-------- NUCLEAR (by country)

Latest news from Vandenberg
Sender: wslf@mail.earthlink.net
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 23:59:29 -0700

Dear Colleagues -- Greetings from Vandenberg Air Force Base (on the central coast of California). The Air Force is scheduled to launch the 3rd Ballistic Missile Defense interceptor test this Friday. Check out Greenpeace's new website: stopstarwars.org for the latest information about ongoing protest activities at Vandenberg (including photos) and other relevant information. Also, sign and send the on-line message to President Clinton urging him to stop the test and cancel the entire dangerous and destabilizing "Son of Star Wars" program. -- Jackie Cabasso

----

Russia, China, Talk Tough on U.S. Arms Plan

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-tajikis.html

DUSHANBE (Reuters) - Russia and China talked tough about opposing U.S. plans to create a missile umbrella on Wednesday as leaders from Moscow, Beijing and three Central Asian states wrapped up a summit in this volatile region.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are members of the ''Shanghai Five,'' set up in 1996 to resolve border issues along the old Sino-Soviet frontier, but now focused on fighting terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.

Leaders from the five states signed a declaration vowing to deepen cooperation on those issues and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the meeting as a success.

``This organization has become a significant factor for stability in the region and has a serious influence on the international stage,'' Putin told reporters in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, which borders both China and Afghanistan.

Earlier, Putin and Chinese leader Jiang Zemin exchanged notes on their joint opposition to Washington's proposal to build a Star Wars-like anti-missile shield.

``The leaders spoke about the fundamental importance of maintaining the strength of the 1972 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) treaty,'' Kremlin spokesman Sergei Prikhodko told reporters after the meeting.

China and Russia say the proposed shield, aimed at blocking missile attacks by ``rogue states,'' would threaten existing arms control agreements by violating the ABM treaty.

Putin was quoted by another Kremlin spokesman as saying the ''global balance could be undermined'' if the U.S. plan proceeded.

Cash-strapped Russia is keen to reduce nuclear stockpiles which are expensive to maintain and China relies on a relatively small arsenal for its nuclear deterrent. Opponents of nuclear shields say they encourage countries to build up missile stocks to increase their chances of puncturing the shield.

TERRORISM A CONCERN, RUSSIA SUPPORTED ON CHECHNYA

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Tuesday the Shanghai Five had been forced to shift their attention from border issues to terrorism because of the ``activisation of international terrorism'' in the region.

Moscow says its war in rebel Chechnya was sparked by ''terrorists'' in its backyard and Russian news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday that all participants at the summit had voiced their support for Russia's campaign.

Ivanov had singled out Afghanistan as the chief source of instability outside Central Asia's borders and said the conflict there would feature high on the agenda.

Jiang and Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov, both of whose countries border Afghanistan, met on Tuesday and urged the ruling Afghan Taliban movement and opposition alliance to halt the bloodshed.

Uzbekistan, alarmed at a Muslim revival in its densely populated Fergana Valley, also accuses Afghanistan of sponsoring terrorism and religious fundamentalism in Central Asia. The country attended the Shanghai Five meeting as an observer.

The Taliban denies exporting its strict form of Islam.

Uzbek leader Islam Karimov says he was the target of bombings in the capital Tashkent last year organized by a radical Muslim movement. Kyrgyzstan was invaded by hundreds of rebels linked to the same Uzbek network.

China is concerned about festering separatism among Muslim Uighurs in its western Xinjiang province bordering former Soviet Central Asia.

For Tajikistan, the summit is recognition that the impoverished mountainous state of six million has returned to some kind of normality following a 1992-1997 civil war.

Three years after a peace deal between Moscow-backed government forces and an Islamic-led opposition, shootings and bombings are still common, but tight security in the hot, dusty capital has reassured leaders of their safety.

-------- britain

BRITISH STAR WARS PROTEST REPORT

From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 18:43:03 -0400

July 4th - Independence from America at Menwith Hill

About 50-60 people gathered outside the main gate of NSA Menwith Hill, Yorkshire England on a greyish (but not too cold) day to protest against the building of Star Wars there. The receiver dishes for the Space Based Infra Red System (to be part of the NMD system) are now in place and due to come "on-line" within the next few months. People going into the base to join in the Independence Day celebrations - fun fair, sideshows, etc. - were leafleted by demonstrators throughout the day. Every year July 4th is celebrated in the base - this year it was celebrated behind a newly erected 12ft high security fence topped by coils of brutal looking razor-wire.

The demonstration at Menwith Hill (perhaps better known for its telephone, fax and email tapping activities) was organised by the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB) and Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It started when a few members of CAAB turned up at the base in time for the flag-raising ceremony at 7.30am. Other groups of people slowly arrived throughout the morning and the press, radio and TV were all present. A number of interviews with demonstrators were held - some live on local radio.

As more people gathered musicians appeared and outbreaks of singing were heard and demonstrators were confronted at the main gate of the base by a number of Ministry of Defence police. One of the policemen had been told to film everyone who turned up for the protest (which he did). The others tried to keep te protest confined to the "designated protest area" - a small car park outside the fence.

At 12.30 the following Declaration was read out by all of the protestors:

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM AMERICAN MILITARISM

When, in the course of human events, a greater state imperils the safety and continuance of a lesser, under the appearance of being a protector, it becomes necessary for the greater to remove its military powers from the other's land to its own territory. The Laws of Nature and of Nations entitle the people who seek this removal to declare the causes which impel them to make this demand.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable Rights, that among these is the Liberty together to determine the means by which they, as a free nation, would seek to defend themselves. If another State, through its imposing military power, usurps this Liberty of choice, then the independent nation must resist and reject the usurpation; otherwise it would be acquiescing to Tyranny. The injuries and usurpations, all tending to subvert the freedom of the British people. To justify this claim, let facts be submitted to the candid world.

The Government of the United States has called together and sustained an alliance at place unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the British Parliament and insisted that this Alliance should prepare the barbarous act of being first to use weapons of mass destruction.

It has been used by this Alliance to impose upon the people of the United Kingdom an increasing levy of taxes to finance the preparation of barbarity.

It has placed within the boundaries of Britain weapons in such numbers and of such power vastly to exceed any reasonable need; there is no need.

It has combined with some within the Government of Britain to infiltrate and use for its own ends the British systems of communication.

It has conspired with some of the citizens of the United Kingdom seriously to distort the truth concerning threats supposed to be against the British State and people.

It has kept amongst us, in times of peace, military powers without the consent of British people.

It has with no agreement from the British people occupied many parts of our Common land as places from which to mount defence of its own territory.

It has combined with others to render its own military personnel immune from prosecution for crimes committed against our laws.

It has excited fears among our people in an endeavour to gain assent to a savage and merciless rule of warfare, which seeks an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

We do not wish the people of the United States to see in this Declaration any contempt for them. We are confident that the people of the United States acknowledge that what we seek is nothing less than that which their own forebears sought in declaring themselves a free and separate nation. To the people of the United States we offer nothing else but friendship and a recognition of our common dignity as human beings.

We, therefore, the representatives of a more gentle and peaceful persuasion, appealing to the Moral Law and Laws of Nations for the rectitude of our intentions, DO on behalf of the people of our country, solemnly PUBLISH and DECLARE, that this United Kingdom is, and of Right, ought to be free and independent in the choice of how we exercise our Right of Self-Defence.

We call upon the Government of the United States of America to cease from occupation of any part of British land and withdraw its military powers, as we call upon all Governments everywhere to cease their occupation and control of any foreign territories. And for support of this Declaration, we, the representatives of a more gentle and peaceful persuasion, mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.

--

And, with specific reference to this gathering today, we, the undermentioned, do solemnly demand the return of the land, once within the boundaries of the ancient townships of Birstwith, Felliscliffe, Norwood and Menwith, now occupied by the United States National Security Agency.

We do also solemnly demand that any connection with or preparation for the American Ballistic Missile Defense programme at NSA Menwith Hill ceases forthwith. We declare that the American Government is in breach of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 1972 which has since kept the strategic balance of nuclear power. We will not be party to the 'aiding and abetting' of the said breach.

We use our intelligence to imagine the consequences of the space around our dear planet Earth and other celestial bodies being filled with weapons of desperate destruction. We speak from our hearts which beat in terror at the legacy we might leave the children of this world.

Once again, we call upon all American people connected with the workings at NSA Menwith Hill to imagine our roles reversed and to remember their own ancestors' Declaration of Independence from our ancestors.

There was then an attempt to hand this declaration in to the base. The declaration had been carefully and beautifully scripted onto a large scroll some 20 feet long with a view to presenting it to the American Commander of the Base. However, no American would come to the gate to accept it. The British police at the gate offered to accept the scroll but the protestors insisted on handing it to a US citizen. For a long time demonstrators waited, blocking the entrance and singing - hoping to be able to present the scroll and demand independence from US militarism. In the past petitions, letters of protest and even flowers had not been accepted at the gate because they might contain "concealed devices". We showed that our Declaration did not conceal anything - quite the opposite - it attempted to proclaim loudly our disgust and sense of injustice at the presence of a foreign force occupying British soil that could effectively do as it wished without being able to be challenged by British citizens.

Eventually someone did accept the scroll - but it was not the US commander of the base or anyone of any significant rank or station.

At around 2.30pm a number of intrepid trekkers set off to walk the 60 odd miles across the Yorkshire Moors to Fylingdales - where the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar System is likely to be upgraded for NMD. The walkers will arrive on Saturday July 8th - to join a national demonstration against Star Wars at the Fylingdales base.

Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk
globalnet@mindspring.com

-------- china

China denies missile technology sale to Pak.

The Hindu
Wednesday, July 05, 2000
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/07/05/stories/03050006.htm

BEIJING, JULY 4. China today categorically denied that it was selling missile technology to Pakistan.

``I want to state clearly that there is no such thing as Chinese sales of missile technology to Pakistan,'' the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr. Sun Yuxi, told a press conference in response to a report by The New York times. ``The report is totally groundless.''

The newspaper said on Sunday that in a series of classified briefings in Congress, intelligence agencies described how China stepped up the shipment of specialty steels, guidance systems and technical expertise to Pakistan.

Islamabad, which conducted nuclear tests in 1998 shortly after similar tests by India, said on Monday that it had no missile cooperation with China ``at the present moment''.

---

China denies helping Pakistan to develop nuclear technology

BridgeNews
July 5, 2000

Beijing--July 4--China on Tuesday vehemently denied reports indicating that it had been helping Pakistan to develop long range missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. A foreign ministry spokesman said that such reports were completely untrue and had been written with " ulterior motives".

"I would like to point out explicitly that allegations that China exported missile technology to Pakistan, are entirely unfounded and were reported with ulterior motives," spokesman Sun Yuxi told a regular press briefing.

"I would like to stress that China strictly observes the joint communiques issued...on missile tests in South Asia and the UN Security Council resolution 1172, and does not assist relevant countries in the region to develop nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles that may serve as carrier vehicles," he said.

In a recent classified briefing at the U.S. Congress, lawmakers were presented with evidence that China has continued to ship guidance and other systems to Pakistan, and was also offering technical expertise, U.S.-based media reports said last week.

Chinese experts also had been sighted around Pakistan's newest missile factory, which appears to be based on a Chinese design, the New York Times quoted intelligence officials as saying.

The allegations are set to be discussed by a high-level U.S. delegation, led by senior State Department advisor John Holum, which will hold negotiations in Beijing on July 7-8.

The meeting will constitute a resumption of a Sino-U.S. non-proliferation dialogue which was broken off by Beijing last year following NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Reports of the weaponry transfer are also complicating U.S. President Bill Clinton's efforts to ensure the smooth passage through Senate of a bill granting China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR). The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill in May.

---

China denies missile charges

Florida Today
July 5, 2000
http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000b/070500c.htm

BEIJING (AP) - China on Tuesday denied assisting Pakistan's nuclear missile program, saying it adhered fully to international appeals to discourage the buildup of nuclear weapons in South Asia.

Allegations that China has provided Pakistan with weapons' grade steel, missile guidance systems and technical advice were ``totally unfounded and with ulterior motives,'' said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi.

The claims were published by The New York Times on Sunday in a story that quoted U.S. intelligence officials saying they have informed President Clinton and Congress that China is helping Pakistan build nuclear-capable missiles.

Alleged transfers of missiles and missile technology by China to Pakistan have repeatedly bedeviled Beijing's relations with Washington. The latest claims surfaced ahead of a visit to Beijing by John Holum, a top Clinton administration arms control negotiator.

Sun said Holum would hold ``extensive discussions'' with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya in talks Friday and Saturday.

Worries about proliferation to Pakistan have sharpened since it and rival India each tested nuclear bombs in 1998. Those tests drew international condemnation and sanctions against both countries.

China abides by U.N. communiques condemning the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests and urging nations not to assist the two countries' nuclear weapon programs, Sun said.

``China does not assist relevant countries in the South Asian region in developing nuclear weapons or vehicles for delivering nuclear weapons,'' Sun said.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar on Monday also dismissed the Times report about Chinese missile assistance, although both India and Pakistan say they possess a minimum nuclear deterrence.

U.S. intelligence agencies over the past decade have reported suspected Chinese transfers to Pakistan of M-11 missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and related technologies. China and Pakistan denied the report then.

While Clinton imposed sanctions on China in 1993 for supplying missile components and technology to Pakistan, he is now under pressure from Congress to sanction China anew for transferring a whole missile system in the early 1990s.

China is a longtime ally of Pakistan's and has built a nuclear power plant in that country. Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf last week said his regime would order several fighter jets from China.

-------- france

France to review nuclear safety procedures after errors

FRANCE : July 5, 2000
Story by Gillian Handyside
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7353

PARIS - French power generator Electricite de France (EdF) is to review safety procedures at its nuclear power stations after three were found to be ignoring them, the French Nuclear Safety Authority said yesterday.

The incident, classed as "serious", was recorded at the Dampierre, Tricastin and Bugey nuclear power stations between June 23 and 26, the authority said in a statement which criticised "lack of precision" at the plants.

"In the wake of the incident, EdF has begun verifying normal procedures on its 900 MW reactors. The Nuclear Safety Authority will monitor the work to ensure it is carried out properly," the statement said.

State-owned EdF owns 19 nuclear power stations, which have a total of 58 reactors and supply 80 percent of France's power.

The authority said operatives trying to shut down reactors at the plants - situated in the centre and south-east of the country - had closed hatches in their safeguard systems several hours too early, before pressure in the main circuits had been reduced to under five bars.

The error, which contravened EdF's national rules on safety procedures, had been repeated five times at Dampierre since February 1999, 10 times at Tricastin and six times at Bugey, it said.

The authority attacked the "lack of precision with which each site translated nationally agreed codes of conduct into local procedures for operators" and the time they took to examine whether their procedures were valid.

"Teams at Dampierre only queried after the sixth occasion whether it was acceptable to use a procedure which led them to carry out an act which contravened the technical specifications for the operation of the plant. And the teams at Tricastin and Bugey only detected the error after Dampierre reacted," the authority said.

It said however that the errors were unlikely to have had serious safety consequences because "operators at the plant could if necessary have reopened hatches that were shut" before a serious radioactive leak took place in the main circuit.

The faulty procedure was the first serious indicent recorded in France in 2000. There were three in 1999, including the exposure of a worker to radiation at Tricastin and the failure of the safety circuits during flooding at the Blayais plant on the Atlantic coast.

-------- india / pakistan

India, Russia sign agreement on nuclear co-operation
India and Russia have signed an agreement to expand their cooperation in nuclear sciences.

Rediff on the Net 5 July 2000


The three-year protocol signed in Moscow by the secretary, department of science and technology, Prof V S Ramamurthy, and Yevgeny Velikhov, director of Russia's nodal nuclear research centre, Kurchatov Institute, yesterday provides for extensive Indo-Russian cooperation in the nuclear field, Science and Technology and Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi told reporters.

Under the agreement India and Russia would exchange visits of nuclear scientists and experts, he said.

Joshi, however, declined to divulge the details of the accord saying nuclear science does not mean only "bomb". It has medical applications as well.

Briefing reporters on his talks with Russian Science and Technology Minister Dr Alexander Dondukov, Joshi said that India and Russia had agreed to extend their integrated long-term programme on scientific and technological cooperation for another 10 years.

An agreement to his effect would be signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's India visit in October, Joshi said.

Russian Education Minister Prof Fillipov said his country was willing to offer educational and training facilities to Indian students and scholars. Joshi arrived here on Sunday on a weeklong official visit. He inaugurated the joint Russian-Indian Centre for Advanced Computing Research yesterday.

RICCR, setup jointly by the Pune-based advanced computing Centre (C-DAC) and Russian Institute for Computer Aided Design, is equipped with the Indian supercomputer 'Param 10,000' and will provide a unique opportunity to experts and scientists of the two countries to develop new software applications for use in various spheres of human activity including space research and defence, experts told PTI.

Joshi addressed the students and professors of Moscow State University today. Rector of the MSU, Prof Sadovnichy said that Moscow University would train specialists for the Indo-Russian computing centre.

The minister is scheduled to hold talks with the Russian deputy premier Viktor Khristenko and release a book on Hinduism, written by a top Russian indologist, Dr Irina Glushkova, a scholar of the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
==
South Asians Against Nukes Post is distributed
by South Asia Citizens Web
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex since 1998.

----

India Expresses Concern at U.S. Missile Shield Testing

Xinhua
July 5, 2000
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=v0704169.1xi&level3=139501&date=20000705

NEW DELHI (July 4) XINHUA via NewsEdge Corporation - India on Tuesday expressed concern at the ballistic missile shield to be tested by the United States on July 7 and asked Washington to "give up this whole exercise."

Briefing reporters on his recent visit to Russia, Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said Moscow and New Delhi could cooperate in a joint missile defense system if the situation arose.

"One will pursue that if the situation arises," Fernandes said when asked whether the two countries would join hands in the matter if the U.S. went ahead with the exercise.

A U.S. shield against ballistic missiles will face a crucial test on July 7, which is regarded as a major step in the U.S. attempt to deploy a National Missile Defense system.

"U.S. should give up this whole exercise as it will lead to far too many problems than one can visualize now," Fernandes told the reporters.

The defense minister also noted that during his five-day visit to Russia, he had meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top leaders, which focused on the menace of international terrorism that had "emerged as destabilizes in several parts of Asia and the world."

India and Russia would formalize cooperation in combating international terrorism when President Putin comes to India on an official visit in October, he said.

-------- iran

A 'High Wall of Mistrust' Still Divides U.S. and Iran
Both Countries Are Wary Of Moves Toward Detente

Washington Post
Wednesday, July 5, 2000; Page A15
By Howard Schneider Washington Post Foreign Service
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/05/108l-070500-idx.html

TEHRAN, July 4-It's U.S. Independence Day, and there is not a hot dog or a beer to be found. There is a nice portrait of the Statue of Liberty with a skeletal death mask, however, and some modest words of encouragement from the citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

"Americans . . . "

Pause for thought.

" . . . are less sneaky than the British," said one of the administrators of Iran's new, reform-oriented parliament.

"We . . . "

Pause for thought.

" . . . are glad you kicked out the British," said a salesman at a state-owned handicrafts store, going about as far as many Iranians will go in saying nice things about a country whose people are well liked but whose government is still seen as bent on world domination.

Three years into an era of detente promised by reformist President Mohammed Khatemi, there is little evidence that his hoped-for "dialogue of civilizations" has changed the basic dynamic of Iran's relations with the United States, severed after the takeover of the U.S. Embassy by Islamic militants in 1979.

A nation of more than 60 million, with one of the world's largest reserves of oil and one of the best educated work forces in the region, Iran's earlier radicalism has given way to a reform movement under which it is mending ties with its Arab neighbors, sending officials and trade delegations throughout Europe and preaching "Asian convergence" with the Far East. But the cycle of suspicion between the United States and Iran rewinds and replays as regularly as ever, forestalling renewal of a relationship that could be central to maintaining stability in the Middle East.

