly in recent years."
Although the uranium spot market remains depressed, ABARE said not all links in the nuclear supply chain have a long-term depressed outlook.
"Demand for medium term contract enrichment services was strong in mid-2000, consistent with robust projected nuclear fuel consumption rates by electricity utilities over the medium term," the report said.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Secret U.S. system detects nuclear tests
Tuesday, June 20, 2000
By David Ljunggren Reuters
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/06/06212000/kreu_nmonitor_14050.asp
A monitoring station for the top-secret U.S. Atomic Energy Detection System, which has detected almost every nuclear test carried out in the world since 1949, is located at Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic.
Over the last 50 years, the United States has detected almost every nuclear test carried out anywhere in the world, courtesy of an enormous yet largely secret global monitoring operation in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
The U.S. Atomic Energy Detection System gathers and processes data from a vast array of underground, underwater, sonic and airborne sensors in 35 countries to ensure that nuclear-capable nations are sticking to the terms of three major test-ban treaties.
The AEDS network, which pays special attention to countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons, quickly spotted the tests Pakistan and India carried out in May 1998.
But few outsiders are aware of just how sensitive it is.
At one point China was so anxious to hide evidence of its testing that it tried to time the blasts to coincide with local earthquakes, assuming no one could ever tell the difference. But they did not fool intelligence officials at the innocuously named U.S. Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC), which runs the AEDS from Patrick Air Force Base in Florida.
"These guys know virtually everything. They can tell when a test was carried out properly, as it was in the case of India, or whether someone just dug a hole in the ground and set off a nuclear device, which is pretty much what the Pakistanis did," one North American security expert said.
According to "Spying without Spies," a 1995 book on the AEDS by U.S. academics Charles Ziegler and David Jacobson, Washington has benefited enormously from the system.
-------- kansas
Kansas City Area Schedule of Global Peace Walk
From: GPZONE2000@aol.com - June 20, 2000
In the middle of the country, we would like to pass on our schedule to you for the upcoming weeks inviting everybody to bring their knowledge of mind and symbol of peace to this walk.
On June 21st, we are walking into Lawrence, KS the City Hall by 11am and then to South Park for a drum circle at noon. 2pm we will make a ceremony at the medicine wheel at Haskell Indian Nations University.
June 22nd we walk 20 miles toward Kansas City, KS. We will stay with our friends at 1732 Oak St, Kansas City, MO, 816 471 1732 and will be based out of this large building for the next 2 weeks.
June 23rd @ Kansas City Kansas Community College, Performing Arts Center, 7250 State Ave from 12-3pm we have been invited to speak at an event with Ralph Nader presidential candidate of the Green Party, the last of a 50 state campaign tour before the Denver Convention. With perfect synchronicity, this event is right on our walking path. The peace walkers will be presented and Reverend Yamato, the Global Peace Walk initiator, will speak along with multi-cultural local activist people. Leonard Peltier is writing a letter that will be read.
June 25th @ Quindaro, KS (Underground Railroad Ruins, John Brown's statue) 10am we will walk across the river (9 miles) to make ceremony at the Liberty Memorial 2pm, Global Peace Prayer of Living on the Globe with all our friends.
June 28th @ Grand Emporium, KC, MO 8pm, the Global Peace Orchestra will open for Boukman Experanyans (Haitian Vodou Rock).
June 30th @ Haskell Indian Nations University Auditorium, Lawrence, KS, 7-10pm. Music, Discussion, Theatre, and Press Conference the night before 4 day fast begins. Topics: Why are we fasting? Why are we walking across the country? What is a Global Emergency? What is a Global Peace Zone? What are Spiritually United Nations? Speakers will be Reverend Yamato, Carter Camp (Ponca Indian Activist and former chairman of AIM), and representative from Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. Theatre by Casey Camp. Music by Adam Spak, Natalie Cox, others.
July1-4th @ Doherty Park, close to downtown Leavenworth on banks of Missouri River. Around 20-25 people will be fasting for Global Peace on Mother Earth and for Leonard Peltier, symbol of separation between our land and life. We have permission to have our teepee up for all four days.
July 4th @ Fort Leavenworth, Hunt Lodge, 12pm-12am. Protect our Land and Life Festival with 15 bands, including Blackfire (from Big Mountain, AZ) and Red Thunder (from Taos Pueblo).
July 7th @ Kansas City, MO, Infinite Sun, 1732 Oak St 10pm-5am. Peace Benefit Rave to raise money to transport and shelter elders for Washington, D.C. and New York events.
July 9th @ (yet to be fully confirmed) St. Marks Church, KC, MO. Interfaith prayer.
July 10th begin walk through Independence, visit Truman Library.
July 17th @ Winston Churchill Memorial.
July 23rd reach St. Louis Zoo.
July 25-August 11th, South Dakota.
August 12-15th, Peace and Love Gathering to walk to East Coast.
Global Peace Now. All our relations, Global Peace Walkers
-------- kentucky
Workers disapprove of USEC-union talks
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 16:07:44 EDT
From: wheezin2@aol.com
Hourly workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and its sister plant near Portsmouth, Ohio, have balked at talks between their international union leaders and USEC Inc. senior managers regarding a deal to help employees after one of the plants closes.
In a letter last week to workers, officers of the plants' atomic workers' union locals accused USEC Chief Executive Officer William "Nick" Timbers of misleading the work force and Congress about requirements to keep both plants open. Amid the company's financial trouble, the USEC board, which meets Wednesday, is expected to decide to close one of the plants.
"We would make a deal with USEC (officials) only if they had something real to offer," the letter said. It explained that much of what Timbers has agreed to do to protect workers already is built into contracts and legislation that allowed USEC to be privatized.
"We are not giving up on our jobs or agreeing that we should allow a plant to close until after we have exhausted every effort to get the Energy Department and Congress to deal with the problem," the letter said.
James "Kip" Phillips, vice president of the Nashville, Tenn.-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union, said Monday that the discussions with USEC have ceased because of the locals' views.
"There will not be negotiations, an agreement or anything else without the support and ratifications of the locals," Phillips said. "They seem to have no interest in it at all, and that's where it sits."
The letter summarizes a June 7 meeting in Louisville by the local committees with top PACE officials, including Phillips and Boyd Young, president of the 13,200-member union. It says Young had held a series of meetings during the past month with USEC senior managers to negotiate "a partnership" modeled after the Saturn plant agreement between General Motors and the United Auto Workers.
"President Young said that USEC will announce a plant closing after its board of directors' meeting (Wednesday)," the letter said. "He said that USEC will announce which plant will close at that time."
Phillips said the letter "was not entirely accurate" in characterizing the USEC discussions as negotiations.
"There were no negotiations," he said. "It's accurate to say that USEC did approach us about the possibility of coming to an agreement with the union. We did meet with them, and there were discussions as to what they wanted and a lot of things we wanted."
David Fuller, president of the Paducah local, said he wrote the letter, signed by himself and other officers. He said the local disagrees with many of the ideas outlined in the letter.
"We're still trying to come to a consensus on a path forward," Fuller said. "There's absolutely no doubt that the international and the local have the best interests of the membership at heart."
According to the letter, the proposed agreement:
Requires union leadership to start immediately negotiating a closure agreement at the plant that will be shut down. The deal would include enhanced severance, and USEC expects workers to "waive their rights to sue" if they accept those perks.
Gives PACE workers hiring preference and union recognition for cleaning up and shutting down facilities at the plants if the Energy Department awards USEC that work.
Guarantees USEC will offer hiring some of the displaced workers at a gas centrifuge plant the firm is considering building, probably at Portsmouth. The offer includes a successorship agreement with PACE.
Says USEC will negotiate a "minimum staffing level" and extend the collective bargaining agreement at the plant that remains open. For the plant to be closed, there will be no more job cuts during the time that elapses until closure.
The letter concludes that USEC has broken promises to the government to keep the plants running and the cleanup work already is contained in "an especially solid" collective bargaining agreement.
-------- maryland
Calvert Residents Wary Of Proposal for Retreat
Washington Post
Tuesday, June 20, 2000; Page B01
By Raymond McCaffrey Washington Post Staff Writer
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/20/085l-062000-idx.html
For centuries, Calvert County has been known for the farmers who work the land and the watermen who fish the Chesapeake Bay.
But if a nonprofit organization has its way, the county could become renowned for powerful minds furthering world peace--or perhaps, as some fear, yogic fliers darting about.
Representatives of the Institute for World Peace are scheduled to appear before the Calvert County Planning Commission to discuss building a home for a new "think tank," a 38-acre retreat that--according to the group's attorney--would be similar to the Eastern Shore's Wye River retreat, where the Middle East Peace talks were held in 1998.
However, residents of St. Leonard, a small rural community in southern Calvert near where the retreat is proposed, are concerned about the organization behind the Institute for World Peace. That would be the Maharishi University of Management's Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, the Fairfield, Iowa, school founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the transcendental-meditation proponent to whom the Beatles once turned.
"We don't want a cult in our neighborhood," said Gary Effers, a St. Leonard resident who lives near the property.
Representatives of the university in Fairfield have long denied that they are part of a cult or even any organized religion. On its Web site, the university describes itself as a "world-class center for research" into "the profound insights and technologies of consciousness developed by the University's founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi."
The university institute's director, John Hagelin, is the presidential nominee of the Natural Law Party, a political party founded by Maharishi University.
A call to Hagelin was returned by Bob Roth, a local writer who is a friend of Hagelin's. Roth said the Institute for World Peace is simply planning to develop "a small progressive research think tank."
"They would be drawing from scholars in the Washington, D.C., area to sort of identify, evaluate and promote peace initiatives," Roth said. "When you look at the university in Fairfield, you think, 'Oh, my goodness! Is this going to be taken here?' It's not."
Since the university moved to Fairfield from California a quarter-century ago, the small farming community of about 10,000 has been the scene of a highly publicized clash of eastern and western cultures.
There, the Maharishi's followers not only practice transcendental meditation and eschew meat and potatoes; they have built homes adhering to "Sthapatya Veda" architecture, which dictates that buildings face east to create positive energy. And they have entertained townspeople with exhibitions by their Yogic Flying Club, whose members claim to levitate--or some say hop--through proper meditation.
"I would say we coexist quite well, but the co-mingling is much more difficult," said Bob Rasmussen, the town's mayor for 27 years. "We've worked hard at it, but they just have different ways.
"You just don't invite them to your house for corn on the cob and a nice steak and a glass of beer. . . . They have yogic flying contests."
In fact, according to Rasmussen, residents still refer to those affiliated with the institute as the "rus"--short for "gurus"--and residents are categorized as meditators and non-meditators.
Recently, a dispute over the proposed demolition of a historic building on the university's campus "created a wedge again" in the town, Rasmussen said. Some townspeople wanted to preserve the structure, but the university demolished it anyway because it wasn't facing east.
Rasmussen said that he wouldn't call the university a cult--although he does say that members are a "close-knit group." However, he added that they have helped the local economy and that, all in all, their philosophy is anything but objectionable.
"Their biggest objective is to relieve stress, and how is that bad?" Rasmussen said.
Indeed, meditation and many other beliefs taught at the university are gaining mainstream acceptance in the United States. A transcendental meditation center inspired by the Maharishi opened in Rockville without controversy.
Though geographically closer to Rockville, Calvert County is probably nearer in spirit to Fairfield, Iowa, in that residents espouse what could be called traditional values. For example, a year ago, when local school officials backed a student's request that prayer be banned at a graduation, many in the audience prayed anyway.
And though some parts of northern Calvert are being populated more and more by commuters to the District, St. Leonard is located deep in the southern part, where the character is still as rural as the residents who congregate at sundown on the front stoops of stores to chat.
It's a place where rumors abound about the proposed "think tank."
"There's a lot of opposition to what they're doing," said Patrick M. Buehler, a Calvert County commissioner who owns a general store in St. Leonard. "I have no clue what that group is about, who they are, how they are formed."
In truth, though, the concern in Calvert, Maryland's fastest-growing community during the 1990s, is as much about falling trees as it is about yogic fliers. Although the county is promoting economic development--the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant, not far from St. Leonard, is by far Calvert's largest taxpayer--it also has mounted a vigorous campaign to curb growth.
Before the Institute for World Peace could build, it would need to gain some concessions from the Calvert County Board of Commissioners. The land falls in a "resource conservation area" in which development is sharply restricted by the state, an official said. Counties can permit more dense development on only 5 percent of the designated land.
In Calvert, that has mostly been done for public schools, the official said. Moreover, the county views the proposed retreat as a private university--a use not permitted in the conservation area--so the commissioners would have to change the county's zoning laws.
There's also concern about the impact the development would have on St. Leonard. Plans call for a conference center, an institute building, some dormitories and some faculty housing, cafeteria and classrooms, according to a county official.
"It's basically a small community that's serviced by one road, and there's going to be a lot of buildings . . . a 250-car parking lot," Buehler said. "I would say right now I'm not sure it's something that's going to have any support from anybody."
Earlier this year, a group connected with the Maharishi reportedly contended that it was being discriminated against and threatened to sue a New Jersey town that blocked a proposed development. But Roth says the Institute for World Peace is about exactly that: peace.
"They're not interested in upsetting the environment," Roth said. "They want to welcome people."
-------- new mexico
Former DOE Secretary Rejected Security Advice;
And May Have Enabled Los Alamos Theft
Fox News
06/20/00
By Brian Wilson Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/national/062000/nukes.sml
The Department of Energy ignored security recommendations in 1997 that could have prevented the recent disappearance of two sensitive hard drives from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Fox News has learned.
According to documents obtained by Fox News, the DOE under Hazel O'Leary, who was embroiled in scandals that sent her packing soon afterward, ignored the recommendations of a 1997 review panel that called for more security around nuclear information.
Among the panel's recommendations was a suggestion that the DOE upgrade "Sigma 14" and "Sigma 15" nuclear information to "Top Secret." Two hard drives that contained information on U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons; and were classified at the Sigma 15 level; disappeared under suspicious circumstances last month, only to reappear last week stashed behind a photocopier.
The FBI is investigating the disappearance, which now focuses on several scientists who had access to the secure vault where the hard drives were stored.
Openness vs. Security
Under a policy of openness at the O'Leary DOE, the panel was establishing guidelines for declassifying previously overclassified information, some of it dating back to the Nevada nuclear tests in the 1940s. Declassified information included plutonium tonnage, the number of nuclear devices detonated by the U.S. and reports on human radiation experiments.
In a section of its January 1997 report; entitled, "High Fences Around the Most Sensitive Information"; the panel suggested that "strict, and perhaps higher, levels of security be maintained around the more sensitive material."
The committee agreed that tightening security around Sigma 14 and 15 information "is valid, and in fact should be treated as an imperative." The panel recommended "reclassifying this sensitive information to Top Secret."
Those recommendations were ignored, according to documents uncovered by Fox News.
Six months after the report, on June 4, 1997, Robert Vrooman, then the chief of the lab's counterintelligence office, issued a directive removing "Accountability Requirements for Sigma 15 Information."
"Classified matter containing Sigma 15 information may now be removed from formal accountability," Vrooman wrote. This meant it was no longer necessary to sign out and track Sigma 15 information; such as the hard drives, which were used by emergency response teams to disarm nuclear warheads.
Vrooman has been singled out before for security breaches. A Senate report and a DOE inspector general report cited him for failing to remove Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee from his position in 1997 after FBI agents; who had told Vrooman not to tip Lee off that he was under investigation; later recommended the Taiwan-born scientist be fired. Lee has been charged with mishandling classified information in connection with the suspected transfer of nuclear secrets to China.
Vrooman, who had been a part-time consultant to the lab since his retirement, was barred by the DOE from doing consulting services for at least five years after the inspector general's report.
---
Breaches in national security all too familiar
USA Today
06/19/00- Updated 04:22 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/tmoran/tm10.htm
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." We've all heard this cloak-and-dagger catch phrase from friends who choose not to divulge particulars. It's said as a joke, but some people actually have jobs that require keeping their mouths shut. They're not all spies, of course. Many work for defense contractors and government agencies. But all of them have security clearances, allowing them access to sensitive material.
Having a security clearance is an honor and a privilege, and though I'm sure most folks who carry those fancy badges recognize the importance of their work, there are a few who are making the whole lot of them look bad. Recent news reports point to many security failures in some of our most exclusive government buildings and research laboratories:
Two hard drives believed missing for weeks were found behind a copy machine in the Los Alamos, N.M., national laboratory. Staffers noticed that the drives were missing May 7 but did not inform their supervisors until May 31. The drives contained highly sensitive data, including information on how to arm and disarm nuclear missiles, and were used by a team that responds to nuclear accidents and terrorism. Despite the materials' sensitivity, the drives were classified only as "secret" rather than "top secret."
Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested in December 1999 and charged with mishandling classified information after downloading classified files onto his home computer. The FBI has failed to produce any evidence that Lee passed information to Chinese authorities, but prosecutors believe that was the intention. Some of the top-secret computer files have never been found. Lee faces a 59-count indictment and life in prison if convicted.
