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

China: Putin Starts His Three-Country Asian Tour

Radio Free Europe
17-07-00

Beijing, July 17 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Beijing, starting his three-country Asian tour. Putin will attend an official welcoming ceremony tomorrow before beginning talks with China's President Jiang Zemin. The two leaders are expected to focus on disarmament issues and expanding bilateral trade.

Both countries oppose plans by the United States to create and deploy a national missile defense system. Jiang and Putin are expected to sign a document supporting the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and rejecting any changes to it. The U.S. says it needs the system to counter threats from so-called rogue nations which may acquire nuclear and missile technology sufficient to menace the U.S. or its allies.

Putin and Jiang are also expected to discuss ways to boost bilateral trade which totaled a mere 5,700 million dollars last year. Jiang and first Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed in 1997 to increase bilateral trade to 20,000 million dollars by this year.

Putin departs China Wednesday for North Korea. He will be in Japan on Friday to attend the summit of industrialized nations in Okinawa.

---

Putin Arrives for China Summit

Yahoo News
Monday July 17 12:12 PM ET
By Jeremy Page
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000717/wl/china_russia_dc_1.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China Monday to advance a new strategic partnership based largely on mutual opposition to U.S. plans to build ballistic missile shields.

The U.S. proposals for missile defense systems over North America and Asia are expected to top the agenda when Putin meets Chinese President Jiang Zemin Tuesday on the opening day of his first visit to Asia since he was elected president in March.

Putin and Jiang will sign a joint statement on their opposition to the U.S. plans, covering ``anti-missile defense -- all kinds of new American initiatives,'' a Russian embassy spokesman told Reuters.

Washington has proposed building a National Missile Defense (NMD) system against missile attacks from ``states of concern'' such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq and a Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system to shield its troops and allies in Asia.

Moscow and Beijing's opposition to NMD and TMD, which they say could upset the balance of power and trigger a new arms race, is the cornerstone of a delicate new strategic partnership forged last year by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Beijing's top disarmament diplomat said last week deployment of NMD could push China and Russia into a closer alliance.

Moscow hopes Putin's two-day visit to Beijing will provide fresh impetus to a ``strategic partnership'' announced by Jiang and former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin.

In a weekend interview with Russian and Chinese media, Putin said his talks Tuesday with Jiang and other Chinese leaders would focus on arms control, boosting bilateral trade, especially in the energy field and international issues.

``China is indeed our strategic partner. Without doubt, the current state and quality of relations between our two countries will be preserved in the 21st century,'' Putin said.

Global Game

Analysts say Moscow and Beijing are both keen to counterbalance U.S. influence over world affairs, but their agendas on missile defense do not entirely coincide.

``They both have their own reasons for opposing this but I'm not sure their reasons are the same,'' said one Western diplomat.

``The Chinese don't like it because of the Taiwan implication, plus it's an advance in a global game that they're not equipped to match.''

Beijing fears TMD would shelter Taiwan, which it regards as a rebel province and has threatened to invade if the island declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.

Putin, on the other hand, appeared to bend toward a Western stance last month when he proposed a joint anti-missile defense system with NATO and Europe, defense analysts say.

Russia may also be prepared to adjust a 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, a move strongly opposed by China, they say.

``The Russians, at the end of the day, could live with that because they're not threatened by NMD,'' said the diplomat. ''They're not as visceral as the Chinese about it.''

Nevertheless, Putin has sought to strengthen Moscow's new relationship with Beijing, finding further common ground in opposition to international intervention in domestic conflicts on humanitarian grounds.

Both China and Russia have been targets of Western criticism over their human rights records, especially in Chechnya and Tibet. They say their domestic policies are their own affairs.

``We know that Russia is both a European and Asian state,'' Putin said in a weekend interview with Russian and Chinese media. ``We pay tribute to European pragmatism and oriental wisdom. Russian foreign policy must therefore be balanced.

``We have enormous sympathy for the Chinese people. For such a long time, practically for all time, this has been not merely sympathy but special, warm feelings,'' he said.

Marriage Of Convenience

Jiang and Putin are also expected to sign cooperation agreements in energy, banking and education.

Putin's large delegation includes Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov, the head of arms exporter Rosvooruzheniye Alexei Ogarev, economic adviser Andrei Illarionov and regional leaders.

China is a key customer for Russian oil, natural gas and arms while Russia wants better access to China's billion-strong market. But annual bilateral trade is only $5 billion, despite past pledges to hit $20 billion by 2000.

One of the projects likely to feature on Tuesday's agenda is a multi-billion-dollar pipeline from an east Siberian gasfield.

But analysts say Putin's visit is largely a relationship-building exercise and is unlikely to lead to any concrete commercial or strategic agreements.

``It's a marriage of convenience,'' said the diplomat. ''There's no love lost between them.''

From Beijing, Putin flies Wednesday to North Korea on the first visit by any Russian or Soviet leader to the Stalinist state.

He is due to arrive on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa Friday evening for the annual gathering of the Group of Eight nations, which also include the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

---

Shared aims at Beijing summit

BBC
Monday, 17 July, 2000, 10:43 GMT 11:43 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_837000/837418.stm

Putin has yet to develop Yeltsin's close relationship with China By Russian Affairs analyst, Stephen Dalziel.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin's visit to China is expected to focus on increased military and economic co-operation.

Beijing and Moscow have been making very positive noises about the visit in recent days.

Relations between the two countries with the longest land border in the world have not always run smoothly, especially when the Soviet Union existed.

Each accused the other of distorting Communist ideology.

But the collapse of Communism in Russia removed the ideological element from the equation.

Under Boris Yeltsin, pragmatism became the driving force of the relationship.

Both sides acknowledge that it makes more sense for the two giant neighbours to co-operate, especially as they are united in feeling aggrieved by the position of the United States as the world's only superpower.

US missiles

US plans to build an anti-missile defence system have given them a focus for this anger, and Presidents Putin and Jiang are expected to sign a joint statement of condemnation at this meeting.

On the more positive side, their discussions will deal with the very strong trade in weapons from Russia to China.

Mr Putin, in particular, is keen that economic links are strengthened in other areas, too, believing that the two countries have a massive untapped potential for trade.

The two leaders are expected also to discuss the construction of a pipeline to take Russian gas to China from Siberia.

---

Putin Travels to China

Associated Press
July 17, 2000 Filed at 4:05 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-China.html

BEIJING (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin came to Beijing on Monday for a summit with his Chinese counterpart during which the two leaders are expected to reaffirm their opposition to Washington's plans for a missile defense shield.

The visit is the first stop on an Asian tour intended to reassert Russia's global clout ahead of a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized powers in Okinawa, Japan.

Putin and President Jiang Zemin were to sign a statement condemning the proposed U.S. limited national missile defense, which would require modifying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The two leaders were also expected to take further steps to bolster relations between the former communist rivals. They plan to sign agreements on energy cooperation, including a feasibility study for a gas pipeline from Russia into China. Bilateral agreements on education and banking are also on the agenda for the visit, which ends Tuesday.

Putin's plane, accented in the red, white and blue of the Russian flag, landed at Beijing's Capital Airport shortly after 11:30 p.m. Monday. The Russian president descended a red carpet and was greeted by Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Yang Wenchang and diplomats from the two sides before leaving in a motorcade of limousines and buses. Putin made no statement to the press.

Putin was to be formally welcomed by Jiang at a military ceremony near Tiananmen Square on Tuesday, followed by talks expected to focus on increasing cooperation and the two nations' opposition to U.S. development of a missile defense shield.

Putin is expected to use his visits to Beijing and Pyongyang, North Korea, to register once again Russia's deep concern over the U.S. proposal to modify the ABM treaty to allow construction of a limited national missile defense.

A Chinese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia and China had a new kind of partnership that was ``nonaligned, non-confrontational, and non-threatening to any third party.''

After decades of tension that followed a falling-out in the late 1950s, relations between Moscow and China have been steadily improving since the late 1980s. Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, China has evolved into one of Russia's major trading partners and is the top customer for Russia's ailing military industrial complex. Beijing has purchased billions of dollars worth of jets, missiles, submarines and destroyers.

Russian and Chinese leaders have spoken much about the ``strategic partnership'' between their countries and their efforts to build a ``multipolar world'' -- a term intended to underline their joint opposition to perceived U.S. global domination.

Some Russian media and analysts have warned the Kremlin against using political and military ties with China as a tool to blackmail the West.

``We need China and other Asian countries as economic partners and additional markets, not an alternative to the West,'' political analyst Yevgeny Verlin wrote in the business newspaper Vedomosti on Monday.

The two nations have long discussed plans for building oil and natural gas pipelines from Russia into China, but nothing has been done so far. According to Russian media reports, Russia could export up to $5 billion worth of energy resources a year to China if the projects materialize.

Officials traveling with Putin included Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, Defense Minister Gen. Igor Sergeyev and Minister of Energy Alexander Gavrin, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

-------- australia

Sir Mark Oliphant, Australian Nuclear Physicist, Dies at 98

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/00/07/17/late/17cnd-oliphant.obit.html

CANBERRA, July 17 -- Australian nuclear physicist Sir Mark Oliphant, who helped develop the atomic bomb but later campaigned against nuclear weaponry, has died, his family said on Monday.

Oliphant died in Canberra on Friday, aged 98.

He became internationally renowned as the leader of a team of British scientists who travelled to the United States in 1943 to assist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory's top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb.

``Profoundly shocked and horrified by the use of this weapon in 1945, he became a lifelong campaigner against weapons of mass destruction and for the peaceful use of atomic energy for the benefit of humankind,'' his grandson Michael Wilson said in a statement.

Bombs developed during the Manhattan Project were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, prompting Japan to surrender. More than 200,000 people were killed, wounded or missing in the blasts.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard called Oliphant a ``great Australian.'' ``Sir Mark's distinguished career at home and overseas ... highlighted his contribution to the nation as a scientist and public figure,'' Howard said in a statement.

Born in South Australia state in 1901, Oliphant studied at Adelaide University and under British physicist Ernest Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory at Britain's Cambridge University.

His work with the Cavendish team included the successful splitting of the atom in 1932 and the crucial development of microwave radar during World War Two.

Oliphant returned to Australia in 1950 where he was a founder of the Australian Academy of Sciences, established to promote and give a global voice to Australian science, and founding director of the Research School of Physical Sciences at the Australian National University (ANU).

President of the Academy Brian Anderson expressed the deep sense of loss felt by all scientists at Oliphant's death.

``Sir Mark was Australia's leading statesman of science in the post-war period,'' Anderson said in a statement.