The goodwill of recent sports and academic exchanges is, to Iranians, marred by the fingerprinting of Iranian nationals when they arrive at the U.S. border. The advance of democracy here is, in the eyes of U.S. officials, tainted by such events as the recent trial of 13 Iranian Jews accused of spying for Israel.

The regret expressed by U.S. officials over American involvement in the 1953 coup that toppled a popular Iranian prime minister is lost on Iranians amid memories of U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s; the downing of a crowded Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf by a U.S. warship in 1988; or the hundreds of millions of dollars in Iranian assets that remain frozen by the United States from the days of the embassy takeover.

In the American view, the apparent move toward moderation by parts of the Iranian government is offset by earlier alleged Iranian involvement in anti-U.S. terrorism in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, by the recent closures of newspapers and attacks by security forces on democracy activists, and by Tehran's purportedly continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons. The two countries remain divided as well on the Middle East peace process.

Khatemi, who started his term three years ago by dressing down demonstrators who hollered "death to America," now speaks of the "high wall of mistrust" that remains between Iran and the United States. During a recent trip to China, he said that "the cultural, economic and political system of the world cannot be left to the whims of the imposing wishes of the dominant powers."

"Iran is a nation that tries to have contacts with all the world," said Jamileh Khadivar, a member of the reform coalition whose dominance in the current Iranian parliament has held out the hope of improved ties with the United States. "But in the case of a government that has hegemonic tendencies, that won't work."

U.S. officials responded to Khatemi's recent remarks by saying that repairing ties with Iran will require, foremost, "patience."

Beyond the rhetoric, there are some signs that diplomats and other analysts here read as boding well for better U.S.-Iranian ties. Most notable are Iran's improved relations with U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf region and its conversation with Egypt about restoring diplomatic relations severed two decades ago when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and sheltered Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Iranian monarch deposed by the Islamic revolution.

Many Iranians say they would like relations with the United States to improve, although it is a sentiment inevitably couched in terms of equality and mutual respect. Memories here run deep, and even casual conversations may meander from pleasantries about relatives among Iran's large expatriate population in the United States to discussion of the shah's repressive regime. It's a past Iranians want to avoid repeating, even if they also would like to end the feud with the United States.

"We've always liked American values, as long as the American government doesn't take advantage of us," said Yousef Mashayakee, 24, who works for the Iranian Oil Company in the southern city of Shiraz. "No country wants to have enemies. . . . Normal people want normal relationships."

That the United States remains a target of suspicion runs counter to the viewpoint of several decades ago, when it was seen as a democratic counterweight to British influence, said Davood Bavand, a veteran Iranian diplomat and lecturer on international affairs. Back then, Iranians perceived the United States as interested in building schools and hospitals, not, as was the case later, as preoccupied with selling weapons and controlling oil supplies, he said.

"It is in Iran's interests to solve these problems" with the United States, Bavand said, noting the almost daily discussion in the Iranian press and political circles of the need to modernize the country's technology and court more foreign investment. Iranian youths, the dominant demographic group in the country, meanwhile, chafe under Islamic social strictures, and, despite the threat of fines or imprisonment, are avid consumers of Western pop music and videos.

Bavand and others said Iran's domestic politics will make it difficult for any rapprochement to begin without a move by the United States--such as the unfreezing of Iranian assets or the lifting of an economic embargo so that American technology and capital can begin to enter the country.

Anti-U.S. rhetoric and policies were a staple in the rise to power of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 and afterward and remain a core principle of his successor as the country's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Under Iran's system of theocratically monitored democracy, Khamenei's power is greater than that of the elected president, Khatemi, and he retains explicit authority over Iran's relationship with the United States.

"On the day when the U.S. should praise us, we should mourn," Khomeini is quoted as saying in a sign along the outside wall of the former U.S. embassy building, decorated still with a flowing mural depicting perceived U.S. misdeeds against Iran.

The country's conservative establishment won't easily abandon such a mainstay of their ideology, unless they can control the pace of any change and take credit for a step that many Iranians would likely welcome, said Hamidreza Jalaie-Pour, publisher of a recently banned reformist newspaper.

"Conservatives in this country would not like Iran-U.S. relations to be normalized by the hand of Khatemi," he said. "They would want to normalize [relations] themselves."

Some motivation may come from the new parliament. With the legislature behind him, said new member Ali Reza Nouri, Khatemi may be more inclined to initiate better relations with the United States than he was a few months ago, when a conservative-dominated parliament questioned his every move.

"The youth want to involve themselves with the world's progress," and were a key constituency in the success of Khatemi and the reform candidates for parliament, Nouri said. "You can feel how curious they are. . . . They want to get involved with the outside world."

-------- mexico

Ally of Mexico's Fox favors nuclear shutdown

By Adolfo Garza 17:39
07-05-00
Reuters
From: Ndunlks@aol.com

MONTERREY, Mexico, July 5 (Reuters) - A key ally of Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox said on Wednesday he supported the shutdown of the nation's only nuclear power plant -- which has been compared by experts to Ukraine's Chernobyl.

The Laguna Verde plant is ``one of the greatest absurdities'' of past governments, said Jorge Gonzalez Torres, president of the Green Party that formed an alliance with the conservative National Action Party (PAN) to nominate Fox.

Laguna Verde is on Mexico's Gulf coast -- some 450 miles (725 km) south of Texas -- and experts say that in the event of a disaster, the fallout would reach the southern shores of the United States within hours.

Outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo's administration has said it would allow a thorough inspection of the plant, expressing confidence it would pass independent tests.

In a telephone interview, Gonzalez Torres told Reuters, ``It is already a junk plant, just a few years after it was inaugurated, and it is destined to be closed as soon as possible if we don't want to run the growing risk of a big nuclear explosion, or nuclear damage in the area.''

Fox and his PAN-Green Party alliance will take power on Dec. 1 following their win in Sunday's national election.

Gonzalez Torres said he would also strongly oppose the construction of any other nuclear plants.

Last month, Greenpeace released a report by British consulting engineers Large and Associates that said Laguna Verde was ``on the verge of institutional failure,'' a complete collapse of the reactor's systems.

The study was based on a World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) inspection, which compared the plant to Ukraine's Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986.

Laguna Verde is just 175 miles (275 km) east of Mexico City, the world's second-largest urban area, with a population of 17.8 million.

WANO is an international organisation set up after Chernobyl to monitor nuclear safety in member nations.

It visited the plant at the request of the Mexican government in 1999. A spokesman for the government's Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) said on Wednesday no date has been set for a new inspection.

Laguna Verde, in the Gulf state of Veracruz, began operations in 1989 and generated 3.67 percent of Mexico's electric power during the third quarter of 1999, the latest period for which data was available.

-------- ukraine

Donors Pledge Fresh Millions to Make Chernobyl Safe

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-environ.html

BERLIN (Reuters) - Countries backing a fund to build a new concrete shell to encase the disaster-hit Chernobyl nuclear reactor agreed Wednesday to pledge most of the $768 million needed.

Delegates from 37 governments, led by the G7 leading industrialized nations, and the European Union boosted promised contributions to $715 million from $393 million already promised, allowing work to start on the steel-latticed ``tomb'' due for completion in 2005.

``Our expectations have been surpassed,'' German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said. His Greens party colleague, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, agreed.

``The small sum outstanding will be committed at a third pledging conference,'' Fischer said.

Officials said the existing total was sufficient to launch an international tender for construction of a new ''sarcophagus'' around ruined Chernobyl reactor number four, which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Germany, hard hit by fallout and with a strong anti-nuclear lobby, has been a driving force behind the fund. It praised Ukraine's decision to close the accident-prone Chernobyl plant, which has cost Kiev billions of dollars, by the end of 2000.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko thanked Germany and the international community for their support and promised to continue a safety drive with the country's other reactors.

But he said that Kiev intended to press ahead with controversial plans to complete two new nuclear plants to replace lost power supply from Chernobyl.

Trittin told Yushchenko that a 1995 international commitment to help fund alternative sources of energy would be fulfilled more quickly if Ukraine scrapped plans for the reactors.

The tomb project reflects only a fraction of the cost of closing Chernobyl. Experts say that decommissioning the plant, completing the two new reactors and constructing safe waste storage sites might cost up to $2 billion in total.

Environmental group Greenpeace puts that figure even higher.

The G7 and the European Union are due to decide in the autumn on funding under the 1995 deal, following a report from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

A 1997 donor conference pledged $393 million to the EBRD's Chernobyl Shelter Fund, $300 million from G7 nations and the EU.

Ukraine relies on nuclear power to supply nearly half of its electricity. Chernobyl's still-active reactor number three generates about eight percent of the country's electricity.

----

Donors To Rebuild Chernobyl Casing

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 12:42 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Germany-Chernobyl.html

BERLIN (AP) -- Work to replace the leaky cement shell covering the ruined nuclear reactor at Chernobyl can begin now that Western nations have pledged to pay almost the entire estimated cost of $768 million, officials said Wednesday.

``We can get started quite soon and we can put all our efforts into it,'' German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said at the end of a conference of more than 40 donor nations in Berlin.

Chernobyl, a Soviet-built nuclear power plant in Ukraine, was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident when an explosion and fire at one of its reactors in April 1986 spewed radiation over much of Europe.

Experts say the new cover -- which will replace one the Soviets hastily constructed over the ruined reactor -- is needed to prevent new releases of radiation. But Ukraine, still struggling to rebuild its economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has pushed for outside help to pay for the work.

Wednesday's donor conference, following one in New York in 1997, raised additional pledges of $319 million from major industrial nations including the United States, bringing the total funding promised to $715 million of the $768 million needed.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he expected the ``relatively low'' amount remaining -- about $53 million -- could be raised at a third donor conference in the future.

At a news conference with his German hosts, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko said he was satisfied with the pledges. ``There were expectations and the expectations have been surpassed,'' he said.

Ukraine was less receptive to German efforts to persuade it to give up plans to replace the energy lost from shutting Chernobyl by building two new Russian-type reactors.

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma promised in early June to shut down Chernobyl's last working reactor on Dec. 15, and wants additional international aid to help build the replacement plants.

At the news conference, Yushchenko said only that his country would continue with efforts to ``improve safety in using nuclear facilities.''

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-------- new mexico

Back Channels: The Intelligence Community
In His Defense, Lee Raises Race Issue

Washington Post
Wednesday, July 5, 2000; Page A19
By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/05/099l-070500-idx.html

Attorneys representing Wen Ho Lee have filed their long-awaited selective prosecution motion, arguing that the former Los Alamos physicist was singled out for investigation as a possible spy and ultimately charged in December with downloading nuclear warhead design codes because he is an ethnic Chinese American.

The motion, filed June 23 in Albuquerque, states that Lee is the only person ever charged under the "draconian" life imprisonment provisions of the Atomic Energy Act for mishandling information that wasn't classified and wasn't transferred to unauthorized individuals.

The motion includes a sworn declaration by Robert Vrooman, former chief of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, which reads: "I state without reservation that racial profiling was a crucial component in the FBI's identifying Dr. Lee as a suspect."

Lee's attorneys filed the motion to force the government to turn over documents from numerous other cases in which individuals were not criminally prosecuted for mishandling secrets. Among them: former CIA director John M. Deutch, who drafted secret memos on unsecure home computers.

Government officials, who deny targeting Lee on the basis of race, must respond by July 14.

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Fretting about the Atomic City's image

July 5, 2000
By Frank Munger
News-Sentinel staff writer
http://www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/fm07052000.shtml

Leah Dever, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge manager for the past year, made an interesting observation about her new hometown: "Let's face it, Oak Ridge is proud of its past."

Actually, I think that's an understatement.

There is a virtual obsession with Oak Ridge history, especially when you consider the place is little more than a half-century old (if you ignore the pre-existing farming community and begin with the World War II encampment for the Manhattan Project).

As Oak Ridge heads into the 21st century, however, there's an obvious conflict.

Some folks would like for Oak Ridge to be known for more than its nuclear past. In fact, the mere mention of "Atomic City" makes them duck and cringe and worry about the impact on local business. They'd prefer Oak Ridge emphasize its other scientific attributes and put an end to all of those glow-in-the-dark jokes that outsiders like to tell about -- and tell to -- Oak Ridgers.

Others, however, are a bit more nostalgic and think Oak Ridge should forever be defined by its nuclear roots.

I suppose I favor this latter group because I must admit I got a little weepy with the passing of the late, great Reactor Room (which went the way of Oak Ridge's Holiday Inn). Where else could one truly appreciate sipping a cold one while listening to the Pointer Sisters sing "Neutron Dance"?

Yes, indeed, many fine folks reached critical mass in that little lounge.

Other atomic landmarks have been stripped of their identity, too -- such as Atomic City Auto Parts (which, unfortunately, became just another Superfund cleanup site).

The nonnuclear trend may have started years ago when the American Museum of Atomic Energy got renamed as the more generic American Museum of Science & Energy and the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies became Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

Other atomic places and things just disappeared without explanation or went out of business.

One recent evening while sitting at my desk, having just met another work deadline, I realized I didn't have enough to worry about, so I decided to worry about Oak Ridge losing its image.

Soon, however, I was reassured.

Driving along the Oak Ridge Turnpike, I looked up and saw the atomic symbol prominently displayed on the side of the city's high school. And there it was again, dotting the "i" in The Oak Ridger, the community newspaper.

There are still a few atomic businesses in town, also. Like Atomic City Tool and Atomic Pawn and Title and Atom Sciences.

While the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Union decided a couple of years ago to become something called PACE, the biggest union organization in town retains the title of Atomic Trades and Labor Council.

Mostly, though, the town's atomic nomenclature survives through its social and cultural life.

For instance, there's the Atomic City Aquatic Club, the Atomic City Stamp Club and the Atomic City Racing Pigeon Club. Then there's Atomic Beagle Club, the Atomic Bass Club, the Atomic City Sportsmen's Club and the Atomic City Academy of Gymnastics. And the Order of the Eastern Star has an Atomic Chapter in Oak Ridge, and the Order of the Amaranth has Atomic City Court No. 6.

As it's popular to say, Oak Ridgers don't have a life -- they have a half-life.

*DUTCH TREAT: On the topic of atomic heritage, the visit of Dutch Van Kirk, the navigator of the Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima, Japan) was an astounding success.

Van Kirk's weekend visit drew big crowds and helped raise about $3,000 for the foundation that supports the American Museum of Science & Energy.

He reportedly signed more than 4,000 autographs while in Oak Ridge.

"That 79-year-old man wore us out," said Gordon Fee, former manager of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and one of Van Kirk's hosts.

Van Kirk's appearance was the second largest draw in the museum's history -- second only to an exhibit of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts.

Fee has been a leader in the foundation, which supports the Oak Ridge museum and tries to ensure its future success by lending a private base of support.

"As it is now, the museum depends on the whims of Congress and good graces of the U.S. Department of Energy, so we have to take care of this," Fee said.

Funds raised by the foundation are used to upgrade museum exhibits and help pay expenses, especially for some things that the federal government is not allowed to do by law (advertising, refreshments for visiting teachers, etc.).

Many of the city's atomic scientists are no longer living, and Fee said the museum is an important means of preserving the history.

Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 423-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/

----

Tennessee air doesn't comply with new clean-air regulations

July 5, 2000
The Associated Press
http://www.oakridger.com/

CHATTANOOGA -- All Tennessee regions where ozone levels are monitored are out of compliance with new clean air regulations, Gov. Don Sundquist said in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency.

That includes all of Tennessee's major metropolitan areas. Areas not in compliance could lose federal transportation money.

The state had 99 percent compliance under the old standards.

"We're no worse than we have been -- in fact the air is cleaner -- but the standards have changed," Tennessee Environment and Conservation Commissioner Milton Hamilton told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Sundquist's letter met a June 30 deadline to advise the EPA on Tennessee's status in meeting the new clean air regulations. State officials have four months from July 1 to come up with a plan to bring Tennessee's air quality into compliance.

Hamilton said it will be difficult for Tennessee to meet the new regulations, based on data collected from ozone monitors.

Ozone is a colorless gas that forms when nitrogen oxides emitted by power plants, factories or gasoline-burning engines mix with hydrocarbons in the presence of sunlight. In addition to causing environmental damage, it poses a health hazard, particularly for children, the elderly and anyone with asthma or lung disease.

The new clean air regulations limit the allowed ozone level to 0.08 parts per million, from 0.12 parts per million. States also are required for the first time to regulate microscopic particulates, or soot, from power plants, cars and other sources down to 2.5 microns, or 28 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

The regulations have been challenged in court by the Tennessee Valley Authority and other utilities, and Hamilton said it is not clear how many of the new regulations will be upheld.

EPA is allowing states to decide whether to crack down on power plant emissions or use another strategy to meet the new regulations, such as attacking pollution from the exhausts of cars and trucks. The agency says it is cheapest to go after utility emissions.

Last week a federal appeals court lifted a stay on one regulation that forces additional controls on coal-fired power plants. The ruling gives 19 states, including Tennessee, four months to plan for reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by May 2003.

Still tied up in litigation is EPA's new ozone standard.

Errol Reksten of the Air Pollution Control Bureau in Chattanooga said the city has been in compliance for years, but the new regulations will make it virtually impossible to remain that way without geography changes or stringent new rules.

One solution might involve mandatory vehicle exhaust inspections and repairs, he said.

"At the risk of being run out of town, the truth is this is going to wind up as a mobile source problem -- cars and trucks," he said.

----

Oak Ridger Letter on Senator Thompson's Farce of a CONpensation Bill
Thompson blasted on sick worker bill

Your Views Letters to the Editor
The Oak Ridger,
July 5, 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

The recent Senate floor amendment by Sen. Thompson does not meet the reasonable expectations of sick Oak Ridge workers and residents for meaningful compensation legislation. On June 10, by e-mail, I asked Sen. Thompson 50 questions about it: I have not received any substantive response.

Sadly, U.S. Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson, on advice from DOE, passed an inept compensation bill, Senate Amendment 3250 to S.2549 does not pass the laugh test. http://www.downwinders.org/victims.html

Sen. Thompson has staged a farce for his colleagues and the American people. The Thompson-DOE amendment does not meet minimum standards of due process -- set in black lung compensation -- as discussed by Oak Ridge lawyer Gene Joyce in his columns. Sen. Thompson has dashed reasonable expectations of probity of the sick workers and residents.

The Thompson-DOE amendment does not require:

1. Coverage of all sick workers and residents hurt by DOE toxicants.

2. Full funding of lifetime compensation and medical benefits by making the polluters pay.

3. Open public hearings with testimony under oath before independent DOL administrative law judges, as provided for black lung claims (instead, the Thompson amendment uses government doctors to decide claims).

4. Subpoena power and easy access to documents and answers from DOE and contractor managers (incredibly, Thompson amendment requires a separate federal court lawsuit to force discovery, after first waiting 180 days!).

5. Appeals to the DOL Benefits Review Board and judicial review by the Court of Appeals, as provided for black lung and longshore workers' compensation claims.

6. Strict action-forcing deadlines for government action, with claims being granted if the government waits too long.

7. Payment of full reasonable attorney fees, expert witness fees and other litigation expenses at market rates and a ban on attorney solicitation and percentage contingency fees, as in black lung (instead, attorneys would be free to charge contingency fees, reducing the $200,000 lump sum to as little as $100,000 after expenses).

8. An end to the Federal Tort Claims Act discretionary function exemption for ultrahazardous activities, preserving worker rights to sue.

9. Coverage for genetic injuries to spouses, families, children and grandchildren of workers and for injuries caused by dangerous chemicals and heavy metals like cyanide, mercury and hydrogen fluoride.

10. Independence of the Department of Energy in deciding compensation and independent lifetime medical care and research, free of influence by DOE and its contractors.