In April 2000, a laptop containing data on arms proliferation disappeared from a secured conference room at the State Department. The "classified" laptop was not password-protected.
In May 2000, the General Accounting Office revealed that GAO agents in plain clothes used phony identification cards to enter 19 of the government's most secure buildings and two airports. They were allowed access to offices of the CIA, FBI, State Department, Justice Department and the Pentagon. Their briefcases were not searched.
In May 2000, the State Department reported that 15 unclassified laptop computers had disappeared in the past 18 months.
In early May 2000, a section chief at the FBI's national security division said foreign intelligence officers were working in the news media at the State Department.
In December 1999, Russian diplomat Stanislav Borisovich Gusev was forced to leave the United States after being accused of eavesdropping with a listening device only doors from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's office. An internal State Department audit in December 1999 found that visitors, contractors and maintenance workers were being allowed to roam the building unsecured.
In 1998, a man entered the office of the executive secretary to the secretary of state and removed sensitive documents. Neither the man nor the papers have been located.
In 1996, the CIA learned that former director John Deutch had mishandled classified materials by keeping them on as many as eight unsecured home and office computers - which also were used by Deutch's children to surf the Internet. The CIA didn't report the find to the Justice Department until March 1998, and congressional oversight panels were not notified until June 1998.
In April 1999, the Justice Department found that Deutch was sloppy but not criminal in his mishandling of the materials, and the former director's security clearance was revoked in July 1999. The case has since been reopened to ensure fair treatment in light of the Wen Ho Lee case.
If you've been watching the news lately, you know that Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is under fire for the lapses at Los Alamos. Some Republican lawmakers have asked for Richardson's resignation.
Richardson took over at the DOE in fall 1998 with the mission of ensuring security at the national research laboratories. When Wen Ho Lee fell under suspicion last year, Richardson was adamant that the labs needed to change their ways. "Security here has been treated with a low priority, and secretaries in the past have never tackled this because of constituencies, politics," Richardson said. "There's a lack of accountability and responsibility, and we're going to correct that."
This led to Richardson's Security Reform Package in spring 1999, which called for the creation of an Office of Security and Emergency Operations, better oversight, inventory accountability, cybersecurity improvements and a zero-tolerance security policy. In July 1999 Richardson ordered a security "stand-down," requiring all DOE employees to participate in a brief security training and education program. He also reversed his opposition to approve a controversial plan to create an independent oversight panel, leading to the establishment of the Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance. Its first report came out in August 1999. Richardson established a position for a security "czar" to ensure that security programs at the labs are effective.
And in spite of these changes, a few staffers at Los Alamos failed to tell their supervisors about the missing hard drives for weeks. This scandal pushed the Senate last week to confirm Air Force Gen. John Gordon, the current deputy CIA director, to head a new nuclear weapons agency at DOE. Richardson wants Gordon to get to work immediately on a full review of the three nuclear laboratories.
It seems Richardson has become the fall guy for national security breaches not only at DOE but also at all "secured" government agencies. Problems have been cited at the State Department, FBI, CIA and the Pentagon. So the problem reaches far beyond Energy; and it stems from the fact that people disregard rules and regulations.
Some may argue that by claiming a need for accountability, Richardson should be prepared to fall on his sword over the security scandal at Los Alamos. Instead, that sword should be pointed at the levels where security was breached. Those at Los Alamos who failed to report the hard drives missing should be collecting unemployment. Guards at the various Washington agencies who admitted agents with phony identification cards should be dismissed. Former CIA director John Deutch, who should have been setting an example as a pillar of the intelligence community, should be punished severely for his audacity in copying classified files to his unsecured home computers.
You get the idea. Make those responsible for national security breaches account for their behavior, and make them pay for mistakes. Only by setting examples within the ranks can you change behavior. Besides, there are plenty of people who do observe the rules, and they should be allowed to take pride in the fact that they promote and protect national security. When colleagues lose classified hard drives, laptops and documents, it's a little hard for these folks to hold their heads high.
Tracy Moran is the opinion editor for USATODAY.com.
mailto:tmoran@usatoday.com
-------- new york
Indian Point: An Accident Not Waiting to Happen
THE RADIOACTIVIST
Issue 12 Serving Reactor Communities throughout the Northeast
The Indian Point nuclear station has been controversial for well over 30 years now. The debate has been driven by a long record of waste spills, chronic safety problems, and inefficiency. Hundreds of thousands of people would have to be evacuated in the event of a major accident.
Indian Point has been the site of two major emergencies in the last year. including the first ever stage ? alert. The question isn't, "Why should Indian Point close?" but, "Why aren't IP2 and IP3 closed, just like IP1?"
Like everything else, nuclear power plants have a life span, about 25 years. Both plants will eventually close -- the question is when. CAN believes the costs far outweigh the benefits and Indian Point should shut down now. Reactor communities suffer an epidemic of diseases related to low-level radiation exposure from the routine releases of radioactive waste. The risk of an accident puts 8% of the population of the United States at risk.
Safely and ethically cleaning up the Hudson Valley, and providing green energy alternatives could provide employment opportunities for the region. This requires the political will, and the action of the people to make it happen.
Profit over Safety: Systemic Mismanagement at IP
Con Ed and NOPE have postponed maintenance and reduced the work force to make the reactors look more profitable to Entergy and other potential new owners. This has eroded safety margins. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows the nuclear operators get away with so the reactors can be sold. The February 15 accident at IP2 is only the tip of the iceberg.
In early August, 1999, Public Citizen ranked Indian Point as the 8th most accident-prone nuclear station in the US, with 19 cases of design problems that violated safety guidelines in 2-1/2 years. Rather than issue violations, the NRC instituted an "amnesty" policy in 1996, allowing utilities to report violations without suffering fines. Instead of providing an incentive to fix problems, the record at IP shows that nuclear corporations have used this policy as an opportunity to postpone maintenance and cut costs, effectively passing on the legacy and the liability to whoever buys the reactors. Unfortunately for Con Ed, history is catching up with them at IP2 before it has been sold.
IP2 - Unsafe at Any Speed
On August 31, IP2 suffered an emergency due to a series of electrical failures. Faulty electrical equipment prevented an emergency generator from supplying energy to run safety systems. Backup batteries failed before they were supposed to, and operators lost 75% of the alarms in the control room for 3 hours. Due to inadequate training, procedures that hadn't been updated, and poor communication, workers had trouble shutting down the reactor safely and restoring power to backup systems. As a result, control room operators believed the situation was under control, but all the while conditions were worsening. The reactor was shut for weeks and the NRC sent an Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) to investigate.
The AIT report detailed a pattern of systemic mismanagement, inadequate attention to safety, and equipment problems Con Ed had not fixed, which went back several years. In a petition to NRC demanding more extensive repairs and operational improvements before the restart, the Union of Concerned. Scientists analysis revealed that the IP2 emergency repeated 5 of the 6 causes of the Three Mile Island meltdown. The NRC rejected the petition and the demands of local and national groups, saying that ConEd's plans were adequate. Nevertheless, things at IP2 worsened, resulting in the accident on February 15.
Two weeks after Con Ed announced its intent to sell IP2, a tube ruptured in one of the reactor's steam generators. The steam generators pass water cooling the reactor core through thousands of small tubes at high temperature and pressure. The heat passing through the tubes boils water outside to power a turbine. Problems with the Westinghouse generator were noted in the early '80s. They filed suit against the designer, and won. Con Ed bought new generators in 1988 at a reduced price, using rate payer money, but never installed them. While every other utility in the law suit replaced the original generators, Con Ed put the maintenance job off, repeatedly plugging bad tubes instead of replacing the generators.
During the last inspection in 1997, Con Ed used a flawed analysis that failed to identify a number of degraded tubes. NRC regulations required another inspection in 1999, but Con Ed applied for postponement to avoid shutting the reactor down. The NRC concurred, without independently reviewing the 1997 inspection data. The NRC now acknowledges that, given the data , it was possible to predicted a tube rupture around the same time it actually happened. The NRC and Con Ed are both at fault. The rupture required an emergency shutdown to isolate the leak and prevent a worse accident. However, this was no near miss! The leak continued for most of the next 24 hours, with an unmonitored release to the outside.
What's worse, equipment failures and mistakes by operators resulted in additional releases of radiation, and the possibility of a much worse accident. As workers scrambled to stop the leak in the steam generator, they violated safety parameters by cooling the reactor core too quickly, with the potential to damage the reactor vessel. Because of a backup system failure and rising water level in the damaged generator, operators had to choose between venting even more radiation to the outside and risking a waterline break which could have resulted in a meltdown. Operators finally managed to shut IP2 down, but not without significant release of radiation.
A second NRC inspection team investigated the accident and found the same problems as before. Systemic mismanagement runs so deeply at Indian Point that Con Ed has neither the will nor the financial interest to address it. The NRC could save Con Ed from themselves, impact the lives of people living near IP in a positive way and shut this nuke down.
IP3 - Sacrificing Workers to Cut Costs Workers at Indian Point have suffered harassment, intimidation, and excessive contaminations.
Routine Releases Pollute the Hudson River Valley
Routine operation of the IP nukes has released over 114,000 curies of radioactive waste into the air and water of the Hudson River Valley. (For 13 years, New York Power Authority (NOPE) underreported releases from IP3 by using a faulty model, so the actual numbers may be even higher.) This includes over 90,000 curies of Xenon, which decays into strontium, cesium, and other long-lived radioisotopes; and over 20,000 curies of tritium, a dangerous envirotoxin related to many forms of cancer and congenital disease, including Down syndrome. The Deerfield River Valley, home to the first commercial nuke in the US (Yankee Rowe) with the same design as the IP reactors, has suffered a 10-fold increase in Down Syndrome and statistical significance in many cancers, including non-Hodgkins lymphoma, breast cancer, and multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer only known to be caused by ionizing radiation.
Accidental releases of radioactive waste at IP have added much more pollution. In 1977 and again in 1980, IP spilled tens of thousands of gallons of primary coolant in the reactor building, thoroughly polluting the building, potentially leaking into the ground and the Hudson River. IP1, shut down but not decommissioned, has a leak in its spent fuel pool. The pool holds the reactor's used fuel rods, high-level radioactive waste that has to be isolated from the environment. Con Ed has known about the leak since 1990. It leaks on average 150 gallons of contaminated water each day, but Con Ed has no plans to fix it.
Nuclear utilities use jobs and property taxes to manipulate the community into an acceptance of inferior health and safety. Their press releases are treated as news. While only a portion of the affected communities receive the benefits, everyone suffers the risks. Now that the reactors are being sold, the benefits are dwindling away and the dangers increasing. It's time to shut them down.
Elie@highlands.com http://wescan.homestead.com/index.html www.nukebusters.org
---
IP Postcard Campaign
From: elie@highlands.com (Elie)
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 01:24:08 -0500
Here is a simple anti-nuclear action everyone can take. You are invited to send this message and attachments on to any one who might be interested in this topic. Chances are that we won't get off so easily with the next accident...
Marilyn elie@highlands.com
Attached you will find copies of the postcard Mark Jacobs of WESPAC and I created to send to County Executive Spano and to show to other representatives. Hard copies can be requested from WESPAC by calling 914-682-0488. Even better, if you have the technology, you can use the preformatted word attachment to print your own postcards which you can then copy on 110 lb. postcard paper, or just print on normal paper and tap or glue to postcards which are available at any post office.
Distribute them to friends, co-workers, neighbors. Most people welcome a way to take a quick action and express their opinion. There are some important things to remember in getting people to fill these out.
1) People should write their name and address at the bottom of the card after "Sincerely," not in the return address space. It is important to write clearly or to sign the card and then print the name and address.
2) Send the signed postcards back to WESPAC in an envelope, not to Spano. (Please add a stamp to each postcard. WESPAC is operating on a shoestring.) That way we can know how many we have and make copies to show to other legislators. WESPAC's address is as follows:
WESPAC 255 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. White Plains, NY 10601
3) Some people may want to be put on our mailing list for more information in the future. If so, they should put their phone number or e-mail on the post card. Please assure people who just sign their name and put their address only that they will not be contacted in the future.
4) If someone strongly prefers to mail their own card directly to Spano, by all means they should do so. The most important thing is that he hears from as many people as possible.
We have a real opportunity to keep this dangerous plant shut down for good. Let's inundate Spano with our message.
If you prefer to send a letter that is even better. Your own words are best and ideally each letter is different. However, you are welcome to use this expanded verson of the post card in any way you like. Sending it to a local official, your local paper or to members of your local school board would be great! It is critical to ask every candidate who is running for any office where they stand on Indian Point. It is only when enough elected officials hear from many, many people that action is taken.
No nukes,
Marilyn Elie Westchester Citizens Awareness Network
Mark Jacobs Weschester People's Action Coalition
--
The Honorable Andrew J. Spano, County Executive 900 Michaelian Office Building 148 Martine Avenue White Plains, NY 10601
Dear County Executive Spano,
The recent accident at Indian Point 2 demonstrates how ill-prepared we are in the case of a nuclear disaster. I understand that the current plans are tested and evaluated, however, residents who travel our congested roads know the current evacuation plan is not based in reality. Our roads would simply turn into parking lots and no one could escape.
The evacuation of the schools is especially troubling. Would bus drivers actually drive into an emergency zone? Are their enough seats for every child to be evacuated at the same time? Would parents allow their children to be taken to a reception center? If parents who live nearby come to school to pick up their children how will that affect the bus evacuation. Are all teachers aware that they are to accompany their class to a reception center? Are parents aware that siblings may be sent to different reception centers? Are families new to the area promptly alerted to the evacuation plan?
Indian Point 2 is an old plant that is only becoming more embrittled with age. I am concerned for my safety, and the safety of my family. The fact that Con Edison declined to replace old steam generators which are known to be prone to tube ruptures is a clear statement that the utility has chosen to gamble with the public safety. This type of generator has been replaced in every nuculear pwer plant except Indian Point 2. The fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is supportive of the utility, the notification plan and the evacuation plan is a clear indication that this Commission has abdicated its role in protecting public safety.
* I request that you insist that the NRC complete a comprehensive vertical slice inspection of all four of the steam generators at Indian Point 2.
* I request that you initiate a complete county wide reassessment of the evacuation plan to determine if the 8% of the population of this country who live within a 50 mile radius of Indian Point could be safely evacuated in the event of a nuclear emergency.
Sincerely,
--
Followup message, June 2000:
Subject: Re(2): IP Postcard Campaign
From: elie@highlands.com (Elie)
prop1@prop1.org writes: >Is this still going on? What's the status on Indian Point?
We have moved on to a postcard campaign to gov. Pataki. It is the same one CAN uses. We are also asking folks to sign the petition developed by Representative Galef to have the steam generators replaced. The NRC is having an informational meeting on IP2 tomorrow (sunday) . There will be public comment and questions. The NRC report makes it clear that there are MANY major problems. We will be asking them some very pointed questions.
Right now IP2 is still down and IP3 is back on line.
Marilyn
-------- ohio
Centrifuge process
From: "Vina Colley" vcolley@earthlink.net
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 10:43:12 -0700
We started up the centrifuge around 1985 here in Piketon, Ohio and something was wrong with it and they shut in down. I did see a paper that said the lunch room that the worker ate in had high reading of Alpha daughters. The dispatch said that USEC is trying to negotiate its way out of having to pay for $290 million of environmental-compliance upgrades needed at the Ohio valley Electric Crop. which supplies Piketon;s extensive power needs. If the centrifuge didn't work in the 80's why are they now talking about it again?
----
Decision on Piketon plant could be made Wednesday
Tuesday, June 20, 2000
Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau
http://www.dispatch.com/news
WASHINGTON -- Southern Ohio uranium-enrichment workers might find out as early as Wednesday that their days drawing a substantial paycheck are numbered.
And Clinton administration officials already are assessing the national-security impact of the bleak financial picture of USEC -- the privatized federal corporation that runs the country's only enrichment plants in Piketon, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
Everyone from the 2,000 workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant to Vice President Al Gore is waiting to see what USEC does after Wednesday's board of directors meeting. Whether to close a plant -- and which one -- is on the agenda.
USEC sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department yesterday confirming that the company's financial condition has slid to the point that a plant- closure could be imminent.
"As a result of market and economic considerations, the board of directors must contemplate the termination of enrichment operations at one plant,'' William Timbers, USEC president and chief operating officer, wrote.
Timbers also said USEC is "very concerned about our employees, their families and our communities in the event of a plant-closure decision.'' He expressed hope that many workers could be shifted to federally funded plant-cleanup jobs.
However, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson sent a letter of his own yesterday to Timbers, expressing "serious concern'' about USEC's plans. Richardson wanted to know whether USEC plans to close a plant and how it can guarantee to protect the domestic uranium-enrichment industry.
"The domestic nuclear industry and plant employment are important issues as is the nonproliferation benefit'' of a key Russian arms-control deal USEC is charged with carrying out.
Gore said he's keeping tabs on the situation.