Following his retirement from the ANU in 1967, Oliphant was appointed governor of South Australia from 1971-76.

He is survived by his daughter Vivien, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

-------- depleted uranium

Los Alamos DU research in the 1970s

"Cat" <cat@freewomen.freeserve.co.uk>
Mon, 17 Jul 2000 15:31:11 +0100

The following extracts are from Hanson, Wayne C., and Miera, Felix R., Jr (1976) Long-Term Ecological Effects of Exposure to Uranium. Los Alamos National Laboratory, LA-6269.

"ABSTRACT "The consequences of releasing natural and depleted uranium to terrestrial ecosystems during development and testing of depleted uranium munitions were investigated. At Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, soil at various distances from armor plate target butts struck by depleted uranium penetrators was sampled. The upper 5 cm of soil at the target base contained an average of 800 ppm of depleted uranium, about 30 times as much as soil at the 5-10 cm depth, indicating vertical movement of depleted uranium. Samples colected beyond about 20 m from the target showed near-background natural uranium levels, about 1.3-+0.3 micrograms/gram or ppm.

"Two explosives-testing areas at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) were selected because of their use history. E-F Site soil averaged 2400 ppm of uranium in the upper 5 cm and 1600 ppm at 5-10 cm. Lower Slobovia Site soil from two sub-plots averaged about 2.5 and 0.6% of the E-F Site concentrations. Important uranium concentration differences with depth and distance from detonation poiints were ascribed to the different explsosive tests conducted in each area.

"E-F Site vegetation samples contained about 320 ppm of uranium in November 1974 and about 125 ppm in June 1975. Small mammals trapped in the study areas in November contained a maximum of 210 ppm of uranium in the gastrointestinal tract contents, 24 ppm in the pelt, and 4 ppm in the remaining carcass. In June, maximum concentrations were 110, 50, and 2 ppm in similar samples and 6 ppm in lungs. These data emphasized the importance of resuspension of respirable particles in the upper few millimeters of soil as a contamination mechanism for several components of the LASL ecosystem

"I. INTRODUCTION "An estimated 75,000-100,000 kg of uranium was expended during conventional explosives tests at several Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) testing areas during 1949-1970. Of this, about 35,000-45,000 kg of natural uranium was used during 1949-1954, and 40,000-50,000 kg of depleted uranium was used during 1955-1970."

-------- iran

Iran missile test alarms Israelis

Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 17/07/2000
By ROSS DUNN, Herald Correspondent in Jerusalem
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0007/17/text/world08.html

Iran's successful test of a ballistic missile has accelerated the Middle East arms race, with warnings from Israel that it will have to advance its own missile defence system.

Iran said on Saturday it had successfully test-fired an upgraded version of its medium-range Shahab missile, raising immediate concerns in Israel and the United States.

Israel's Deputy Defence Minister, Mr Ephraim Sneh, warned that Israel had no choice but to advance its own missile defence system in response.

"The successful test is a worrying sign. This is a step forward in the Iranian build-up of power and, as a state that Iran says is the devil and must be eradicated from the world, we cannot be apathetic ... we have to go up one, two or even three levels in our defence capabilities."

The Shahab-3 ballistic missile can carry an 800-kilogram warhead and has a range of 1,300 kilometres, meaning it can reach Israel.

Iran tested the same missile for the first time in June 1998, but to the relief of Israeli and US officials it exploded during the launch.

Following the successful test, an Iranian defence official said Tehran did not intend to threaten any other nation. But neither Israel nor the US accepts this.

The test was evidence of Iran's ambition to become a military power in the Middle East, a US Defence Department spokesman, Mr Ken Bacon, said in Sydney yesterday.

"From everything we can tell, it was a successful firing. It is another sign they are determined to build longer-range weapons of mass destruction."

Mr Bacon is accompanying the US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, on a visit to meet Australian defence officials.

Israeli officials voiced similar concerns, saying Iran had five ballistic missile units, and it was only a matter of time before it developed dozens of organised batteries.

While Iran does not have the capability to arm the missiles with non-conventional warheads, such as biological or chemical weapons, Israel believes Iran plans to become a nuclear weapons state, and that it is likely to be so within five years.

Israel has already begun preparing to guard against missile attacks by hostile states. In March it took possession of the Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile designed to seek out and destroy an incoming nuclear or conventional warhead.

The Arrow 2 is regarded as another step towards Israel's goal of developing a missile shield.

The Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, took time out from the Camp David summit to declare that the Iranian test showed Israel needed to maintain a strong defence force while pursuing peace with its neighbours.

---

Cohen says Iranian test shows need for missile defense

CNN
July 17, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/australasia/07/17/australia.us.defense.ap/index.html

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Iran's weekend test of a long-range missile underscored the need for a U.S. national missile defense system, Secretary of Defense William Cohen said Monday.

Iran tested its Shahab-3 ballistic missile, with a range of 800 miles, on Saturday. Tehran is developing a longer-range Shahab-4, which it claims will be used to carry satellites into space and not for military purposes.

The test "is one of the reasons why it is important for the United States to undertake to research, develop and potentially deploy a national missile defense system that would provide protection against countries such as Iran posing a threat to the United States," Cohen said on the last day of a three-day visit to Australia.

U.S. defense authorities are developing a multibillion dollar national missile defense system, but Washington has not yet approved its deployment.

The United States also would look to Australia to play a role in the missile defense system if and when it is approved, Cohen said.

Australian Defense Minister John Moore said Australia would consider a request for participation if the system gets the go-ahead.

But that expectation could prove unfounded if the opposition Labor Party wins federal elections expected by late next year. Labor is opposed to Australian participation in the scheme.

The two countries jointly run the Pine Gap satellite tracking center in central Australia and that secretive facility would likely be used to track missiles as part of the U.S. missile defense system.

The ministers were speaking after the two countries agreed to share new defense technology and cooperate on its development -- an agreement that gives Australia enhanced access to U.S. military research.

Moore said the agreement would be of particular benefit to Australia's troubled fleet of six Collins Class submarines, which have been plagued by technical problems ranging from periscope malfunctions to excessive noise and vibration, as well as problems in computer defense systems.

---

U.S. Criticizes Iran Missile Test

Associated Press
July 17, 2000 Filed at 2:58 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-Iran.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iran's weekend test of a medium-range missile capable of reaching Israel or U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia is a ``serious threat to the region and to U.S. nonproliferation interests,'' the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Philip Reeker said the United States has been engaged in efforts for years to stop the transfer of missile technology and equipment to Iran.

``The tests show Iran is continuing aggressive efforts to develop missiles more capable than the existing 300-and 500-kilometer Scuds that they have, Reeker said.

Iranian television reported Saturday that the test firing of the Shahab-3 missile ``is not in any way a threat to another country.''

It said the test was in line with Iran's ``policy of strengthening its defense capability on the basis of the principle of deterrence.''

-------- japan

JPS 07-063 Gensuikyo submits 4.84 mill. signs calling for N-weapons abolition

JPS <jpspress@twics.com>
MONDAY, JULY 17, 2000

TOKYO JUL 17 JPS -- The Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) on July 14 submitted to the Japanese government 4.84 million signatures calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Since the signature-collecting campaign started 15 years ago, Japan Gensuikyo has collected nearly 60 million signatures in support of the "Appeal from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for Total Ban and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons."

Gensuikyo's Secretary General Hiroshi Takakusagi and four other representatives visited the prime minister's official residence, and requested that Japan's government support and promote U.N. resolutions calling for the elimination of nuclear arsenal which will be adopted in the U.N. Millennium Summit this fall.

They also demanded that Japan's government press the nuclear weapons possessing countries to promise to eliminate nuclear warheads at the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit of the Group of Eight nations.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa in reply said that the Japanese government hopes to take one realistic measure after another to make the world nuclear weapons-free in the 21st century.

--

JPS 07-065
Gensuikyo calls on G-8 Summit nations act for new century without nuclear weapons

TOKYO JUL 17 JPS -- With the G-8 Okinawa Summit of major nations near at hand, the Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) published a statement on July 13 based on the latest result the anti-nuclear weapons movement has achieved, which calls on the nations and their host country Japan to take responsible actions.

Citing the 2000 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference final report , Gensuikyo requests all nuclear weapon states to "unequivocally undertake to accomplish the totally eliminate their nuclear arsenals."

In relation to the U.S. forces stationed in Okinawa, Gensuikyo want the Japanese Government to make public the Japan-U.S. "secret" agreements on bringing in nuclear weapons to Japan, and to declare that it will never allow nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan and summit countries not to bring in or transport such weapons through Japan. (end item)

--

JPS 07-066
Okinawa Pref. Assembly calls for review of Status of U.S. Forces in Japan Agreement

TOKYO JUL 17 JPS -- The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly on July 14 adopted a statement calling for a review of the 1960 Status of U.S. Forces in Japan Agreement. The statement said:

Seventy five percent of all U.S. bases and facilities in Japan are concentrated in Okinawa, and 20 percent of Okinawa's main island is occupied by U.S. forces. Therefore, the prefectural people have suffered from noise pollution caused by U.S. military aircraft, live-fire exercises causing forest fires and losing greenery at the impact areas, and other kinds of natural destruction.

Also, the prefectural people in their daily life have experienced many incidents and accidents caused by U.S. military personnel.

The need now is to review the Status of U.S. Forces in Japan Agreement to defend the lives of the prefectural people.

Although a similar U.S.-Germany agreement has been reviewed three times, no review has been made on the Japan-U.S. agreement.

It is 40 years since the agreement was concluded. As to various questions about U.S. forces in Okinawa, nothing can be settled by revising the agreement's application. So, it is high time that basic review must be made to the Status of U.S. Forces in Japan Agreement.

Copies of the opinion letter were sent to the prime minister, the foreign minister and the defense agency director general.

The prefectural assembly also adopted a protest resolution and another opinion letter on July 14, urging the U.S. Forces in Okinawa to take strict measures against recent series of accidents such as molesting and hit-and-run by U.S. soldiers in Okinawa. (end item)

----

Anti-atom activists act together regardless of upper orgs.

Mon, 17 Jul 2000
Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>

TOKYO JUL 17 JPS -- Two anti-nuclear organizations in Kitakyushu City of Fukuoka Prefecture on July 16 marched together for the first time since the 1960s.

The united peace march was made possible by an agreement reached by 21 peace groups, including the Moji district's Council against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo) and the Congress Against A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikin), which decided to develop peace actions by setting aside the differences and history which had long prevented them from acting together.

Before the march, a Japanese Communist Party member of the Kitakyushu City Assembly encouraged the marchers, expecting that the march would be the first step towards further united actions for the nuclear disarmament.