Rather than a fitting memorial to sick workers and residents whose suffering made the Cold War victory possible, Sen. Thompson's bill is a snare and a delusion, guaranteed to result in denials and delays.

Just what does Sen. Thompson think his weak DOE-drafted amendment is going to accomplish? Is his intention to pass a reform that is not worthy of the word? How many sick workers does Sen. Thompson really think will be compensated under this restrictive bill?

Why does Sen. Thompson think that U.S. government doctors lacking in independence could fairly decide cases? He must not remember the Reagan administration's efforts to pressure independent Social Security Administration administrative law judges to deny benefits, sending SSA judges those who found too many workers disabled to what Rep. Barney Frank called "remedial judging school."

In one of my favorite movies, "The Hunt for Red October," a U.S. Navy admiral (portrayed by none other than veteran character actor Fred Dalton Thompson) said (I must paraphrase): "The Russians don't (go to the bathroom) without a plan." What is Sen. Thompson's plan in fronting for and passing such a monstrous piece of DOE-drafted legislation and acting like it is progress?

Sen. Thompson's fatally flawed floor amendment shows no character and makes it appear that Sen. Thompson was indeed acting when he promised to help DOE's victims. If the devil is in the details, then the Thompson Amendment is an energumen: it will not silence the victims or meet their needs.

The U.S. House of Representatives and House-Senate conference committee must devise a just compensation system to cover all victims with full benefits, making polluters pay. We don't need another farce, written and run by the same DOE that created the ultrahazardous facilities and covered them up for nearly six decades.

Edward A. Slavin Jr. Box 3084 St. Augustine, FL 32085-3084

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Greenpeace to Launch Media Center to Protest "Star Wars"

US Newswire
5 Jul 12:55
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0705-110.html

"Stop Star Wars" Media Center Goes Up At Missile Launch Site To: National Desk Contact: Carole Gregory of Greenpeace, 805-598-2516 or Media Coordination Center 805-598-2527; E-mail: mary.macnutt@wdc.greenpeace.org Web: http://www.stopstarwars.org

News Advisory:
Where: Main Gate, Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc, California
When: July 5, 2000, 12 noon PST

The international anti-nuclear organization Greenpeace will set up a media center across the street from Vandenberg Air Force base to highlight worldwide concern over the Star Wars missile defense system scheduled for testing at the base on July 7.

Greenpeace will be joined at Vandenberg's front gate by arms control and disarmament experts. Also on site will be a 50 foot inflatable missile and banners reading "Stop Star Wars."

From the center, Greenpeace will launch its Web site www.stopstarwars.org which will allow citizens from around the world to record their concern about the Pentagon proceeding with the Star Wars program.

Greenpeace opposes Star Wars because it will ignite a new nuclear arms race. Campaigners and arms controls experts will be available at the site as the final countdown for the missile launch approaches.

---

Critics Thwart Clinton Missile Defense Plan While the president may give the go-ahead, it is expected that his successor will make the key decisions.

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, July 5, 2000
By PAUL RICHTER, Times Staff Writer
ttp://www.latimes.com/news/nation/updates/lat_missile000705.htm

WASHINGTON--With President Clinton now widely expected to defer the key decisions on a national missile defense system to his successor, U.S. officials and outside experts say the president's own plan no longer commands broad support and may be abandoned soon after he leaves office.

For more than seven years, Clinton's blueprint for building a limited, land-based missile shield has been the focus of intense planning and debate. It was the administration's carefully calibrated response to growing concern about a possible small-scale missile attack by a "rogue state" such as North Korea, and the momentum behind it seemed to be building.

But in recent months, Clinton's plan has come under blistering attack from both left and right. Advocates from both camps now say it is increasingly regarded as a political "orphan" that may be quickly cast aside after a new administration takes office next year.

The implications of the shift are substantial. At the least, it could delay deployment of a system beyond 2005, when U.S. officials believe North Korea may become capable of hitting the United States with a long-range missile. And it could open the door to development of a different kind of missile shield. Possibilities include an expanded land-based system, a sea-based "boost-phase" system, or a bigger, more complex "Star Wars"-like system with land, sea and space components.

Administration officials say they expect Clinton will offer his final word on the issue this fall, by proposing to take the first steps toward construction of his proposed system. But he will leave the pivotal deployment decisions to his successor, officials say, thus minimizing the immediate political and diplomatic fallout.

The handoff is expected to ease the pressure for rapid deployment of a missile shield, some analysts predict, as the new president studies his options on an issue with enormous political and diplomatic ramifications.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive GOP nominee, has said he wants a missile shield "as soon as possible." But he also wants to thoroughly research alternative technologies, including sea-based and space-based components that are not as fully developed as the components of Clinton's land-based plan. "I want to make sure we explore all options," Bush said last week in Cleveland.

Vice President Al Gore, the expected Democratic nominee, has declared that he, too, generally favors a missile defense program, but has stopped short of offering specifics on what kind of system he would advocate.

Gore presumably would be more eager to preserve the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, which bans any kind of national missile system in an effort to avoid a greater arms race. The Clinton administration has been pressing the Russians--so far, without success--to rewrite the treaty to permit a limited missile defense system. Moscow is instead advocating development of a "boost-phase" system that would shoot down rogue state missiles shortly after they are launched but would not affect the U.S.-Russian nuclear balance.

Current Debate Like That on MX Missile

U.S. officials and outside analysts compare the current situation to the polarizing debate that occurred 21 years ago over plans for a new missile called the MX. President Carter, worried about an increasing Soviet missile threat and under pressure from the right, in 1979 ordered full-scale development of a scheme that would have involved moving U.S. missiles from place to place, making them harder to find and kill.

But two years later, President Reagan, although an advocate of a forceful response, scrapped that plan and ordered new studies.

"We have seen this kind of thing before," said one defense official.

Clinton's current plan calls for an initial system of 100 interceptor missiles based in silos in Alaska. Working with a network of radars and satellites, these missiles would be designed to knock down enemy warheads in mid-flight. The system would defend against as many as 20 missiles launched simultaneously by a nuclear foe.

Earlier this year, there was considerable momentum behind deployment of such a system because of increasing anxiety about the threat posed by countries such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Two years ago, North Korea alarmed the world by unexpectedly firing a three-stage missile that, while inaccurate, suggested Pyongyang was on the way to developing a missile that could reach the United States.

Yet as the administration's self-imposed deadline for making a deployment decision drew near, arms control advocates and other critics increasingly complained that the Clinton model would fail because it couldn't reliably distinguish a warhead from the various decoys that the enemy might release in space to fool the interceptor.

Meanwhile, conservatives have grown more disgruntled with the Clinton blueprint because of their view that it would fail to fully protect the country at a time when, according to the Pentagon, many medium-sized "regional powers" are developing ballistic missiles.

Both liberal and conservative analysts have been increasingly interested in the possibilities offered by "boost-phase" interceptor systems. These systems seek to avoid the problem of decoys by trying to hit the enemy missile in the first five minutes of its flight, when it is a large, hot target that is easy to pick out. John M. Deutch and John P. White, former deputy Defense secretaries under Clinton, and Harold Brown, Carter's Defense secretary, have stepped forward to advocate this approach.

These growing dissatisfactions have made the Clinton plan a political orphan--a term used by both Baker Spring, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation, and John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World, an arms control advocacy group.

There are reasons why the next president may move carefully before committing to a system, some analysts point out.

A move to build a missile defense system would galvanize opposition from Democrats in Congress and "would unify our allies, Russia and China against us," said Ivo H. Daalder, a Brookings Institution scholar who was on the National Security Council staff earlier in the Clinton administration. To take on such adversaries "is a big deal in your first 100 days in office."

"The political incentive is to defer, under Gore, and even under Bush," he said. "So Clinton's decision to defer could in fact be a decision to defer this for quite some time."

One defense official said that even if the lame-duck Clinton offers a ringing endorsement of the missile defense technology, it would not necessarily create great pressure on the next president.

The momentum would be "really not all that much," said this defense official. Citing the example of the MX missile, he said: "There's really nothing [Clinton] could do that couldn't be undone."

The next key step in the administration's program will come Friday night, when the Pentagon is scheduled to launch a missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the third of 19 planned flight tests of its missile defense technology.

If all goes as planned, the missile will be detected by defense satellites, which will send tracking data to a "battle management" center, which in turn will launch an interceptor missile from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific. Less than half an hour later, a 40-pound "kill vehicle" should break free from the nose of the interceptor, and maneuver to collide with a dummy warhead released by the target missile.

Test Aims to Gauge 'Kill Vehicle' Capacity

The $100-million test is designed to evaluate, among other issues, whether the components of the system can work together smoothly, and whether the "kill vehicle" can maneuver itself into the path of the dummy warhead.

Pentagon officials have played down the chances of a direct collision, or "kill." They say they may declare the flight test a success even without an intercept, provided other aspects of the system perform suitably.

A satisfactory result would clear the way for Clinton to keep the program alive, but defer the critical decisions to the next president.

Administration officials say the process will unfold in this fashion:

Sometime this fall, Clinton will declare that the missile defense proposal has shown promise, and that the nation should leave its options open by taking the first steps toward deployment.

Clinton will then authorize the Pentagon to seek bids for initial site preparation for a radar station at Shemya, a wind-swept Alaskan island at the western end of the Aleutian chain.

The contract must be awarded late this year for construction to begin in the spring; that, in turn, is necessary if the Pentagon is to finish a system by 2005.

But actual construction wouldn't begin until next year, enabling Clinton to contend that he has taken no action that would violate the ABM treaty's ban on building a missile defense system. That would prevent a diplomatic showdown with Russia, which adamantly opposes the administration's missile defense program.

Thus, Clinton will leave the big decisions to his successor, these officials say, while offering enough of an endorsement of missile defense that Republicans won't be able to use the issue to attack Gore in the fall election.

---

Missile silo blasts into Cold War past

CNN
July 5, 2000 Web posted at: 3:08 p.m. EDT (1908 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/07/05/silo.implosion.02/index.html

PILLSBURY, North Dakota (CNN) -- A blast echoed across a remote North Dakota wheat field Wednesday and another remnant of the Cold War disintegrated into history.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/07/05/silo.implosion.02/north.dakota.barnes.jpg

U.S. Air Force demolitions experts blew up "M-6," the 44th of 150 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silos across the eastern plains of North Dakota being dismantled to comply with the most recent phase of the 1993 U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II).

Another 300 silos already have been destroyed in Missouri and South Dakota.

The military on Wednesday cleared nearby roadways and warned onlookers of the impending blast, which took place in a field about 30 miles outside of Grand Forks. Munitions experts then pushed a small button on an orange box connected to 69 dynamite charges inside the silo, igniting a muted blast that took only seconds to destroy the structure.

Tech. Sgt. Steven Marback, a member of the demolitions team that once staffed the silo when it was operational, said he was ambivalent about Wednesday's work. "It's disheartening at times because they did maintain this facility for 16 years, but it's also a good thing," Marback said. "I don't think we've lost any of our protection."

Missiles still on alert

Five hundred Minuteman III ICBMs and 50 Peacekeeper missiles remain on 24-hour alert, according to Air Force officials.

"There's no particular sadness because we support arms control agreements," said Col. Charles Carpenter with the Air Force Command. "This is a great day for the Air Force, the people of North Dakota and the nation to move forward in an arms control agreement."

At the height of the Cold War, missile silos like M-6 occupied some 15,000 square miles of U.S. land, an area roughly the size of New Jersey, Massachusetts and Washington D.C. combined.

The demolitions team Wednesday rigged the M-6 silo with 800 pounds of explosives aimed at imploding one of the country's most durable structures -- a two-story hole where a launch pad 92 feet below ground held a missile, since removed, protected by a 110-ton door. Air Force officers once were stationed in the silo with the codes and keys to launch a nuclear attack against Russia.

The implosion filled the hole with rubble and steel cable. Eventually the site will be covered with top soil and reconverted to farmland, some 30 years after it was appropriated for the nation's defense. Enough of the debris, however, must remain evident over the next 90 days to allow Russian satellites to detect the destruction.

'ICBM plays a central role'

Watching the blast was Col. Kimber McKenzie, who commands some of the remaining missiles deployed at Minot, North Dakota. "This may seem a thing of the past that we just saw here today, but in this new century the leadership of this nation has recommitted us to the deterrence mission and ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system) plays a central role in that mission," McKenzie said.

Under START II, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their nuclear forces by 30 to 40 percent. The United States, for the most, is required to implode some silos and their support facilities.

For Russia, the treaty requirements include imploding silos and moving nuclear warheads from neighboring republics back to Russia.

CNN Chicago Bureau Chief Jeff Flock and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---

U.S. Study Reopens Division Over Nuclear Missile Threat

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/070500missile-defense.html

WASHINGTON, July 4 -- Intelligence officials, military officers and policy experts in the Clinton administration are deeply divided over the seriousness of missile threats posed by countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, even as the administration says the United States needs to build a national missile defense system.

Officials at the State Department dissented from an intelligence report last fall that stated that North Korea could soon develop a ballistic missile that could threaten the United States. They are also quite likely to dissent again as intelligence agencies prepare a new assessment for the president, administration officials said.

Some officials in the White House, State Department, Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency argue that the threat has been almost exclusively defined by technological abilities and that the emerging analysis discounts political, economic and social factors that could make a threat less likely.

The officials said the intense focus on missiles that could hit American soil also obscured the more immediate threat posed by nuclear weapons carried by terrorists or fired from ships. The officials said the change in focus devalued the concept of deterrence, by which the sheer force of the American arsenal would inhibit even the most irresponsible leader from attacking American soil.

Dissension exists even on the technological side. A senior Pentagon official acknowledged that Iran's ballistic missile program had problems and was "certainly not clicking along really fast."

The Pentagon schedule to build a missile defense is entirely driven by the belief that North Korea will have a long-range missile by 2005.

Indeed,

the coming intelligence report will reportedly find that North Korea could develop a missile that could strike the United States by 2005, the same finding that was in the report last year.

In the case of Iran, the study last year reported that some experts believed that the threat was "likely before 2010." Others have said there is "less than an even chance by 2015," a split that persists.

As for Iraq, officials agree that Iraq will pose no concrete threat to the United States as long as international sanctions remain in place.

The assessments are crucial, because they are driving the decision by President Clinton to decide in the fall on proceeding with a $60 billion program to build a limited missile defense in five years. Mr. Clinton has repeatedly said -- as recently as this week -- he will make his decision on four factors, the cost, the technological feasibility, the effects on other countries and the urgency of the threat.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has declared the existence of a threat in five years.

"I believe by the year 2005 a threat will be present that could threaten the security of the United States," Mr. Cohen said in an interview on CNN on Saturday.

That finding is being fiercely contested by some officials, including experts on Korea, who point to North Korea's suspension of its missile tests in the fall and the progress between the leaders of North and South Korea since their successful meeting last month.

The intelligence report being completed for Mr. Clinton is known as a National Intelligence Estimate and is supposed to reflect the consensus of all the intelligence agencies, including, among others, the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research. But as experts from those agencies have contributed their views and information to drafts in recent weeks, there is little consensus.

In fact, as a missile defense has emerged as an important difference between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush in the presidential campaign, many intelligence officials have complained that what is supposed to be a coldly analytical process has evolved into a roiling political debate.

In the report last year, the rules of classic intelligence analysis were altered, the officials said, to measure not whether countries were likely to threaten the United States, but whether they "could" do so. The officials said that change skewed the results toward the most alarming assessment.

"There's a lot of pressure from the Hill driving this process," said a longtime intelligence official involved in preparing the new report. "You end up with realms of possibility, including what is least likely to what is unthinkable. We are writing in worst-case language. Frankly, from my perspective, this is nonsense."

Senior administration officials defended the process. "We don't live here to make anybody happy," a senior intelligence official said. Still, that official acknowledged that people on all sides of the debate were "looking for something in what we say to support their own arguments."

The intensely partisan politics swirling around the urgency of the threat were on display on Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At one point, John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, pressed Larry D. Welch, a retired Army general who heads an independent team that is reviewing the Pentagon's plans, to enunciate the extent of the nation's vulnerability to missiles.

"Look straight into the cameras and say, 'We are as a nation defenseless,' " Mr. Warner demanded after trying several ways to have the witness say that affirmatively.

General Welch replied: "We as a nation have no missile defense to deal with these threats. That's correct."

But at another point, John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, "There's nothing that I'm aware of that suggests that the threat of an attack on the United States is 'increasingly likely' in the next few years."

Mr. Kerry said the threat depended on not only the ability to build weapons, but also on "analysis of the nature of the relationships with a country, the rationale for an attack, the possibilities of an attack, the levels of deterrence."

The central question asked by many critics of the national missile defense is why its advocates appear to have discounted deterrence as a counter to the missile threat, even though deterrence governed American strategic thinking throughout the cold war.

Many senior officials have said deterrence no longer held when it came to countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq. The officials regard the leaders of those countries as capable of irrational self-destructive behavior.

"We didn't like the Soviets, but we roughly understood them to be extremely cautious," said Leon S. Fuerth, Mr. Gore's national security adviser. "We never have had the depth of understanding about what makes the North Koreans tick to give us that confidence."

As for Iran, a senior Pentagon official pointed out that Iranians seized American hostages 20 years ago; still chanted, "Death to America"; and were involved in state-sponsored terrorism.

Intelligence officials say Iran is considering developing a rocket that can put satellites in orbit, a move that would represent a significant step toward possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile. Tehran has begun discussing the project with France, India and Russia.

The officials also cite Iran's efforts to develop a longer-range missile, the Shahab-4. But Iran is still faces difficulties in its program to build the Shahab-3, a missile with a range of 780 miles. Those problems have prompted experts to question the Iranian missile threat to the United States. "There is an Iranian threat to U.S. forces in the region, not to the continental United States," said an official.

Some officials complain that all the attention focused on the potential missile threat diverts attention from more likely threats like chemical or biological weapons prepared in the United States and hidden in a truck or even a cruise missile carried aboard a ship.

Even Mr. Cohen acknowledges those facts. "I think the act of terrorism taking place on the United States is more likely than intercontinental ballistic missile," he said in his interview on Saturday.

But at another point he added, "To say that we can't protect against everything doesn't mean that we shouldn't protect against those that can cause us catastrophic harm."

Administration officials vehemently deny that the missile program is aimed at curbing the military ability of Russia or China. The analysis last year and the report being prepared find that the United States defines those two countries as a threat only in the case of an accidental unauthorized launching.

But especially on Capitol Hill there are those who argue that the ultimate threat is China's ability to strike the United States. Five years ago, an unpublished report prepared for the House National Security Committee by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization cited the possibility of China's "using its ballistic missiles to prevent U.S. action in Korea" as a pivotal threat that justifies a defensive shield.

"It's easy to talk about North Korea, Iran and Iraq, but people don't like to talk about Russia or China," said Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona. "But people privately also are a little worried that there could be another threat from China. I'm candidly telling you that behind closed doors you hear some people expressing some concerns about ultimate threats like China."

----

For the love of ABM

Washington Times
EDITORIAL • July 5, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-200075172027.htm

Time may be running out for the Clinton-Gore administration to make a meaningful contribution in the nuclear arms arena. President Clinton dreads the idea that his lasting contribution would be the abrogation of the anachronistic Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Both Mr. Clinton and Vice President Gore continue to argue that the ABM treaty represents the "cornerstone of strategic stability."

At the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, however, the Russian leader refused to acquiesce to changes to the ABM treaty that would permit Mr. Clinton to approve a very limited land-based national missile defense system based in Alaska. This represents a problem for the White House. In order for the Alaska-based system to become operational by 2005 construction on its ABM treaty-busting radar would have to begin by next spring. That means that Mr. Clinton would have to make the decision to proceed during the fall of 2000.