"We've been monitoring the USEC activities very closely,'' he said in an interview last week with The Dispatch.
He said he is concerned about both the workers' futures and prospects for the Russian arms-control deal.
Gore's effort to "reinvent'' government counted the $1.9 billion privatization a success -- although the move began before he took office.
Gore, who shrugged off concerns about privatization two years ago, acknowledged that Piketon and Paducah workers already are facing 850 layoffs beginning next month. He said the administration "has requested additional funds from Congress for site cleanup and job opportunities for displaced workers.''
But Piketon workers, many of whom make more than $40,000 a year, "are just kind of numb,'' said Herman Potter, a longtime plant employee and union safety officer. "It's just all uncertainty.''
Count the Clinton administration among the uncertain. Less than two years after the July 1998 privatization of the United States Enrichment Corp., the administration's Enrichment Oversight Commission has concluded in a report that USEC's "weakening financial health'' has "raised important questions concerning security'' of the nation's future supply of enriched uranium.
Throughout the Cold War, the enrichment plants produced weapons- grade uranium for nuclear bombs. Now, they are the country's sole domestic sources of low-enriched uranium used as commercial nuclear power-plant fuel.
USEC promised to run both plants until at least 2005 as a condition of privatization. But its flagging finances and sinking credit rating mean built-in escape clauses can be activated, allowing closure of a plant before then.
The draft report, obtained by The Dispatch from the office of Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, suggests administration officials expect USEC to close a plant and perhaps ask for government assistance in developing new enrichment technology. Among the scenarios painted by the report is that USEC might be bought and liquidated -- leaving the United States dependent on foreign companies for enriched uranium.
Officials also are concerned about USEC's ability to maintain its role as executive agent in charge of a $12 billion, 20-year agreement between Russia and the United States involving the purchase of Russian enriched uranium culled from thousands of nuclear warheads.
"USEC's performance on this nonproliferation effort is critical to national security,'' the enrichment commission report states. "And . . . USEC's continued viability is crucial to maintaining a stable domestic supplier of enrichment services.''
Strickland said a plant-closure announcement would intensify efforts in Congress to renationalize USEC.
Strickland also said he will ask the Treasury Department, which oversaw privatization, to seek a federal-court injunction preventing USEC from pursuing a plant-closure option. Strickland wants a court to decide whether USEC has met the requirements to close a plant.
The enrichment commission report says that regardless of what USEC decides on Wednesday, the administration needs to monitor closely the company's condition.
Meanwhile, some enrichment-industry experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said USEC faces a problematic decision about which plant to shut down.
For instance, it appears USEC will not be able to complete an upgrade of the Paducah plant as quickly as it had hoped. That plant currently can enrich uranium only to about half the purity needed to provide power-plant fuel, while Piketon can perform the entire process.
But at Piketon, USEC is trying to negotiate its way out of having to pay for $290 million of environmental-compliance upgrades needed at the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., which supplies Piketon's extensive power needs.
One potential ray of hope for Piketon's continued survival is that it is the site of an enrichment centrifuge plant started and quickly abandoned by the federal government in the 1980s as a replacement for the higher-cost gaseous diffusion technology. The centrifuge process takes less electricity to produce the enriched uranium.
The process is one of the technologies USEC is considering adopting -- although perhaps with government assistance.
"We are in discussions with the government about reducing the cost of capital to make U.S. centrifuge more economical,'' USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said.
She did not saywhether adopting the centrifuge technology would make it more likely that the Piketon plant would survive.
Dispatch Statehouse Reporter Alan Johnson contributed to this story.
----
Decision on Piketon plant could be made Wednesday
Columbus Dispatch
Tuesday, June 20, 2000
Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau
http://www.dispatch.com:80/news/newsfea00/jun00/321040.html
WASHINGTON -- Southern Ohio uranium-enrichment workers might find out as early as Wednesday that their days drawing a substantial paycheck are numbered.
And Clinton administration officials already are assessing the national-security impact of the bleak financial picture of USEC -- the privatized federal corporation that runs the country's only enrichment plants in Piketon, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.
Everyone from the 2,000 workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant to Vice President Al Gore is waiting to see what USEC does after Wednesday's board of directors meeting. Whether to close a plant -- and which one -- is on the agenda.
USEC sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department yesterday confirming that the company's financial condition has slid to the point that a plant- closure could be imminent.
"As a result of market and economic considerations, the board of directors must contemplate the termination of enrichment operations at one plant,'' William Timbers, USEC president and chief operating officer, wrote.
Timbers also said USEC is "very concerned about our employees, their families and our communities in the event of a plant-closure decision.'' He expressed hope that many workers could be shifted to federally funded plant-cleanup jobs.
However, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson sent a letter of his own yesterday to Timbers, expressing "serious concern'' about USEC's plans. Richardson wanted to know whether USEC plans to close a plant and how it can guarantee to protect the domestic uranium-enrichment industry.
"The domestic nuclear industry and plant employment are important issues as is the nonproliferation benefit'' of a key Russian arms-control deal USEC is charged with carrying out.
Gore said he's keeping tabs on the situation.
"We've been monitoring the USEC activities very closely,'' he said in an interview last week with The Dispatch.
He said he is concerned about both the workers' futures and prospects for the Russian arms-control deal.
Gore's effort to "reinvent'' government counted the $1.9 billion privatization a success -- although the move began before he took office.
Gore, who shrugged off concerns about privatization two years ago, acknowledged that Piketon and Paducah workers already are facing 850 layoffs beginning next month. He said the administration "has requested additional funds from Congress for site cleanup and job opportunities for displaced workers.''
But Piketon workers, many of whom make more than $40,000 a year, "are just kind of numb,'' said Herman Potter, a longtime plant employee and union safety officer. "It's just all uncertainty.''
Count the Clinton administration among the uncertain. Less than two years after the July 1998 privatization of the United States Enrichment Corp., the administration's Enrichment Oversight Commission has concluded in a report that USEC's "weakening financial health'' has "raised important questions concerning security'' of the nation's future supply of enriched uranium.
Throughout the Cold War, the enrichment plants produced weapons- grade uranium for nuclear bombs. Now, they are the country's sole domestic sources of low-enriched uranium used as commercial nuclear power-plant fuel.
USEC promised to run both plants until at least 2005 as a condition of privatization. But its flagging finances and sinking credit rating mean built-in escape clauses can be activated, allowing closure of a plant before then.
The draft report, obtained by The Dispatch from the office of Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, suggests administration officials expect USEC to close a plant and perhaps ask for government assistance in developing new enrichment technology. Among the scenarios painted by the report is that USEC might be bought and liquidated -- leaving the United States dependent on foreign companies for enriched uranium.
Officials also are concerned about USEC's ability to maintain its role as executive agent in charge of a $12 billion, 20-year agreement between Russia and the United States involving the purchase of Russian enriched uranium culled from thousands of nuclear warheads.
"USEC's performance on this nonproliferation effort is critical to national security,'' the enrichment commission report states. "And . . . USEC's continued viability is crucial to maintaining a stable domestic supplier of enrichment services.''
Strickland said a plant-closure announcement would intensify efforts in Congress to renationalize USEC.
Strickland also said he will ask the Treasury Department, which oversaw privatization, to seek a federal-court injunction preventing USEC from pursuing a plant-closure option. Strickland wants a court to decide whether USEC has met the requirements to close a plant.
The enrichment commission report says that regardless of what USEC decides on Wednesday, the administration needs to monitor closely the company's condition.
Meanwhile, some enrichment-industry experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said USEC faces a problematic decision about which plant to shut down.
For instance, it appears USEC will not be able to complete an upgrade of the Paducah plant as quickly as it had hoped. That plant currently can enrich uranium only to about half the purity needed to provide power-plant fuel, while Piketon can perform the entire process.
But at Piketon, USEC is trying to negotiate its way out of having to pay for $290 million of environmental-compliance upgrades needed at the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., which supplies Piketon's extensive power needs.
One potential ray of hope for Piketon's continued survival is that it is the site of an enrichment centrifuge plant started and quickly abandoned by the federal government in the 1980s as a replacement for the higher-cost gaseous diffusion technology. The centrifuge process takes less electricity to produce the enriched uranium.
The process is one of the technologies USEC is considering adopting -- although perhaps with government assistance.
"We are in discussions with the government about reducing the cost of capital to make U.S. centrifuge more economical,'' USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said.
She did not say whether adopting the centrifuge technology would make it more likely that the Piketon plant would survive.
Dispatch Statehouse Reporter Alan Johnson contributed to this story.
-------- us nuc weapons
NEXT NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE FLIGHT TEST SCHEDULED
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" globalnet@mindspring.com
OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (PUBLIC AFFAIRS) WASHINGTON, D.C. 20301
No. 350-00 (703) 695-0192(media)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 20, 2000 (703) 697-5737(public/industry)
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's (BMDO) National Missile Defense (NMD) Joint Program Office announced today it has scheduled the third NMD intercept flight test for July 7, 2000 (July 8 on the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific Ocean). The NMD system now in development is being designed to protect all 50 states from a limited, long-range ballistic missile attack by a rogue state.
This will be the first full system test of the prototype NMD system, using current versions of all the elements representing each part of a future operational system: space-based early warning sensor; ground-based early warning, tracking and discrimination radars; battle management, command, control and communication; in-flight communication system and the interceptor missile and kill vehicle.
"The July test will be our most demanding trial to date," Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen said. "It is an important part of our effort to be in a position to deploy a national missile defense system by 2005. The schedule is demanding, and the technical challenges are daunting, but so far we are on track to meet the deployment target."
Program officials stated that the July 7 flight test date depends on the readiness of all test elements to meet specific requirements for performance, safety and system integration.
A target missile, a modified Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a single warhead target and a single decoy, will be launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. About 20 minutes after the target missile lifts off, an interceptor missile carrying a prototype "kill vehicle" will launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean and be directed toward the target by data from the system's radars. Approximately 10 minutes after launch, the interceptor is scheduled to demonstrate "hit to kill" technology, with the kill vehicle discriminating between the target and a decoy, homing in on the target warhead and colliding directly with the warhead to destroy it. The closing speed of the kill vehicle and the target warhead will be more than 12,000 miles per hour.
This will be the third in a series of increasingly challenging and realistic tests of NMD hit-to-kill technology. The first intercept flight occurred in October 1999 and tested the ability of an interceptor to discriminate between a target and a decoy and then destroy the target; the test was a success. The second intercept test, which took place in January 2000, was more ambitious; it tested all of the elements of the system except the in-flight communications link to the interceptor. All elements worked successfully together in this first attempt to demonstrate the capability of an integrated system. However, the cooling system for the infrared sensor in the kill vehicle failed, resulting in a miss in the last five seconds. The problem with the cooling system, which had worked in the previous test, has been identified and corrected.
The third intercept flight test will be progressively more complex than the previous two. For the first time, the test will integrate the in-flight communications system between the ground and the kill vehicle. The primary purpose of the test is to help NMD program officials assess the state of development of the proposed NMD system in order to provide decision-makers with an analysis of program progress toward demonstrating the overall technical feasibility of the system and of the current schedule. A Department of Defense assessment of technical feasibility to meet a threat-driven 2005 initial capability is due to be made later this year.
In order to deploy a national missile defense system by 2005, the United States would have to build a new radar in Shemya, Alaska. In order to complete the facility in time, a decision to start preparation of a site for that radar would have to be made this year. The Department soon will issue a request for proposals for work at Shemya, subject to a presidential decision to award contracts and begin work. This fall, President Clinton will review the missile threat the nation faces and analyze the technology, cost and international security, including arms control, factors relevant to his decisions concerning a national missile defense system. Other important pre-deployment decisions must be made as progress is reviewed in later years. At least 16 more intercept tests are planned by 2005, with eight intercept tests scheduled to take place prior to 2003, when a decision is scheduled on whether to produce interceptors for operational use. Under the current schedule, the system would achieve initial operational capability in 2005, with the deployment of 20 interceptors. An additional 80 interceptors would be in operation by 2007.
For more information contact Lt. Col. Rick Lehner at (703) 604-3186.
----
Pentagon: Everything is 'go' for next test of U.S. missile defense system Critics: Balloons could confuse sensors
CNN
June 20, 2000 Web posted at: 10:51 p.m. EDT (0251 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/06/20/missile.defense.02/index.html
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon says everything is "go" for next month's crucial test of its multibillion dollar national missile defense program.
Officials announced Tuesday that a test missile interceptor is scheduled to attempt to collide in space with a mock warhead over the central Pacific Ocean on July 7.
During that announcement, the Pentagon also cited a report by a panel of independent experts which concludes the controversial missile defense technology is workable, given enough time and money.
The idea is to use a combination of powerful radars, ground-launched missile interceptors based in Alaska, and high-speed computers to protect all 50 U.S. states against an attack by 30 or fewer long-range missiles.
But some prominent scientists have taken potshots at the Pentagon's plans for a system of 100 interceptor missiles capable of knocking out warheads in space.
Critics argued that simple decoys, such as balloons, could easily confuse and overwhelm the $30-billion-plus system.
"We haven't figured out a way to get sensors that can discriminate between decoys and warheads. The technology doesn't exist yet," said Stephen Young of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers.
Pentagon: Decoys are long-term challenge
The Pentagon fired back at its critics on Tuesday.
"Our opinion, and all of the experts that we have consulted with, and all of the analysis that we have done, is to say that they are wrong," said Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon's technology chief.
The Pentagon cited a progress report from an outside panel of experts that, in 1998, accused the Pentagon of being in a "rush to failure." That same review panel now concludes the program is "on track" to have a limited missile shield in place by the target date of 2005.
But the report did warn that the hurried schedule leaves little room for error.
"This is not an easy problem. We have been addressing it in a very prudent, analytical and responsive way, and nothing we see today says we can't do this," said Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which is running the missile project.
But critics were unimpressed by the Pentagon's briefing Tuesday.
"You're building a system that has such a small chance of success against a simple target, and the enemy is likely to use a complex target -- why even start with the defense at all?" said Young.
The Pentagon acknowledges that decoys are a long-term challenge but says the interceptors will be able to overcome the kind of crude decoys likely to be encountered in the short run.
Time, money and enemy missiles
While the last intercept attempt failed in January, the first try, last October, succeeded.
Although July 7 is the newest target date, the Pentagon might wait until the early hours of July 8 if weather conditions require.
The test originally was planned for May, then was pushed back to late June to correct problems related to the failure of the January attempted intercept. A wiring problem caused the latest delay.
The outcome of the July test will be closely watched on both sides of the intensifying debate over national missile defense.
But Pentagon officials say the test is not a "make or break" event because, even if it fails, there may be time for one more attempt before Defense Secretary William Cohen will give his recommendation on the missile program to President Clinton.
If Clinton approves, he could give the go-ahead this fall to begin constructing the main radar in the Aleutian Islands.
Other factors to be weighed by Clinton are the project's cost, the impact on arms control and an assessment of the threat facing the United States of potential missile attacks by North Korea and other nations.
If the start of construction is delayed beyond 2001, the Defense Department likely will not meet its goal of having the missile defense network ready for use by the end of 2005. By that date, North Korea may have a long-range missile capable of striking U.S. territory, according to U.S. intelligence estimates.
CNN Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/mcintyre.jamie.html
http://www.cnn.com/interactive_legal.html#AP
-------- nuc other
New Generation of Physicists Sustains a Permanent Revolution
New York Times
June 20, 2000
GEORGE JOHNSON
With the stern visage of Leon Trotsky glaring from a huge screen behind the lectern, Dr. Joseph Lykken, a particle physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., launched into his best parody of a coffeehouse radical railing against the counterrevolutionary tendencies of the old guard.
"Among the many crimes of the bourgeois overlords of HEP and their running dog lackeys is to have allowed the misapprehension among students (and the public) that particle physics is almost done," he declared in a manifesto delivered near the end of an international conference on particle physics last August at Stanford.
"HEP," in the jargon, is high-energy physics, the attempt to use powerful particle accelerators to study the tiniest pieces of matter. Dr. Lykken was tired of hearing some of his own colleagues lament that this centuries-long pursuit had run out of intellectual steam and was coming to an end.
"Trotsky was right," Dr. Lykken proclaimed as the image of the dour Bolshevik and advocate of never-ending political upheaval grimaced through his goatee. "In fact high-energy physics is exciting and will remain exciting precisely because it exists in a state of permanent revolution."
After years of impasse, the study of subatomic particles has been undergoing something of a renaissance. A new generation of physicists is stretching its collective mind and coming up with radical ideas about how the universe may be constructed. Some are proposing the existence of extra dimensions. Others are building bridges between islands of thought that once seemed hopelessly remote, rekindling hopes of a unified "theory of everything" that would explain all the particles and forces of nature. Still others are looking for the very building blocks of space and time. And, most surprising of all, the young physicists are finding ways to test indirectly even some of the wildest ideas with experiments.