A Social Democratic Party member of the city assembly said that joint actions would put the brakes on the ominous move in Japan such as for adverse revision of the Constitution.

Along the Route 3, about 200 marchers with placards and banners chanted the abolition of all kinds of nuclear arms and Japan's peace Constitution to be observed. (end item)

--

Stop Air-SDF acrobat training near nuclear power plant: JCP

JPS 07-073

TOKYO JUL 17 JPS -- On the July 4 accident in which two Self Defense Force planes of the acrobatic flight crashed in the mountain only 4.5 kilometers (about 2.8 miles) south of Onagawa nuclear power plant, the Japanese Communist Party member of the Lower House Zenmei Matsumoto made representations to the Defense Agency, calling for a ban on SDF planes flying near nuclear power plants and the withdrawal of "Blue Impulse," the acrobatic flight unit.

Near the Onagawa plant, there also was an air crash of the same type of an SDF plane on March 22, and the local government and its residents have been calling for suspension of the drill until the cause was made clear. The JCP criticized the SDF for conducting the same war-drill without waiting for the result of the investigation and thus invited a new accident.

They pointed out that the place where Onagawa Plant site is included in Blue Impulse's usual exercise area and the SDF is endangering Japan, far from defending the country. Then they requested that the government take measures the local government and the residents want.

Defense Agency Director General Kazuo Torashima said, "I have received the request from the Miyagi governor. What matters is a thorough investigation of the cause of the accident. I accept the gist (of the requests) and will examine it." (end item)

-------- korea

South Koreans Vie for Slots to Visit North

Washington Post
Monday, July 17, 2000; Page A10
By Kathryn Tolbert Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53475-2000Jul16.html

SEOUL -- Kim Han Jin was hot, tired and very angry. He banged his cane hard on the floor, over and over, shouting at a Red Cross volunteer as loudly as his 78-year-old, bent-over frame could manage. "What do you mean, 100? One hundred is nothing! You call this a reunion?

Next month, for only the second time since the Korean War ended in 1953, government-arranged reunions will take place between North and South Korean families. One hundred people from each side--many of them in their seventies and eighties--will cross the border to meet their now middle-aged or elderly children, brothers or sisters, or even the wives or husbands they once had.

Kim left his wife, daughter and son when he fled to South Korea in 1950 at the start of the war. He is not among the lucky few who will be reunited with family, albeit briefly, in one of the few places in the world where people with blood ties living across a border from each other cannot directly send letters or make telephone calls.

This small exchange of visits is one of the achievements of the June summit between South Korea President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. South Korean officials said they will discuss further reunions at a meeting in September.

About 1.2 million South Koreans have immediate family members in the North; 76,000 registered with the Red Cross, seeking help in finding them. To choose among them has been what one Red Cross official called a "disheartening, heartbreaking" task.

The Red Cross pulled 400 names from a computer-generated lottery. A committee of officials winnowed that list down to 200 through health checks and by asking applicants if they really want to meet long-lost relatives, since some have changed their minds. "We are also giving priority to the older people," said Hong Yang Ho of the Ministry of Unification.

North and South Korea exchanged their lists of 200 names yesterday. After seeing whether relatives can be located, 100 from each side will be chosen for the Aug. 15-18 meetings. Kim said he got a call informing him he had been picked in the lottery, but when he came to the Red Cross office, they told him it was an error. Like so many others, he thinks he has lost his last chance to meet the family he left 50 years ago.

Grandpa, Grandpa, calm down," the volunteer urged him. "You have to be healthy to go to these meetings. Don't worry, we'll have another one."

"I doubt it," Kim shot back.

The only previous family reunions were in 1985, involving 50 people from each side. They included prominent South Korean church and government figures, selected with a "subjective yardstick," Hong said. Not all found relatives since the governments did not match them ahead of time; publicity was the means of contact.

But every year fewer separated relatives remain alive. Of the 400 South Koreans who were chosen by lottery, more than a third were over 80 years old; half were in their seventies.

"In 10 years this kind of project cannot exist," said Park Ki Ryun, secretary general of the South Korean Red Cross. "It is the last chance, the last opportunity for these people."

It took 14 years to arrange the 1985 reunions, and nearly 100 meetings by officials, in most of which the North "wanted to chit-chat rather than have real talks. They were playing games," Park said. This time, the summit made all the difference.

The two Koreas have agreed to talk further about a regular place for families to get together, and about allowing continued contact among reunited families.

But the reunions next month are likely to be the only officially sanctioned ones for this group. They'll have to wait in line behind all the others who have not yet had the chance. Those with money pay brokers working along the Chinese-North Korean border thousands of dollars to find out about family members or even arrange a meeting in a border town.

The summit has convinced many South Koreans that the North has changed. The atmosphere between the two countries is so much better that people who had hesitated about contacting family members are now stepping forward.

Park Soon Jung, 82, did not apply earlier to find his sisters. "I thought it would be uncomfortable for my family in the North. But I changed my mind. Nowadays North-South relations are more comfortable."

Park was among a dozen people last week in the waiting room of Seoul Red Cross Hospital, where all successful applicants must be examined. Passing the blood pressure test was not easy, particularly when they are filled with anxiety and excitement.

"When we check their blood pressure, it is almost always too high even for their age," said physician Park Ho Jin. "A lot of people are afraid they won't pass the test. So we check it two or three times, waiting for it to come down."

Park Soon Jung's was too high, so he sat in the waiting room to be tested again.

Kim Chae Wol, 76, found out five years ago through a contact in China that her parents and older brother had died. But she has two younger sisters in North Korea, now 65 and 68. "I miss my sisters terribly," she said, although she admitted to some mixed feelings about whether she'd have to help them financially. "It's been 50 years. When else can I meet them?

Hong Moon Shik, 74, applied in 1985 but was not chosen. This time he was one of the 400. He left his wife, two sons, a brother and two sisters in the north when he came south in 1950. He remarried and has two grown children.

"The son that was 4 years old must be 54 now," he said. "I can't remember my son's face and even my wife's face is not clear to me right now."

"It will be a painful meeting," he said. "Even if I meet her, I cannot live with her. But still I want to meet her."

What will he say?

"Please forgive me."

Special correspondent Joohee Cho contributed to this report.

-------- russia

U.S. Urges Putin to Push Pyongyang on Missile Program

Reuters
July 17, 2000 Filed at 3:01 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-r.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000717/wl/korea_russia_dc_1.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea this week, and urged him to pass on international concerns that Pyongyang ``deal'' with its missile program.

President Clinton's deputy national security adviser, Jim Steinberg, said Putin's visit to North Korea was a good opportunity for Putin to make a positive contribution to regional security.

``We welcome Russia taking an interest in issues of regional security,'' he told reporters in response to a question at a briefing at the White House to discuss Clinton's upcoming visit to Japan.

Putin will become the first Kremlin leader to travel to Stalinist North Korea when he visits Pyongyang on Wednesday as part of his first Asia tour since becoming president.

``We very much hope and expect that when President Putin meets with (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Il that he will reiterate the message the rest of the international community is giving which is one to welcome steps toward reconciliation between North and South and to encourage North Korea to take steps to deal particularly with its missile program,'' he said.

Steinberg said Putin should bring up North Korea's export of missile technology and its indigenous missile program.

Putin's visit follows a historic meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas and offers Moscow a chance to revive its neglected relations with its onetime Cold War partner.

Putin told Reuters and other media in an interview in Moscow last week that Russia would do everything it could to facilitate the process of normalization between the two Koreas.

He implied, but did not directly spell out, that he would raise North Korea's missile program -- a project which in part prompted Washington to move toward building a National Missile Defense shied against attack from what it sees as rogue states. Moscow opposes the U.S. anti-missile plan.

Putin was quoted as saying on Sunday that the best way to prevent missile use in the Korean peninsula was to guarantee security for the communist north.

Interviewed by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Kyodo news agency before visiting North Korea, Putin welcomed Pyongyang's pledge last year not to repeat 1998 missile tests and backed stiffer control of technologies.

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-------- arkansas

USA Today
07/17//00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Arkansas

Russellville - An Entergy Corp. nuclear reactor will be shut down on or before Friday for an inspection, officials said. Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they weren't comfortable with defects in some steam generator tubes. Arkansas Nuclear One provides 33% of Entergy's power in the state.

-------- illinois

USA Today
07/17/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Illinois

Clinton - The town's schools may be the government entity most affected by the deregulation of the nearby nuclear power plant. The schools had counted on the power station for four of every five tax dollars collected. But, the value of the Clinton plant, once about $500 million, could drop to less than $100 million. That would mean fewer tax dollars to fund schools, the sheriff's department, parks and other services. About 60 Illinois' localities near nuclear plants face similar tax shortfalls.

-------- nevada

GAO REPORT CRITICIZES EPA'S RADIATION STANDARDS

WASHINGTON, DC, July 17, 2000 (ENS) - Radiation standards for closure of nuclear plants and for possible storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain are not always based on sound science, according to a new study released by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress.

"U.S. regulatory standards to protect the public from the potential health risk of nuclear radiation lack a conclusively verified scientific basis," the report says. "In the absence of more conclusive data, scientists have assumed that even the smallest radiation exposure carries a risk. ... However, this assumption is controversial."

The GAO report points to the controversy over groundwater radiation standards at the proposed Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository in Nevada as a case where federal regulators cannot agree on what radiation standards are justified. The EPA has proposed standards that are several times more strict than those proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy. "EPA recognizes that the drinking water contamination limits that are to be applied at the repository are not scientifically up to date," the report notes. "They are based on 1970s era methods of radiation dose estimations, which have been superseded."

The report was requested by Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican and member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. On Friday, Senator Frank Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who chairs that committee, hailed the report as proof that the EPA's standards are unsupportable.

"Again and again we have been told that we were risking lives if we did not accept the EPA standards," he said. Murkowski is leading attempts to override a veto by President Bill Clinton of a measure that would authorize Yucca Mountain to be constructed without adhering to the EPA standards.

-------- us nuc other

From now on cellular users will be told the amount of radiation emitted by their phones.

MSNBC
07//17/00
By Brock N. Meeks MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/434212.asp

WASHINGTON, July 17 - The leading cellular industry trade group has ordered wireless phone makers to tell the public how much radiation their phones emit. The information will be printed on cell phone boxes and also in instruction booklets. The issue of whether cell phones cause cancer has for years been hotly debated in the scientific community, in the courts and in governmental agencies responsible for public health issues.

What do you think?