The administration is so wedded to the ABM treaty that it apparently never occurred to it that Russia should not have veto power over a U.S. decision to defend itself against ICBMs launched by rogue states like North Korea, Iraq and Iran. In fact, in an apparent rhetorical effort to downplay the risk posed by these nations, the administration has inexplicably withdrawn the whole notion of "rogue states." In announcing that terrorism-exporting "rogue states" would now be known as "states of concern," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright unilaterally downgraded her earlier declaration that "dealing with rogue states is one of the great challenges of our time." That hasn't been the administration's only semantic response to strategic nuclear policy. When Mr. Putin refused to give his "permission" to amend the ABM treaty, a bevy of administration national-security lawyers simply reversed long-standing policy and concluded that any decision about the Alaskan radar's construction that Mr. Clinton would make during his term would not abrogate the ABM treaty.

In other words, Mr. Clinton does not have the guts to make the decision to abrogate the ABM treaty even if it is in pursuit of a relatively inferior missile-defense strategy. According to a law Mr. Clinton reluctantly signed last year, he is committed to approving the deployment of a national missile defense system as soon as it is technologically feasible - with or without Mr. Putin's permission. An independent review of the land-based national missile defense program recently concluded that the United States has the "technical capability to develop and field the limited system" against a threat posed by the likes of North Korea.

Were Messrs. Clinton and Gore truly in favor of a reliable missile-defense strategy, they would supplement the limited land-based system (which would seek to destroy nuclear warheads after they have been released in space) with a more promising sea-based system (which could more easily destroy long-range or medium-range missiles in their "boost" phase before they release their warheads). A sea-based system would also protect American allies. But that would require even more changes in the ABM treaty, or, preferably, its complete abrogation. That is a development the Clinton-Gore administration seems determined to preclude even at the expense of the defense of the American population. And that appears to be the legacy Mr. Clinton will bequeath.

<a name="military"></a>
-------- ukraine

Donors Pledge Fresh Millions to Make Chernobyl Safe

By Reuters
July 5, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-environ.html

BERLIN (Reuters) - Countries backing a fund to build a new concrete shell to encase the disaster-hit Chernobyl nuclear reactor agreed Wednesday to pledge most of the $768 million needed.

Delegates from 37 governments, led by the G7 leading industrialized nations, and the European Union boosted promised contributions to $715 million from $393 million already promised, allowing work to start on the steel-latticed ``tomb'' due for completion in 2005.

``Our expectations have been surpassed,'' German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said. His Greens party colleague, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, agreed.

``The small sum outstanding will be committed at a third pledging conference,'' Fischer said.

Officials said the existing total was sufficient to launch an international tender for construction of a new ''sarcophagus'' around ruined Chernobyl reactor number four, which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst nuclear disaster.

Germany, hard hit by fallout and with a strong anti-nuclear lobby, has been a driving force behind the fund. It praised Ukraine's decision to close the accident-prone Chernobyl plant, which has cost Kiev billions of dollars, by the end of 2000.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko thanked Germany and the international community for their support and promised to continue a safety drive with the country's other reactors.

But he said that Kiev intended to press ahead with controversial plans to complete two new nuclear plants to replace lost power supply from Chernobyl.

Trittin told Yushchenko that a 1995 international commitment to help fund alternative sources of energy would be fulfilled more quickly if Ukraine scrapped plans for the reactors.

The tomb project reflects only a fraction of the cost of closing Chernobyl. Experts say that decommissioning the plant, completing the two new reactors and constructing safe waste storage sites might cost up to $2 billion in total.

Environmental group Greenpeace puts that figure even higher.

The G7 and the European Union are due to decide in the autumn on funding under the 1995 deal, following a report from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

A 1997 donor conference pledged $393 million to the EBRD's Chernobyl Shelter Fund, $300 million from G7 nations and the EU.

Ukraine relies on nuclear power to supply nearly half of its electricity. Chernobyl's still-active reactor number three generates about eight percent of the country's electricity.

-------- MILITARY (by country)

-------- africa

Unruly Militia Defends Sierra Leone

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 4:41 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Unruly-Defenders.html

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- Naked except for thong underwear, a teen-ager hefts a rocket launcher to his shoulder and curses loudly as he runs into the street. His fellow fighters, many wearing charms around their necks, swirl into a mob bristling with rifles.

Unruly and untrained, these traditional hunters are the ragged line of defense for Sierra Leone's weak elected government against brutal rebels who systematically slaughtered tens of thousands and maimed many more during nine years of civil war.

The recent scene at the headquarters of the Kamajor hunter militia is a recipe of how the pro-government faction prepares to battle the rebel Revolutionary United Front: First, liberally apply mysticism, then whip into a frenzy.

The fighters' gray-haired commander, Pa Harding, was shirtless; his pot belly was smeared with a greasy paste to give him the supposed magical ability to repel bullets.

The militia also known as the Civil Defense Force is made up of primarily hunters and uneducated teen-age boys. Most use juju (voodoo) fetishes to protect themselves from their enemies and some openly practice cannibalism, eating the heads and hearts of enemies killed in action. Often they execute suspected rebels first and ask questions later.

But in a country devastated by the rebels who have discarded three peace deals in four years, including last July's accord giving them amnesty for war crimes, many Sierra Leoneans revere -- or at least respect -- the Kamajors.

Part of that popularity stems from the fact that the other factions arrayed against the rebels are just as controversial and their loyalty less certain.

Many army members have previously fought alongside the rebels, and some committed the same atrocities -- cutting off hands, legs and lips of innocent civilians -- that have become the rebels' battle signature. The Kamajors have not veered in their allegiance to the government since the militia was formed in 1995.

The United Nations' troubled peacekeeping force, the world's largest at more than 12,000 troops, has also failed to inspire public confidence.

The U.N. has vowed to give more muscle to its force here and U.N. peacekeepers said Tuesday they had captured a strategic town from rebels. A rebel attack the night before forced government troops to pull out of Masiaka, which lies on a key junction 45 miles from the capital.

Kamajor strongholds, like the southern towns of Bo and Pujehun, are virtually the only areas of Sierra Leone unscathed by the civil war. In the rebel-held north, the group has had less success.

In Bo, Kamajors rule the streets, patrolling in elaborate headdresses and leather fetish tunics. All other pro-government factions are unwelcome.

At their Freetown base, the abandoned Brookfields Hotel, what was once a lively nightspot now has a swimming pool filled with garbage and rooms blackened by smoke from cooking fires. Young fighters while away spare time playing soccer inside the empty restaurant.

The Kamajors, a name which means ``hunter'' in Mende, are nothing if not fierce.

Victor Palmer, a Kamajor fighter in the capital who says he is 19 but looks younger, hefts a British-made SLR rifle and promises to ``kill a rebel'' in honor of a foreign visitor.

His friends slap his back and joke that Palmer's chosen nickname ``Unamsil'' -- the acronym of the U.N. peacekeeping force -- suggests he may instead give up his gun to the rebels. Palmer responds by growling threats and pointing his gun threateningly at his colleagues.

Despite their undisciplined nature and frequent marijuana use, the Kamajors have found an unlikely ally in the former colonial ruler, Britain, which sent 1,000 troops to bolster Freetown's defense in May. Those soldiers are now gone, but British military advisers continue to supply pro-government forces such as the Kamajors with arms and ammunition and are training at least 1,000 army recruits.

Brig. David Richards, the departed British commander, said he expected the Kamajors to play a major role in the defense of the West African nation despite their unwillingness to give up their free-spirited independence and join the new British-trained army.

``There is an important place for a strong militia,'' Richards said, adding they are able to muster up to 100,000 volunteer fighters on short notice.

Despite the rivalry that exists between the Kamajors and other pro-government factions, many Sierra Leoneans agree.

``Our army is in shambles and if we depend on the U.N., then we might as well give up now to the rebels,'' said Ismael Conteh, a 32-year-old unemployed businessman, who said he was planning to join the Kamajors. ``The militia understand the rebels because they are brothers. They are the only ones who can fight them and solve Sierra Leone's problem.''

---

UN Council Plans to Ban Sierra Leone Diamonds

Reuters
July 5, 2000 Filed at 12:47 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-leone-u.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - After several days delay, the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday hopes to impose a global embargo on diamond exports from Sierra Leone, where a thriving gems-for-guns trade is fueling a simmering civil war.

The resolution would ban all rough diamonds from Sierra Leone until the government of the West African nation could set up a proper certification system for the gems -- as well as regain access to lucrative diamond-mining areas under the control of the rebel Revolutionary United Front.

Among the points of dispute still to be settled is whether the embargo should run for 18 months as France wants, or 36 months as the United States prefers.

In either case the diamond ban resolution, which includes a tightened arms embargo on the rebels, would expire unless the council took another vote. France has insisted that all future sanctions resolutions have a sunset clause because of the never-ending embargoes against Iraq, now in their 10th year.

Britain, the sponsor of the resolution, wants Sierra Leone to be a building block in the banning of ``conflict diamonds'' from countries whose mineral wealth were fueling wars.

Diamonds, gold, iron ore and bauxite accounted for about two thirds of Sierra Leone's exports before war in 1990s wrecked the economy of the former British colony. Rebels control some 90 percent of the diamond mines, which yield among the best stones in the world.

The resolution should have been adopted on Friday but members were unable to agree on the length of the embargo.

``The principle of diamond regime has been agreed and will stick. The section on the arms embargo remains as it is and will stick. There are discussions over the time limit,'' British Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock told reporters. ``The United Kingdom will take the resolution to a vote on Wednesday.''

LIBERIA SINGLED OUT AS DIAMOND CONDUIT

Much of the diamond trade goes through Liberia, whose President Charles Taylor was a close ally of RUF chief Foday Sankoh and for years supported the rebels.

The resolution singles out Liberia by referring to reports that the diamonds ``transit through neighboring countries, including Liberia.'' This phrase may be eliminated, after objections from some African nations

Sierra Leone's envoy, Sylvester Rowe, said his country was ''not asking for punitive measures against Liberia because both of our countries would suffer. But we do want to shame them.''

Oluyeme Adeniji, the U.N. special representative for Sierra Leone, who visited New York last week, said he was against naming Liberia as a conduit for the diamonds because Taylor was trying to free 233 peacekeepers, mainly Indian troops, who have been surrounded by the RUF since early May.

Taylor has been instrumental in gaining the release of 500 U.N. peacekeepers taken hostage by the rebels in May when they ventured too close to the diamond mines.

The resolution calls for hearings within the year on ``the role of diamonds in the Sierra Leone conflict.'' And it asks Secretary-General Kofi Annan to name a panel of experts for an initial period of four months to report to a council sanctions committee on any violations.

While diamond smuggling is difficult to stop, a public probe or a ``name and shame'' report is expected to deter some violations.

Liberian diamond mining output is estimated between 100,000 and 150,000 carats a year. But the Belgian Diamond High Council records imports into Belgium of over 31 million carats from 1994 to 1998, an average of more than 6 million carats a year, the London-based Global Witness environmental group reported.

The resolution also calls on all countries to report to the council about what they have done to enact legislation making it a criminal offense to deal in weapons for the RUF rebels.

Sierra Leone reached a peace agreement with RUF last summer that ended a brutal 8-year-old civil war, during which the rebels maimed, killed and raped men, women and children. But the RUF refused to disarm and fired at anyone who ventured near their strongholds in the north and east of the country.

The council is also considering two other resolutions on Sierra Leone, on devising a formula to prosecute Sankoh and to increase peacekeepers by 3,000 troops to 16,500.

----

Ivory Coast Soldiers Disarmed

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 11:11 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Ivory-Coast-Army-Protest.html

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) -- Presidential guardsmen and paramilitary police were disarming mutinying soldiers Wednesday, the second day of an army protest that paralyzed Ivory Coast's commercial capital and degenerated into a looting spree.

Military leader Gen. Robert Guei's spokesman, Desire Paulin Dakoury, said some mutineers were willingly disarming while others were fleeing. Residents in the Abidjan neighborhood of Marcory saw protesting soldiers handing over their guns to contingents of constabulary police.

It was unclear whether some mutineers planned an organized armed resistance. On one occasion, shots were exchanged between groups of soldiers and an officer was seriously injured, Dakoury said.

Speaking to Radio France-Internationale, Information Minister Henri Cesar Sama said one person was also killed by a stray bullet during gunfire in a town in central Ivory Coast on Tuesday.

In parts of Abidjan, meanwhile, the protest erupted in a spree of looting. Gas stations and stores, including a car dealership, were robbed by soldiers who left with carloads of booty.

For the second straight day, nearly all shops were closed and the streets were largely abandoned except for civilians wandering around on foot while soldiers sped by in commandeered vehicles, firing guns randomly in the air.

Looting was also reported Wednesday in the central town of Bouake and the northern town of Korhogo where several banks were robbed overnight.

Soldiers broke into a prison in Abidjan and freed several former government officials jailed on corruption charges, journalists from the daily Soir Info newspaper reported, explaining two prisoners were killed in the action. The report could not be independently confirmed.

The mutiny by young army officers demanding perks began before dawn on Tuesday when soldiers poured into the streets, firing guns in the air and erecting makeshift roadblocks. Later, they began seizing cars.

Despite moves Wednesday to disarm the protesting soldiers, authorities had not arrested any of them, said Dakoury, the military leader's spokesman.

The disarmed protesters, whom Dakoury called ``our young brothers,'' were instead ordered to return to their barracks while the mutineers' representatives continued talks with senior officials.

The protesters have asked for $9,000 each to buy houses. Military leader Gen. Robert Guei said Tuesday the government was building 2,500 houses, but stopped short of promising to fulfill the protesters' demands.

Earlier Wednesday, state radio urged civilians to return to work, saying their security was guaranteed. But few people heeded the plea and Western embassies advised their citizens to stay indoors for a second day.

All flights were suspended to and from Abidjan's international airport, airport officials said. The borders were also closed.

Guei was expected to meet with heads of the country's political parties Wednesday in a bid to prevent the crisis from escalating, state radio reported. In another radio broadcast Wednesday, a senior military official, Gen. Lassana Palenfo, blamed unnamed political parties for engineering the unrest. He did not elaborate.

The protest closely resembled a brief mutiny that led to the nation's first coup d'etat last Christmas Eve. Many civilians feared another takeover in what had long been one of Africa's most stable and prosperous nations.

Although the December coup was initially popular with Ivorians who had grown tired of corruption and ethnic favoritism under ousted President Henri Konan Bedie, many have since become disillusioned with the new regime.

Guei has promised elections for Sept. 17. He has not said whether he will run.

----

Misery Index of U.N. Panel Finds Africa Is Worst Off

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/070500un-africa.html

Africans south of the Sahara, an area convulsed in wars and weakened by natural disasters, also suffer the broadest range of social and economic disadvantages, a United Nations survey says.

The survey, the Human Development Report, examines the availability of schools, clean water and medical care, and whether people can play a role in politics. It began 10 years ago as an experiment to measure a nation's growth not by economic figures but by statistical profiles of its people and what they can expect from life.

This year, 30 of the 35 countries at the bottom of the index were in sub-Saharan Africa.

In that region, where the spread of AIDS and other diseases has begun to shorten life spans after decades of slow improvement, people can no longer expect to live beyond their 40's or 50's. Fewer than half go to school and fewer than half -- sometimes 25 percent or less -- can read, the survey shows. It also shows that a large proportion of people -- as high as 66 percent in the case of Sierra Leone -- lack access to clean water, and that even larger majorities lack basic sanitation.

Apart from Sierra Leone, which is ranked last, the other most disadvantaged nations, from the bottom up, are Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Chad, the Central African Republic and Mali.

At the other extreme, the countries with the highest human development indicators are, from the top, Canada, Norway, the United States, Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan and Britain. In the Western Hemisphere, only Haiti ranks in the bottom 35.

Every year the report, produced by the United Nations Development Program, focuses on new themes that experts say should be factored into studying why some countries remain poor and others grow in economic and human terms. This year the report tried to connect human rights and political freedom with economic and social conditions, saying the two can no longer be separated. It challenges the view that people are not "ready" for democracy until there has been economic growth.

"Human rights are not, as has sometimes been argued, a reward of development," said Mark Malloch Brown, the development program's administrator, in an introduction to the report. "Rather, they are critical to achieving it. Only with political freedoms -- the right for all men and women to participate equally in society -- can people genuinely take advantage of economic freedoms."

In another departure, this year's report, which was issued last week, calls for the increased collection and more effective use of statistics to aid in promoting human rights by quantifying more effectively the conditions under which many people live.

"Statistical indicators are a powerful tool in the struggle for human rights," the report says. Among other benefits even the simple collection of information can provide, it adds, is help in monitoring the actions of government and in curbing corruption.

-------- argentina

Argentines Seek Damages For Sinking

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 1:34 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-European-Rights-Court-Falklands.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Argentine relatives of sailors killed in Britain's sinking of a warship in the Falklands Islands war presented a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights for damages from the British government.

The relatives' lawyers contended the cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed beyond the 200-mile military ``exclusion zone'' imposed by Britain around the Falklands Islands during the 10-week war in 1982. Of the General Belgrano's 1,093 crew members, 323 died.

The lawyers, Jorge Appiani and Jorge Antonio Olivera, also contend the only aim ``was to frustrate peace negotiations'' for the islands, called Las Malvinas by Argentines.

A three-judge panel is expected to take several months before deciding whether the complaints are admissible at the European court based in Strasbourg, France.

A military government in Argentina ordered an invasion of the islands in 1982 to back its claim that it inherited the Falklands from the Spanish crown before they were occupied by Britain in 1833. The archipelago is populated by about 2,200 people of mostly British ancestry.

The war claimed at least 970 lives before British forces regained control of the islands.

Argentina never sought damages after the war and only restored diplomatic relations in 1990. Argentina still maintains its claims to the islands.

---

Taiwan: China Is Boosting Military

NewsEdge
July 5, 2000
By MARCOS CALO MEDINA Associated Press Writer
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=h0704100.902&level3=139498&date=20000705

LUNGTAN, Taiwan (AP) via NewsEdge Corporation - Taiwan's president accused China on Tuesday of ``vigorously'' building up its military in recent years, a sign he said showed that it has become more serious than ever about attacking Taiwan.

President Chen Shui-bian made his comments during his first visit as president to the army's headquarters in this suburb of the capital, Taipei.

One theme of his trip was that Taiwan still faces a Chinese threat. He said the army was crucial to the defense of the island, which split from China amid civil war in 1949.

``In recent years, communist China has been vigorously developing its forces and weaponry and strengthening its military power,'' Chen said in a speech to officers. ``This makes its intention to invade Taiwan more obvious than ever before.''

China has been aggressive in building up its arsenal of missiles and buying Russian-made destroyers and fighter jets to counter Taiwan's U.S.-made planes and ships. Military analysts have predicted that China could have air superiority over Taiwan by 2005.

Last month, Chen commented that the decisive battles with Chinese forces would be fought in the air and water and that Taiwan's air force and navy would become more crucial to the defense of Taiwan.

But on Tuesday, Chen stressed the need for all of Taiwan's forces to be ready to engage Chinese forces. He also said he wanted to modernize the army with tanks and other new equipment.

Taiwan's defense budget is $12.6 billion, or 18 percent of the total national budget.

The army has long been the most influential branch of the Taiwanese military, which was established on the mainland and moved to Taiwan after its defeat in the civil war with the communists.

China has threatened to invade Taiwan if the island declares independence or indefinitely postpones reunification. In recent months, Beijing stepped up pressure on Taiwan to reunify.

Most Taiwanese oppose reunification as long as China is communist.

Since Chen was elected in March, he has struggled to find a way to start talks with Chinese leaders. The main hindrance has been a long-standing dispute over Taiwan's political status.

Chinese leaders want Chen to agree that Taiwan is an inseparable part of ``one China'' before talks begin.

However, Chen fears that endorsing the principle would mean he agrees that the communist government in Beijing is the lawful ruler of Taiwan.

In Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi said: ``The ball is in Taiwan's court. The Taiwan side should accept the one China principle as soon as possible. Only by so doing can the two sides resume discussions as soon as possible.''

Sun indicated that China was waiting for initiatives from President Chen. China's policy remained one of ``listening to his words and watching his deeds,'' Sun said.

Sun said China remained committed to peaceful unification but would not renounce force as an option in bringing Taiwan to heel.

The military threat is aimed at deterring a permanent and formal split from China, Sun said, adding: ``Taiwan independence means war.''

-------- colombia

Fighting Drugs With Choppers And Poison

by Ana Arana,
July 5, 2000 Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/
From: Paul Wolf <paulwolf@icdc.com>

Even advocates of U.S. military aid think the anti-narcotics package will only unravel the peace with Colombian guerrillas.

July 5, 2000 - As President Clinton prepares to sign the bill to send $1.3 billion in anti-narcotics military aid to Colombia, criticism from Colombians and Europeans has gotten more and more severe. Angry that the plan was not subject to a national debate, Colombians fear the military solution to fight decades of drug trafficking will unravel peace negotiations and worsen its civil war. Europeans are threatening to pull out their aid for social programs that would have gone along with the U.S. aid. And in the middle of it all, Colombian President Andres Pastrana is under fire for not letting Colombians have a bigger say in developing the plan.

On Friday, Congress passed the aid package to help Colombia fight drug traffickers and their guerrilla allies. The U.S. aid is a contribution to Colombia's $7.5 billion total development plan. The House approved a $1.7 billion version last March, and the Senate approved a package with less money last month, attaching tougher human rights conditions. The lion's share of the aid will be for Blackhawk and Huey helicopters and training of two Colombian anti-narcotics battalions that will operate in southern Colombia, a drug-producing area largely protected by guerrillas from the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). The aid also includes $200 million for nonmilitary social and human rights programs.

The Clinton administration first asked for emergency aid to Colombia last February, and Pastrana banked heavily on getting the aid sometime this year. But the aid is not expected to arrive in Colombia until the last year of Pastrana's term in office. The delay has cost Pastrana heavily. He had managed to keep unity in the country by waving the millions of dollars the U.S. package would bring, but as the months have passed, his leadership has weakened considerably. The fact that the aid package, which is known in Colombia as Plan Colombia, was not debated nationally, has added to the perception that the initiative was written by the U.S. and not by the Pastrana government.

Just as Washington congratulates itself for supporting Latin America's oldest democracy and making an investment in the fight against drugs, Colombians are questioning the strategy the anti- narcotics package will finance. Groups that are traditionally against military aid, such as human rights organizations and trade unions, view the package as a direct threat to the incipient peace process with leftist guerrillas. And even those who support U.S. military aid are criticizing the package. They fear that some of the plan's anti- drug techniques, such as fumigation of coca plantations, will only turn the affected coca growers into full supporters of the leftist guerrillas.

Colombians with sophisticated knowledge of the drug war and the insurgency accept that the U.S. is more comfortable fighting a drug war than helping a government besieged by well-armed leftist guerrillas. But they worry that the new U.S. initiative will end up as muddled as the U.S. anti-drug mission of the early 1990s, when Colombians fought against the Medellin and Cali drug cartels.

The plan to use fumigation as a main weapon is a major controversy in Colombia. Under the aid package, planes will spray hundreds of hectares of coca plantations in southern Colombia with glysophate, a herbicide known in the U.S. as Roundup. In order to avoid the FARC guerrillas who patrol the coca plantations, the planes will spray from higher than normal, increasing the danger that the herbicide could fall on local inhabitants. U.S. officials maintain that the herbicide is safe to humans.

"I support the concept of U.S. aid in global terms," said Enrique Santos Calderon, a respected analyst and editor in chief of the daily El Tiempo. "We need a more professional army, we need the helicopters; we need the aid with human rights conditions, so the army can fight off the guerrillas and the paramilitary groups. But I am worried to see we are too focused on fumigation. After so many years of fighting drugs, it becomes a charade that Washington wants to keep using methods that have failed," he said.

Despite five years of fumigation programs in Colombia, drug production has increased by 20 percent. "It is a balloon effect," Calderon said. "I press here and the coca growers are displaced there," he said.

Calderon is among many Colombians who feel that Washington's emphasis on seeing the war in Colombia through the narcotics prism -- and believing that only police work and fumigation will weaken leftist guerrillas and make the Colombian army more professional -- has the potential of creating more chaos in Colombia.

"I understand that Washington has to say they are not going to chase guerrillas. That they will only attack guerrillas if they attack the fumigating planes. But for Colombians fumigation is a problem, it affects our ecosystem and it could unravel other elements in the civil war. The fumigation part is the Achilles' heel of the Plan Colombia," he said.

Knowing all along that the United States would back a military, drug- war solution, Colombian leaders were banking on money from Europeans to fund peace-based social programs to resolve civil conflicts and help the besieged government. The Colombian government has asked Europe for up to $1 billion in aid for crop substitution, judicial reform and other projects. But Europeans are balking at the U.S. package and threatening to cut their aid.

At a meeting of European donors in London late last month, a constituency of Colombian nongovernmental organizations brought a message that worried the European community. After years of working in the countryside, they said the government had ignored their concerns that the U.S. military option would only threaten the peace process launched with the FARC last year.

In response, some European representatives said their countries will only provide aid if the Colombian government allows the dissenting organizations more say in the future of the social aid. In general, Europeans believe the Colombian government has mishandled Plan Colombia by combining the peace initiative they want the Europeans to finance with the U.S. military aid.

"It was to be expected that many European nations would not go for Plan Colombia," said a representative from an international organization who was present at the London meeting. "The plan has become controversial. The Colombians should have realized that although the U.S. and Colombia have a bilateral interest in the drug issue, in Europe the concerns are different. There should have been two different plans." Europeans envision a kind of Marshall Plan for Colombia, to help it rebuild after four decades of conflict.

Colombia's credibility with Europeans took an especially big hit when a key mediator dropped out. The Program for Development and Peace for the Magdalena Medio, a conflict resolution and development NGO, declined the government's request to pilot the social investment aspects of Plan Colombia. In addition, the Rev. Francisco Le Roux, a centrist who has been attacked both by paramilitary and guerrillas, publicly said he could not collaborate with the government's plan as it was drafted.

But some European community representatives have tried to save the issue. Jan Egeland, the United Nations special advisor to the secretary general for Colombia, a Norwegian national, has urged the international representatives to continue to support the peace process in Colombia. Obviously there is a lack of agreement on some issues, he told participants at the meeting, but this should not be an obstacle to providing aid to those social groups in Colombia who will clearly be desperately in need of European support. A final answer from the Europeans will come after a meeting in Madrid on July 7.

The U.S. package is not strictly military. It does contain $200 million for social programs and stipulations on human rights conduct. Some here think Colombians might see the package in a more positive light if only U.S. politicians pushing for the aid weren't so focused on the drug war.

"Washington needs to understand the concerns of our citizens," Pardo said. Colombians know all about the drug war, "because we have fought it for a long time. Colombians fear that Washington will not help us with the peace process, and that their help will be limited only to the fumigation issue," he said.

According to Raphael Pardo, a peace negotiator in the 1990s and Colombia's first civilian defense minister, things aren't as bad as many Colombians believe. The social impact of fumigation has been exaggerated and few Colombians understand that the U.S. military package already has $200 million for social changes. "That's a lot of money, which will have an impact in the country," he said. Pardo has studied other fumigation programs that were successful in Bolivia and Peru. "None of those projects had the social investment we have now," he explained.

But for Pastrana, things do look bad. The showdown over the aid has come down while Pastrana's political arsenal has been devastated. His conservative party, including top members of his cabinet, has been rocked with accusations of corruption and misuse of public funds. He has also fallen out of favor with the Liberal Party-dominated Congress, which has put the brakes on a number of legislative pieces needed to get the peace program going.

Meanwhile, the FARC has not made any pronouncements since the congressional approval of U.S. aid. But its representatives have been traveling throughout Europe discussing their willingness to sign peace agreements. The guerrillas and the government will exchange cease-fire proposals in the next few weeks. While nobody expects a cease-fire to be reached soon, analysts worry about the military reaction the guerrillas could make when President Clinton signs the final bill. "They won't get up from the negotiating table, but they will do something to express their discomfort," said Pardo.

Critics of the Pastrana government, both at home and in the United States, say the Colombian government has created many of its problems itself by not debating the aid package robustly in Colombia. "President Pastrana has always played his cards close to the chest," says Miles Frechette, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia. "I don't agree with the Colombians' analysis of what glysophate does, but there should have been a more open discussion of the entire aid package, including fumigation and its impact."

Thus a lack of debate has cost Pastrana the political boost he was counting on, and it might also have cost Colombians knowledge about the plan that could calm their concerns.

About The Writer

Ana Arana is an investigative journalist who focuses on criminal organizations in Latin America. She is a senior fellow at the Center for War, Peace and the News Media.

-------- drug war

Putin, Jiang Agree To Fight Terror

Assciated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 8:51 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Tajikistan-Summit.html

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Wednesday joined the leaders of three Central Asian countries in promising to fight terrorism, drug-trafficking and separatism.

The joint statement with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakstan at the one-day summit in the Tajik capital Dushanbe reflected shared concerns about Islamic and other insurgencies.

Putin said that Russia should establish a permanent military base in Tajikistan, where Russian troops are already stationed.

``We know for certain, and Tajikistan agrees, that without the presence of Russian troops, we will lose what we have succeeded in achieving, including the securing of peace for the population of Tajikistan,'' Putin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency during a separate meeting with Russian military officials.

All five nations are trying to rein in separatists or rebel groups, many of them drawing inspiration if not concrete aid from the Taliban, Afghanistan's militant Islamic rulers.

Moscow, for its part, has moved to capitalize on those fears and re-establish its influence over the region's former Soviet republics after a decade of seeing its clout in the area decline.

Russian troops help patrol the Tajik border with Afghanistan against frequent incursions by intruders, including smugglers ferrying drugs to Central Asia, Russia and western Europe.

The Tajik government fought a five-year civil war with Islamic rebels, ending with a 1997 peace deal.

Putin and Jiang, in their first meeting since Putin was elected president March 26, separately discussed plans for Putin's July 18-19 visit to China.

They also talked over issues surrounding their 2,600-mile border and their opposition to the U.S. plan to deploy a limited national missile defense system, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov's press office said.

The five leaders also expressed support for Moscow's military campaign in Chechnya. They said they backed China's push for reunification with Taiwan, which broke away amid a 1949 civil war.

In one-on-one talks Tuesday, Jiang and Rakhmonov signed documents aimed at promoting cooperation and peace in the restive region.

The Chinese president condemned the violence in Afghanistan but cautioned against foreign interference beyond efforts already under way by the United Nations and other intermediaries.

``The Afghan problem should be solved by the Afghan people themselves in peaceful talks and in the absence of foreign interference,'' Jiang said.

-------- environment

EU hits Greece with landmark fine over waste

BRUSSELS: July 5, 2000
Story by Dina Kyriakidou
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7352

BRUSSELS - The European Union's Court of Justice ordered Greece yesterday to pay a fine of 20,000 euros ($18,980) a day for failing to clean up a waste dump in Crete - the first time the court has used its powers to fine a country.

The EU's executive Commission said the landmark ruling sent an important signal to EU countries that they faced tough financial penalties if they did not comply with EU law.

"The (court) decision shows that EU institutions are serious about ensuring full and effective implementation of EU law through all means available," Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said in a statement.

In Athens, the Greek government said the fine was "unpleasant" but pledged to pay up until waste management on Crete was improved.

"We are working feverishly to create this new space of waste treatment," spokesman Dimitris Reppas told reporters.

The Luxembourg-based court ruled in 1992 that Greece had failed to bring a waste dump in Crete, the country's largest island, into line with EU law.

Despite further rulings, Greece has not cleaned up the dump containing hazardous industrial, medical and military waste that has posed a potential threat to human health and the environment contrary to EU law, the court said.

GREEK GOVERNMENT BLAMES LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Following the ruling, Greece will have to pay the fine for every day from July 4 that it remains in breach of the law.

Reppas blamed the local authority for failing to comply with waste treatment regulations.

"Indeed there was a delay, and we must condemn the reaction of local forces who refused to comply with something that is in their own interest," he said.

He said the fine could come from funds destined for local projects. "It would be unfair to burden all Greek taxpayers with this cost. This financial burden must be borne by those it concerns."

A Commission spokesman said the pioneer ruling against Greece would make future cases easier, although he stressed that fining countries remained a last resort.

Two similar cases are pending, one against France for sexist employment laws on night work and one against Greece over its refusal to recognise some foreign college degrees.

A Commission spokesman said the fine imposed on Greece was a "considerable sum" but that higher fines could be imposed in future cases.

The Commission, which has the power to suggest to the court how large fines should be, said it based its calculations on Greece's gross domestic product as well as the gravity and duration of the infringement.

In this case the Commission had recommended a fine of 24,600 euros a day, slightly more than the court's final ruling.

-------- fiji

Fiji Military Defuses Troop Protest

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 3:25 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Fiji-Unrest.html

SUVA, Fiji (AP) -- Fiji's military on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on rebels holding 27 hostages in parliament, declaring an off-limits military zone around the area and offering amnesty to anyone who leaves within two days.

The roughly one-square-mile zone was to be closed to all but military personnel starting at midnight Wednesday. Those who are still in the area 48 hours later will be subject to arrest.

``This is not the first step toward a military option,'' Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini told a news conference. ``This is just a step to resolve the situation with a non-confrontational approach.''

Former insurance executive George Speight, who led the May 19 coup that ousted an ethnic Indian-led government, has said he would see such military action as provocation that could spark violence toward the hostages.

Tarakinikini said the military will allow food to be delivered but may cut off utilities to the parliament compound, which Speight also has warned against.

Speight supporters who have been entering the area freely will be banned in an effort to isolate the hostage-takers.

Machine guns and two grenades were fired from the parliament area during a clash Tuesday between troops and rebels that left five rebels wounded, Tarakinikini said. The situation was described as tense but calm Wednesday.

Tarakinikini said they were trying to set up preliminary talks, the first since a tentative agreement fell apart at the last minute last week. He said the military still hoped for a peaceful conclusion, but that it was not willing to let Speight ``dictate'' its actions and has not ruled out more drastic action.

A mini-mutiny at an army base at Labasa, on the northern island of Vanua Levu, ended Wednesday, about 24 hours after it began when two or three soldiers sympathetic to Speight confiscated arms and ammunition. Tarakinikini said local chiefs were threatening disturbances in support of Speight.

``Police have gone around and warned shops that they might have to be closed,'' he said.

Speight had predicted Tuesday the mutiny would spark a ``domino effect'' across the country, but there were no signs of other trouble.

Meanwhile, the new government, installed Tuesday by the military over Speight's objections, was settling in to face a massive task: how to stem the economic decline since the coup.

Most top tourist resorts have been hit hard, with some reporting occupancy rates of only 10 percent, and rebuilding confidence among foreigners will be a top priority. Australia on Tuesday advised its citizens to leave the capital in an advisory similar to one the U.S. government made several weeks ago.

The decision by the military on Monday to appoint a new government comprised entirely of indigenous Fijians would appear to meet Speight's stated goals of trying to safeguard native rights.

But he was angry that his choice to head the country was ignored and said he did not believe the new government would be around long.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who assumed power 10 days after the coup, appointed the interim leaders. He has said he will retain power until the captives are freed.

The army has given in to most of Speight's demands to disenfranchise Fiji's ethnic Indians, including firing Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry -- the first Fijian of Indian ancestry to lead the country. Chaudhry is among the hostages.

Indians were brought to Fiji over a century ago by English colonialists seeking indentured laborers for rich sugar cane fields. They make up about 44 percent of Fiji's population; indigenous Fijians account for about 51 percent.

--- greece

Alenia to bid for Greece's Air Force contracts

NewsEdge Corporation
July 5, 2000
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=h0704083.000&level3=27716&date=20000705

ATHENS, Greece (AP) via NewsEdge Corporation - Italian aerospace company Alenia SpA confirmed Tuesday it will bid for a 49 percent stake in Greece's Hellenic Aerospace Industry, along with partners Dasa and Britain's BAE Systems PLC.

Dasa is the aerospace unit of DaimlerChrysler AG.

Alenia is ``fully committed to increase its presence in Greece through a number of programs,'' including a pending contract for the supply of military transport aircraft for the Greek Air Force, said the company's chairman, Giorgio Zappa, at a news conference in Athens.

``Industrial collaboration with Greek companies and prospective bids in Greece play the most important role in the defense programs Alenia is currently involved in,'' Zappa said.

He added that along with Lockheed Martin Corp., its partner in Lockheed Martin Alenia Tactical Transport System, it has offered the new C-27J advanced aircraft to the Greek government. He said the price, which was not disclosed, was very competitive and includes two C-130H aircraft at no added cost.

``Our C-27J is the only real military transport aircraft of its class on the market,'' Zappa said. ``Best product, best industrial benefits, a real European choice backed up by the American industry.''

The Greek government is expected to assign the contract for the military aircraft later this summer. It has also said it will complete the privatization of the Hellenic Aerospace Industry, or HAI, by the end of this summer but has yet to set a deadline for the submission of binding financial bids.

The Dasa-led consortium of which Alenia is a member has already expressed nonbinding interest in the privatization. Alenia's interest in the Greek company is also related to its 21 percent share in the Eurofighter program, which the Greek government has already selected to produce its next generation aircraft. Greece has said it will order 60 aircraft after 2005.

Zappa said that under its offer, HAI will secure transfer of work load and joint production of the Eurofighter. The company's keen interest in the Greek market is related to Greece's high defense spending in previous and coming years, he said.

Greece has signed weapons contracts worth 2.7 trillion drachmas (dlrs 7.6 billion) since 1997, and is expected to spend up to dlrs 15 billion on armaments by 2005.

Another consortium, led by France's Dassault Aviation SA, has also expressed interest in HAI.

--- india

India completing purchase of battle tanks, fighter jets from Russia

Associated Press
July 5, 2000
By KRISHNAN GURUSWAMY Associated Press Writer
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=h0704105.500&level3=27716&date=20000705

NEW DELHI, India (AP) _ India is completing the purchase of battle tanks and fighter jets from Russia and acquiring an old aircraft carrier, Defense Minister George Fernandes said Tuesday.

The deal to acquire 100 T-90 main battle tanks was stuck over price. ``The small issue is price. In terms of money, it is a small issue. Once it is resolved, nothing more needs to be done,'' Fernandes told a news conference after returning from a five-day visit to Russia. He said the negotiating team is finalizing the deal, but offered no other details.

Fernandes said India's efforts to manufacture 124 Arjun battle tanks will not be adversely affected by the Russian deal.

India hiked its defense spending by 28 percent this year following a 11-week skirmish with Pakistan in the mountains of Kashmir last summer. Both nations tested nuclear devices in 1998.

Fernandes said he also saw a demonstration of the Sukhoi-30 fighter jets when he was in Russia. India plans to buy 140 of these jets to strengthen the air force. The aircraft will be fitted with avionics from Western European nations and some Indian companies. The terms for license production of the jet are being discussed and a decision will be taken soon, Fernandes said.

The T-90 battle tanks will replace the army's Soviet-built T-72 tanks. The deal is expected to be around dlrs 400 million, according to government estimates.

Fernandes said three frigates and a submarine are being built in Russian shipyards. The submarine is ``almost complete and should be coming to India soon,'' he said. Two Indian naval submarines are also being refitted there, he said.

Russia has offered ``Admiral Gorshkov,'' an aircraft carrier for free, but India will pay about dlrs 700 million to have it fitted with new equipment. India has only one aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, which is also being refitted and will become operational soon, he said.

The new aircraft carrier will replace the INS Vikrant, which was decommissioned four years ago and will be converted into a naval museum in Bombay.