"This is a very exciting time in high-energy physics," said Dr. Nima Arkani-Hamed, a 28-year-old physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, whose ideas on extra dimensions have helped inspire a rethinking of superstring theory, the attempt to explain matter and energy in terms of tiny vibrating strings. "Three years ago, everyone thought that all possibilities for what one could imagine seeing at high energies had been realized," he said. "This new work shows that you can see completely different bizarre things." The "whole shebang," he said, might be "right around the corner."
Maria Spiropulu, a 30-year-old physicist who is getting her Ph.D. in August, is searching for the hypothetical extra dimensions by poring over data from accelerator experiments at Fermilab. "Whether it is extra dimensions or extra-anything that will lead us to answers about how nature swings, we can only find out really by means of experiment," she said. "If it's not extra dimensions, it will be something as crazy as extra dimensions."
The charge is being led by people in their 20's and early 30's, who chose to enter the field in the thick of the malaise. Ideas have been coming so fast that Dr. Lykken, part of an older generation who got Ph.D.'s back in the early 1980's, is convinced that physics, far from being over, has barely begun. "There is no reason to imagine that we are near the end of this process," he said in his lecture, "barring the collapse of our civilization -- by which I mean, our funding gets cut off."
Though exaggerating for effect and preaching a bit to the choir, he was countering what until recently was a growing sense of gloom.
Particle physics, many wistfully believed, may have reached its pinnacle some 30 years earlier with the soaring piece of architecture called the standard model. According to this theory, the culmination of decades of theorizing and experimentation, matter is made from two kinds of particles: lightweight "leptons," like the electron and neutrino, and quarks. Animating these building blocks, causing them to join together and break apart, are three kinds of forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear reactions. The forces are also made from particles, called quanta. The photon, for example, carries electromagnetism.
Impressive as the standard model has been, surviving one experimental challenge after another, there is much that it has not explained. It does not mention the fourth force, gravity, described by a completely different theory called general relativity. Nor can the standard model say why the hundreds of different particles come in such a bewildering variety of masses, or why there are 4 forces instead of 5, or 27 or 43.
In fact, the standard model seemed, when it was devised, like a rest stop on a march toward something greater. But in the succeeding years, attempts to go beyond it hit one snag after another. The feeling of discouragement reached its peak in 1993, with the death of the superconducting super collider, a powerful accelerator thought necessary to test ideas about the universe. The tunnels that had been partially dug to house the accelerator were abandoned. One company inquired about using them as a mushroom farm.
In its January millennium issue, Wired magazine, a barometer of what is supposed to be technologically trendy, listed quarks among tired old 20th-century ideas that would fade. "Particle physics has been gut-shot ever since the spectacular failure of the superconducting super collider," wrote Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer who compiled the list. "The next generation of physicists is going where the real money is -- computer science. At the end of the 20th century, the only thing more pitifully dated than being an atom splitter is being a rocket scientist."
Before the recent revival, even some of the physicists themselves feared becoming scientific has-beens. "There were a lot of depressed people running around," Dr. Lykken said.
Some had put their hopes in superstring theory, which holds that beneath the level of quarks and leptons are tinier entities called strings. For the idea to work, the superstrings seemed to need the extra wiggle room afforded by an inconceivable space consisting of nine dimensions (10 counting time). But to explain why humans experience only three of the dimensions, theorists were forced to assume that the others must each be curled up too tiny to detect. Superstring theory, some critics retorted, was more like medieval theology than science: reality would be explained through pure reason without the need for experiment. Adding to the frustration, there seemed to be five candidate string theories with no sign of which one explained this universe.
Outside of superstring theory, more traditional approaches to soup up the standard model also failed. Quarks come in three different types whimsically called "colors": red, green and blue. Maybe, some hoped, an even more abstract quality called technicolor would solve the problems. Or perhaps a concept called supersymmetry, which predicted a mirror world of particles with names like squarks and sneutrinos, would plug the gaps in understanding. But either the ideas were wrong and the particles did not exist, or physicists would need far more powerful accelerators -- and brains -- to find them.
Then, in the mid-1990's, the conceptual logjam began to break.
The first wave of excitement came when theorists realized that the five different string theories were just varying perspectives of the same underlying idea. Five blind men had been looking at the same elephant.
Building on this and other ideas, a 29-year-old Argentinian theorist named Juan Maldacena made a conceptual leap in 1997 that many hope will point to a more complete picture of physics. In a paper that caused a sensation among string theorists, he uncovered hints of unexpected links between superstring theory and the standard model. If he is right, then what seemed like two different theoretical worlds, each with a different language, might be reflections of a single underlying truth -- the ultimate theory.
Dr. Maldacena's paper caused so much excitement that theorists at a string theory conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., literally danced for joy, grinding through the steps of the macarena, shouting physics-filled lyrics that climaxed with the refrain, "Ehhh, Maldacena!"
For all the light shed by Dr. Maldacena's conjecture, physicists were still left with the problem of how to prove the existence of the tiny dimensions. In 1998, Dr. Arkani-Hamed, then a 25-year-old Stanford postdoctoral researcher, suggested a possible way out. He and two colleagues -- another young physicist, Dr. Gia Dvali, and a senior Stanford professor, Dr. Savas Dimopoulos -- made the startling suggestion that at least one of the extra dimensions might be large enough to measure. What people had been thinking of as the universe may actually be part of something grander: a three-dimensional island floating inside a fourth dimension no more than a millimeter wide. (This may be somewhat easier to visualize if you think of this universe as a sheet of paper, a two-dimensional "flatland" light-years in length and breadth, floating inside a narrow sliver of space.)
That sounds like a tight fit, but a millimeter is gargantuan compared with the prevailing idea that the hidden dimensions are 10 to the minus 32 millimeters in size -- smaller by a factor of 100 million trillion trillion.
This sprawling higher dimension has gone unnoticed, the three scientists proposed, because the particles that make up our universe are stuck to the surface of the island, barred from entering the surrounding space. But gravitons, the carriers of gravity, can trickle into the netherworld. This suggested ways to search for the extra dimension by looking for hints of gravitational leaks.
The next year, two more theorists, Dr. Lisa Randall and Dr. Raman Sundrum, both in their mid-30's, devised another theory in which the universe is surrounded by a higher dimension, this one infinite in size. Evidence is also being sought in accelerator data.
"These ideas don't have to be realized in nature," Dr. Arkani-Hamed said. "But if they are, this will run counter to the whole idea of things being at an end and physics being reduced to philosophy. I think it's amazing that it took 20 years until the very simple but certainly radical ideas that we propose sort of crashed the standard model and made it possible that traditional particle physics could be string theory in 10 years."
Recently, two 30-year-old Stanford physicists, Dr. Shamit Kachru and Dr. Eva Silverstein have been using large extra dimensions and other ideas to try to explain a glaring cosmology problem. Scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that a strange energy field described by as the cosmological constant is boosting the expansion of the universe, causing it to accelerate. Particle physics, as it is now understood, explains how this kind of inflation can occur, but it predicts that the phenomenon should be far more intense -- that the universe should be growing very rapidly, or rapidly collapsing on itself. "It looks like we are really missing a crucial piece of physics here," Dr. Kachru said.
The remedies they suggest are still very tentative, but Dr. Silverstein says the joy is in the chase. "It can be quite thrilling to pursue an idea one finds exciting, or simply to understand something about physics better," she said.
The reigning idea of the quantum revolution in the early 20th century was that energy was not smooth and continuous but came in discrete packets, the quanta. Another challenge of physics is to see if time and space also have an internal structure. "I always thought that if we could look really close, space and space-time would turn out to be not smooth and geometrical, as in Einstein's theory, but 'bumpy' and made up of building blocks," said Dr. Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara, 29, a researcher at Imperial College in London. She is part of a group trying to show that space and time are built from mathematical units called spin nets.
With a slightly different turn of fate she might not have gone into physics. As an undergraduate she spent a summer at a national physics laboratory in England: "My supervisor there told me many times that I should not go into particle physics, that the era of accelerators and great experiments was all over and it was a dying field," Dr. Markopoulou said.
"In fact, he advised me to do biology, which he thought was the science of the future."
The lesson of all this, Dr. Arkani-Hamed said, is that theorists should never assume they have already thought of every possibility for how the world works. "What it says to me is that you should never underestimate the feebleness of the human imagination," he said. "We're really struggling in the dark."
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For Party Faithful, 'Packages' And Perks Convention Events Seek, Follow Money
Washington Post
Tuesday, June 20, 2000; Page A01
By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-06/20/137l-062000-idx.html
For viewers at home and run-of-the-mill delegates, the highlights of this summer's Republican convention in Philadelphia will include the keynote address, the roll call of the states and the nominee's acceptance speech.
For donors of $5,000 or more to the Senate Republicans, the lineup is a little more lush: a "Convention Cup" golf tournament at Chester Valley Country Club, a "Race to Victory" sports luncheon featuring NASCAR drivers, and a "Salute to the Senate" dinner buffet with big-screen television sets and a choir.
Two weeks later, Democrats will take advantage of their Los Angeles convention site with a dinner at Paramount Studios for those who give $50,000 or raise $100,000. Top donors to one Democratic committee will be presented with autographed basketballs after a buffet at Earvin "Magic" Johnson's house. And Hugh Hefner is scheduled to drop by an invitation-only reception at the Playboy Mansion.
In short, this summer's political conventions will be a Super Bowl of sucking up and shaking down. The parties use conventions to pamper their big contributors, then hit them up for more. At the same time, lobbyists and special interests see the conventions as a chance for quality time with lawmakers, notably at six-figure "tributes" that companies hold for the officials who regulate them.
"Nominating conventions are less and less about nominating, and more and more about networking and partying," said Jim Owen, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association for 200 investor-owned utilities that is co-sponsoring two of the most lavish tributes.
Away-from-the-podium revelry has always been a defining draw of the conventions, but the role of cash in the socializing has escalated along with the cost of campaigns, to the point that party committees began marketing their "convention packages" last fall--months before the nominees were actually selected.
People who give $5,000 or more to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will be driven to an opening celebration at Spago in Beverly Hills, with its amethyst decor and plates of roasted beets with goat cheese and walnuts. AT&T will treat the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's top donors to dinner at the same restaurant two nights later.
Philadelphia 2000, the host committee for the Republican convention, even published a glossy, flat-bound shopping guide for festivity planners--the "Official Venue Book," which provides data on 112 potential party spots, including the Vesper Club, which offers "a cigar bar for unique receptions."
David L. Cohen, co-chairman of Philadelphia 2000, said the extra business for florists and caterers will be a crucial part of bringing in the money that organizers promised when they sold the region on holding the convention.
"Even though like many rational people I find it impossible to defend the current campaign finance system, as long as people are playing within the rules, I want to take advantage of as many of these parties and celebrations as we can," Cohen said.
Some of the most ambitious fetes have an audience of one--one powerful lawmaker. Four trade associations for energy companies--the American Gas Association, the Edison Electric Institute, the National Mining Association and the Nuclear Energy Institute--are holding such events at both conventions.
In Philadelphia, the groups will honor Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who heads the Commerce Committee's energy and power subcommittee, with "America's Energy Texas Barbecue." In Los Angeles, they will hold a reception at the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard as a tribute to Michigan Rep. John D. Dingell, the Commerce Committee's top Democrat.
Corporations are also underwriting dueling GOP events being organized by two fierce competitors to be the next chairman of the House Commerce Committee. Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin of Louisiana plans a Mardi Gras parade, and is trying to work out the logistics of bringing several floats up from New Orleans. More than a dozen sponsors have been lined up, but his office would not release a list.
Another hopeful for the chairmanship, Rep. Michael G. Oxley of Ohio, is planning a corporate-financed salute to the Commerce Committee for his fellow lawmakers. Dick Clark, the former host of "American Bandstand," is to emcee the concert and dance at the Market Street studio where thousands of teenagers--including Oxley's future wife, Pat--once boogied before his cameras.
Oxley's communications director, Peggy A. Peterson, would not release the names of the sponsors but said they will be made public later. "It'll eventually be released, but we're still in the planning stages," she said.
Governors, state parties and congressional leaders' political action committees are hosting their own dinners, golf tournaments and hospitality suites. The party at the Playboy Mansion is being held by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat who is the chair of Hispanic Unity USA, a political action committee. Playboy is contributing part of the cost, and she is seeking additional corporate sponsors.
The five-acre grounds feature flamingos and exotic monkeys, and guests will be able to play a pinball machine with Hefner's recorded voice inviting, "Have some champagne." The soiree, held in a mammoth white tent behind the mansion, can accommodate 500 or so people. About 35,000 people will be in Los Angeles for the convention.
"We already have the buzz that this is the event of the convention," said Richard S. Rosenzweig, executive vice president of Playboy Enterprises Inc.
The party planning began long before the first primary votes were cast. Last October, about 75 lobbyists and other supporters gathered at the Hyatt Regency in Washington for a breakfast held by Senate Democrats, who are promising convention-goers a welcoming reception at the Casa Del Mar hotel in Santa Monica, a luncheon at the Bel Air Hotel, and a "Women on the Road to the Senate" breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
A month later, about 35 lobbyists met at Barolo's, an Italian restaurant on Capitol Hill, for a pre-convention dinner held by House Democrats. The committee's chairman, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, and Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the top Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, delivered a preview of convention-week attractions.
The GOP convention, to be held at Comcast-Spectacor's First Union Center, begins July 31. Democrats convene Aug. 14 at the Staples Center. Each party has national, congressional and senatorial committees, and each has a caste system of "donor groups," with presold perks that vary with the size of the check.
According to the House Democrats' convention prospectus, members of the Chairmen's Council, who pay $5,000 a year, are entitled to one hotel room at Le Merigot Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Majority Council ($50,000) members get two hotel rooms at the Loews in Santa Monica, which has ocean views. Members of Team 2000 ($100,000) get three rooms at the Loews and a private dinner with Kennedy and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House Democratic leader.
Although most convention parties are celebrations of previous gifts, both parties will also be asking for new checks. The Republican National Committee expects to raise at least $3 million (2,000 people, at $1,500 each) at a luncheon celebrating the presidential nomination of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
Party officials contend that the fund-raising is only a sideshow to their real purpose--uniting their parties and basking in a week when their message is disseminated with relatively little cross-fire. Joe Andrew, the Democratic National Committee's national chairman, said the more important purpose is for the party to "define its brand," adding, "After a convention, you don't get a bounce in the polls because of fund-raising."
But Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., who was GOP chairman for six years in the Reagan era and now is president of the American Gaming Association, said the parties rely on extracting money from a captive audience. "You've got most of your die-hard supporters in one place," he said. "It's a very, very critical source of money for both parties."
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UC under fire for nuclear lab management
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is reviewing the contract due to expire in 2002, and lawmakers are pushing for a change
June 20, 2000
By Michael Doyle
SCRIPPS-MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/stories_news/mnukelabs_20000620.htm
WASHINGTON -- The University of California's management of the nation's nuclear weapons labs is being challenged as never before, with Congress and the Clinton administration both examining the school's performance.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says he's scrutinizing the contract under which the university has managed Lawrence Livermore Laboratory since 1952.
The current contract expires in 2002.
"The University of California has done this contract for years," Richardson said Sunday. "They are very strong on science, they are a great institution, but on security ... they haven't done a good job."
Richardson, his own tenure under sharp fire, said "it's possible" UC could lose the energy lab contract. It is also possible, he added, "that we will alter" the university's five-year contract for managing Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico.
Even with recent revelations about alleged security lapses, including top-secret computer hard drives that disappeared at Los Alamos for several weeks, the Energy Department ultimately may be loathe to dump UC.
As early as today, UC President Richard Atkinson is expected to write Richardson detailing the university's security efforts and commitments.
Two review committees established by the university to examine Los Alamos security questions, each headed by Navy rear admirals, have been put in abeyance pending a separate federal investigation.
Still, some lawmakers are pushing for change, and some potential competitors such as the University of Texas are already sniffing around Los Alamos.
"It would be a benefit to our faculty and students, and provide some cutting-edge responsibilities, " Dale Klein, the University of Texas' vice chancellor for special engineering programs, said Monday.
Klein, himself a specialist in radioactive waste disposal, noted that top University of Texas officials visited Energy Department headquarters about five years ago to voice interest in taking over Los Alamos. Ultimately, then-Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary decided not to open up the lab contracts to bidding.
If competition were opened for the next contract renewal, Klein indicated the 150,000-student University of Texas system could combine with other public universities in Texas and New Mexico to make a bid. The Livermore lab, however, would probably not draw a Texas bid.
"Geographically, that would be difficult," Klein said.
UC officials say they aren't interested in competing with other universities for the right to manage the two labs.
University spokesman Rick Malaspina said Monday that such competition "would be contrary to the fundamental reason" the university has entered into the $25 million-a-year, not-for-profit contract.
"It's done as a public service," he said.
He added that, recent embarrassments notwithstanding, Los Alamos "has an excellent security rating" from the Energy Department.
Still, the congressional criticism has not been limited to those Capitol Hill Republicans who see partisan advantage in roughing up Richardson.