The recent decision by a jury in Florida to have tobacco makers pay more than $100 billion in damages due to tobacco-related illness might have shaken the industry into responsibility.

- DR. GEORGE CARLO Cell phone radiation researcher

THE CELLULAR Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) will require wireless phone makers to publish the data, known as the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), for all phones beginning Aug. 1, a CTIA spokeswoman confirmed. Consumers will be told in "easy to understand language" how to interpret the SAR, she said.

Cell phone packaging also will state that the phone has been certified as meeting standard federal radiation guidelines. And it will include a URL for a Web site where users can compare their phone's rating to other phones.

Cell phone makers that want to be certified by CTIA will have to adhere to the requirement, said Jo-Anne Basile, the group's vice president for industry relations. However, because it will take time to implement, consumers aren't likely to see the information start showing up on the shelves for three or four months, Basile said.

-------- us nuc politics

Newly Available GAO Reports and Testimonies

Chris Kornkven kornkven@jefnet.com,
July 17, 2000
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00152.pdf

Radiation Standards: Scientific Basis Inconclusive, and EPA and NRC Disagreement Continues. RCED-00-152. 31 pp. plus 8 appendices (32 pp.) June 30, 2000.

Chris Kornkven President National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. http://www.ngwrc.org http://www.homepage.jefnet.com/gwvrl/

Board Member Military Toxics Project http://www.miltoxproj.org/

-------- us nuc waste

GAO REPORT CRITICIZES EPA'S RADIATION STANDARDS

AmeriScan
July 17, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2000/2000L-07-17-09.html

WASHINGTON, DC, Radiation standards for closure of nuclear plants and for possible storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain are not always based on sound science, according to a new study released by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress. "U.S. regulatory standards to protect the public from the potential health risk of nuclear radiation lack a conclusively verified scientific basis," the report says. "In the absence of more conclusive data, scientists have assumed that even the smallest radiation exposure carries a risk. ... However, this assumption is controversial." The GAO report points to the controversy over groundwater radiation standards at the proposed Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository in Nevada as a case where federal regulators cannot agree on what radiation standards are justified. The EPA has proposed standards that are several times more strict than those proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy.

"EPA recognizes that the drinking water contamination limits that are to be applied at the repository are not scientifically up to date," the report notes. "They are based on 1970s era methods of radiation dose estimations, which have been superseded." The report was requested by Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican and member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. On Friday, Senator Frank Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who chairs that committee, hailed the report as proof that the EPA's standards are unsupportable. "Again and again we have been told that we were risking lives if we did not accept the EPA standards," he said. Murkowski is leading attempts to override a veto by President Bill Clinton of a measure that would authorize Yucca Mountain to be constructed without adhering to the EPA standards.

----

US radiation safety limits not based on science - GAO

USA : July 17, 2000
Story by Andy Sullivan
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7483

WASHINGTON - A disagreement between federal agencies over what level of radiation exposure is safe for humans was not based on scientific evidence and could cost taxpayers billions in unnecessary spending, said a congressional study.

The study, by the General Accounting Office (GAO), raised questions about what standards should be used when cleaning up decommissioned nuclear power plants and weapons facilities as well as building the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste storage site in Nevada.

Current standards assume there is no safe level for radiation exposure, but many scientists say that radiation is harmless below a certain threshold, the report found.

Research on low-level radiation is ongoing. Current standards of acceptable radiation exposure are based on extrapolations from studies on much higher doses.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees the nation's nuclear power plants, says exposure should not exceed 25 millirem per year, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set a standard of 15 millirem, with ground water levels not to exceed 4 millirem.

The difference between the two levels is relatively small. A routine chest X-ray contains 6 millirem, and Americans are exposed to an average of 300 millirem each year, the report found.

Dosages above 30,000 millirem are known to cause cancer, and levels of 400,000 millirem, associated with an atomic bomb explosion, can cause death in days or weeks.

Although the difference between the NRC and EPA standards is small, it could mean millions of dollars in cleanup costs.

The Nevada Test Site, where atomic bombs were detonated for more than four decades, would cost $131 million to clean up to the NRC's standards. It would cost $240 million to clean the site to meet the EPA's 15 millirem level, and more than $1 billion to approach 4 millirem.

"The question is, is it justified to spend the money if you're not sure there's going to be some benefit derived from spending that money?" said Wayne Fitzgerald, lead investigator on the report.

Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said Congress should force the two agencies to come up with a uniform standard or give responsibility to one agency.

Domenici said the cost to achieve the EPA's 4 millirem level may be prohibitive.

"The more we look at it, the more we're going to come to the conclusion that it's absolutely irrational," Domenici said.

A bill that would limit the EPA's authority to issue radiation standards was vetoed by President Bill Clinton in April. An attempt to override the veto failed by one vote in the Senate in May.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Congressmen, Peace Action Protest "Star Wars" Missile Defense

US Newswire
17 Jul 8:30
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0717-103.html

Members of Congress and Peace Action Protest "Star Wars" Missile Defense To: Assignment Desk Contact: Van Gosse of Peace Action, 202-862-9740 ext 3002

News Advisory:

U.S. Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Lynn Rivers (D-MI), Barney Frank (D-MA), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Peace Action and our 50-foot mock nuclear missile will protest Star Wars missile defense on the East Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, July 18 at 11:00 am.

Rep. Kucinich initiated a letter signed by 53 Representatives demanding the FBI investigate the alleged cover-up of test data after the Clinton Administration classified a letter from Dr. Theodore Postol of MIT pointing out the BMDO's own data shows the system cannot distinguish between missiles and decoys.

The unsuccessful July 7th test has further raised criticism of Star Wars. "The public will never trust a missile defense system when even relatively simple technologies like booster rockets don't perform reliably," said Gordon S. Clark, Peace Action's Executive Director. "The American people will not tolerate wasting billions of dollars on a system that won't work, won't address the most likely threats, and whose only success will be to provoke a new arms race."

Peace Action's 50-foot mock nuclear missile drives this point home with its 35-foot banner reading, "Here We Go Again! More Nukes, More Star Wars, More $$ Wasted." The mock missile is part of a nationwide missile stop tour designed to raise opposition to missile defense.

Peace Action expects a tough fight on Star Wars as corporate lobbyists pour millions of dollars into campaign coffers. William Hartung of the World Policy Institute will speak to this issue based on his new report, Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense 1994-2000. "President Clinton and the congressional Republicans are playing politics with missile defense, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin are laughing all the way to the bank," said Mr. Hartung.

The Representatives speaking Tuesday, who have been outspoken in the need to cut wasteful Pentagon spending and redirect it to human needs, will point out that while contractors enjoy a windfall from Star Wars, funding for community needs continues to be cut.

--

Peace Acton is the nation's largest grassroots peace and justice organization with 70,000 members and 27 state affiliates. Peace Action is devoted to stopping Star Wars as part of its nuclear abolition campaign.

------

Cohen: U.S. Needs Missile Defense

Associated Press
July 17, 2000 Filed at 1:02 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Australia-US-Defense.html

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Iran's weekend test of a long-range missile underscored the need for a U.S. national missile defense system, Secretary of Defense William Cohen said Monday.

Iran tested its Shahab-3 ballistic missile, with a range of 800 miles, on Saturday. Tehran is developing a longer-range Shahab-4, which it claims will be used to carry satellites into space and not for military purposes.

The test ``is one of the reasons why it is important for the United States to undertake to research, develop and potentially deploy a national missile defense system that would provide protection against countries such as Iran posing a threat to the United States,'' Cohen said on the last day of a three-day visit to Australia.

U.S. defense authorities are developing a multibillion dollar national missile defense system, but Washington has not yet approved its deployment.

The United States also would look to Australia to play a role in the missile defense system if and when it is approved, Cohen said.

Australian Defense Minister John Moore said Australia would consider a request for participation if the system gets the go-ahead.

But that expectation could prove unfounded if the opposition Labor Party wins federal elections expected by late next year. Labor is opposed to Australian participation in the scheme.

The two countries jointly run the Pine Gap satellite tracking center in central Australia and that secretive facility would likely be used to track missiles as part of the U.S. missile defense system.

The ministers were speaking after the two countries agreed to share new defense technology and cooperate on its development -- an agreement that gives Australia enhanced access to U.S. military research.

Moore said the agreement would be of particular benefit to Australia's troubled fleet of six Collins Class submarines, which have been plagued by technical problems ranging from periscope malfunctions to excessive noise and vibration, as well as problems in computer defense systems.

---

Bush seeks new tack on missile defense

Washington Times
July 17, 2000
By Joyce Howard Price THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000717222930.htm

Texas Gov. George W. Bush is not sure the $60 billion national missile defense system planned by the Pentagon would be the most effective and says he would not move forward to deploy the system unless there is proof it works.

"I think we ought to expand the research on ABM [anti-ballistic missile system] . . . it's the boost-phase system that we need to spend money and time and effort to . . . determine its feasibility," Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said in a wide-reaching interview yesterday on ABC's "This Week."

He explained that a "boost-phase" system is able to intercept hostile or accidentally launched missiles shortly after they take off. In contrast, the national missile defense system being tested by the United States attempts to intercept a missile on re-entry.

"Many think the most effective systems are those that intercept a rocket on launch," the governor told ABC.

The Bush interview followed a lengthy one his key rival, Vice President Al Gore, the presumed Democratic nominee, gave Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press."

On NBC, Mr. Gore declined to say if he believes President Clinton should let the next president decide whether the Pentagon should proceed with the NMD it is testing.

"I'm not going to forestall President Clinton's judgment on that question. That's his judgment to make. . . . I'm not going to try to take that decision away from him," said Mr. Gore.

The system has been tested three times, with two test failures. However, members of Congress - especially Republicans - believe a national missile defense system is necessary to protect the United States from missiles launched by rogue nations, such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq.

System proponents argue the tests showed failings in old technology. The effectiveness of cutting-edge technology is still unknown, they say.

In the "Meet the Press" interview, Mr. Gore brushed aside questions about whether consumer advocate Ralph Nader, nominee of the Green Party, is cutting into his support, particularly in critical states such as California and Michigan. Mr. Gore said voters eventually will want to pick "between two stark choices" - him or Mr. Bush.

Mr. Nader, who appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation," said he is not concerned about the effect he might have on other presidential candidates.

"I wouldn't be running if I were worried about taking votes away from Al Gore or George W. Bush. Nobody is entitled to votes. They have to earn them," Mr. Nader said.

Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, a former Republican and fierce abortion opponent, also appeared on "Face the Nation." Mr. Bush is "moving leftward," Mr. Buchanan said, and the Democratic and Republican parties "have become Xerox copies of each other."