The government is also negotiating with Israel to buy aerial surveillance vehicles for the army in the northern state of Jammu-Kashmir, which adjoins Pakistan. Both nations have fought three wars so far, two of them over Kashmir.

----

Iran Readies Ballistic Missile Launching Pads

Xinhua
July 5, 2000
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=v0704073.3xi&level3=139501&date=20000705

TEHRAN (July 4) XINHUA via NewsEdge Corporation - Iran has built five launching pads for ballistic missiles, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday.

With these launching pads, Iran now ranks among the leading military powers of the region, the news agency quoted Rahim Safavi, commander-in-chief of the elite Islamic Revolution Corps, as saying.

But the general did not give details. The Iranian military, eager to become self-sufficient in armaments, is regularly testing different types of missiles. The last test was conducted in March, when a surface-to-air missile was launched in the Persian Gulf.

In July 1998, Iran successfully test-fired "Shahab-3"(Meteor-3) missile with a range of 1,300 kilometers, which meant it can hit targets in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States forces in the region.

-------- iraq

How Likely Is a Missile Strike on U.S.?

NewsMax.com
Wednesday, July 5, 2000
http://www.NewsMax.com/articles/?a=2000/7/5/80427

Fading into history, the Clinton-Gore administration still cannot make up its mind how seriously to take the threat of a rogue-nation nuclear attack.

In an Independence Day special report, the New York Times found that:

• "Intelligence officials, military officers and policy experts ... are deeply divided over the seriousness of missile threats posed by countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, even as the administration says the United States needs to build a national missile defense system."

• The Pentagon looks mainly at technical capability.

Its experts are convinced that North Korea has the know-how and ability to launch a nuclear-missile strike by 2005.

They give Iran until 2010 to achieve the same technical proficiency.

They're not worried about a missile coming from Iraq, so long as international sanctions remain in place.

• The White House, State Department and Central Intelligence Agency tend to believe political, economic and social factors at work in the rogue states make a missile threat less likely.

Those officials believe there is a more immediate threat from terrorists entering the United States with "suitcase" nuclear devices and from short-range weapons being fired from ships lying offshore.

• That 2005 estimate about North Korea is what's driving the Clinton-Gore administration to propose a $60 billion limited missile defense in five years.

The president said he will soon make a go/no-go decision based on four factors - cost, technological feasibility, effects on other countries and urgency of the threat.

That last factor is where the Clinton-Gore administration has not yet come to rest.

The White House is awaiting the annual national-security estimate for guidance, but the debate within the intelligence community over the seriousness of rogue-nation attacks persists - as does indecision at the highest level within the Clinton-Gore administration.

----

Iraq: The recovery of a renegade

US Today
07/04/00- Updated 11:02 PM ET
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - As the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War nears, Iraq is on its way back to its prewar status - an oil-rich dictatorship that no one loves but with which many are eager to do business.

Technically, Iraq is a renegade country cut off from the West diplomatically and under almost daily air attack from U.S. and British forces. It remains under United Nations sanctions aimed at preventing Baghdad from producing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles. The sanctions, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, channel oil revenue into a U.N. account, which can be used only for civilian goods.

But despite the sanctions, almost daily attacks on radar and anti-aircraft positions and the rising talk in the U.S. election campaign about finally bringing down President Saddam Hussein, Middle East analysts say the 63-year-old Iraqi leader is in better shape than he has been in years and faces no credible internal or external challenges.

Since a U.N. resolution in December lifted the ceiling on Iraqi oil exports, those sales are approaching prewar figures of $18 billion a year. As much as 10% of Iraqi production is diverted to smuggling, with the proceeds available to Saddam for his own purposes, U.S. officials say.

On the diplomatic front, the prospects for Iraq also look brighter. Two more nations along the Persian Gulf - the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the base for the U.S. Central Command's naval forces - have restored full diplomatic relations with Baghdad, which already has ties with Qatar and Oman. Analysts say these countries want support against Iran, Iraq's rival and the other traditional regional power. Meanwhile, nations from Europe to Southeast Asia are sending trade delegations and providing commodities and oil equipment under a U.N. humanitarian program.

"Some of the neighbors and some Europeans and permanent members of the Security Council have come to the conclusion that you have to deal with Saddam and that it's pointless to wait for him to go because he's not going," says Judith Yaphe, an Iraq expert at the National Defense University.

A tight oil supply has also given Iraq new leverage. A brief Iraqi suspension of production last November pushed oil prices to a nine-year high and helped persuade the White House to lift the ceiling on Iraqi pumping. "A rogue's not a rogue when oil is $30 a barrel," says Kenneth Katzman, senior Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service.

Administration officials stress that the bulk of oil revenue goes into a U.N. escrow account at the New York branch of the Banc National de Paris. But the range of items Iraq can purchase under the U.N. oil-for-food program has been expanded, and contracts are no longer stringently reviewed to weed out so-called dual-use items that can be used for civilian purposes as well as in weapons.

"There's much more stuff coming into Iraq, and it's being handled much more expeditiously," says Jim Placke, who directs Middle East research for Cambridge Energy Associates in Washington. More than $1 billion has been set aside to invest in Iraq's oil and gas sector, where oil production is running at 2.7 million barrels per day, close to the prewar figure of 3.3 million.

In the meantime, Iraq, which before the war had developed chemical and biological weapons and was close to building a nuclear bomb, has rebuilt capacity destroyed by U.S.-British airstrikes in December 1998. U.S. officials say Iraq has successfully tested missiles with a range of less than 95 miles, permitted under U.N. sanctions, suggesting that longer ranges might not be difficult to achieve.

Uncertainty surrounds other Iraqi programs since the country has gone without on-the-ground international arms inspection for 18 months. The U.N. resolution that lifted the ceiling on oil exports created a new arms inspection commission but hedged it with so much political interference that its ultimate effectiveness is in question - assuming the Iraqis even let inspectors into the country.

"The emphasis is on controlling the chairman (of the arms monitoring commission), not controlling Iraq," Rolf Ekeus, the Swedish chairman of the first postwar inspection system told The Washington Institute for Near East Policy last week.

Russia has reportedly tried to blackball at least one of the proposed personnel choices of the new chief U.N. inspector, Hans Blix, like Ekeus, a Swede. And it remains unclear to what extent U.S. intelligence will be shared with the new inspection team, which appears to contain more personnel from countries sympathetic to Iraq than the previous organization, which was headed first by Ekeus and then by a blunt Australian, Richard Butler.

Meanwhile, antipathy to U.N. sanctions increases among Arabs, in the developing world and among some circles in the USA. Though the Clinton administration insists that it is Saddam, not sanctions, that has caused suffering to Iraq's 22 million people, the fact remains that millions of Iraqi children are malnourished while Saddam and his cronies build new palaces.

Given this unhappy situation, a coalition of Iraqi exiles opposed to Saddam has tried to court additional support from both U.S. presidential contenders.

They have made some rhetorical headway. Vice President Gore told leaders of the Iraqi National Congress last week that Saddam "must be removed from power."

Gore seemed to suggest that he would be more vigorous in implementing a 1998 law earmarking $97 million in training and surplus Pentagon equipment for the Iraqi opposition. But the Clinton administration, skeptical of the exiles' abilities and cohesion, has so far offered only a few fax machines and training in non-lethal activities such as field medicine and communication. Tuesday, one coalition member, the Iraqi National Accord, quit the alliance, in part because of its close ties with the United States.

Advisers to presumptive Republican nominee George W. Bush have been scathing in their criticism of the Clinton policy. Richard Perle, a Reagan appointee who now advises the Bush campaign, told a recent congressional hearing, "In 31 years in Washington, I have not seen a sustained hypocrisy that parallels the current administration's embrace of the Iraq Liberation Act. This will not be the case in a Bush administration."

Despite the tough talk, experts doubt that the younger Bush would finish what his father did not when he left Saddam in place at the end of the Gulf War.

"A year from now, the Iraqi opposition will have proved completely ineffective," predicts Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Rend Francke of the Iraq Foundation says, "The only change will be that Saddam is better off."

-------- ivory coast

Ivory Coast under curfew

CNN
Wednesday, 5 July, 2000, 02:14 GMT 03:14 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_819000/819531.stm

Ivory Coast's army: Lingering fears of a counter-coup Ivory Coast has been under curfew overnight, after soldiers took to the streets on Tuesday, demanding money from the ruling junta for their role in last December's coup.

The country's military ruler General Robert Guei made a national address on state television in an effort to avoid a military mutiny.

Calm returned to Abidjan by nightfall, apart from the occasional gunshot, and a spokesman for the mutineers read a statement on national television asking his comrades to return to barracks.

In the televised address, General Guei appealed for the soldiers to "think first of all of the public interest" and added that he was "open to dialogue".

During Tuesday's disturbances, General Guei took refuge in the headquarters of the paramilitary police.

He has now imposed a night-time curfew to run from 1900 (1900 GMT) until 0600 (0600 GMT).

Soldiers are demanding to be paid six million CFA francs ($8,500) each as a reward for the 24 December coup that toppled President Henri Konan Bedie.

Talks

Discussions between the Junta and the disgruntled military have been taking place but there has been no outcome so far.

The mutineers' spokesman, Corporal Aboubakari Kone, said that a commission composed of representatives from all branches of the armed forces would be set up to study the soldiers' grievances.

"The President of the Republic has assured us that all our demands will be satisfied."

However, when he appeared on television, General Guei made no mention of the commission and gave no public undertaking to address the dissidents' grievances.

Earlier General Guei dismissed suggestions of a mutiny.

"These are young people manipulated by politicians. Some got a bit heated," he said.

Military presence

During Tuesday's events, gunfire was heard in the Plateau administrative district, near the state radio station, as well as in the Cocody district where the television station is housed.

A heavy military presence was reported on the road leading to Akouedo, and also around the television and radio stations.

Many shops and banks in the city were closed, and traffic was said to be lighter than normal.

General Guei, who promised after the coup to restore Ivory Coast to civilian rule, has announced a constitutional referendum for 23 July, to be followed by elections.

-------- puerto rico

Puerto Ricans demand freedom from shelling

Washington Times
July 5, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/world/ed-column-20007521498.htm

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Likening their cause to the U.S. battle for independence, hundreds of Puerto Ricans rallied on the Fourth of July holiday outside a federal prison holding activists opposed to Navy bombing on the island of Vieques.

"It is paradoxical to celebrate the independence of the United States and honor the patriots of that nation while they imprison the patriots of this land," local Rep. Victor Garcia told a cheering crowd.

Hundreds more protesters marched in the southern city of Ponce, led by Mayor Rafael Cordero Santiago.

-------- russia

Modernised booster to be launched from Baikonur Jul 5.

Itar-Tass
July 5, 2000
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=v0704146.7ts&level3=27716&date=20000705

MOSCOW, July 4 (Itar-Tass) via NewsEdge Corporation - A Proton-K booster rocket, which is provided with a modernised second-stage motor, is to lift off from Baikonur cosmodrome at 03.04 Moscow time (00.04 GMT) on Wednesday, July 5, with a military satellite of Cosmos series on board.

The satellite has been designed in the Krasnoyarsk-based applied mechanics research and production amalgamation. The space rocket to be launched by a team of specialists of the Russian Aerospace Agency in conjunction with those of the country's Strategic MissileForces.

---

Moscow Blames Poor Security for Bombing Deaths in Chechnya

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/070500russia-chechnya.html

MOSCOW, July 4 -- Negligence by Russian commanders enabled Chechen suicide bombers to carry out the devastating attacks on Sunday that killed more than 30 soldiers, the chief of Russia's intelligence service said today.

Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service, said that his agency had alerted the Russian military that attacks were being planned but that some had failed to take proper precautions.

"There was a mistake on the part of commanders in the field," he said. "We have to act in a coordinated fashion to prevent such things from happening in the future."

Five trucks loaded with munitions exploded in Chechnya on Sunday night, catching the Russian military by surprise and shocking the nation. Today, Russian officials put the final toll at 33 dead, 84 wounded and 3 missing.

Trying to restore control over towns and settlements in the secessionist region, Russian officials today issued a "shoot on sight" order for any vehicle breaching a 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew. New checkpoints have been set up, and many Chechens were reportedly staying home.

About 30 people have been detained, but it is not clear if the Russian authorities have found any of those who organized the bombings.

A series of devastating explosions in apartment buildings in other parts of Russia in September helped build public support for the war. Russian officials said the Chechen rebels were to blame, but there is no conclusive proof of their role.

In the bombings on Sunday, most of the casualties occurred in Argun, a town east of Grozny, where a truck bomb slammed into a dormitory occupied by a militia unit.

Despite alerts of possible attacks, there was no concrete barrier or other obstacle to stop the truck, which may have been operated by two suicide bombers, from approaching the building.

Providing new details of that attack, Russia television reported tonight that 22 policemen had been killed and 48 wounded. Many of the dead and wounded were buried under the debris.

After the bomb exploded, Chechen snipers began shooting at the building, and a gunfight raged for an hour and a half.

While Russian officials said negligence was a factor, they said the poor security was the fault of local commanders, not Gen. Ivan Babichev, the military commandant of Chechnya.

The destruction in Argun "resulted from the failure to comply with an order by General Babichev that additional security measures were to be taken," said Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the senior Russian government spokesman on the war.

President Vladimir V. Putin has kept a low profile in recent days and has had little to say about the bombing attacks, which have challenged the Kremlin's claims to control the breakaway region.

The rebels, for their part, were more vocal. They promised more attacks, warning civilians to move away from Russian bases and command posts.

Shamil Basayev, the Chechen guerrilla leader, demanded that the Russian authorities hand over a Russian officer accused of the rape and murder of a Chechen woman, according to a Chechen spokesman, Movladi Udogov. Otherwise, Mr. Basayev vowed, there will be more bombing attacks.

-------- space

Russia Launches Military Satellite

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 2:27 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Space.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- A Proton-K booster launched a Russian Cosmos military satellite into orbit early Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan.

The booster is the same one to be used to launch the Russian-built Zvezda living module for the International Space Station next week.

Two failed Proton launches last year raised concerns about the rocket's reliability. Space officials say they have fixed a problem with the second-stage engines, and there have been several successful Proton launches this year.

The failures contributed to delays in launching Zvezda, which is more than two years behind schedule.

-------- u.s.

New Category of Victims at the Vietnam Memorial

New York Times
July 5, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/070500memorial-veterans.html

WASHINGTON, July 4 -- Thousands of Vietnam veterans whose names never made it onto the wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington because they did not die from battle-related injuries or accidents will now be honored there, though not by name.

Under legislation signed by President Clinton last month, a plaque will soon go up near the memorial to honor the veterans who died after the war from exposure to Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder and other causes not directly related to combat wounds.

Experts estimate that the number of veterans who died from those conditions is at least equal to the number of names inscribed on the wall, 58,220.

The plaque, which is expected to go up within a year, will be paid for with private donations. It will not carry the names of the veterans it honors, but instead will bear a short commemorative inscription. The American Battle Monuments Commission will provide the text and determine the plaque's design and its location on the memorial site.

Memorial rules allow people's names to be added to the wall, but only after the Defense Department determines that those people died from wounds directly related to hostilities or accidents in combat zones. Since the wall was completed in 1982, 261 names have been added.

The bills calling for the plaque, sponsored by Representative Elton Gallegly, Republican of California, and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Republican of Colorado, was passed unanimously in the House and the Senate in May.

Nevertheless, the plaque has stirred controversy. The organization that built the memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said the plaque threatened to detract from the memorial's power by lessening its simplicity.

"There are certain works of architecture in the world that should be allowed to make a statement without additions," said Jan C. Scruggs, the president and founder of the fund. "We must get Congress to bring an end to permanent new additions to the Vietnam memorial, just as France has done with the Eiffel Tower and Egypt has done with the Pyramids."

Mr. Scruggs said he did not oppose the plaque but feared that it would open the floodgates to more additions.

"We are just concerned about the next plaque," he said. "It's just a matter of time."

Some veterans are also concerned about recognizing deaths attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder. They consider that a euphemism for suicide and believe it is an inappropriate subject for a national memorial.

The plaque is a product of years of grass-roots efforts by families of veterans. In 1993, Ruth Coder Fitzgerald began looking for a way to honor veterans like her brother, John Keath Coder, who had died the year before from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after being exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

The Department of Veterans Affairs officially presumes that all Vietnam veterans who have non-Hodgkins lymphoma or certain other diseases have been exposed to Agent Orange.

----

Clinton Praises Admiral Zumwalt, his "mentor" and friend

Associated Press
July 4, 2000 Filed at 12:41 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Clinton-Fourth.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Traditional tall ships that plied the seas decades ago paraded past President Clinton on Tuesday as he celebrated Independence Day by naming America's next generation of destroyers after the late Adm. Elmo Zumwalt. Jr., architect of the modern U.S. Navy.

From the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, Clinton called Zumwalt ``my mentor, my friend and a magnificent role model. He was a friend and passionate advocate for every sailor in his beloved Navy.''

Zumwalt, the youngest chief of naval operations in U.S. history, died Jan 2, about three months after doctors found a cancerous tumor in his chest. He was 79.

``Amazingly innovative,'' Navy secretary Richard Danzig said about Zumwalt in an interview. ``He was the youngest chief of the Navy at age 50. He emphasized the importance of sailors -- giving them respect and freeing them from unnecessary regulations.''

As commander of Navy forces during the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970, Zumwalt believed he inadvertently caused the death of his own son, Elmo Zumwalt III, by ordering the spraying of Vietnam jungles with the defoliant Agent Orange. Elmo III, who fought under his father's command, died of cancer in 1988.

The Navy plans to build 32 DD21 destroyers, the first class of ships powered by an all electric propulsion system at a cost of about $25 billion.

The first of the ships, to be armed with weapons that can attack many miles inland, is to enter the fleet in about 10 years....

---

Navy Destroyer Takes Step Forward

Associated Press
July 4, 2000 Filed at 1:32 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Radical-Warship.html
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=h0704133.501&level3=764&date=20000705

NEW YORK (AP) -- In appearance, it hearkens back to the USS Monitor -- the ironclad ``cheesebox on a raft'' of the Civil War -- but in every major respect the Navy's newest class of destroyer represents a revolution in modern warship design.

So radically different is the ship that the choice of its namesake, Admiral Elmo M. Zumwalt, is almost poetic. Zumwalt, chief of naval operations in the Vietnam war, was known for bucking naval tradition.

The new warship was announced Tuesday by President Clinton during Operation Sail 2000 in New York harbor.

The Navy hopes the Zumwalt-class destroyer, also known as DD-21, will cost less than today's ships, be operated by a crew one-third the size and fire shells accurately three times as far.

Two companies, General Dynamics and Litton Industries, are in a Navy-sponsored competition to design and build 32 of the ships, with the first three to be delivered in 2010.

The Navy has two basic roles for the new ships: To support forces on shore and to hit targets far inland.

In an interview Tuesday, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig said it would be the first ship designed ``with the ability to influence events on land.'' It extends the idea behind using sea-fired Tomahawk cruise missiles against land targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.

``We recognize that as U.S. interests abroad have strengthened in a global world ... then frequently we want to use military power to protect those interests, and the most obvious choice is naval power,'' he said.

Artists' renderings of the Zumwalt show a low, flat, sharply pointed hull with a pyramid-shaped superstructure near the stern. The deck is empty but for two guns and a missile launcher. The low silhouette appears to be part of a radar-thwarting ``stealth'' concept.

The ship's main features are unprecedented: An all-electric propulsion system, two 155-millimeter guns that can hit a tennis court 60 miles away with a 250-pound shell, and an operating system that cuts crew size from 320 on a conventional destroyer to about 95.

The smaller crew will allow each sailor to have stateroom-type living quarters instead of shared, cramped quarters and reduce the number of Americans at risk.

That directly reflects the Zumwalt philosophy of ``taking care of his sailors,'' Danzig said, noting the admiral had rankled Navy traditionalists with his concern for sailors' living conditions when he was chief of operations in 1970-74.