"Because of the University of California's total inability to carry out its security obligations under its contract, we request that you terminate the department's contract with the university as soon as possible," Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wrote Richardson late last week.
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Big Ideas on Corporate Accountability and Global Sustainability
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 14:16:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Weissman - rob@essential.org
Sometimes, it is important to think big.
In an era where corporations trample across the globe with minimal restraint, and citizen movements around the world are on their heels, it is natural -- and necessary -- for those trying to check corporate power to think defensively and, when they do reflect on affirmative proposals, incrementally.
But it is important not to be overly constrained by the existing balance of forces. If they are to engage, energize and mobilize large numbers of people, citizen movements need to be animated by positive visions, as well. And while there is a role for utopian outlines in suggesting what society could be, even more important are concrete medium-term proposals that suggest attainable aspirations and purposeful direction.
One would not ordinarily look to the U.S. Congress for such ideas, but two members of the U.S. House of Representatives have stepped forward to offer sweeping proposals to regulate U.S.-based multinational corporations' global operations and to reorient the global economy to the pursuit of sustainable development, not corporate greed.
Representative Cynthia McKinney, D-Georgia, has introduced the Corporate Code of Conduct Act (H.R. 4596, at <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c106:./temp/~c106m53AT4) and Representative Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, has introduced the Global Sustainable Development Resolution (H.Res 479, at <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c106:./temp/~c106mO2BRH).
"It is time we reclaim the global economy for the people who make it work," insists McKinney, "and stop pandering to corporate interests who build their empires on the backs of the innocent."
"Corporate globalization is forcing men and women around the world to run a destructive race to the bottom -- a competition in which workers, communities and entire countries are forced to cut wages, environmental protections, and social programs to attract footloose capital," says Sanders.
To address these ills, McKinney's bill would require all U.S.-based corporations with more than 20 employees abroad to enact a code of conduct. Significantly, the code also would apply to the companies' subsidiaries, subcontractors, affiliates, joint ventures, partners, or licensees -- meaning companies like Nike would not be able to disdain responsibility for the practices of their subcontractors.
The code would establish a floor for corporate behavior, requiring companies in their overseas operations to:
* pay a living wage and ban specific practices, such as mandatory overtime for workers under 18, pregnancy testing and retaliation against whistleblowers;
* respect identified international labor standards (including the right to organize, minimum wage guarantees and protections for occupational safety and health);
* adhere to both international environmental standards and U.S. federal environmental laws and regulations;
* provide public documentation of where they are doing business directly or through subsidiaries or contractors, and extensive information on employment and environmental practices.
The bill would enforce the code of conduct through two mechanisms. First, the U.S. government would give preference to complying corporations in contracts and in export assistance. The bill would include certification and reporting requirements for companies, and would also establish an investigative process, open to citizen initiation, to determine compliance. Second, victims of violations of the bill -- including non-U.S. citizens -- would be empowered to sue U.S. companies in U.S. courts.
The Sanders resolution covers more territory than the McKinney bill. It too includes a corporate code of conduct, to be negotiated internationally, that contains many of the principles included in the McKinney bill. But the heart of the Sanders resolution addresses the institutions regulating international commerce.
One of the key mechanisms for developing its proposals is the creation of U.S. and United Nations Commissions on the Global Economy. The U.S. commission would hold town meetings and open hearings around the country to investigate the effect of globalization on the workers, industry and environment of the United States. The UN panel would both encourage other nations to hold their own series of town meetings and would initiate a global North-South dialogue aiming for negotiation of an international agreement for global sustainable development.
The provisions that the Sanders resolution seeks to have enacted through global negotiation or U.S. mandate include:
* a tax on international currency transactions, designed to stem financial volatility;
* creation of a global investment fund, to heighten demand and meet pressing needs in developing countries;
* cancellation of the debts of the poorest countries, with no structural adjustment conditions (the package of Contract with America-style deregulatiory conditions) attached;
* a remaking of the World Bank, so that it ends support for destructive megaprojects and instead supports development of poor countries' renewable energy capacity and food security;
* a shrinking of the International Monetary Fund; and
* trade agreements that "remove labor and environmental rights and conditions and social protections as factors of competition, such as by international agreements to avoid competitive cuts in the social safety nets" and guarantee "the right of nations and localities to plan for local economic development objectives such as raising employment levels, enhancing employment opportunities for targeted populations, raising wage levels in specific industries, dignified work and healthy communities."
Neither the McKinney bill nor the Sanders resolution will be enacted any time soon. "This Congress is too beholden to corporate money to challenge its corporate masters," explains Sanders.
Only stronger grassroots movements offer the prospect of changing Congress's primary allegiance. The importance of initiatives like McKinney's and Sanders' is that, by offering concrete proposals of steps to a better future, they can help generate and develop those movements.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. Mokhiber and Weissman are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999, http://www.corporatepredators.org)
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Nader Sues Over Financing of the Presidential Debates
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By CAREY GOLDBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/062000wh-nader.html
BOSTON, June 19 -- Complaining that corporate sponsorship is turning presidential debates into beer commercials, Ralph Nader and others filed a suit today against the Federal Election Commission over how the debates are financed.
Mr. Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate, filed the suit in Federal District Court here along with such celebrity plaintiffs as Susan Sarandon and Phil Donahue.
The suit, which the plaintiffs say could affect this fall's presidential debates, says that corporate financing of the debates amounts to an illegal corporate campaign contribution. It asks the court to strike down the Federal Election Commission regulations that allow corporations -- like Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser and a sponsor of this fall's debates -- to contribute millions of dollars to the staging of the debates.
"It's turning our presidential debates into a beer commercial," Mr. Nader said in a telephone interview. "And these companies are really sponsoring an exclusive to our campaign commercial for Bush and Gore."
Since 1907, almost all corporate financing of campaigns has been banned; only a few small exceptions are allowed, like money for general get-out-the-vote efforts. But the Federal Election Commission's rules specify that if presidential debates establish objective criteria for selecting candidates who take part, then they can receive corporate financing without it being considered a campaign contribution.
That is wrong, said John C. Bonifaz, executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute, a nonprofit group specializing in campaign finance litigation.
Giving money to the debates "is, in our view," Mr. Bonifaz said, "a means by which major corporations curry favor with the major parties in a way that completely undermines the very spirit and essence of the prohibition on corporate contributions."
Scott Lewis of the Boston law firm Palmer & Dodge, which is handling the suit together with the National Voting Rights Institute, also used the beer commercial analogy, saying: "The debates this fall look like the Bud Bowl. Federal law requires an overhaul of this process."
Such complaints are not new to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which was set up in 1987. At least two other challenges to the debates are under way this year, said Janet H. Brown, the commission's executive director. A similar challenge has also been raised by the Libertarian Party in New York State.
Ms. Brown declined to comment on the election law that allows the corporate financing. But, she said, "I can say that the commission's donors do not have, and never have had, any input on any substantive decisions that we have made, whether it's regarding the number, schedule and format of the debates, who is invited to debate or any other substantive piece of our work."
The commission has set three criteria this year for who can debate, she said: the candidate must be constitutionally eligible for the presidency (that is, old enough and native born); must be on enough state ballots to have a chance at securing enough votes in the electoral college to win; and must be garnering at least 15 percent in national polls.
Recent national polls show support for Mr. Nader at 4 percent to 6 percent, although a recent survey put his support in California at 10 percent.
Mr. Nader said that if the court ruled against him but he earned enough support to take part in the debate, he would participate. But, he said, "one of the first things I would say is that these debates should never be funded by corporate money in the future."
The debates are scheduled for Boston on Oct. 3, then Winston-Salem, N.C., and St. Louis. Ms. Brown declined to comment on the suit's chances of derailing the debates. She said only, "The plans we have under way are the result of already more than two years' worth of work, and I hope very much they will stay on track."
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Gore Has Slight Money Advantage Over Bush
Yahoo News
Tuesday June 20 4:55 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000620/pl/campaign_money_dc_1.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore (news - web sites) has a slight cash advantage over his Republican rival George W. Bush (news - web sites), according to the latest monthly reports released by both campaigns on Tuesday.
The Gore campaign said in its report to the federal government that it had $8.2 million cash on hand and expected to receive $1.3 million more in federal matching funds, under which the government matches all donations up to $250.
The Bush campaign report to the Federal Election Commission showed $7.1 million cash on hand.
Bush, the Texas governor who declined matching funds and is not bound by state spending limits, has smashed all records by raising more than $90 million for his campaign, almost three times as much as Gore.
Bush raised more than $6 million in May and spent $4.8 million. Vice President Gore raised $588,000 and spent around $1.3 million during the same month.
The money disparity is unlikely to have much effect on the Nov. 7 presidential election because both candidates will receive around $67 million from the federal government for the general election campaign, once they have been formally nominated by their party conventions in August.
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Poll: Gore leads in California by 11 points
USA Today
06/20/00- Updated 09:22 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/e98/e2112.htm
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Vice President Al Gore holds an 11-point lead in California over Texas Gov. George W. Bush in their race for the White House, according to a Field Poll released Tuesday.
Hispanics, who are being aggressively courted by both candidates, prefer Democrat Gore by a margin of more than 2-1.
Gore is holding a lead of 46% to 35% in the nation's most populous state despite frequent appearances here by the Republican Bush and the candidacy of consumer activist Ralph Nader, the Green Party presidential contender who is siphoning support from Gore.
Nader, included in the survey for the first time, attracted support from 7% of those questioned - about half of whom would otherwise be supporting Gore, pollsters said.
Reform Party contender Pat Buchanan drew 2%.
Bush and Gore were locked in a statistical tie last year and early this year, but Gore opened a seven-point edge in February and has steadily widened it.
Much of his support comes from his commanding leads among voters in California's two principal population centers, Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay area.
Bush holds a slim lead in the nine Southern California counties other than Los Angeles, and a 12-point lead in the 39 Northern California counties outside the Bay Area.
While the two candidates are running about even among white voters, Hispanic voters prefer Gore 64% to 25%, and among all other ethnic voters Gore leads by a similar margin.
More of those questioned, 48%, had an unfavorable view of Bush than a favorable one, 41%, while a strong majority, 57%, had a positive view of Gore.
The poll suggests Gore is benefiting from Californians' affection for President Clinton.
The telephone survey of 642 likely voters was conducted from June 9-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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Bush Raises Cash and Discusses Educational Technology
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By FRANK BRUNI
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/062000wh-bush-edu.html
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 19 -- Gov. George W. Bush used part of a Western campaign swing today to discuss what modern technology could do for public education. But there was also a lesson in what that technology -- or at least its wealthy purveyors -- could do for Mr. Bush and fellow Republicans.
At a dinner tonight at the home of John T. Chambers, the chief executive of Cisco Systems, Mr. Bush collected what campaign officials estimated to be more than $3.5 million from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Much of it was "soft money," largely unregulated donations to political parties, and all of it was to be divided between the Republican Party in California and the Republican National Committee.
"I don't relish these big fund-raising events," Mr. Bush said beforehand, as his campaign plane flew west from Austin, Tex. But he was set to grin and bear several of them in a campaign week expected to be among his most lucrative.
Mr. Bush's schedule included a dinner in Los Angeles on Tuesday expected to raise $2 million for the state and national parties and a gathering in Houston on Wednesday night expected to raise at least $4 million for the national committee.
One of Mr. Bush's other purposes as he traveled to Vancouver, Wash., and then to Palo Alto was to promote some new proposals he said were intended to make sure that technology brought into public schools was truly helping students learn.
He was also spending time in two states he would like to make more competitive in the election than political analysts had predicted he could.
Speaking at an elementary school in Vancouver, Mr. Bush said the Clinton administration's efforts to wire classrooms to the Internet -- it is spending about $3 billion annually on the project -- had given local school districts too little flexibility in their use of the funds, creating a system "hidebound by regulations."
He called for loosening those regulations and for another $80 million a year in federal financing so that the Department of Education could study the best ways of using technology in classrooms and make the information available to states and local districts.
"The goal ought not to be how many classrooms are wired," Mr. Bush said. "The goal is how are we effectively teaching children."
Douglas Hattaway, a spokesman for Vice President Al Gore, countered that in addition to the $3 billion, there was roughly $500 million more now in the federal budget over which states and local districts had ample discretion and could be applied to provide teacher training, software purchases and other steps to make best use of schools' Internet access.
"It's been very successful," Mr. Hattaway said, adding that Mr. Gore, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has set a goal for his administration to assure that every American student was computer-literate by the eighth grade.
The campaigns' jousting today also touched on Social Security.
Mr. Bush has proposed allowing workers to invest part of their Social Security payroll taxes in the stock market. Mr. Gore, who has called that idea risky, is expected to announce a plan on Tuesday to help lower- and middle-income Americans invest in the market, augmenting their Social Security benefits.
Mr. Bush today called this a validation of his own approach. "My opponent changes a lot," he said. "At first the stock market was 'roulette' and 'risky.' And now that the heat's on, he changes his position."
Mr. Hattaway said Mr. Bush was missing the point.
"Gore's plan does not involve Social Security funds," Mr. Hattaway said. "He is proposing a new savings plan separate from Social Security that would protect the guaranteed benefit of Social Security while letting people build up a nest egg."
Under the Gore program, the federal government would provide as much as a 3-to-1 match, up to $1,500 a year, for money that lower- and middle-income Americans put into tax-free retirement accounts, he said.
Mr. Bush was also reminded repeatedly today about the scheduled execution on Thursday of Gary Graham, a convicted killer in Texas. Scores of death-penalty protesters stood in front of a hotel here where Mr. Bush held a small fund-raiser before the Chambers dinner, and his remarks at the event were interrupted by two protesters who had gained entry to the banquet room.
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Bush Plugs Education, Mulls Death Penalty Decision
Yahoo News
Tuesday June 20 3:41 PM ET
By Patricia Wilson
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000620/pl/campaign_bush_dc_18.html
CUPERTINO, Calif. (Reuters) - George W. Bush (news - web sites) pushed a $2.3 billion plan to boost math and science scores on Tuesdayin in the vote-rich state of California, but the use of the death penalty in his home state of Texas stalked the Republican's presidential campaign.
Lamenting the fact that American children lagged far behind their counterparts in many other countries, Bush proposed a $1 billion fund to pair states with universities in an effort to strengthen math and science education, and a $1,000 increase in individual Pell Grants to encourage high school students to take advanced college preparation courses in both subjects.
``This is America,'' he told an education forum at De Anza College in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. ``There's no reason for us to be next to last in the world in math. There's no reason for us to be last in physics.''
Bush also said if he won the White House on Nov. 7 he would offer $345 million in added incentives for math and science majors to teach in schools with many low-income students.
Campaign aides said the Texas governor's program ``to prepare America's children for their future in the new economy'' would cost a total of $2.3 billion over five years and fell within his current federal budget estimates.
``We're the greatest country in the world,'' declared Bush. ''We ought to be first and that ought to be the goal.''
Shadowed By Death Penalty
As Bush stumped and raised cash for the Republican Party across California, which has 54 of the 270 electoral votes a candidate needs to win the presidency, his campaign has been shadowed by demonstrations against the death penalty and questions about the scheduled execution of a man whose conviction is based on the testimony of a single eye witness.
Shouting protesters interrupted a $1,000-a-head reception in Palo Alto late on Monday night, one stop in a day when Bush collected $4 million from donors in Silicon Valley. Guards quickly hustled them out and Bush, who did not seem surprised by the disruption, told guests: ``The great thing about America is that people are able to express themselves.''
Scores of chanting demonstrators also gathered outside his hotel in Palo Alto demanding he postpone the execution of Gary Graham, who is scheduled to die on Thursday unless the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles grants his request for clemency or Bush issues a 30-day reprieve.
Convicted of the 1981 robbery and shooting of a man outside a Houston grocery store, Graham, 38, was sentenced to die largely on the testimony of one woman who picked him out of a police lineup.
Bush avoided answering questions about Graham at the education forum on Tuesday, admonishing a reporter, ``No, not now.'' A tentatively scheduled news conference also was postponed, although Bush has addressed the issue at length on his campaign plane and acknowledged that he was ``spending a lot of time on the case.''
``Sensitive'' On The Subject
Saying he thought Americans viewed him ``as sensitive on the subject,'' Bush defended his support of capital punishment as a deterrent and declared with confidence that the record 134 people executed in Texas since he took office in 1995 were guilty and accorded their full rights under the law.
``I'm upholding the law and I'm standing on principle,'' he told reporters. ``I harbor no ill will. I understand this is a very emotional issue for people. It's an issue where fine people can disagree with me and I understand that.''
Bush, who this month granted the first 30-day reprieve of his 5 1/2 years as governor, said the Graham case would be treated on its own merits.
Texas Attorney General John Cornyn pointed out Graham had at least 20 appeals, his claims had been heard and rejected by at least 33 different judges and said in a written statement: ''Gary Graham is not the innocent victim in this case, he is the convicted murderer.
Bush, who returns to Austin late Wednesday after a campaign swing through the West that included California where a poll on Tuesday showed him trailing Democratic rival Al Gore (news - web sites) by 11 points, was likely to decide on Graham's fate late Thursday.