"I'm running to give the American people an authentic choice," said Mr. Buchanan. He blamed his poor showing in the polls - around 2 percent - on the fact that he has been trying to build his party and has not received a lot of national exposure.

Mr. Buchanan accused Mr. Bush of "blowing smoke" in refusing to rule out picking a pro-choice running mate. "I don't think he's going to appoint a . . . pro-abortion running mate. There would be an explosion at his convention. I don't think he has the nerve to do it," said Mr. Buchanan.

Mr. Gore is trying to "distort" Mr. Bush's record as Texas governor, Mr. Bush said on ABC. The Gore effort will backfire because "people are tired of Washington attack politics," Mr. Bush said.

"If this election is decided on my effectiveness as a governor and on the record of Texas, I'll win by a landslide," said Mr. Bush.

As for a national missile defense system, he said, "When I'm president . . . I will build and deploy a system that will work."

He said he believes the system now under development will work, although he is not convinced it would be the best.

Asked if he would refuse to deploy a system built before the technology has been demonstrated to work, Mr. Bush said, "That's an accurate statement."

Russia insists a national missile defense system would violate the ABM treaty it signed with the United States in 1972. In fact, that treaty would seem to allow only small ground-based systems.

The proposed national missile defense system is ground-based, and some in Congress argue a sea-based system would be preferable. The U.S. Navy has said adding ship-launched interceptors would greatly enhance NMD capability.

"Under the current ABM treaty . . . sea-based systems are not allowed to test sensors off of satellites, so it makes it very hard for us to deploy the most effective systems," Mr. Bush said yesterday.

---

Former Senator John Pastore Dies

Associated Press
July 15, 2000 Filed at 11:49 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Obit-Pastore.html

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) -- John O. Pastore, a former Rhode Island governor and U.S. senator who made his mark with a gift for oratory, died Saturday of kidney failure. He was 93.

Pastore had been in a North Kingstown nursing home for treatment of Parkinson's Disease.

The son of Italian immigrants, Pastore, a Democrat became one of the most respected senators ever produced by Rhode Island. His political career included four years as the state's governor and 25 years in the Senate -- the first Italian-American to serve in either role.

A little man with a booming voice. Pastore's speaking skills got national attention when he delivered the keynote address at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Pastore launched a scathing attack on Lyndon Johnson's Republican rival, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, and his fire and eloquence earned him a standing ovation.

At the time, The Associated Press wrote of Pastore's speech: ``The little Rhode Islander, who stands no taller than a two-pound keg of mail-it-home salt water taffy, was in the grand tradition of convention orators.''

Pastore rose from humble beginnings. His parents raised five children in a four-room tenement apartment on Providence's Federal Hill, the city's working-class ``Little Italy.'' When he was 9, his father, a tailor, died of heart failure, and his mother got a job as a seamstress to support the family.

After graduating from high school, Pastore worked as a clerk at a Rhode Island utility company. But it was law that intrigued him, so he began attending classes two nights a week at the Providence YMCA conducted by Boston's Northeastern University. He eventually graduated from Northeastern with a bachelor of laws degree.

Pastore once said he realized he had a knack for speaking when he argued a case before a judge in District Court: ``All of a sudden, something came over me and I stopped short. I said, `My God, is that me?' And that's the first time I knew I could get on my feet and talk.''

Pastore was elected to the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1934, was re-elected two years later, and served as the state's assistant attorney general from 1937-38 and 1940-44.

In 1944, he was elected lieutenant governor, and the following year, at age 36, he became governor when J. Howard McGrath resigned.

Pastore was re-elected governor twice before winning a Senate seat in 1950.

While in the Senate, Pastore worked hard for passage of the first nuclear-test ban treaty, and he became a power on atomic energy and TV regulation, heading committees dealing with both.

Despite his oratory gifts, Pastore rarely made speeches in the Senate. He once said: ``The taxpayers don't pay me to make political speeches on Senate time.''

Pastore retired in 1976.

``He seized the opportunity that is America,'' Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said of Pastore on Saturday. ``He was determined to use his public service to make that opportunity available to all Rhode Islanders.''

Pastore also frequently encouraged those aspiring to elected office to ``go out and get it'' and to remember the people they hoped to serve.

``I am honored to have known him,'' said U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. Pastore served in the Senate with his uncles John and Robert Kennedy. ``He was a role model and an inspiration to me.''

Pastore is survived by his wife, Elena (Caito) Pastore, son John Jr. Pastore, and daughters Francesca Pastore and Louise M. Harbourt. John Jr. Pastore is a Boston cardiologist who became a major figure in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

---

Physicist Who Helped Split Atom Dies

Associated Press
July 17, 2000 Filed at 10:45 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Obit-Oliphant.html

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Mark Oliphant, a physicist who helped lay the foundations for the world's first nuclear bomb before turning against weapons of mass destruction, died Friday at age 98, his family announced Monday.

As a young physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory at Britain's Cambridge University, Oliphant worked with the team that split the atom in 1932.

Oliphant later led a team of British scientists who traveled to the United States in 1943 to assist with the Manhattan Project working to develop the atomic bomb.

But profoundly shocked at the use by the United States of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945, he turned his focus to promote peaceful uses of nuclear power.

His part in the development of the bomb haunted Oliphant throughout life, his biographer, David Ellyard, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio.

``There was that pride of achievement and shame of being associated with it,'' Ellyard said. ``Those contradictions, I think, remained with him until the end.''

Oliphant once described himself as a ``war criminal'' for his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

Ahead of World War II, Oliphant also worked on research into radar, successfully developing the cavity magnetron, which allowed radars to be built small enough to fit in aircraft. Descendants of that device now form the basis of microwave ovens.

Oliphant returned to Australia in 1950, continuing his research in the capital, Canberra. He was a founder of the Australian Academy of Science.

In recognition of his achievements, Oliphant was appointed Governor of South Australia state, serving from 1971 to 1976.

``Sir Mark's distinguished academic career at home and overseas and a term as Governor of South Australia highlighted his contribution to the nation both as a scientist and public figure,'' Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.

He also maintained an interest in science, lecturing on topics such as nuclear disarmament, the environment and alternative energy.

He is survived by his daughter, Vivian Wilson, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A private family memorial service and cremation were held Monday.

---

Obituaries in the News

Associated Press
July 17, 2000 Filed at 6:36 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Deaths.html

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Mark Oliphant, a physicist who helped lay the foundations for the world's first nuclear bomb before turning against weapons of mass destruction, died Friday. He was 98.

As a young physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory at Britain's Cambridge University, Oliphant worked with the team that split the atom in 1932.

Oliphant later led a team of British scientists who traveled to the United States in 1943 to assist with the Manhattan Project working to develop the atomic bomb.

But profoundly shocked at the use by the United States of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945, he turned his focus to promote peaceful uses of nuclear power.

Ahead of World War II, Oliphant also worked on research into radar, successfully developing the cavity magnetron, which allowed radars to be built small enough to fit in aircraft. Descendants of that device now form the basis of microwave ovens.

Oliphant returned to Australia in 1950, continuing his research in the capital, Canberra. He was a founder of the Australian Academy of Science.

In recognition of his achievements, Oliphant was appointed Governor of South Australia state, serving from 1971 to 1976.

---

John Pastore, Longtime Rhode Island Politician, Dies at 93

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/00/07/17/news/national/obit-j-pastore.html

John O. Pastore, the first Italian-American to be elected as a governor and sit in the United States Senate, and a dominant figure in Rhode Island politics for three decades, died on Saturday at a nursing home in North Kingstown, R.I. He was 93.

"Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, and I am the smallest governor in the United States," the 5-foot-4-inch Mr. Pastore once told a group of German editors visiting the Statehouse in Providence. When he went to Washington, he became the smallest senator. But in his 26 years in the Senate, he established himself as a formidable presence, a liberal Democrat regarded as a fierce debater with a booming voice and a firm grasp on the issues of his day.

He staked out a specialty in nuclear power matters as chairman of the powerful Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and in 1963 provided important backing for the Kennedy administration's controversial treaty with the Soviet Union barring nuclear tests in the atmosphere.

In waging a successful fight for ratification, Senator Pastore displayed his flair for the dramatic. During the debate he flung open his jacket and struck the left side of his chest. "I say to those who have doubts about this treaty that I want them to open their heart and look into their consciences," he implored fellow senators. "I want them to realize what they might be doing. If by their vote they destroy and kill the treaty, God help us! God help us!"

His son, John O. Pastore Jr., a cardiologist, of Winchester, Mass., was secretary of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War when the Boston-based organization, jointly founded by American and Soviet physicians, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

Senator Pastore gained national recognition for his oratory while serving as keynote speaker at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, a choice that reflected President Lyndon B. Johnson's bid for support from the industrial states of the East, but also a tribute to his ability to rouse an audience.

His voice rising and falling to great dramatic effect, his fists pounding, Mr. Pastore drew roars from the more than 5,000 Democrats at the Atlantic City Convention Hall as he denounced Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, as a captive of "reactionaries and extremists." The response to Mr. Pastore's speech was so enthusiastic that he enjoyed a brief consideration for the vice presidential nomination that eventually went to Senator Hubert H. Humphrey.

In addition to heading the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Mr. Pastore held posts on the Commerce and Appropriations Committees, as well as the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, making him one of the Senate's most influential members.

He led a bitter but losing battle to block the politically restrictive McCarran-Walter Immigration Act that passed over President Harry S. Truman's veto and played an important role in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring discrimination in public accommodations and cutting off federal financing of discriminatory programs.

Senator Pastore was floor manager of legislation suspending equal-time provisions of the Federal Communications Act to bring about the televised Kennedy-Nixon Presidential debates in 1960. As chairman of the Senate's communications subcommittee, he sometimes took a conservative stance on social issues. In the late 1960's and 70's, he denounced what he viewed as excessive violence and sexual content in television programming.

The son of an immigrant tailor, left fatherless at age 9, he epitomized the self-made man. "I always felt there were two strikes against me, and to succeed I had to do a better job than anyone else," he said.

Mr. Pastore, who served as governor of Rhode Island from 1945 to 1950 and who never lost an election, entered statewide politics when Italian-Americans were voting in increasingly significant numbers in urban areas and using their growing economic strength to provide financial backing for political candidates they favored.

For a man whose rise reflected inroads by Italian-Americans on political gains made by Irish-Americans, John Orlando Pastore had an intriguing birthday. He was born in the largely Italian Federal Hill section of Providence on St. Patrick's Day -- March 17, 1907.