Zumwalt's son James, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, said the honor would be welcomed by his late father.

``He committed himself to improving life for those who served under him (and)... to improving opportunities for minorities who had long suffered under the inequalities inherent in the Navy system,'' Zumwalt said.

Danzig said standard gas turbine engines would power the ship's ``electric drive'' system, greatly reducing the amount of machinery needed and saving interior space. ``It's potentially as significant as moving from sail to steam,'' he added.

The Navy estimates each Zumwalt-class ship will cost $750 million in 1996 dollars, compared to the billion-dollar Aegis-type craft that are the backbone of today's surface combat fleet.

-------- OTHER
-------- imf / world bank

Anarchists could be wildcard at convention

USA Today
07/04/00- Updated 07:27 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/e98/e2221.htm

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Democratic Convention officials, concerned unrest will taint their presidential nomination of Vice President Al Gore, don't want to talk about the word ''anarchist.''

The police say they're hooligans seeking to torch cars and smash storefronts outside the Democratic National Convention next month.

A City Council member characterized them as political troublemakers who would rather menace people than help them.

Meantime, civic leaders are wringing their hands over the anarchy movement, fearing the mysterious group will be a wild card that triggers violence in the crowds outside the convention.

''We want to allow free speech, but ... we feel we face a very serious threat from groups referred to as anarchists, who use an otherwise peaceful demonstration to engage in criminal behavior,'' Los Angeles police Cmdr. Tom Lorenzen told the City Council recently.

Protesters have targeted the convention over the Democratic Party's alleged failure to oppose human rights violations in an era of corporate globalization. They have vowed that the demonstrations will be disruptive, but not violent.

Business owners have complained that supposed anarchists will riot in a proposed ''sanctuary'' for protesters in downtown's Pershing Square.

The City Council has agreed to reconsider the proposal, fearing a repeat of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle last fall that caused millions of dollars in damage.

The North American Anarchist Conference meets in Los Angeles during the Democratic Convention, scheduled for Aug. 14-17.

Actual anarchists say the police have unfairly tried to depict them as vandals and looters clad in ski masks or ''punks'' with pink hair, nose rings and a hunger for destruction.

Many anarchists say they're just normal people, with an alternate political view.

Matt Hart, a Los Angeles-area anarchist planning to protest the convention, bristled at the way civic leaders have described his group's ideology.

''We don't all believe in chaos or destruction. We believe in a decentralized society, organizing from community levels and building society up from there,'' he said.

The LAPD has raised concerns over radical anarchist splinter groups such as the Black Army Faction, which claimed responsibility for acts of arson and vandalism over the past year in Eugene, Ore., the host city for past conferences.

Hart, a member of the Anarchist Black Cross, a movement to free political prisoners, said there are many different types of anarchists but most are simply nonviolent rights activists.

The underground nature of anarchists, who are wary of the mainstream media and frequently at odds with law enforcement officials, is partly responsible for the misconception, he said.

''We're not out as much in the limelight, and unfortunately the FBI, the federal government and the media define our movement by default,'' he said.

Lorenzen warned that rioting could also erupt between previously nonviolent protesters who clash with anarchists, a claim that protest organizers dismissed as laughable.

''The police are quite incorrectly using the word 'anarchy' as a generic term for lawlessness and violence,'' said Don White, an organizer with the Mobilization to Protest the Democratic National Convention 2000 - or D2K Network. ''I know many anarchists, and they are totally nonviolent.''

Councilman Nate Holden admonished anarchists to seek change by participating in the nation's political system rather than fight against it.

Anarchists insist they cannot join any U.S. political party because their ideology specifically contradicts the idea of government from the top down.

Hart characterized anarchism as a mix of libertarian individualism and socialist responsibility.

''We do not believe in chaos,'' he said. ''That's a general perception used to discredit us.''

---

A Misguided World Bank Project

New York Times
July 5, 2000 Editorial, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/05wed4.html

Tomorrow the World Bank's board of executive directors will consider how to proceed with a $40 million loan to China. The loan would underwrite a dam and irrigation projects in a remote part of western China and resettle 58,000 impoverished Chinese and Hui Muslim farmers in lands that have traditionally been home to Tibetans and Mongol herders. The plan would thus threaten a distinct Tibetan culture, and should be stopped.

The project generated intense public criticism last year because of its environmental impacts and because the Tibetan population would be diluted by non-Tibetan settlers. The social impact is of great concern because China has in the past used similar strategies to weaken Tibetan claims of a separate culture. Dozens of environmental and human rights groups and the Clinton administration opposed financing the project.

In response to the controversy, the directors delayed the loan until the bank's independent inspection panel could review various issues, including whether the bank had met its own standards for protecting the environment and indigenous peoples.

The board refused to make the report public after the panel finished it. But it has since been leaked to the press and, not surprisingly, it is devastating. The panel found that the bank's management failed to consider alternatives to resettlement or other resettlement sites, and did not comply with other policy requirements, including the need to make a proper environmental analysis and create plans to preserve local cultures.

The bank's president, James Wolfensohn, believes that these failures can be addressed by conducting more thorough studies on the project's impacts. But studies are not the answer. They may satisfy the bank's regulations, but they will do nothing to solve the social problems created by incursions into traditionally Tibetan lands. The bank directors would be wiser simply to reject this poorly designed project, and to invite China and the bank's management to present an alternative plan that would not require a large resettlement program in a culturally sensitive area.

---

Conventions to be high-tech battlegrounds

USA Today
07/04/00- Updated 11:55 PM ET
By Chuck Raasch, Gannett News Service
http://www.usatoday.com/news/e98/e2219.htm

WASHINGTON - These won't be your parents' political conventions.

In tone and technology, the Democrats and Republicans are going out of their way to say how different this year's conventions will be.

When Republicans gather in Philadelphia July 31-Aug. 3 and Democrats in Los Angeles Aug. 14-17, Americans will have unprecedented access to delegates, party officials and the media.

Even as the influence of the traditional TV networks fades, the conventions will become a prime battleground for the exploding political Internet culture that teems with fledgling political Web sites and news outlets.

And, from a belief that Americans are sick of negative attacks, bashing may give way to a kinder, gentler tone. There are too many one-liners already floating around about Al Gore's wooden demeanor and George W. Bush's malapropisms for the bashing to cease altogether, but both sides claim they are not going to attack the opposition as much this time around.

The Republicans, who reveled in culture wars and bashing Bill Clinton at their '92 political convention, claim they barely will mention Al Gore in the City of Brotherly Love. They will focus more, they say, on the ''compassionate conservatism'' of Bush, the Texas governor, and feature inclusive images, old and new. Colin Powell will speak, and so will Condeleezza Rice, a top Bush foreign policy adviser, and - like Powell - an African American.

''Traditionally, you have one entire night that is set aside for the partisan finger-pointing and attacks,'' said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan. ''We are not going to engage in that kind of old-style politics. This will be a different kind of convention, because George Bush is a different kind of Republican.''

Meanwhile, the Democrats - who bashed Bush's father as a man born with a ''silver foot in his mouth'' at their Atlanta convention in 1988 - plan to focus on things like California's diversity, Gore's biography and real-people stories about the vice president's ideas.

Democrats will feature speakers claiming their party is a true mirror of America and that the Los Angeles melting pot of whites, blacks, Asians and Latinos makes it the capital of America's future.

''LA really looks like what America will look like in 20 years,'' said Jenny Backus, press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.

Both parties plan heavy use of the Internet to make up for a dwindling TV audience and a sharp cutback by the networks in prime-time coverage: ABC-TV reportedly will skip prime-time coverage the first night of each convention in favor of televising pre-season Monday night pro-football.

In 2000, the conventions are a blend of the old political culture and the New Media age. They remain political reunions, a chance for thousands of party activists from around the country to meet and rub shoulders with lobbyists and high-rollers in chic restaurants and smoky bars.

But conventions also are exploring the frontier of New Media.

In Philadelphia, Republicans have set aside ''Internet Alley'' for more than 35 organizations, featuring political Web sites like Voter.com, or the political journal Slate. In Los Angeles, Democrats claim dozens of Web operations will set up in their ''Internet Alley.''

Both parties already have convention Web sites.

On the Democrats' - www.dems2000.com - you can weigh in on the party's platform before it's written. The Republican site - www.gopconvention.com - will offer a ''special behind-the-podium pass'' and ''e-mail updates from your state's delegation.''

Even protesters will duke it out on the Web. An organization called the ''R2D2K Coalition'' has established seven Web sites to help recruit and direct protesters to Philadelphia and Los Angeles. R2D2K's membership is an alphabet soup of protest groups, from Communists to environmentalists to animal rights activists.

But it's still a big question of who will tune in, on the Internet or television. Once, political conventions were major national events, less-scripted extravaganzas that played out on TV screens.

The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago provided high drama, both inside the convention hall, and in the streets outside, where police clashed violently with protesters of America's presence in Vietnam. In 1964 in San Francisco, NBC reporter John Chancellor was arrested while covering floor fights at the GOP convention.

But that was back before cable and satellite, before the World Wrestling Federation and the Playboy Channel and ''Dick Van Dyke Show'' re-runs, 24 hours a day.

Back when conventions still picked nominees, as in 1952, 80% of U.S. households tuned in for an average of 10 to 13 hours. That amounted to 65 million viewers, according to a 1998 study for Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy by Zachary Karabell.

But by 1996, according to Karabell, only about 10% of U.S. households watched much of the coverage. And the networks, citing lack of news value and drama, showed only about eight hours live over four days. In 1952, they had broadcast about 60 hours of each party's convention.

One of the biggest news events out of the GOP San Diego convention in 1996 was ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel going home mid-convention, complaining about the lack of news.

Karabell, author of the recently released book, The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election, still sees a value in modern conventions, but more for the political parties than for voters.

''If you are running a campaign, this is the one time of the year everyone who will be involved in a campaign is assembled - the campaigns for president, for state offices,'' he said in an interview. ''It is a very good way of creating party cohesion. For the parties, it makes sense, just like a gathering of orthodontists makes sense - to meet and greet.

''For the public, the importance is minimal,'' he went on. ''They are kind of scripted.''

He said he is not even sure the conventions this year will provide Bush and Gore with the kind of ''bounce'' nominees usually receive in the way of higher poll numbers.

''The electorate is so apathetic and so disengaged,'' he said.

But, noting that up to 15,000 media representatives will be covering each convention, ''To the degree (the parties) favorably impress the media people, that could be important.''

Coverage of conventions has become, in some respects, a TV review. Rather than focus on the substance of speeches, many reporters have begun to focus more on how speeches are delivered or the kinds of faces and other images the parties are putting on the screen.

Party leaders, fearful of exposing rifts in prime time, began scripting everything down to where speakers will stand as they deliver homespun messages. In 1996, Elizabeth Dole - wife of GOP nominee Bob Dole - left the podium to wander around the convention floor as if she were a talk-show hostess.

As more specialty organizations cover conventions, they have gone from a broadcast event to a narrowcast - on a grand scale. Spanish-speaking networks will expect interviews and information in Spanish. Networks like MTV or the Black Entertainment Channel, which cater to specific audiences, will get roughly the same access as CNN or ABC.

''The increasing irrelevance of the traditional media gatekeepers, they are the real losers here,'' Karabell said, adding that he believes both parties view direct Internet access as ways to further bypass traditional media outlets.

''I don't know how much the parties will admit this,'' he said, ''but really, looking to 2004 and 2008, (as more people use the Internet as a primary source of information) this is the way for the parties to take their message directly to the people.''

He said conventions will continue to be ''necessary to the parties, and because they are necessary to the parties, they are necessary for the electoral process.

''They are not necessary to watch to be an informed voter,'' Karabell said. ''They have lost their public function. But they still have a function.''

-------- spying

France probes US spy network

BBC
Wednesday, 5 July, 2000, 07:17 GMT 08:17 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_819000/819423.stm

Intercepting e-mails and telephone calls

France has launched an investigation into the American spy network known as Echelon.

The system, dating back originally to the Cold War, can now intercept millions of telephone, fax and e-mail messages across the world every day

The preliminary French investigation is being led by the chief prosecutor, Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, who will be following up allegations that Echelon is increasingly being used as a tool for industrial espionage, harmful to France's vital economic interests.

The system is dominated by the United States, but also groups together the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Commercial deals

Last October, a report was submitted to the European Parliament accusing the US of using Echelon to gain competitive advantage for its companies.

The report referred to the 1994 attempt by the French Airbus consortium to break into the Saudi Arabian market, and said the US had used information gathered via Echelon to block the deal.

Washington officially denies using Echelon for industrial espionage.

Officials insist there are clear laws preventing US intelligence passing on information to individual companies, and that Echelon is used only for national security reasons.

Politically motivated

However, a former head of America's intelligence service, the CIA, has suggested otherwise.

It is not immediately clear what the French investigation can achieve in legal terms.

Echelon is, after all, an American Government body. But the investigation itself, and a possible separate inquiry by the European Parliament, is likely to cause diplomatic tensions between Europe and the US.

Officials in Washington have hinted privately that the row over Echelon is politically motivated - part of broader tensions between the US and Europe, and an attempt to drive a wedge between Washington and London.

But critics argue that the controversy has shown once again that there is insufficient public oversight of intelligence gathering.

---

France Launches Probe Into U.S. Spy Network Echelon

NewsEdge Corporation
July 5, 2000
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=v0704115.3xi&level3=36180&date=20000705

PARIS (July 4) XINHUA via NewsEdge Corporation - France has launched an inquiry into the U.S. global spy network Echelon, which specializes in monitoring private telephone calls, faxes and electronic mails around the world, Le Figaro newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Public Prosecutor of Paris, Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, asked on May 24 the counter-espionage agency, the Direction of Surveillance of Territory, to investigate the damage which could be done by Echelon to the private life of French citizens, France's commercial interests and its ultimate national interests, said the paper.

"The counter-espionage services are asked to verify the practice of illegal monitoring by Echelon, susceptible, according to the public prosecutor, to be capable of harming the ultimate interests of the nation," Le Figaro quoted French officials as saying.

The inquiry was first proposed by a European Parliament deputy and former investigation judge named Thierry Jean-Pierre, who wrote to the public prosecutor of Paris on May, said Le Figaro.

The dispute between France and the United States over Echelon revived after the U.S. counter-espionage agency, the National Security Agency, recently de-classified some ultra-secret documents concerning the global monitoring system.

The Echelon, which is also joined by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, was used to monitor communications in the former Soviet bloc during the Cold War and its focus has shifted to commercial and economic intelligence over the past 10 years.

---

French Prosecutor Investigates U.S. Global Listening System

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By SUZANNE DALEY
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/070500france-us.html

PARIS, July 4 -- A French prosecutor has begun a preliminary investigation into whether an American global surveillance system that listens in on millions of telephone calls, faxes and e-mails each day is a threat to French well-being.

The prosecutor, Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, has ordered the French counterintelligence agency, called D.S.T., to appraise the actions of the system, named Echelon. The system links computers in at least seven sites around the world to receive, analyze and sort information captured from satellite communications.

If the French agency finds the system "harmful to the vital interests of the nation," legal proceedings could begin, though it is difficult to see how an American government agency could be sued in a French court.

Still, the issue is taken very seriously in Europe. Many fear that America's vast surveillance system, developed in the cold war, is being used to further America's economic interests.

American officials have repeatedly denied that. But the issue continues to arouse passions here. That is particularly true in France, where even Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou contended in February that cold war spy systems had been converted to "economic espionage."

This year, the European Parliament held hearings on the subject, leading to an emotional debate. A report commissioned by the Parliament and written by a British journalist said there was evidence that the Echelon system had twice helped American companies gain an advantage over Europeans, though few details were provided. Some members of the Parliament expressed skepticism over the 18-page report. But others did not.

Parliament is deciding whether to create a commission to continue its Echelon investigation.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Dintilhac, Marie-Annick Darmaillac, said the prosecutor had decided to begin his investigation after having received a letter from a member of the European Parliament who is a former French judge, Thierry Jean-Pierre. Ms. Darmaillac said the letter had enough information for the prosecutor to feel that an investigation was warranted. But she said she could not discuss what steps might be taken.

In Strasbourg, Mr. Jean-Pierre told Agence France-Press that he believed that the Echelon system should be dismantled or that Europe should have a hand in governing it.

"Echelon is used by the National Security Agency for strategic and economic gains," Mr. Jean-Pierre said. "You cannot make me believe that the information is not passed on to American companies."

This is not the first time that France has reacted to allegations of American spying. In 1995, France expelled five American diplomats and other officials, one of them the reported Paris station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency, in connection with the spying case.

It is clear that many Europeans are particularly galled that the British are partners of the United States in the Echelon system.

Recently declassified information shows that Echelon is a network of surveillance stations stitched together in the 1970's by the United States with Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The system listens and watches for key words on a topic requested by a country. Some experts have said the most extravagant claims against the Echelon system make little sense, because the N.S.A. is overwhelmed by the proliferation of information over the Internet.

It is widely believed that France operates its own surveillance system, one that some people have called "Frenchelon." It is believed to be much smaller than the American system. But it is thought to do much the same activity -- eavesdropping on private and public communications.

----

European Assembly to Investigate U.S. 'Spy System'

New York Times
July 5, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/late/05europe-spying.html

STRASBOURG, France, July 5 -- The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to form a committee to investigate allegations the United States and allies like Britain used Cold War satellites to conduct industrial espionage in Europe.

The U.S. Echelon spy system of satellites and listening posts can intercept millions of telephone, fax and e-mail messages and Washington has been accused of using it for economic espionage against its allies. The United States and Britain have both denied the charges.

The EU committee will have one year to establish whether the Echelon system really exists and whether European industry has been damaged by global interception of communications. It will also consider whether the privacy of individuals can be protected from spying and how this can be done.

Assembly members said the committee was expected to be headed by Portuguese deputy Carlos Coehlo and would aim to report back on its findings in about eight months.

The existence of the Echelon system and allegations it was used to help U.S. firms gain a competitive advantage over their European competitors surfaced in a report to the assembly earlier this year, provoking a furore throughout Europe.

The French prosecutor's office said on Tuesday it had appointed a prosecutor to launch a preliminary judicial investigation into the workings of Echelon, set up during the Cold War.

Other inquiries have been initiated or are being discussed in Germany and Denmark, European Parliament officials said.

But the allegations have turned into a diplomatic nightmare at a time European nations are planning to pool defence capabilities and preparing to launch a global satellite positioning system, called Galileo.

A report submitted to the European parliament by a British researcher last October said Echelon's eavesdropping activities had resulted in several major contracts going to U.S. rather than European firms.

The Parliament, which has extremely limited powers over European foreign and security policies, was split on how to handle the issue.

It rejected a proposal to set up a "temporary committee of inquiry," which could have called witnesses, in favour of a "temporary committee," which in theory has more limited powers.

----

France investigates U.S. spy network

Washington Times
July 5, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/world/ed-column-20007521498.htm

PARIS - French prosecutors have begun an investigation into the U.S. global surveillance system Echelon, which is said to be capable of sifting through millions of telephone calls, faxes and e-mails a day.

Legal sources confirmed a report in yesterday's edition of Figaro newspaper that said France's chief prosecutor, Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, had ordered an investigation at the end of May in the wake of concerns raised by Thierry Jean-Pierre, a member of the European Parliament.

Several European Parliament members have accused the United States and some of its allies, including Britain, of using Echelon for industrial espionage against European exporters and governments.

French authorities are concerned that Echelon, which according to Figaro is capable of listening to and processing the equivalent of the entire content of the U.S. Library of Congress in 10 hours, could pose a threat to France's "fundamental interests."

----

Israel's Mossad Agents Threaten Boycott

Reuters
July 5, 2000 Filed at 11:29 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-israel-.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel Radio said Wednesday that some Mossad secret agents were planning to refuse further missions in protest at a self-confessed agent being sent to stand trial in Switzerland for a bungled wire-tap attempt.