A majority of Americans, including President Clinton and Bush's Democratic rival, Vice President Al Gore, support the death penalty, but the national debate on capital punishment heated up when the pro-death penalty governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on executions.
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Bush fighting for Golden State
USA Today
06/20/00- Updated 11:56 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/e98/e2111.htm
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - See George W. Bush shake hands with Hispanics in the streets of Santa Ana. Hear Bush describe himself as a ''new kind of Republican'' who rejects using immigration as a divisive issue. Watch Bush run hard to catch Al Gore in a state that leans heavily Democratic.
The Republican presidential candidate is going back to basics in his bid to win California, spending time walking the streets of Democratic strongholds and focusing on a key group, the 13% of voters who are Hispanic.
Bush returned to the state Monday on a three-day swing focused on education. Like Gore, he will speak at the National Council of La Raza conference in San Diego next month.
Two of his major targets: Hispanics alienated by Republican-sponsored immigration laws and conservative voters in southern California.
''I want to energize these people to come back,'' Bush said aboard his campaign plane Monday. ''If I do, I think I can win.''
Bush's state chairman, Gerry Parsky, is pushing frequent visits, appeals to Hispanics and women and unifying Republicans as the only way to capture the nation's biggest electoral prize.
This latest swing marks Bush's ninth appearance since winning the state's primary in March, and he has said he will not cede the state to his opponent the way his father did in 1992. Gore also makes frequent visits to California.
''I was told when we started that the only way to win California is to raise money and buy media'' ads, Parsky said. ''We said that hasn't worked in the past.''
Indeed, the Republican Party spent some $4 million on ads to help nominee Bob Dole in California in 1996, yet President Clinton carried 51% of the vote to Dole's 38.
The political landscape got even darker for the GOP two years later, when California voters swept Republicans from every statewide office. Hispanic voters deserted the GOP for its support of Proposition 187 in 1994.
The proposal would have cut off education, health care and other services for most illegal immigrants. Federal courts blocked the law, and last year it was scuttled in a mediation process overseen by Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
Democrats say Republicans remain mortally wounded in the state and that Gore's double-digit lead in polls during the spring will only widen as voters are reminded of the candidates' stances on social issues like immigration, abortion and gun control.
A Field Poll released Tuesday showed Gore ahead of Bush, 46% to 35%, among likely voters. Gore led 51% to 41% in the same poll in late February. Among Hispanic voters, Gore is preferred 64% to 25%, the polls shows.
But Bush could benefit from the Green Party campaign of Ralph Nader, who has been attacking Gore on the environment and drew 7% support in the poll - about half of which comes from people who would otherwise be voting for Gore, the survey suggests.
Former Republican Pat Buchanan, seeking the Reform Party nomination, poses no comparable threat to Bush in the state, drawing 2% support in the Field survey.
The telephone survey of 642 likely voters, conducted June 9-18, has an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
With Bush painting himself as a Republican who would lead a more inclusive party and who opposes the ''spirit'' of Proposition 187, the election will serve as a test of whether the ghosts of that immigration measure have been exorcised.
Democrats say they won't let that happen. ''When he was governor, Bush never said a word about Prop 187,'' said Bob Mulholland, spokesman for the California Democratic Party. ''If he gets up there in September and says he's against it, that TV ad's going right up on the air.''
Both sides will spend millions on California's pricey air waves. But Parsky says the Texas governor will need a more personal approach to hold onto Democrats who voted for Republican John McCain in the primaries.
Later this summer, Bush will open a campaign office east of Los Angeles dedicated solely to mobilizing Hispanic voters in hopes of winning at least 30% of their vote.
He'll highlight his interest in seeking common ground on the abortion issue and his refusal to impose an anti-abortion litmus test on any vice presidential pick or prospective judge.
And he'll keep battling for the dollars and loyalties of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. So far, Bush is trouncing Gore in the race to collect computer-industry donations, receiving about $815,000 from industry workers to Gore's $363,000, according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington-based group that studies money and campaigns.
Parsky and other Bush officials say the campaign's internal polls show Gore's lead among registered voters is weak and give Bush the edge among likely voters.
But Democrats cite their own polls showing good news for Gore: He isn't dragged down by Clinton in California and even a majority of Republicans favor legal abortion.
And California Hispanics are still fuming over Proposition 187, says a political adviser to Davis.
''No matter how many sombreros he puts on, no matter how many 'Oles!' he says, the Latino vote in California is just not available to any Republican candidate for president,'' said Garry South, who ran Davis' 1998 campaign against GOP candidate Dan Lungren.
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Republican Platform Session Focuses on the Moderate Vote
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By ROBIN TONER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/062000wh-gop-platform.html
DAYTON, Ohio, June 19 -- Aiming directly at the voters in the center, Republicans turned their first official platform meeting today into a showcase for the party's ideas on education, Medicare and Social Security.
Gov. Tommy G. Thompson of Wisconsin, the platform committee chairman, asserted that the panel would produce a "very fresh, very visionary" platform that would seal the Republicans' reputation as the reform-minded party of the future.
But away from the harmony on stage, the party's ideological fault lines on abortion were apparent. Anti-abortion advocates held a news conference outside the meeting hall in which they called on party leaders to live up to their promises and retain a strong anti-abortion plank; several of the advocates said they were confident the party would do so.
The anti-abortion advocates also urged Gov. George W. Bush, the expected nominee, to name a running mate who opposed abortion.
"If Governor Bush selects a pro-choice running mate, it will be a very serious strategic mistake," said Peggy Lehner, president of Dayton Right to Life.
Mr. Thompson and the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Jim Nicholson, reiterated to reporters that, in accord with Mr. Bush's wishes, they did not expect the platform's language on abortion to change. The platform calls for an end to legalized abortion and the appointment of judges who respect "the sanctity of innocent human life." Republicans who support abortion rights are struggling, once again, to change that language.
Mr. Nicholson, citing Mr. Bush's deep popularity in the party and his ability to unify Republicans, said he did not expect a fight over abortion on the floor of the convention.
Aside from that, one of the major themes of the day was the need for change and fresh ideas. Mr. Thompson said he expected extensive revisions to the platform to deal with rapidly changing issues -- including electronic commerce, biotechnology and women's health -- and to reflect the focus of the Bush campaign on issues like education.
Mr. Thompson noted that he did not expect the party to call for the abolition of the Department of Education, one of several federal agencies that the 1996 Republican platform, a deeply conservative document, wanted to dismantle.
Today's meeting, held in a state that generally plays a pivotal role in presidential elections, was a careful selection of panel discussions that highlighted parents and principals, health care experts and pension analysts and citizens from Dayton itself.
Republican officials heard from a Milwaukee mother, Pilar Gomez, who talked of her "empowering" experiences with that city's "Parental Choice Program," which enabled her to use publicly financed vouchers to send her children to private school.
"Quality education -- that should be a right, not a privilege," Ms. Gomez said.
Republicans also heard from officials in Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania concerning their efforts to inject more flexibility and accountability into public schools.
"Our party rejects the notion that the creator placed talent in children based on their skin color or their wealth," said Lisa Graham Keegan, superintendent of public instruction in Arizona.
The Republicans also focused on the need to "reform" Social Security and Medicare. Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, a co-chairman of the platform committee, argued that Medicare was in profound need of modernization, in part because of the inadequacy of its benefit package, which lacks prescription drug coverage.
But Mr. Frist argued that adding that benefit must be part of an "overall reform of the system," and the creation of a new health care marketplace to allow private plans to compete with traditional Medicare for the elderly.
About 100 people attended today's event, held at Sinclair Community College in downtown Dayton, and several of the most attentive were from various interest groups.
Representatives of Republicans for Choice and the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition were on hand, although Republican leaders had earlier declared that abortion would not be the subject of any public hearings leading up to the convention.
In a conciliatory gesture, an aide to Governor Thompson said tonight that at the next platform forum, to be held on Friday in Billings, Mont., one local representative from each side of the abortion issue would be scheduled to speak.
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GOP maneuvering to head off abortion fight
USA Today
06/19/00- Updated 09:19 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/e98/e2109.htm
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - The Republican Party platform chairman said Monday that he's doing his best in private meetings to head off an abortion fight at the party's convention but can't rule one out.
While expressing doubt that the party's uncompromising position against abortion will be amended, Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said he wants a "fresh" platform like none other before it.
"I'm going to do everything I possibly can to bring as many disparate groups in and broaden the base of the Republican Party," he said outside a meeting held to gather advice from policy experts and advocates.
Thompson has been meeting with Republicans on both sides of the abortion issue, as well as others wanting a say in the platform. He says he will continue to do so up until the Republican National Convention July 31-Aug. 3 in Philadelphia.
"We're hoping to mitigate any strong opposition," he said. "It's just not going to be that the abortion issue is going to define the Republican Party."
Nominee-in-waiting George W. Bush, governor of Texas, has said he would not seek changes in the plank that calls for a no-exceptions ban on abortion, despite his belief that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape and incest and to save the life of the woman.
"I doubt very much if it's going to be changed," Thompson said. Abortion-rights Republicans have been hoping at least for a platform that welcomes their point of view, a goal they failed to achieve in 1996.
Asked whether the party can avoid an abortion fight in Philadelphia, Thompson said, "I'm not willing to make that statement at this point."
About 30 anti-abortion protesters demonstrated peacefully outside the platform hearings. They urged the party to leave its abortion plank alone. "Keep the Party Pro-Life," one sign said.
A smaller group of abortion-rights supporters also gathered outside. One of their signs said, "Don't Silence Pro-Choice Americans."
Thompson said the platform will address other issues that he contends are more important to women than abortion policy, such as education, family values and health matters.
Generally, he said, "I would be very shocked if this is a platform like previous platforms. I want this one to be very fresh, very visionary, very exciting and very inclusive."
Specifically, he said:
The plank of the 1996 platform that called for abolishing the Education Department will be removed, an explicit goal of Bush. The position on immigration will be changed. The existing platform opposes taxpayer support of legal and illegal immigrants and says U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants should not be granted automatic American citizenship. Bush takes a more welcoming view of legal immigrants. The platform will contain a new plank on women's health. Although the platform will embrace the goal of letting parents choose from among schools, "I don't know if it'll ever go as far as I think it should go" on that point.
Bush proposes limited circumstances under which parents could use federal education money to pay for private school. Thompson has pioneered a more comprehensive choice program in Wisconsin.
Inside a lightly attended hearing at a Dayton community college, a GOP panel heard advice from like-minded experts, activists and officials on how to improve education, Social Security and Medicare.
The participants, here by invitation only, put forward positions that mostly dovetailed with those of Bush, who has placed education reforms and the partial privatization of Social Security at the fore of his campaign.
People needed tickets, dispensed free by party officials, to attend; about 70 did. Another one-day policy meeting will be held Friday in Billings, Mont., again avoiding topics that risk division in the party.
The GOP also is setting up a way for people to comment on the platform online, similar to a system put in place by the Democratic Party.
Some religious conservatives, while pleased with Bush's stance on the abortion plank, are worried he might pick a running mate who supports abortion rights.
Thompson, although an opponent of abortion rights, said Bush is right to avoid ruling someone out based on that issue. "I don't think there should be a litmus test, and he certainly doesn't, either."
The party's 1996 nominee, Bob Dole, wanted the platform to state the GOP's respect for or tolerance of Republicans who dissent from the party orthodoxy on abortion, but religious conservatives beat back that effort. Tolerance language was relegated to an appendix of "minority views."
An introductory list of party principles acknowledged dissent without embracing the dissenters. It said that, "Recognizing within our own ranks different approaches toward our common goal, we reaffirm respect for the sanctity of human life."
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Gore Introduces Retirement Plan
Yahoo News
Tuesday June 20 7:47 PM ET
By Deborah Zabarenko
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000620/pl/campaign_gore_dc_24.html
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore (news - web sites), traveling to a key battleground state, formally unveiled on Tuesday his $200 billion plan to encourage poor and middle-class Americans to invest in the stock market.
Speaking to several hundred supporters at Lexington's Heritage Hall, the vice president described a plan he called ''Retirement Savings Plus,'' which he said differed from a similar sounding plan offered by his Republican rival, George W. Bush (news - web sites).
``My plan for private savings and investment is very different from what others have proposed in this election,'' Gore said. ``It doesn't come at the expense of Social Security. It comes in addition to Social Security.''
He also took a veiled swipe at Bush's father, former President George Bush, who left the White House in 1993.
Saying the American people were responsible for the current economic boom, Gore told the crowd, ``Let's remember: the American people have always been hardworking. They were certainly working hard in 1991.''
``But they were hampered by bad choices at the top and worn down by looking at a burdened future,'' he added. ``I will not be dragged back to the days when people worked just as hard -- with far less to show for it.''
Cross-Country Campaign Swing
It was the first stop on a five-day trek through Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, California and Florida, the second week of his so-called Prosperity and Progress Tour and the first full week with his new campaign manager, Commerce Secretary William Daley.
Gore's retirement savings plan would offer tax relief for couples and individuals who make less than $100,000 a year. But those couples who make under $30,000 or individuals who make under $15,000 would get the biggest benefit: $3 for each dollar invested, up to $2,000 a year, to produce a retirement nest egg of $200,000 over 35 years, according to the Gore campaign.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has spent weeks criticizing Bush for suggesting workers could invest Social Security money in the stock market.
Gore's plan would leave the basic structure of Social Security untouched, campaign aides say, and would cost about $200 billion over 10 years.
In May, Bush, the governor of Texas and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, proposed partially privatizing Social Security by letting individuals invest part of their payroll taxes in the stock market. He has not said what portion they could divert, but his aides have used a hypothetical figure of one-sixth of the amount now paid in payroll taxes.
Social Security uses most of the money it collects from payroll taxes to pay benefits immediately to current retirees and survivors. Return To Washington
Right after the speech, Gore returned to Washington to be on hand to break a possible tie vote in the Senate, which was considering hate crimes legislation. But even before his plane touched down, enough Republicans signaled they would let the bill pass without him.
Gore's return to the capital was at least the third time this year he had interrupted his schedule when a close Senate vote loomed -- the first on an abortion rights vote and then on the confirmation of a federal judge.
Last year, he cast the dramatic tie-breaking vote on a crucial measure to require background checks for those who buy guns at gun shows, one month after the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado.
With Republicans loath to give the candidate credit for another close victory, sometimes it has been enough just for the vice president to appear on Capitol Hill.
At the White House on Tuesday, one waggish aide said, ``If Gore's limo shows up, we win by five votes.''
The optimism was well-placed: both a bipartisan bill and a Republican-sponsored bill on the subject passed.
The bipartisan bill would strengthen existing federal hate crime protection for cases involving race, religion and national origin, and add categories, including sexual orientation, gender and disability.
An alternative bill, by Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (news - web sites), a Utah Republican, would give grants to local prosecutors investigating hate crimes but would not broaden federal protections to include gay people.
The House of Representatives has not yet acted on either.
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Gore campaign mired in many missteps
Washington Times
June 20, 2000
By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000620222843.htm
Vice President Al Gore is having trouble staying "on message" because his daily pronouncements on taxes, education and Social Security are increasingly overshadowed by turmoil, missteps and scandals in the Gore camp.
Less than halfway through his three-week "prosperity tour," the vice president finds himself taking more questions about his staff shake-up than the economy's record expansion.
"Gore's biggest problem is that he hasn't been able to punch through on any of his major policy initiatives, which are actually quite good," said Democratic strategist Jonathan Trichter. "The press will continue to write process stories about a campaign in disarray until he finds an issue on which he can punch through and begin to connect with the public."
So far this month, Mr. Gore's talking points have been drowned out by a steady stream of unflattering news coverage:
• Commerce Secretary William M. Daley's replacement of Tony Coelho as campaign chairman last week dominated the political headlines for days, obliterating Mr. Gore's attempt to take at least some credit for the booming economy.
• The vice president was accused of being a "slumlord" by a tenant who rents a house from him in Carthage, Tenn. While the story was downplayed by much of the media, it provided fodder for late-night TV hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman and for the Republican National Committee.
• The content of Mr. Gore's speech on health care last week was utterly lost in the flap created when a Catholic bishop barred the vice president from delivering the speech in a hospital run by nuns. The bishop denounced the vice president for supporting the "unspeakable crime" of abortion.
• The White House announced that Mr. Gore's e-mail on Monica Lewinsky and other scandals had been lost, along with backups of the subpoenaed messages. The computer-savvy vice president, who once claimed to have invented the Internet, explained the disappearance by insisting he is not an expert on computers.
• Mr. Gore's name surfaced prominently in newly released memos by FBI and Justice Department officials who tried in vain to persuade Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate campaign fund-raising abuses.
"This guy is snake-bit," muttered an exasperated Gore supporter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I'll tell you what finally did it for me: Just when he was trying to be softer and more positive, what happens? He's a slumlord. Talk about a bad break. The tenant's toilet overflows."