Mr. Pastore's father, Michele, a native of Potenza in southern Italy, supported his wife, Erminia, and their four children with his tailor shop. But Michele Pastore died suddenly in May 1916 while his wife was pregnant with their fifth child. Mrs. Pastore went to work as a seamstress in a department store while John cared for the three younger children.

Mrs. Pastore made sure her children were well-dressed and well-mannered, and young John developed a penchant for fastidiousness. "When he cleaned house, he moved every stick of furniture," his mother would remember.

His impeccable dress would become a hallmark in his public life -- he changed his shirts in the middle of the day if they bore the slightest signs of wear.

In 1927, while working as a $15-a-week claims adjuster for an electric utility company, Mr. Pastore enrolled in evening law school classes offered by Northeastern University of Boston at a Providence Y.M.C.A. In 1932 he set up a law office in the basement of the family home, but with the Depression in full force, he attracted few clients.

One Sunday in 1933, Mr. Pastore waited outside St. Bartholomew's Church until Tommy Testa, an important local politician, came out. "I'd like to go into politics," Mr. Pastore told him. Mr. Testa, who would recall how "I liked Johnny's manner," helped him obtain the Democratic nomination for the Rhode Island General Assembly, and he was elected to two-year terms in 1934 and 1936.

Mr. Pastore then gained an appointment as an assistant state attorney general, and by the early 1940's his oratorical skill was winning over juries in criminal cases. One day a young woman named Elena Caito was passing by a courthouse while Mr. Pastore was prosecuting a case. As Mr. Pastore's son told the story long afterward: "The transom over the door was open. She could hear this booming voice coming out, and she asked one of her brothers, 'Who is that?' So they got introduced." In July 1941, they were married.

In 1944, Mr. Pastore was asked to run for lieutenant governor, a part-time position, on the statewide Democratic ticket headed by Gov. J. Howard McGrath. The Democrats won, and then Mr. Pastore got a huge break, succeeding to the governor's chair in October 1945 when Mr. McGrath was appointed solicitor general in the Truman administration. Mr. Pastore was narrowly elected to the Statehouse in November 1946, but two years later he gained a second term with ease.

Although he was the first person of Italian descent to be elected governor, he was not the first to serve in a statehouse. Charles Poletti, a son of Italian immigrants who had been lieutenant governor of New York State, served as governor in December 1942 to complete the term of Gov. Herbert Lehman, who resigned to direct American war-relief efforts in Europe.

A liberal on social-welfare matters, Mr. Pastore, as governor, worked with business interests, pushing through a sales tax, rather than relying solely on corporate income taxes, to pay for public improvements neglected during World War II. He maintained a popular touch, eating lunch with Statehouse employees in their cafeteria, and he was adept at cultivating the press.

In November 1950, Mr. Pastore was elected to the United States Senate to fill out the unexpired term of Mr. McGrath, who had moved from the solicitor general's post to the Senate, then resigned to become President Truman's attorney general. In 1952, Mr. Pastore was elected to the first of his four full terms in the Senate.

Arguing his points on the Senate floor, Mr. Pastore was not averse to wagging a finger under another senator's nose, and he impressed his Senate colleagues mightily when he got the better of the bearish senator from Oklahoma, Robert Kerr, a fierce debater, in an encounter on the floor.

Although his oratory could be flamboyant, his personal appearance was conservative -- his grooming meticulous, his black hair slicked back, his salt-and-pepper mustache kept trim.

Mr. Pastore, who retired from the Senate in 1976, is survived by his wife and son; two daughters, Francesca Pastore and Louise Harbourt, both of Springfield, Va.; two sisters, Elena Valente of North Providence, R.I., and Michelina Mentasti of Florida; seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Through his Senate years, Mr. Pastore earnestly pursued weighty issues. But he could also poke fun at himself.

He once observed that nuclear fallout might bring bizarre changes. "Mutations!" he thundered. "Perhaps they'll make Pastore 6 feet tall."

And he expressed gratitude that his parents had Anglicized his first name. "If they had called me Giovanni," he said, "my initials would be G.O.P."

-------- us nuc other

USA Today
07//17/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Alaska

Anchorage - Alaska Natives who were tested with radioactive iodine as part of a Cold War experiment four decades ago will get $7 million in compensation under a compromise Defense Department budget bill. The testing was done between 1955 and 1957 on 102 Native men, women and children. Air Force officials were trying to determine why Alaska Natives were able to withstand prolonged cold.

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

-------- india

Protests by Hindu Group Raise Fear in India

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/071700india-trial.html

BOMBAY, July 16 -- Much of Bombay was shut down today by fear and protests over the possible prosecution of a militant Hindu leader in connection with riots that left more than 2,000 people dead in 1992.

Supporters of Bal Thackeray, the leader of the Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena, took to the streets Saturday after the Maharashtra State government decided to let the police prosecute him in the countrywide rioting. That violence, directly mainly at India's Muslim minority, erupted after the destruction of a mosque in the town of Ayodhaya, and Shiv Sena got most of the blame.

Police officials said no action had been taken to arrest Mr. Thackeray. But many shops closed and people stayed indoors here and in other parts of the state as Shiv Sena supporters pelted buses with stones and blocked commuter train services.

Today Mr. Thackeray appealed for calm, but on Saturday he was quoted as saying, "Not only Maharashtra but the entire country will burn," as a result of the decision, which he called "an incitement to communal riots."

-------- iraq

Guess Who's Back

By Richard Butler
Monday, July 17, 2000; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/17/008l-071700-idx.html

So you thought Saddam Hussein was out of your life? Sorry--he's back, manufacturing the weapons of mass destruction with which he threatens the Iraqi people, his neighbors and, by extension, the safety of the world.

Two separate developments have returned Saddam Hussein to the headlines. Earlier this month the administration revealed that its satellites had detected Iraq test-firing Al-Samoud missiles, home-grown, smaller versions of the Scuds last used against Israel during the 1990 Gulf War. The chief of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tony Zinni, said that the range of the Al-Samoud easily could be increased.

The administration also revealed that Saddam Hussein has been hiding between 20 and 30 Russian Scuds as well as working through front companies outside Iraq to acquire the machine tools needed to build more missiles.

None of this is new. In my last report as executive chairman of UNSCOM, the agency charged with disarming Saddam, I warned the U.N. Security Council about Iraq's missile-development activities. That was almost two years ago, just before Iraq shut down all international arms control and monitoring efforts. I've also publicly detailed Iraq's refusal to yield or account for its holdings of at least 500 tons of fuel usable only by Scud-type missiles. Iraqi officials told me that a complete accounting for this fuel was unnecessary because, after all, Iraq had no Scud missiles. I disagreed, stating that the reverse was true: As long as Iraq refused to yield the fuel, it clearly had concealed Scuds or planned to acquire or build them.

Presumably unconnected with the administration's revelation but simultaneous with it, former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter, in an article in Arms Control Today, claimed that Iraq is "qualitatively disarmed." He failed to offer any new information or evidence to support this dubious concept.

There were two levels of deception in Iraqi dealings with UNSCOM: concealment and false declarations on the weapons Iraq was prepared to put in play in the disarmament process. When Ritter worked for me, he was in charge of the UNSCOM unit responsible for finding and destroying the concealed weapons, and he was vilified by Iraqi leaders as their major persecutor. Now he says he has had private conversations with unspecified Iraqi officials that have persuaded him they are "qualitatively disarmed" and will accept a new monitoring program if the Security Council first lifts all sanctions against Iraq.

The facts are clear and alarming, and they do not support this assertion. Iraq has been free of any arms control or monitoring regime for almost two years, a consequence of the breakdown of consensus among the permanent members of the Security Council. Now Saddam Hussein is reconstituting his capability to deploy weapons of mass destruction. I've seen evidence of Iraqi attempts to acquire missile-related tools and, even more chilling, of steps the Iraqis have taken to reassemble their nuclear weapons design team. After the Gulf War, experts assessed Iraq was only six months from testing an atomic bomb. It retains that know-how. It also has rebuilt its chemical and biological weapons manufacturing facilities.

If the United States is serious about addressing the threat current developments raise, it should insist to its fellow permanent members of the Security Council that there be a new consensus on enforcing arms control in Iraq. Selective revelations such as those recently issued by the administration need to be accompanied by a robust policy within the Security Council, making clear particularly to Russia and France that the United States is not prepared to accept their patronage of Saddam Hussein.

The writer, diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, was chairman of UNSCOM from 1997 to 1999.

----

[Scary.]

Sanctions, Used Properly

Monday, July 17, 2000; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/17/003l-071700-idx.html

In his July 10 op-ed column, Thomas J. Donohue wrote that "unilateral sanctions don't work. . . . They never do." But Mr. Donohue misses the point. It isn't that sanctions, unilateral or otherwise, are useless. It is that they are employed poorly.

A team from the Institute for International Economics found multiple successes for U.S. unilateral use of sanctions, including Paraguay (1977-81), Iran (1979) and Bolivia (1979-82). Defining success in conflict is complex but, in these three cases and in others, justification exists for declaring at least a limited success.

The proper question is not whether unilateral or multilateral sanctions work. It is why don't they work more often.

Economic force is no more inherently useful or useless than military or political force. The important consideration is how well such force is used. Unfortunately, although we have a Department of Defense to employ military force and a Department of State for political force, we have no organization to administer economic force. Therefore, the United States has not been and is not now prepared, equipped, organized or trained to properly use economic force.

JOHN C. SCHARFEN
Alexandria

----

U.N. Pulls Observers Out of Southern Iraq

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/iraq-un-rts.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 16 -- The United Nations has pulled its international observers out of southern Iraq because of safety fears, a United Nations spokesman in Iraq said today.

The move came less than three weeks after a gunman opened fire at the offices of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's mission in Baghdad, killing two people and wounding seven. The gunman said he was protesting against international sanctions on Iraq.

The United Nations has been tightening security as a result.

About 150 United Nations observers travel to various parts of Iraq to monitor the distribution of goods bought under an oil-for-food deal with the United Nations.

The agreement allows Iraq to sell its oil to buy goods needed by the civilian population to ease suffering from sanctions imposed over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The spokesman said monitoring would be done by local staff members.

Tun Myat, the United Nations' coordinator of humanitarian services, who is in charge of the oil-for-food program in Iraq, told CNN that the delivery of food and medicine would not be disrupted in the southern region.

-------- israel

Thousands of Conservative Israelis Protest Negotiations for Peace With Palestinians

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By WILLIAM A. ORME Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/071700israel-peace.html

TEL AVIV, July 16 -- Tens of thousands of Jewish settlers demonstrated here tonight against the Israeli government's peace negotiations, capping days of rightist protests against leaked proposals to cede small Israeli settlements deep in the West Bank and Gaza to eventual Palestinian control.