A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office said he had praised the role of the agency in Israel's security.

``The information about the guys who don't want to do the job is not true. In the Mossad there was not one case where a Mossad man did not want to do his job,'' a spokeswoman said.

The radio said Mossad agents were ``angry and greatly frustrated'' over the return to Switzerland of the agent traveling under the alias ``David Bental,'' calling it a ''complete lack of backing.''

In 1998, the agent was caught in the basement of an apartment house near the Swiss capital Berne trying to tap the phone of a naturalized Lebanese-born car dealer suspected of having links to the Hizbollah guerrilla movement in Lebanon.

Hizbollah fought to oust Israel from south Lebanon, where Israel ended its 22-year occupation in May.

Apart from wiretapping, the charges against the agent include entering the country using papers with false names, political espionage and carrying out illegal acts for a foreign state.

The radio reported that Mossad director Ephraim Halevy had been informed of the agent's operations in advance.

It said Mossad agents were also frustrated over what they said was a drop in the number of operations and the rejection of many planned missions by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who has to approve any Mossad operations.

The incident in Switzerland was one of a series of bungled operations in recent years to tarnish the once vaunted image of Mossad.

In 1997 the agency failed in an attempt to assassinate the head of the militant Hamas movement in Jordan, leading to tension between Jordan and Israel three years after they signed a peace deal.

----

Back Channels: The Intelligence Community
In His Defense, Lee Raises Race Issue

Washington Post
Wednesday, July 5, 2000; Page A19
By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/05/099l-070500-idx.html

McLAUGHLIN MOTS: John E. McLaughlin, a career CIA analyst nominated by President Clinton last week to be deputy director of central intelligence, has never himself had to undergo the rigors of Senate confirmation.

McLaughlin played a small but important role in the Senate's highly contentious confirmation in 1991 of Robert M. Gates to be CIA director, reporting the "widely held view" that top CIA managers helped distort an analysis of the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II.

The CIA's conclusion that the attack could have been part of a communist plot involving the Soviets and Bulgarians was the focal point of Gates's confirmation. Critics alleged that Gates allowed the report to be skewed to support the conviction of his former boss, CIA Director William J. Casey, that the Kremlin was involved.

During Gates's confirmation hearing, then-Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) read from a sworn statement submitted by McLaughlin, one of three analysts Gates appointed in 1985 to perform a postmortem on the controversial report:

" 'We told Mr. Gates that we saw serious shortcomings in the Directorate's analysis of the assassination attempt. . . . [T]here was a pervasive perception that top management was convinced of Soviet culpability and that this had led to the removal of some caveats to the contrary. . . . In particular, there was a widely held view that the shape and tone of the paper's key judgment . . . had been inspired, if not directed, by the seventh floor.' "

FEES ON FEES: Former CIA station chief James Fees came through Washington last month to promote his first novel, "Operation Hebron," published under the pen name Eric Jordan, proving himself a world-class raconteur.

In half an hour over coffee at the Madison Hotel, Fees described a string of old covert operations, including one in which the CIA brought down a communist regime in Africa by stealing a dictator's payroll. He also took credit for writing the memo that persuaded top agency officials to open clandestine relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Now a silver-haired international businessman living in Brussels, Fees became a CIA operative in 1957 and rose to chief of station in Cairo under Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter from 1974 to 1978.

He found the assignment exhausting and perilous, he said, because of an assassination contract taken out on his life by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Carter finally defused the situation with a personal letter asking Gadhafi to call off the hit, Fees said.

Fees's final posting was as chief of station in Geneva in 1979, the beginning of Stansfield Turner's tenure as director of central intelligence. To Fees and other spies of his generation, it was the beginning of the end of the agency they knew and loved.

Fees said he realized it was time to hang it up when headquarters refused to approve the recruitment of a German woman possessed of an extremely close relationship to a senior KGB official.

But severing his ties with the agency was easier said than done. "Being an ex-CIA officer is like being a hooker," he said. "No one believes you stopped."

No one, including the president.

Fees said the Reagan White House summoned him to Washington when he was several years into retirement in a frantic effort to find where terrorists were holding a group of U.S. hostages captured in Lebanon.

He agreed to ask one of his best Middle East sources and ultimately was able to confirm that the hostages were in Lebanon, not Iran, as some U.S. officials believed, information that made a contemplated military incursion in Lebanon too risky, he said.

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British Approve Former Spy's Novel

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 1:50 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Britain-Spys-Novel.html

LONDON (AP) -- The British government says it will not try to stop the publication of former spy David Shayler's new novel.

The former MI5 man's first book, which is about incompetent bungling in the British intelligence services, passed smoothly by the government censors, who did not change a word, the Home Office said Tuesday.

Shayler, 34, wrote ``The Organisation,'' a fiction story he described as ``a gritty thriller about spies, sex and football,'' while living in forced exile in France.

He was required to submit a manuscript to comply with a government injunction in 1997 barring him from disclosing any information he obtained while working for MI5, Britain's internal security agency.

Shayler worked for MI5 from 1994 until 1997, when he claimed that the agency kept files on a number of politicians, including the current home secretary, Jack Straw, and the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Mandelson.

He has also said Britain was involved in a plot to assassinate Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The British government has denied involvement in such a plan.

Shayler was arrested in France in 1998 on a British warrant on charges of breaking the Official Secrets Act, but a French appeals court rejected an extradition bid. Despite the risk of arrest if he returns to Britain, Shayler says he is determined to come home this year to clear his name.

The government has also filed a separate civil suit accusing Shayler of violating his contract and copyright laws by releasing secret documents to British newspapers.

Speaking to the British news agency, Press Association, from his exile in Paris, Shayler said he was thrilled that his novel can go forward.

``They've passed it without changing a word. I think they had no other choice,'' Shayler said. ``The government has realized that they can't go around behaving like bosses from the Soviet Union.''

The novel has not been sold to a publisher yet.

-------- terrorism

Defense ministers discuss terrorism, piracy in Asia

Associated Press
July 5, 2000
By DEAN VISSER Associated Press Writer
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=h0704024.000&level3=2884&date=20000705

SINGAPORE (AP) _ High-level defense officials from five countries meeting in Singapore on Tuesday discussed the rising threats of terrorism and sea piracy in Asia.

Ministers from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore, and a senior defense official from Britain attended the talks. The five countries make up the so-called Five Power Defense Arrangements.

Cross-border crimes, including terrorism and piracy, are becoming an ``increasing concern'' and will require more international cooperation, Singapore Defense Minister Tony Tan said at a news conference following the meeting.

``Terrorists, for example, today do not operate in one country. Their crimes can cross borders, and this will make it much more difficult to counter this type of threat,'' Tan said.

The rising danger of pirate attacks also ``will require cooperation of all countries in the region, and also outside the region,'' Tan said.

The terrorism threat in Asia was highlighted after Muslim extremists seized 21 hostages, many of them tourists, from a resort island in Malaysia on April 23. The hostageswere moved to the Philippines, where all but one are still being held.

Southeast Asia also had more than half of the world's reported pirate attacks last year. Maritime experts say organized pirate rings take advantage of the lack of coordination between countries in Asia, moving freely between the high seas and territorial waters.

While the ministers agreed on the need for greater cooperation in fighting cross-border crimes, Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak said economic progress would be more effective against terrorism than military strength.

``I don't think we can combat terrorists with just a military solution,'' Najib said.

``If you don't give hope for the future of the people in a certain area, then the credible leaders and the moderate leaders will be discredited and extreme ones will appear,'' Najib told reporters after the news conference.

``Look at the Middle East, for example,'' he said. ``You need a comprehensive Middle East solution, because otherwise terrorism there will never see the end of the day.''

The Five Power Defense Arrangements was formed in 1971, in the post-British colonial era, to defend against external threats to Singapore and Malaysia.

In peacetime, the member countries hold joint training exercises and regular meetings between defense ministers.

---

Particulars of five terrorist acts in Chechnya described.

Itar-Tass
July 5, 2000
http://www.individual.com/frames/story.shtml?story=v0703395.8ts&level3=2884&date=20000705

MOSCOW, July 4 (Itar-Tass) via NewsEdge Corporation - The Russian president's assistant Sergei Yastrzhembsky described on Monday particulars of terrorist acts, committed by extremists in Chechnya last Sunday.

He noted that all the five terrorist acts are committed according to the same scheme and pursue the same aims. "Gunmen used kamikaze drivers to ride Ural heavy trucks. Buildings of military commandants' offices and deployment places of Russian troops were the aim of all terrorist acts," the president's assistant noted.

According to Yastrzhembsky, the main strike of terrorists was spearheaded against Gudermes, the Chechen administrative capital. Three trucks, packed with explosives, were heading for that city.

Federal servicemen stopped the first truck, heading for the city, not far from a bridge. "They opened fire to hit. The kamikaze driver died, but his vehicle exploded. The blast killed one federal serviceman -- Chechen policeman," Yastrzhembsky specified.

The second Ural was driving along the northern boundery of Gudermes in the direction of the barracks of the 330th independent battalion of interior troops. Fire to hit was also opened.

The kamikaze driver was killed, but the truck exploded. One soldier died as a result of the blast. "According to available information, the aim of the terrorist act was the commandant's office of the Chechen Republic," the president's assistant continued.

The third Ural was driving to Gudermes from the east, but, changing the direction, headed for the village of Novogroznensky. The truck rammed through the gate there and dashed to the grounds of a battalion of interior troops.

The kamikaze driver was killed, but three interior troops were killed as well and 20 wounded by the blast, Yastrzhembsky noted.

According to the president's assistant, the fourth terrorist act took place in the district centre Urus-Martan. A Ural truck, developing great speed, tried to ram through a system of outside protection of the building of the commandant's office at 19.00, which also housed a police precinct.

"The truck was destroyed, an explosion went off, killing two soldiers who were in a concrete dugout," stated the president's assistant.

Following the blast, firing was immediately opened from dwelling houses on the commandant's office and the police precinct. Gunmen hoped for panic and planned to storm into the commandant's office. "But their fire was quashed, and the onslaught failed to materialise," Yastrzhembsky stated.

According to the president's assistant, the greatest tragedy took place in Argun. "In that city, in contrast to Urus-Martan, outside protection was insufficient near a dormitory where policemen from the Chelyabinsk Region lived.

"The entrance was barred only by one truck. There was no concrete fencing. Fire to hit was also opened at an approaching truck. An explosion again ripped the air. A huge crater was formed. Two buildings which were 40 and 15 meters from the blast epicentre, were destroyed."

There is no complete information on casualties now. In Yastrzhembsky opinion, exact information will be received later.

-------- activists

PHOTOS AND VIDEO AVAILABLE
GREENPEACE VESSEL SAILING TOWARDS STAR WARS TEST SITE

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, July 5, 2000 (10:00 a.m PST) - Escalating its protest against the Pentagon's "Star Wars" missile program, the international anti-nuclear organization Greenpeace is sending its vessel MV Arctic Sunrise into waters off the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force base where a test launch is scheduled for Friday evening.

The vessel is headed towards waters designated as a hazard zone by the Air Forces for the purposes of the missile test. The Air Force issued a request Tuesday that ships stay clear of these kind of zones before the test proceeds.

Late yesterday Greenpeace USA Executive Director Ellen McPeake sent an urgent letter to President Clinton urging him to cancel this test and the entire Star Wars program before it does any more damage to existing arms control agreements and sparks a new and dangerous nuclear arms race.

"Mr. President, you have the finger on the Star Wars button. We urge you take it off and make the world a safer place," the letter read.

Aboard the 164 foot Dutch-registered Arctic Sunrise, are 23 people, including activists from United States, Russia, France, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, India, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Cook Islands and Turkey.

"The Star Wars program is wrong and must be scrapped," said Greenpeace spokesperson John Sprange aboard the Arctic Sunrise . "We want President Clinton to stop this test which puts the United States and the rest of the world at grave risk."

Outside Vandenberg's Air Force Base's front gate, Greenpeace continues to maintain an around the clock vigil, with disarmament experts on hand to provide background information to the public the media. Greenpeace has also launched a special website, { HYPERLINK http://www.stopstarwars.org }www.stopstarwars.org, which offers people around the world a chance to send letters directly to President Clinton voicing their opposition to the Star Wars program.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

Photos are available in the U.S. by calling: 202-256-0676 Photo enquiries Europe ++31-653 819121 Video enquires in the United States: 202-319-2496 or 202-2516296 Video enquires in Europe: ++31-653504721

CONTACT: On site media coordinator: 805-598-2527 or 805-598-2517 By calling these numbers it is possible to arrange interviews from the Arctic Sunrise.

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Activists Leave Russian Freighter

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 10:34 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Greenpeace-Ship-Protest.html

TOYAMA, Japan (AP) -- After shackling themselves overnight to a cargo of timber following a three-day high seas chase, Greenpeace activists left a Russian freighter Wednesday claiming they had raised awareness of the depletion of protected forests ahead of this month's G-8 summit.

The standoff with Japanese authorities in this sooty, industrial port ended when the Coast Guard allowed journalists to meet the six environmentalists who had chained themselves to a pile of logs on the rickety cargo ship Byisk.

Greenpeace, which claimed that a large proportion of the Byisk's timber was cut illegally from Russia's Far East, had initially demanded guarantees that Japan would move against illegal wood imports.

But the activists agreed to leave the harbor on their flagship Rainbow Warrior, docked next to the Byisk, after the Japanese government spoke to Greenpeace activists in Tokyo and journalists were let through a cordon keeping them away from the dock.

``Very few people were aware that there was this illegal trade with Japan,'' said Greenpeace official Dave Roberts, who was among those fettered to the logs. ``We don't feel that getting people arrested at this stage is going to further...dialogue.''

The standoff with Japanese authorities ended peacefully. But the voyage to Toyama, 160 miles northwest of Tokyo, had been fraught with clashes.

After the Byisk left the Russian Far East on Sunday, activists on the Rainbow Warrior jumped aboard the 2,360-ton Russian ship in international waters. Russian crewmen threw them back into the Sea of Japan.

Then, five Greenpeace activists boarded the Russian vessel on Monday and occupied the logs stacked high on the deck until the ship agreed to return to Plastun port in the Primorsky region of Russia.

Later, when the Russian ship reversed course and again sailed for Japan, the Rainbow Warrior resumed its pursuit, and on Tuesday eight activists briefly boarded the ship before being thrown off it by crewmen using grappling hooks and high-powered hoses.

Alex Demanchuk, a Russian crew member of the Byisk, shrugged off the violence.

``It was play,'' he told The Associated Press. ``They were pirates.''

He said Japan was to blame if illegal timber made it to the country's shores.

``Big money, big problem,'' he said, grinning and rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.

On Wednesday, many of the Russian crew appeared to be enjoying the pause in their schedule the environmental fracas had created. A few rode bikes to nearby shopping districts as Greenpeace held talks with the Coast Guard.

Greenpeace had also urged the Group of Eight industrial nations, which will hold a summit in Japan on July 21-23, to enforce a program it adopted three years ago to stop unlawful lumbering.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the nation planned to put forestry issues, including illegal logging, on the G-8 agenda, according to Greenpeace.

But Foreign Ministry official Tetsuji Miyamoto said he had only reiterated the government's stance that environmental issues were scheduled to be addressed at the summit. He added the G-8 agenda would not be influenced by Greenpeace's demands.

Greenpeace began following the Russian ship after investigating for several months allegedly illegal logging being done in Primorsky, a region near the Russian, Chinese and North Korean borders. It says at least 20 percent of the lumber exported from the region was illegally chopped down.

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China Dissident Sent To Labor Camp

Associated Press
July 5, 2000 Filed at 10:34 a.m. EDT Filed at 2:07 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-Dissidents.html

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese police have sentenced a member of an outlawed would-be opposition party to three years in a labor camp, apparently for demanding the release of a fellow dissident, a human rights group reported Wednesday.

Police in Shanghai arrested Li Guotao on June 13, four days after he and 22 others wrote to the city's mayor appealing for the release of Dai Xuezhong, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democracy said.

On Tuesday, Li, a 42-year-old computer technician, was sentenced to three years in a labor camp, the longest term possible under Chinese law without a trial, the group said.

Police found Li guilty of ``disturbing the social order'' for appealing on behalf of someone accused of plotting to steal mobile phones, the group said. Dai Xuezhong was convicted of assault, but his brother Dai Xuewu was arrested in March on charges of stealing mobile phones.

Police have in recent years increasingly used common criminal charges to persecute political dissidents.

Li and Dai Xuezhong were members of the China Democracy Party, set up by dissidents two years ago to challenge the ruling Communist Party's political monopoly. Soon thereafter, authorities cracked down, harassing and arresting party members. Its leaders have been given jail terms of up to 13 years.

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Protesters rally over roadless lands Using ropes and chains, protesters strain to pull a multi-ton boulder out of the way during a Tuesday rally in Jarbidge, Nev. Shovel Brigade demonstrators worked to re-open a road that had been sealed by the U,S, Forest Service.

MSNBC 07/05/00
NBC's Dan Lothian
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/428939.asp

JARBIDGE, Nev., July 4 - In this rural Nevada town, hundreds joined together on Independence Day to hoist a huge boulder they dubbed the "Liberty Rock" and lay claim to a remote dirt road in defiance of the U.S. Forest Service. They claim their protest is not just about a single road, but about the government's new "roadless" policy on public lands.

The Forest Service wants to keep more than 50 million acres of public land without new roads. Critics maintain the proposal takes control of the land away from local government.

CHANTING "FREEDOM, FREEDOM," the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade protesters moved the boulder inch by inch, using three lines of rope attached to a chain around the rock blocking access to South Canyon Road.

"You can see what people power does," said state Assemblyman John Carpenter, a Republican and one of the original leaders of the shovel movement.

South Canyon Road was washed out in a flood in 1995. Federal authorities have blocked efforts to reopen it, fearing any work would damage the stream bed and jeopardize the existence of the bull trout population in the adjacent Jarbidge River.

The bull trout was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1998.

BATTLE WITH WASHINGTON

The Brigade claims the county is the rightful owner of the narrow dirt road and the Forest Service is the intruder. But the demonstration was the latest chapter in a dispute between Washington officials and locals upset with federal land policy. Protesters in Jarbidge insisted the fight is less about the road and more about the government blocking access to public land. They see the Forest Service's action as an extension of the Clinton administration's initiative to create more roadless areas in national forests.

Under the new federal roadless initiative, more than 50 million acres of public land would be left without new roads built into them. The Forest Service maintains the initiative is crucial to help preserve natural habitats and to resolve an estimated $8.7 million backlog of maintenance costs on Forest Service roads.

Opponents maintain the proposal takes control of the land away from counties and local government.

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JUDGE WARNS PROTESTERS

MSNBC's environment coverage
http://www.msnbc.com/news/environment_front.asp

Last week, a federal judge denied an injunction sought by the Justice Department to halt the rally, but warned members of the brigade they could be prosecuted if environmental damage occurred.

The boulder removed, the crowd erupted in cheers as a pickup truck carrying Jarbidge's oldest resident, 90-year-old Helen Wilson, drove over a 900-foot section of reopened road near the community of about two dozen.

An estimated 500 people from around the West and as far away as Maine, Florida, Rhode Island, New York and Vermont converged in this remote outback to take part in the Shovel Brigade demonstration. Sponsors had predicted up to 10 times as many.

PATRIOTIC GATHERING

The scene resembled a holiday picnic more than a low-grade insurrection.

Protesters said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before taking up positions along the "tug-of-war" lines attached to the boulder.

Federal authorities stayed away from the two-day event, but have said they will monitor the area later to determine if protesters caused any environmental damage. If so, they could face prosecution under Endangered Species and Clean Water acts.

NBC News correspondent Dan Lothian and The Associated Press contributed to this report.