Publicly, Gore backers insist the vice president will become a good candidate at the Democratic National Convention in August and pull ahead of Mr. Bush in September and October. They emphasize that most voters aren't yet paying much attention to the campaign.
But privately, the vice president's supporters worry increasingly that the months of stories about Mr. Gore's flagging campaign and constant reinventions are creating a template of public perception that is hardening as the contest grinds forward.
They are beginning to fret that if Mr. Gore doesn't find his footing soon, the die will be cast by the time the convention rolls around.
"A lot of us are worried about the new themes or 'new Gores' that are announced so often, because they emphasize Gore's weakness versus Bush," the Gore backer said. "He doesn't seem to have a consistent thread and coherency to his campaign. And George Bush does."
Even Mr. Gore's list of possible running mates is causing him headaches. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is under intense criticism for failing to rein in gasoline prices and stem security lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
While political operatives on both sides of the aisle agree that Mr. Richardson has all but ruined his chances to become vice president, Mr. Gore is reluctant to appear disloyal by publicly scratching the energy secretary from his short list.
Thus, the Gore camp found itself in the awkward position over the weekend of insisting that the embattled Mr. Richardson is still very much in the running to become Mr. Gore's political partner.
"These are the kinds of things that happen when your campaign is not going well - I mean, it feeds on itself," said Republican strategist Rich Galen, publisher of the political cyber-column, Mullings.com . "A campaign that can't get its bearings just gets rocked from side to side.
"It's like a tennis match when you get your opponent running from cross-court to cross-court," he said. "All they can do is hit the ball back to the center. Meanwhile, you're running them ragged from the left out-of-bounds line to the right."
To make matters worse, attempts by Gore surrogates to knock Mr. Bush "off message" have been largely unsuccessful.
For example, liberals tried to make the death penalty a campaign issue against Mr. Bush last week, but the vice president refused to join the attacks, which risked having him seem soft on crime. With two-thirds of Americans supporting capital punishment, Democrats concluded the issue might backfire and help Mr. Bush.
Mr. Gore himself is having enormous difficulty finding issues that allow him to gain ground on his opponent. After lambasting Mr. Bush's tax-cut plan as too big, the vice president last week doubled his own tax-cut plan.
Mr. Gore's formal announcement today of a new retirement program to supplement Social Security already has been cast by newspapers such as the New York Times as merely a response to Mr. Bush's popular call for partial privatization of Social Security.
But former White House special counsel Lanny Davis, a Gore loyalist, predicted the economy will be the issue with which Mr. Gore connects with voters. "The overall message that Gore is stressing - and I believe it's the only message that will determine the election - is: How happy are you with the Gore policies of the last eight years?" Mr. Davis said. "If the answer is, 'I'm happy and I want them to continue,' he will win. If the answer is, 'I'm not happy and I want change,' he will lose."
Mr. Galen said the vice president's problems are fixable.
"But for now, it's like there's some kind of miasma hanging over the campaign," he added. "It's like 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.' He just can't seem to find his way out."
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Clinton Proposes Restoring Medicare Payments
Yahoo News
Tuesday June 20 7:44 PM ET
By Randall Mikkelsen
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000620/pl/clinton_medicare_dc_6.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton on Tuesday proposed restoring $40 billion in spending for Medicare payments over the next 10 years, saying a stronger economy and improved Medicare finances allowed for greater generosity.
``We have to face the challenge of making sure we pay the Medicare providers enough so they can give our seniors the high-quality care they deserve,'' Clinton said at the White House.
The action came in response to complaints from hospitals and other health care providers that cuts to the payments they receive for taking care of Medicare patients -- imposed as part of a 1997 budget-balancing deal and partially restored last year -- remained too deep.
``Payments are too low in important areas, and Medicare patients are at risk,'' Clinton said.
``This will help by increasing Medicare payments to hospitals, teaching facilities, nursing homes and the home health care programs so that Medicare patients can get what they need,'' he said.
The president said it was possible to increase reimbursement spending and give Medicare patients an optional prescription drug insurance plan, while ensuring the financial solvency of the old-age health insurance plan beyond 2030.
``Because of our remarkable prosperity, I believe we can do both, especially given the present strength of the Medicare trust fund,'' he said. A March report by Medicare trustees said stronger-than-expected economic growth had added eight years to the previously projected life span of Medicare, extending its solvency to 2023.
The president has proposed dedicating $432 billion of expected budget surpluses over the next 10 years to shoring up Medicare finances -- extending the solvency to 2030 -- and to providing a prescription drug benefit.
Clinton also threw his support behind a presidential campaign proposal of Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) to remove Medicare from the federal budget books.
Such a move would ensure that anticipated surpluses generated by the system go to bolstering the system's long-term finances and retiring the federal debt rather than general government finances or a tax break.
If adopted, such a plan would for the first time put the Medicare surplus off-budget, like the Social Security surplus, assuring it ``can no longer be diverted for other purposes,'' Clinton said.
The president's plan to restore reimbursement spending, which must be approved by Congress, would include $19 billion over 10 years in specific payment increases. It would set aside a further $21 billion for spending in areas that have yet to be determined.
The proposal envisions $8 billion in increased spending for hospitals and $1 billion for nursing homes through allowing full compensation for anticipated higher costs. The 1997 balanced budget deal provided for reduced compensation for cost increases.
Spending for home health care would be restored by $3 billion over 10 years, part of which would be achieved by delaying for one year a 15 percent cut planned in reimbursements in 2002.
Sen. Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican and assistant majority leader of the Senate, said the Republican-led Congress would probably act on a restoration of Medicare reimbursements, but that he had not seen details of Clinton's plan.
---
Catholic Health Association Welcomes President Clinton's Proposal to Restore Funding for Medicare and Medicaid
Yahoo News
Tuesday June 20, 7:03 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Catholic Health Association of the United States
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000620/dc_cha_med.html
WASHINGTON, June 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) commends President Clinton on his ``restoration initiative'' for Medicare and Medicaid. The President's proposal is an important step in the right direction.
As a result of cuts dictated by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA), the nation's hospitals and other healthcare providers are being forced to make tough choices that are frequently deleterious to the best interests of both patients and providers.
``The President's initiative acknowledges that inadequate Medicare and Medicaid payments jeopardize access to high-quality care for seniors and vital services to their communities,'' stated Rev. Michael D. Place, STD, CHA's president and chief executive officer. ``The mission of caring that drives so many healthcare providers across the country, including 2,000 Catholic hospitals, nursing facilities, and other ministries, simply cannot be compromised in an effort to squeeze Medicare funds.''
In Congress there is already strong bipartisan support for the BBA relief measures similar to those put forward by the President. ``CHA is particularly supportive of proposals that give hospitals a full inpatient market basket update and those that restore Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals serving a disproportionate share of low-income and uninsured individuals,'' added Maureen H. McCullough, Esq., CHA's vice president for Public Policy and Advocacy. ``It is now time for lawmakers to join President Clinton and enact substantial BBA relief.''
CHA agrees fully with the President's assessment that achieving BBA relief does not conflict with measures to provide for prescription drug coverage for all Medicare beneficiaries. That is also a critical imperative. In fact, seniors need and deserve a healthcare system that is strong and meets their needs.
CHA also calls on the President and Congress to act favorably on legislation this year to help reduce the number of individuals without health insurance, now at an unprecedented level of more than 44 million. Pending bills in the House and Senate would expand coverage to targeted vulnerable populations, such as low-income children, pregnant women, and legal immigrants.
The St. Louis-based Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) is the national leadership organization representing the Catholic health ministry. CHA's more than 2,000 members form the nation's largest group of not-for-profit healthcare sponsors, systems, facilities, health plans, and related organizations. For more information, visit the CHA Web site at www.chausa.org.
http://www.chausa.org
SOURCE: Catholic Health Association of the United States
---
Playing the sax re-energizes me, Clinton says
Yahoo News
Friday June 16 5:58 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000616/en/music-clinton_1.html
NEW YORK (Reuters) - He knows he doesn't have Billy Joel's voice and admits that the first notes out of his saxophone were not pretty. But President Clinton says playing music helps re-energize him -- even if he has to do it in a little room on the top floor of the White House.
Sharing the stage Friday with pop music great Joel, Clinton told a group of schoolchildren and budding musicians that in between his presidential duties he still finds time to play the sax.
``A couple of years ago, Hillary made a music room for me in a little room on the top floor of the White House that we weren't using, that was way at the end of a hall, and it had two doors, so no one could hear me when I was playing,'' he said.
Clinton, who was at an East Harlem school to lend his support to a ``Save the Music'' program for music education in schools, said he goes to the room often.
``I just go in there and I play. And no matter what else is going on, I can go in and play for 15 or 20 minutes and I'm full of energy and ready to start again,'' he said.
And he gave some words of encouragement to those musicians who still are hitting more sour notes than they would like.
``I started playing an instrument when I was nine, I started singing in the school chorus when I was younger than that. And then when aging took my voice from three octaves to about three notes ... I just had to concentrate more on my saxophone,'' he said.
``The first music I made was not very nice to hear. But my mother tolerated it and I just kept on working at it.''
Clinton said he might not have been president if it had not been for school music.
``What I learned was that if you're willing to have patience and discipline and you practice, pretty soon you can make something really beautiful, and it can help you be a better member of the team, it can help you be a happier person, it can make you a better person and it can also be an awful lot of fun.''
---
Campaign Briefing THE DEMOCRATS
New York Times
June 20, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/062000camapign-briefing.html
ROLE FOR BRADLEY
Democratic Party officials say Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley, his onetime rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have worked out matters to the point that Mr. Bradley can expect a prominent speaking role at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Asked over the weekend if Mr. Bradley would get a "prime time" role, the convention manager, Terry McAuliffe, a close Gore ally, told CNN, "I think he will." Mr. McAuliffe also said President Clinton would have a prominent speaking role at the convention, most likely on opening night.
But ultimately, Mr. McAuliffe said, "this whole convention is about Al Gore, his vision for the future, what he is going to do as president." Convention planners also expect Hillary Rodham Clinton to address the convention. (NYT)
CLINTON IN TEXAS President Clinton ventured onto Gov. George W. Bush's Texas turf yesterday for the third time this year to raise money for Democratic candidates.
Stopping in Houston and Austin, Mr. Clinton raised $1 million to help elect Democrats to the Senate and encourage Hispanic voters to turn out on Election Day. Mr. Clinton argued that there are sharp differences between the governor and Vice President Al Gore, who he said had the better plan to keep the national economy growing. The president also took Senate Republicans to task for stalling confirmation of some of his judicial nominees. He cited the Senate's failure to vote on Enrique Moreno, who was nominated for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. "From humble beginnings in El Paso, he established, first of all, an utterly brilliant academic career," Mr. Clinton said. "I might add, more brilliant than that of virtually everyone who'd be voting on his confirmation." Marc Lacey (NYT)
GORE ON GAS PRICES As gasoline prices in the Midwest escalate, so does the concern of Vice President Al Gore, who, as part of the Clinton administration, could be held politically accountable. He suggested yesterday that the big oil companies might be fixing prices. "The big oil companies' profits have gone up 500 percent in the first part of this year, just the time when these prices are going sky high in the Midwest," Mr. Gore said in an interview with ABC News. "I think that justifies a much broader investigation into possible collusion, price gouging and antitrust violations." Later in the day, he focused on the economy. At a fund-raising dinner in Washington for the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Gore said the nation's economic turnaround had been brought about by Clinton policies. Fifty-five people paid $10,000 each to join him and Senator Bob Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska, who had endorsed Mr. Gore's rival, former Senator Bill Bradley, in the primaries. Mr. Kerrey called Mr. Gore "the most qualified person in my lifetime" to be running for president. Katharine Q. Seelye (NYT)
TODAY'S SCHEDULES
GEORGE W. BUSH Los Angeles and Cupertino, Calif.
AL GORE Lexington, Ky., and Des Moines
---
Unlikely Ally Ends Her Ties to Buchanan
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/062000wh-reform.html
One of the oddest couples in American politics have divorced.
Lenora Fulani, whose political views hew as far to the left as Patrick J. Buchanan's do to the right, resigned as co-chairman of his presidential campaign, accusing him of destroying their political partnership by pressing his strong social conservative positions.
"You shaped your actual campaign -- both inside and outside the party -- to appeal to a narrow constituency in ways that increasingly excluded me, my adherents inside the party and the base to which I relate," she said in a letter of resignation delivered on Sunday.
She added, "I must and do object to your efforts to transform the party into a party of and for only social conservatives."
Her resignation came as little surprise to officials of the Reform Party, many of whom raised an eyebrow, more likely two, when she joined his campaign in November, even though it brought apparent benefits to both.
After years of operating on the political fringe as standard-bearer and two-time presidential candidate of the now-defunct New Alliance party, she gained a foothold in the nation's strongest alternative to Republicans and Democrats.
For Mr. Buchanan, who left the Republican party last year to seek the Reform Party's presidential nomination, the alliance allowed him to show that he could broaden the party's base, albeit from unlikely sources -- blacks, Hispanics, gays, even Communists. Ms. Fulani is long-known as a supporter of Marxist-Leninist politics.
Still, their collaboration underscored certain shared views, including opposition to big government and special interests.
But in her letter, Ms. Fulani outlined events that convinced her that Mr. Buchanan was not only interested in gaining the Reform nomination but also in projecting broad views on social issues.
Ms. Fulani also attacked Mr. Buchanan for not supporting Jack Gargan, who was ousted as party chairman, in a meeting four months ago in Nashville.
Mr. Gargan was replaced by Pat Choate, Ross Perot's running mate in 1996, who helped pave the way for Mr. Buchanan to join the party. Mr. Choate stepped down last month for personal reasons.
In a letter of response to Ms. Fulani released by the Buchanan campaign yesterday, Mr. Buchanan said he did not disagree with Ms. Fulani's observations, defending his actions by saying, "I believe political leaders must defend the moral order rooted in the Old and New Testament and Natural Law that is under relentless assault."
Party leaders predicted that Ms. Fulani's departure from the Buchanan camp would have virtually no effect on the party or the November elections, in which the party needs 5 percent of the popular vote to qualify for federal matching funds in 2004.
"Some people might be upset, but not that many," said Gerald R. Moan, the new national chairman, who dismissed Ms. Fulani's complaints as much ado about very little. "Buchanan doesn't polarize the party any more than she has."
---
Washington Times
June 20, 2000
Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.
http://208.246.212.80/national/inbeltway.htm Ballot bias
More now on that electronic voting booth that has been installed at the Newseum, within which visitors young and old alike are encouraged to vote for one of three presidential candidates identified only as Bush, Gore and McReynolds, without party affiliation.
The tally thus far: Bush 13,028, Gore 11,099, McReynolds 1,954.
Now, Inside the Beltway readers are weighing in, primarily on two points. First, none of the other presidential candidates - Ralph Nader of the Green Party, Harry Browne of the Libertarian Party, or Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party, to name three - made the Newseum's ballot cut.
Not very fair, figuring the Newseum touts itself as nonpartisan and dedicated to free press and free speech.
Second, as reader Bill LaForme points out: "McReynolds is the Socialist Party nominee, first name David.
"Figures. It's crazy they'd pick him for the third option, he's more of a 7th or 8th party figure than a third-party candidate. You'd figure the Newseum would have more of a clue about campaign 2000. Some ultra far-left staffer must have been trying to slip in a plug for his candidate."
George to George
When it comes to keeping money and politics apart, Jeffrey Birnbaum says no politician has ever been pure - not even George Washington, who was accused of trying to buy votes with free booze.
Mr. Birnbaum, Washington bureau chief of Fortune magazine and former White House correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, has just published a new book, "The Money Men: The Real Story of Fund-raising's Influence on Political Power in America" (Crown, $25.95).
Or, as the author calls it, the "intricate mating dance" between solicitors and givers.
And despite the calls for campaign-finance reform, Mr. Birnbaum argues that "political fund-raising is spiraling upward, with no end in sight. Everywhere you turn in Washington and increasingly in the states, new, inventive ways are being devised and plumbed to channel more dollars to more and more politicians. And politicians are always finding a new way to shake the money tree."
Mr. Birnbaum devotes an entire chapter eavesdropping on top Republican fund-raiser Peter Terpeluk of Chevy Chase as he spends an entire day working the phones on behalf of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
And like thousands of other Americans in this particular election, it's not just getting his favorite candidate into the Oval Office that has Mr. Terpeluk working the phones. It's something more personal, namely restoring dignity to the White House.
"He didn't just dislike Bill Clinton," the author writes of Mr. Terpeluk. "He reveled in his impeachment. He watched the proceedings like others watch World Series games, rooting loudly for impeachment and then conviction. He stuck the biggest CLINTON IMPEACHED headline he could find on his refrigerator door."
History lesson
Speaking of campaign giving, President Clinton might have utilized the Lincoln Bedroom for check-writing purposes, but as he himself reminded the citizenry yesterday: "And for those of you who don't know, basically, Abraham Lincoln, in what is now the Lincoln Bedroom, signed the Emancipation Proclamation in September of 1862."