The predominantly religious crowd chanted slogans of resistance to any relocation of Jews from the occupied territories. Many wore blue-and-white lapel stickers saying, "We are the majority." Yet the gathering barely filled Rabin Square, falling far short of organizers' expressed hopes for 200,000 or more protesters. The police gave no official crowd estimate.

Organizers had vowed to make the rally a nonpartisan appeal for mainstream Israeli support. But it soon became vigorously and unabashedly partisan, with the opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, and other Likud Party officials demanding that Prime Minister Ehud Barak quit the Camp David negotiations and return home.

"I call on the prime minister: do not sign a letter of capitulation," Mr. Sharon shouted to the crowd.

Not all of the speakers were political professionals. "Everyone understands that giving everything and receiving nothing is not peace," declared Yehuda Sender, an 8-year-old from a Gaza Strip settlement, in a speech he told television interviewers had been written by the leader of the settlers' council.

The rally reinforced the impression that the right wing has been more energetic in organizing opposition to a peace deal than the left has been in mobilizing potential backing.

In the Palestinian territories, Yasir Arafat's supporters have been holding marches of support almost daily, most recently this morning in Nablus.

Still, leftist organizers of a peace demonstration planned for Mr. Barak's return said they were heartened that tonight's rally failed to attract many secular supporters from within Israel.

Rachel and Chaim Guirtzman were typical of the protesters tonight. They are observant Jews who moved with 30 other families 15 years ago into a new West Bank settlement -- Dolev, outside Ramallah. The site was barren land, Mr. Guirtzman said.

Dolev is now a modern township of 150 families surrounded by five newer settler communities.

Mrs. Guirtzman said she read reports that sovereignty in settlements may be transferred to a Palestinian state. "We didn't build our settlements to live in a foreign country," she said.

The contrast between the two Israels was starkly visible in the demonstrators' modest dress and covered heads. Many came from West Bank and Gaza towns that are as little as an hour away by road, but a world away culturally. Local residents in this zealously secular downtown district either ignored the out-of-towners or eyed them with disdain.

"They think like Khomeini and people like that," muttered Motti Shanma, a contrast in his straw cowboy hat and muscle shirt, his tattooed arms flexing as he diced vegetables behind a lunch counter. "They cannot imagine the possibility of peace in this country."

Some protesters agreed with that assertion. "Barak is giving away our land, peace by peace," proclaimed a placard in English hoisted aloft by Millie Fried, from Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Mrs. Fried acknowledged her residence defensively -- "My heart is here," she said -- but claimed solid personal credentials for her protest. In 1970, as a 15-year-old, she said, she was a passenger on a TWA flight from Tel Aviv to New York that was hijacked by Palestinians and diverted to Amman. A week on board as a hostage, she said, convinced her that Israel is under threat and should keep its conquered territory.

"Israel belongs to the Jews, every inch of it," she said, "and we are not going to let it go."

-------- puerto rico

Fast for Justice and Peace in Vieques:
An Appeal to the Conscience of President Clinton

From: "Vieques Fast for Justice&Peace" <viequesfast@mail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 10:34:00 -0400

On Tuesday, July 25, 2000, representatives from churches, popular movement organizations and people of faith and conscience will begin a fast in front of Camp Garcia, the entrance to the bombing range on the eastern end of the small island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The Camp Peace and Justice for Vieques will host the fast. The purpose is to appeal to the conscience of President Bill Clinton so that he grant a long-requested meeting with representatives from Vieques who form part of the Coordinating Committee for Justice and Peace "La Coordinadora" who oppose the Navy bombing of their island and favor Demilitarization, Decontamination, Devolution (of land) and Development.

This will be a rotating fast where each organization or individual takes a turn fasting for one day a week on water or juices. The co-coordinators are: Colleen McNamara, Alianza de Mujeres Viequenses, and Angel "Tato" Guadalupe, brother of Ismael Guadalupe, one of the most outspoken leaders demanding that the Navy stop bombing Vieques. Other individuals joining the fast will come from: the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, the Catholic Church, and the United Methodist Church. More are invited.

In Washington, DC, a fast begins on July 25 with the same simple request. Organizations and individuals are invited to join in any way they feel called. Supporters will hold vigils in front of the White House every day from 4 to 8 p.m.

Some participants in this witness in DC will carry on an open-ended, juice-only fast for a minimum of 30 days if the request is not granted. If there is no movement whatsoever on the part of the Clinton Administration, the fast will continue indefinitely. If, on the other hand, the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier group begins bombing Vieques, which the Navy has said will occur between August and October, those carrying out the juice fast will intensify the nonviolent action. They will begin a liquid-only (no-calories) fast until President Clinton agrees to meet with Vieques leaders.

All who share the commitment to stop the bombing in Vieques are invited to support this fast as called. We look for individuals and organizations to form the support team; to participate in one-day, rotating fasts; to consider fasting for a longer time, to help organize fasts in other cities and countries and more.

For more information please contact: The Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin American and the Caribbean:

Andrés Thomas Conteris Tel.202-232-1999 <viequesfast@mail.com> or
Colleen McNamara in Vieques: <lacolina@excite.com>
For background information on Vieques please visit: www.viequeslibre.org

-------- spain

Spain Suspects Basque Group in 2 Attacks

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/071700spain-killings.html

MADRID, July 16 -- Two weekend attacks that officials attributed to Basque separatists killed a city councilman in Málaga and caused widespread damage at a police barracks in a small northern town.

Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja today accused the Basque separatist group E.T.A. of killing the councilman, José María Martín Carpena, who was shot six times by a helmeted man at close range in front of his wife and daughter late Saturday.

Mr. Martín Carpena, a member of Spain's governing party, had been getting into his car outside his home in Málaga, a provincial capital on the southern coast.

He was the sixth person and the second party official suspected to have been killed by E.T.A. since the group ended a 14-month cease-fire in December. The initials stand for Basque Homeland and Freedom in the Basque language.

Today, 2,000 people, including Mr. Oreja and Prime Minister José María Aznar, turned out in Málaga to attend Mr. Martín Carpena's funeral and to express their revulsion at the killing.

There was another attack today, a car bomb explosion outside a barracks of the Civil Guard, the national police, in the northern town of Ágreda, which slightly wounded the wife of an officer.

The Civil Guard said it suspected the involvement of E.T.A. in the Ágreda bombing. No one immediately claimed responsibility for either attack.

The end of the cease-fire was marked by the start of the most vigorous of E.T.A.'s assassination campaigns in a dozen years, with the separatists accusing moderate Basque nationalists of "lacking the courage" to construct an independent country in the Basque region of northeastern Spain.

The armed separatist group was set up in 1968 to fight for the independence of the Basque region.

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

USA Today
07/17/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

South Carolina

Charleston - Residents said goodbye to the Air Force's 16th Airlift Squadron, the last active-duty unit at Charleston Air Force Base to fly C-141s. Air Force officers and others wrote farewells in chalk on the side of one C-141 on Saturday. The Air Force plans to reactivate the squadron in 2002 when newer C-17s replace the C-141s.

---

Army Gets No Blame For Gay Murder

CBS
07/17/00
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,216083-412,00.shtml

WASHINGTON (CBS) A year ago Army Private Barry Winchell was taunted for being gay, and then murdered.

CBS News has learned an investigation by the Army's inspector general has cleared all the officers at Fort Campbell, Ky., from the commanding general on down of any blame.

That will come as a shock to members of Congress who wrote Defense Secretary Cohen demanding action against those responsible for condoning an anti-gay climate at the base, and it will confirm the fear Winchell's mother, Pat Kutteles, voiced months ago.

"There has been nobody that has been held accountable for the Army's part in the harassment and the lack of safety," she said

Two soldiers were convicted of Winchell's murder, but the grisly case prompted even President Clinton to say that the policy of "don't ask don't tell" -- in which gays in the military are not supposed to be harassed -- is not working.

Another gay soldier at Fort Campbell told 60 Minutes his entire platoon chanted an anti-gay slogan on their daily run.

"It was pretty much, from what I can remember, 'Faggot, faggot down the street, shoot him, shoot him till he retreats,'" says Javier Torres.

But sources say the army's investigation confirmed the claim of the general who commanded Fort Campbell at the time.

Major General Robert Clark said: "There is not, nor has there ever been during my time here, a climate of homophobia on post. The climate here is one that promotes just the opposite, respect for all."

The investigation blamed Winchell's first sergeant, who has since been relieved of his duties, for allowing the harassment to go unchecked.

It also blamed a lack of training on what the "don't ask don't tell" policy means.

That, however, was not a problem just at Fort Campbell, but throughout the Army.

---

USA Today
07/17/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Hawaii

Honolulu - Some nurses at Tripler Army Medical Center say they are being retaliated against for speaking out about a sexual harassment case against an officer. Jane Cook, one of the 12 nurses who filed complaints against their male supervisor, said that tires have been flattened and lockers ransacked. Tripler officials deny the retaliation allegations.

--------

South Koreans protest over U.S. forces dumping chemicals

July 17, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7482

SEOUL - About 1,500 South Korean workers and students protested on Saturday against the dumping of chemicals by U.S. forces into a major Seoul river.

"Apologise for the shameful act," shouted the demonstrators in front of a U.S. Army Garrison in Yongsan, downtown Seoul. "Those who are responsible should be punished!"

The marchers briefly clashed with anti-riot police, who tried to prevent them from moving to the garrison's main gate.

Some people were beaten by the police, but there were no arrests nor serious injuries, witnesses and police said.

The protests followed a day after the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) admitted dumping chemicals into the Han River in February. The admission followed a claim by a South Korean environmental group that such an act had taken place.

On Thursday, Green Korea United accused the Eighth Army mortuary in the Yongsan garrison of discharging about 228 litres of formaldehyde, used to prevent decomposition of human remains, into the Han River.

The chemical could cause cancer and birth defects, the environment group said.

"Based on our formal investigation, it was determined that a one-time release of formaldehyde in February of this year did occur," said the USFK in a statement.

"At most 20 gallons of formaldehyde were disposed of through the wastewater sewage system on the Yongsan compound."

But the USFK said it believed it caused no damage to the environment after a waste treatment and dilution process that the toxic chemicals went through, adding that an investigation was still going on.

Green Korea said the discharge was only the tip of iceberg.

Some 100 protesters from Green Korea United on Friday fired water rockets into the U.S. Army garrison, demanding Thomas A.Schwartz, commander-in-chief of the USFK, issue an official apology.