Uh oh
"Columist."
- How Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush's scheduling office spelled columnist - not once, but twice - in a letter addressed to Inside the Beltway.
John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or by e-mail at mccasl@twtmail.com.
-------- us space nucs
New Rocket Engines Fuel Dreams of Manned Mars Flights
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By KENNETH CHANG
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/062000sci-nasa-rocket.html
A new type of rocket engine under development could halve the travel time between Earth and Mars -- should NASA ever decide to send astronauts there.
"I think it's the technology that's going to take us to Mars," said Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, a shuttle astronaut and director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Instead of relying on chemical reactions like conventional rockets, Dr. Chang-Diaz's creation, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or Vasimr, uses radio waves to heat the fuel and magnetic fields to direct a stream of ultrahot ionized gases.
NASA last week announced that it was collaborating with MSE Technology Applications of Butte, Mont., to develop the Vasimr technology, still years away from use in space. MSE is creating computer models for shaping the magnetic fields that form the engine's nozzle.
Space buffs have long dreamed of sending astronauts to Mars. But that dream, which once looked like the next destination after Moon landings, is still far from reality, stymied by hurdles as much economic and political as technological.
By the early 1950's, the pioneering rocket scientist Wernher von Braun had already worked out a detailed, if fanciful, plan for sending a fleet of 10 colossal spaceships to Mars, powered by conventional chemical rockets.
"We've had the engineering capability with chemical propulsion to undertake a mission to Mars for years, for decades," said Les Johnson, who heads the exploration transportation technologies portion of the advanced space transportation program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
"What it boils down to," Mr. Johnson said, "is, Is it safe enough? Is it affordable?"
Lifting one pound of material from the Earth's surface into orbit costs about $10,000. With each of von Braun's interplanetary behemoths weighing about 4,000 tons -- or about 10 times the weight of the International Space Station once it is completed -- the price tag of merely lugging the building materials into orbit would run more than $800 billion.
By the time Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon in 1969, von Braun, then the director of the Marshall Space Center, had devised a slimmed down, more realistic proposal to send a single nuclear powered spaceship to Mars , with the first astronaut stepping onto Martian soil in 1982.
The 1969 design still came in at about 800 tons, and fuel accounted for three-quarters of the mass. The manned missions to Mars never got off the drawing board.
Since then, engineers have whittled away at that mass. A lighter rocket reduces the amount of fuel needed.
A more efficient rocket engine also trims fuel requirements.
Rocket engines work by the same principle as throwing a baseball while seated on slippery ice: because of conservation of momentum, the thrower starts sliding in the opposite direction of the baseball, and the harder the throw, the faster the thrower slides.
"Basically, a rocket works by shooting material out the back at high speeds," said Dr. Chang-Diaz. "The higher the speed of the material, the better the rocket is. The speed of the material coming out the back is proportional to the temperature of the material."
The Vasimr is part of NASA's frugal but continuing research in new rocket technologies.
Chemical rocket engines -- like those of the space shuttle -- throw out propellant at the relatively low temperature of about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the relatively slow speed of 10,000 miles per hour.
Boosting the temperature and speed of the exiting exhaust in chemical rocket engines is possible, but that can cause another problem: destroying the engine. "You could try to go to a higher temperature, but it would just melt," Dr. Chang-Diaz said. "There's no known material that can hold these gases."
Vasimr avoids the melting engine problem by containing and guiding the gases with magnetic fields.
The engine works by injecting the hydrogen fuel into a chamber where it is bombarded by radio waves. "Like a microwave oven," Dr. Chang-Diaz said. The radio waves heat the gas and strip away electrons from the hydrogen atoms, creating a gas of positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons.
The resulting charged particles spiral around in a magnetic field as radio waves further heat them until they escape out the back of the engine at speeds of up to 650,000 m.p.h., or about 60 times as fast as the exhaust from the chemical rockets.
By altering the magnetic fields, the engine's nozzle can be opened up for more thrust as the spaceship enters or leaves orbit and can be throttled back for better fuel efficiency during the trip. Chemical rockets, in contrast, fire much more powerful bursts, but they can only be sustained for minutes. The continuous firing of the plasma engine would cut the astronauts' Earth-to-Mars trip from six months to three months, reducing the astronauts' exposure to damaging cosmic radiation and calcium-draining weightlessness.
According to Dr. Chang-Diaz, the total mass sent to Mars via a Vasimr-powered mission, with one spaceship carrying the astronauts and a second carrying most of the supplies, would be about 400 tons.
Dr. Chang-Diaz has built a small prototype. An in-orbit test of the concept could come as soon as 2004.
The technology can also be used for thrusters on Earth-orbiting satellites. "The limiting factor in the life of a satellite is its propellant," Dr. Chang-Diaz said. "They run out of gas and they become space junk."
Michael Conley, deputy manager of the advanced development office at the Johnson Space Center, said, "The Vasimr really looks promising."
Vasimr is not the only engine being considered for a mission.
NASA studies still consider chemical and solar-powered propulsion as the first option.
Another option revives the notion of nuclear-thermal engines used in von Braun's 1969 plan. In these, hydrogen gas is heated by running it past the core of a nuclear reactor. Other engines with exotic names like pulsed inductive thrusters and magnetoplasmadynamic, or MPD, engines, are also under study.
"Some are more efficient than others," said Mr. Johnson of the Marshall Space Center. "Some might scale better to higher energies. It's too early to say which is going to win the horse race."
Any of these new technologies would raise a politically sensitive issue for NASA. "Any engine that is not a chemical rocket will probably require a nuclear reactor," Dr. Chang-Diaz said.
A Vasimr engine does not directly use a nuclear reactor, but a rocket powerful enough to send people to Mars would need to tap into a 10-megawatt power source to generate the magnetic fields and radio waves. That is more power than can be produced by solar panels.
The nuclear issue is one reason NASA has not yet embraced the newer engines. "There could be some socio-political implications if we pick nuclear right away," Mr. Conley said. "If we could do it with solar, we'd like to do it with solar."
The engine decision also depends on when, if ever, NASA decides to send astronauts to Mars and how quickly it wants to get there. "If we were going in 10 years, there would be one answer," Mr. Johnson said. "There'd be another if we had 15 years."
The nuclear-thermal engine would be the easiest and quickest to develop. The Vasimr is the most fuel efficient. Other engines have other benefits and trade-offs.
For the present, the research is not a high priority.
NASA spends only a few million dollars a year exploring advanced propulsion systems.
"There is no NASA plan to send people to Mars," Mr. Johnson said. "There is no NASA plan to send people beyond low-Earth orbit. What we're doing is looking at options."
-------- us uranium
These Are Hard Times for Uranium Enrichment
New York Times
June 20, 2000
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/062000nuke.html
BETHESDA, Md., June 19 -- Ever since Richard Nixon proposed it in 1968, policy makers have talked about having the federal government quit the business of enriching uranium for nuclear power plants. It took decades, but the Clinton administration finally completed the job two years ago, with Vice President Al Gore claiming it as a victory for reinventing government. It may, however, have come at the worst possible time.
The government never ran the enterprise particularly well. But since privatization, the company has done much worse.
The price of shares in the United States Enrichment Corporation, as the new company is known, closed today at $4.6875, down from $17.50 soon after the initial public offering in July 1998. Orders are down, costs per unit are up, and the price of USEC's only product is declining.
Now the issue is at a turning point. The corporation's board is meeting here on Wednesday to discuss closing one of its two sprawling plants -- in Portsmouth, Ohio, or Paducah, Ky. -- in an effort to prevent the company from sliding into bankruptcy. This afternoon, the company released a copy of its formal notification to the Treasury that its bonds had reached junk rating, which, under the legislation that created it, allows it to close a plant.
There is intense jockeying by each plant to be the survivor, but outsiders believe the survivor could soon close, too, dragging down with it the other parts in the fuel production chain from uranium mining, already at a low ebb, to the fabrication of nuclear fuel. Outside experts say that to maintain its market share, USEC has been signing contracts lately for less than its cost of production. As a government operation, that is costly; as a private enterprise it is a recipe for disaster.
Even United States Enrichment's former parent, the Energy Department, acknowledges some apprehension. "We are not convinced they are driving themselves into bankruptcy," said T. J. Glauthier, the deputy energy secretary, "but the management challenge is great."
Several members of Congress, meanwhile, are talking about reversing the whole process by renationalizing the company.
"I don't think there's a precedent for this," said Representative Ted Strickland, Democrat of Ohio, whose district includes the Portsmouth plant. But prospects for the company are so poor that various parties are raising the specter that the United States could become dependent on imports to fuel the nuclear reactors that provide 20 percent of the nation's electrical power. Whether there is enough support to bail out the company or repurchase it remains to be seen, but the law under which the government sold the factories calls for maintaining a "viable" domestic industry.
Uranium enrichment is an arcane business that consists of laboriously sorting through two different types of uranium to raise the proportion of the more valuable kind, U-235, from the 0.7 percent that exists in nature to the 5 percent or so needed for power reactors or to the highly concentrated state used in weapons.
The market price of a unit of enrichment has fallen in recent years from more than $100 to about $80 now. The United States, using technology developed in World War II to make bombs, is the highest-cost producer. By contrast, the Russians, using newer technology, can make money selling such enrichment units at $30 or above, experts say.
One possibility is for United States Enrichment to buy a share in a European producer, Urenco, which is now owned by the governments of Britain, Germany and the Netherlands; the stakes held by the Germans and the Dutch are on the market, and Urenco has newer technology, which uses centrifuges.
The central problem facing USEC is that the international industry is set up to supply enough uranium enrichment for all the reactors that were planned 30 years ago, though many were never built. At the same time, the need for weapons-grade uranium has been reversed; work done years ago to make bomb fuel is now used for reactor fuel, reducing the need for the factories.
"You've got an industry that's very well set up for the 1970's," said William H. Timbers Jr., the president and chief executive of United States Enrichment. "It has to restructure."
And that is just what he insists it is prepared to do. The company, he said in an interview, has the "ability to take some tough, difficult decisions."
Estimates vary, but world demand for nuclear fuel is around 36 million units a year, while the supply is 42 million units. And since uranium has limited uses, price declines do not stimulate demand.
"It's an inelastic market," said Richard D. Miller, a consultant for the union that represents most workers at the two plants. No matter how far the price falls, he said, "we're not going to put it on our cereal."
But Mr. Miller and others say that USECitself has brought on some of its own problems. Under the terms of its privatization, it was supposed to keep the two plants open until 2004. But it is allowed to close one earlier if its bonds drop below investment grade; some critics say the company engineered just that, through a stock buyback that created a less favorable debt-to-equity ratio.
Some problems were clearly inherited.
In 1993, Mr. Gore and Boris N. Yeltsin, then president of Russia, struck a deal for the Russians to take high-enriched uranium from bombs and dilute it for use in American power reactors.
That deal has had its ups and downs, in part, critics say, because United States Enrichment, which inherited the deal when it was privatized, is not eager to see Russian uranium displace so much of its own production. Company officials deny this, but in any case, the Russian deal represents about 90 million enrichment units over 20 years, or enough to meet about half the domestic demand. So while beating swords into plowshares may make sense as a national policy, it is tough on the companies that make plowshares. Some people think the Russian deal was USEC's undoing.
"Why does this industry and these workers have to pay the whole cost of peace?," asked Daniel J. Minter, president of the union local at Portsmouth, which, after recent layoffs, represents just under 1,000 workers. "You couldn't have picked anything more difficult to privatize. The Pentagon would have been easier."
Last year United States Enrichment's managers asked the Energy Department for $200 million to help them over their troubles but failed to convince officials there that the Russian deal had caused any unexpected difficulties. Paying executives salaries commensurate with those of private industry is also a sore point.
The company began its life, meanwhile, with a huge stock of its raw material, unenriched uranium hexafluoride, a kind of dowry from the government, and has been selling it, to pay dividends and other costs. Partly as a result, the price of a pound of uranium is down sharply, forcing some mines to shut down. The nation's sole company for converting uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride, the form that USEC uses, says it is near a shutdown, too.
"The irony of this privatization," said Thomas L. Neff, a senior scientist at the Center for International Studies at M.I.T., who first conceived the Russian uranium deal, "is that the government set something out there, with various goodies, that did a lot of collateral damage. The government subsidized an entity that's destroying everything else."
-------- activists
UN DAY DESIGNATED TO COMMEMORATE TORTURE VICTIMS and SURVIVORS
on June 26th, 2000
From: "Alice Zachmann" azachmann@ghrc-usa.org June 20, 2000
The Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) will begin a week long commemoration of the United Nations International Day in support of Torture Victims and Survivors on June 26th. At 7AM that morning, a 24 hour vigil will begin with a prayer service in Lafayette Park across from the White House. The vigil will be in remembrance of all those who did not survive their torture and those enduring it at that moment. Survivors from countries around the world will gather for this solemn occasion. They will be joined by representatives of more than thirty organizations who will participate by creating their own form of remembrances. Each hour or half hour, one of these or an individual will offer a commemoration in song, dance,poetry or discussion. Eminent poet and author Ana Castillo will read from her own poetry.
Survivors of torture from such countries as Burma, Tibet, the Phillippines, Nigeria, Sierra Leone,Cameroon, Zaire, Peru, Mexico, Paraguay, Honduras and the United States invite you to join in this commemoration of those whose lives have been sacrificed to torture, this crime against humanity. We invite you to join with them and to pledge with TASSC that torture, the plague of the 20th century will not continue to be the plague of the 21st century as well.
If you have questions, please call 202-529-6599 email: hnelson@ghrc-usa.org
A schedule of presentors will be available upon request.
Alice Zachmann,
TASSC is a project of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
----
To: All New York Anti-Nuclear Groups
Re: Gathering for New York Nukebusters to Stop the Nuke Sales, June 24
From: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com
Dear Nukebuster,
As you may have heard, New York's nuclear reactors are up for sale to a pack of multinational and global power companies. FitzPatrick and Indian Point 3 are being bought by Entergy, and less than a week ago (on June 2), Niagara Mohawk (NiMo) announced July 14 as the new auction date for Nine Mile 1&2. The nuclear industry is at a crossroads, and this is a pivotal time for the anti-nuclear movement.
The outcome in the Northeast - and especially New York - will be precedent-setting for the future of nuclear power. These reactors should close, not sell! CAN believes that a mobilization of the people in the Northeast can stop nuclear deregulation and can end nuclear power once and for all. To that end, we are putting together an organizing meeting for New York nukebusters the afternoon of June 24 and we hope you will come. You are also invited to attend the 11:00 am press conference at Station Plaza Plaza, 38 North Division Street, Peekskill. We need a lot of voices to meet and greet the press. Saturday morning might also be a good opportunity to hand out some leaflets and talk with folks on the street. (Call Marilyn Elie at 914-739-6164 or e-mail elie@highlands.com if you need directions. Lunch will be a potluck. Please bring a dish.)
If we act now, we can stop them. People across New York State have fought the nuclear industry and won on nearly every front in the last 30 years. People in the North Country stopped NYPA's plans for massive 765KV powerlines. Poor, rural communities across the state stopped a low-level dump which would have made NY a pay toilet for the nuclear industry. Because of public opposition there are only 6 reactors still operating in NYS. They have been hard struggles, but New Yorkers have held the nukes back time and time again. With deregulation the corporations have a series of gambits to force ratepayers and taxpayers to subsidize their dirty technology, and we have another chance to put them out of business. Please join us in shutting down the sales and the nukes with them, once and for all.
Hope to see you on the Saturday, June 24 at 11:00 am at Station Plaza!
No Nukes!
Tim Judson and Marilyn Elie CNY-CAN and WesCAN
----
Krishnamurti on nuclear disarmament
From: Jeffrey Scott thunder-root@globalweb.net
http://www.kfa.org/RV-wp-8nucleararms.html
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Mi pueblo NO es un basurero nuclear
(My town is not a nuclear dump)
From: panc - panc@nodo50.org Cordoba, Spain, June 10, 2000
http://www.nodo50.org/panc/Home.htm#modindex
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OJIBWAY PRAYER
Grandfather [Nimishomiss], Look at our brokenness. We know that in all creation Only the human family Has strayed from the Sacred Way.
We know that we are the ones Who are divided And we are the ones Who must come back together To walk in the Sacred Way.
Grandfather, Sacred One, Teach us love, compassion, and honor That we may heal the earth and heal each other.
NOTE: Ojibway are Native Americans who once lived and many presently live in the Upper Great Lakes and Minnesota.
-- by Andrew Harvey, from Essential Mystics--The Soul's Journey into Truth, June 2000
From: Don Marx - compeace@concentric.net
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USA Today
06/20/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm
Rhode Island
Providence - Franciscan priests who work at a downtown chapel have erected what they call a wall of peace canvas panels that people can sign as a commitment to ending violence. The priests hope to raise awareness of recent violent crimes. On June 9, two college students were murdered in a carjacking. On May 21, a 15-year-old witness in a murder trail was shot outside her home.
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