"American soldiers have damaged our environment without mercy since they began to camp here 50 years ago," the environment group said in a statement.

The USFK has been using formaldehyde, often known as formalin, to embalm the bodies of U.S. servicemen before sending them home, it said.

Early on Saturday morning, about 15 college students threw five bottles of red paint into the compound of the Yongsan garrison to protest the release of the chemicals in the river.

Five students were taken into custody by the police.

The students also demanded the South Korean government revise a pact governing status of American troops stationed in the country.

The United States has said it and South Korea will work together to bring discussions on SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) to a mutually satisfactory conclusion.

SOFA is a bilateral treaty that spells out the rights and responsibilities of U.S. forces in South Korea.

The two sides have held seven rounds of talks on the renewal since 1995, but have yet to reach agreement on the contentious issue of how to handle the criminal prosecution of U.S. soldiers accused of crimes in South Korea, among other things.

The United States maintains 37,000 troops at more than 90 military bases and installations throughout South Korea.

South and North Korea remain technically at war. Their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armed truce that has yet to be replaced by a peace agreement.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Japan power utilities to launch green energy fund

July 17, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7484

TOKYO - Japan's electric power industry has unveiled a programme on that will allow customers to contribute to a wind and solar power promotion fund when they pay their electricity bill.

Under the scheme, expected to be launched this autumn, electric power utilities will match their customers' contributions with equivalent donations of their own, a spokesman for the Federation of Electric Power Companies said.

Although details have yet to be worked out, the fund will be used to subsidise wind and solar energy, considered an effective means of curbing carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

The Japanese government pledged in 1997 to trim emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide by an average of six percent in the 2008 to 2012 period from 1990 levels.

The relatively high cost of renewable energy, however, is hindering its widespread use. Japan's electric power industry has advocated nuclear power as the best means of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, but public opposition to new nuclear plants has escalated after a series of mishaps in recent years, including a chain reaction at a uranium processing plant last September that killed two workers.

The government, which is reviewing its nuclear policy, is widely expected to revise downward its target for the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Japan's 51 commercial nuclear reactors currently supply about one-third of the country's electricity.

-------- environment

CHEMICAL COMPANY WILL PAY $250,000 FOR FATAL HAZWASTE SHIPMENT

July 17, 2000
ENS
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2000/2000L-07-17-09.html

CINCINNATI, Ohio, A chemical company whose hazardous waste violations may have led to the death of a man has been sentenced to pay $250,000 in restitution to the family of the victim. New Hampshire based Lancaster Synthesis, Inc., shipped hazardous waste without required paperwork and stated that it was not hazardous. The wastes were shipped in a drum to Clean Harbors, Inc., in Cincinnati. After being stored there for about two years, the drum exploded and killed Joel Murray, a company supervisor. "Mr. Murray's death was tragic, and might have been avoided if the company had complied with the law," said Sharon Zealey, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. "These laws are passed for good reason, and we see the horrific cost of disregarding environmental safety requirements."

The waste that Lancaster shipped, sodium azide, is defined by federal law as an extremely hazardous substance posing the risk of explosion. Lancaster produces organic chemicals for research applications. The Blythewood, California facility that shipped the drum contaminated with sodium azide has since been closed, and Lancaster no longer produces any chemicals in the U.S. Besides the quarter million dollar penalty, the company will also serve five years probation, and develop an environmental compliance program ensuring that there is an environmental health and safety officer for each of its facilities in the United States. "This case should sound as a wake up call throughout the business community," said assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources Lois Schiffer. "Our hazardous waste laws protect the public, and breaking those laws hurts people. These are real crimes with real victims. Violators will be caught and prosecuted."

----

A Deep and Wide Mining Scar in Idaho
Many thought cleanup was nearing its end, but pollutants have spread throughout the beautiful Coeur d'Alene River basin.

Los Angeles Times
Monday, July 17, 2000
By KIM MURPHY, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/updates/lat_pollute000717.htm

SILVER VALLEY, Idaho--This is a pollution story that's supposed to be over. The Environmental Protection Agency in 1982 declared the 21 square miles around the old Bunker Hill lead smelter the nation's second-largest Superfund site. Since then, the agency has spent $200 million digging up contaminated lawns, demolishing the smelter site and cleaning up parks, roadsides and schools.

By all accounts, the effort has been a success: In towns like Kellogg and Smelterville, children in the 1980s had the highest levels of lead ever recorded in humans; today, only about 6% show elevated levels. In houses with children--who are most vulnerable to lead's deadly effects--yards have been dug up and covered with new dirt.

But only now, with the cleanup virtually over, is the true extent of mining's legacy in northern Idaho being revealed. Sediments contaminated with lead, cadmium, zinc and arsenic have spread far outside the original Superfund site, across an area so large--up to 1,500 square miles of the Coeur d'Alene River basin, from the Montana border to the Columbia River in eastern Washington--that it dwarfs most cleanups attempted by the EPA.

Children living miles away from the Superfund site are being tested, with disturbing results: 11% of those under age 10, and 26% of the 2-year-olds, have lead in their blood above the federal intervention level.

Beaches as far away as the Spokane River in Washington are so contaminated with metals originating high in the Idaho hills that warning signs have been posted against playing in the sand. Children and pregnant women are cautioned not to eat whole fish caught near Spokane.

The fact that the EPA now considers the entire Coeur d'Alene River basin a potential Superfund site sets the stage for a political slugfest of epic proportions.

More than 11,000 people live in the Coeur d'Alene Valley and 300,000 or more across the Washington state line in Spokane. The Coeur d'Alene Indian tribe, which says its historic dependence on the basin's waters for survival is at risk, has filed a massive federal lawsuit seeking compensation for the environmental devastation.

And at the heart of the basin--and the controversy--is Lake Coeur d'Alene, one of Idaho's premier tourism destinations, with its stunning azure waters and top-rated golf course.

The lake is clean enough to meet federal drinking water standards, and all but two of its beaches have been deemed unpolluted. Officials estimate, however, that 72 million tons of mining pollutants lie dormant on the lake bottom--with more seeping in every day.

It will take 20 to 30 years to reverse the damage across the entire basin, federal officials say, at a cost of $1 billion--and possibly more than $3 billion.

Nowhere have the complexities of the Superfund law been more apparent than in northern Idaho--where mining pollution dates back to the 1880s, involves scores of companies that long since have disappeared and includes pollution so extensive and intermingled that it would be nearly impossible to trace it to a direct source.

Moreover, the federal government shares part of the blame: The War Department pushed so hard to boost lead production in the Silver Valley during World War II that it dispatched troops to work in the mines. State and federal pollution controls were virtually nonexistent.

GOP Holds Most Political Offices

In Idaho, Republicans hold the governorship, the entire congressional delegation and 90% of the state Legislature. And so the EPA move into the basin is just one in a series of Clinton administration environmental initiatives--ranging from wolf relocation to designation of vast areas of central Idaho as permanent roadless areas--that have been a source of irritation.

Sen. Michael D. Crapo (R-Idaho) has called for an investigation of the EPA. State officials say they can do the cleanup themselves for little more than the $250 million the mining companies recently offered as a settlement.

"Superfund was intended to clean up 20-acre industrial sites. Superfund is not intended for a 1,500-square-mile region," said Bret Bowers of Citizens for EPA Accountability Now, organized to fight the Superfund expansion. "The EPA would like people to believe we have this major health concern, when the fact is we should be celebrating the vast gains we have made [inside the existing Superfund site]. . . . We have community leaders up and down the basin saying we know the Superfund process is a mess and we don't want to go through it."

EPA officials say they are mystified that Idaho appears to be turning away its only hope of a comprehensive, basinwide cleanup--paid for primarily by the mining companies and federal taxpayers.

Shoshone County, where most of the affected communities lie, has seen its assessed value drop from $1.3 billion to $450 million since the Bunker Hill smelter closed in 1982. The county has the highest child poverty level in the state--approaching 31% of all children--and an unemployment rate of 12.3%.

"These communities are in extreme disrepair, predominantly retired citizens, low tax base. These people might have a street budget that's a hundred thousand bucks a year, and they've got a 1956 Ford dump truck to deal with it," said Earl Liverman, head of the EPA's field office in Coeur d'Alene.

How, Liverman wants to know, are little towns like Wallace, Osborn, Cataldo and Harrison going to deal with lead, cadmium and zinc still washing down off the hills above them? With lead continuously eroding off the riverbanks, lead poisoning their yards, playgrounds and day-care centers, lead permeating the dust in their attics?

"The community's concerns [about the pitfalls of a Superfund designation] have not fallen on deaf ears. I hear them on a daily basis. My wife hears it; my children hear it," Liverman said. "But this stuff is ubiquitous throughout the valley, and it poses a significant threat to human health."

The slopes of the Silver Valley have been probed for ore since the 1880s, with the four largest silver mines in the country still operating there. More than $5 billion worth of metals have been unearthed.

Up through the 1960s, mining firms dumped toxic waste directly into the river. The smelter poured lead out of its smokestack, denuding surrounding hills and depositing fine bits of lead dust on yards, carpets, sofas, roads, roofs and trees for miles. When fire swept through part of the Bunker Hill facility in 1973, destroying many of the filters that took lead out of the exhaust, Gulf Resources and Chemical Co. decided to keep running without pollution controls.

In handwritten notes uncovered later, company executives calculated it would cost them $7 million to compensate any children poisoned by lead--a fraction of what they would earn that year with skyrocketing lead prices. That year alone, the smelter deposited 30 tons per square mile of lead over the surrounding neighborhoods.

A few years later, as the extent of the pollution became known, Gulf Resources transferred most of its assets overseas and declared bankruptcy, leaving behind a $100-million cleanup bill and stranding about 2,000 employees who were owed their pensions.

"You could go down any alley out there and have 'A Civil Action' or an 'Erin Brockovich,' " said regional Superfund director Mike Gearheard, referring to movies about citizens locked in battle with corporate polluters. "The only sad thing about going out there now is you don't get to appreciate the sort of Dickensian quality of the mining buildings that used to cascade down those hillsides: boiling, fuming, spewing fire and smoke."

Even in the smelter's heyday, doctors knew exposure to significant quantities of lead could cause reduced IQ, slow growth and development, hyperactivity, miscarriage, infertility, memory loss, stomachaches and hearing loss. Since then, the federal government has reduced the amount of lead that is considered safe by a factor of four. Now, a blood level of as little as 10 milligrams per 10 liters is enough to call for prompt intervention; researchers have documented a higher incidence of juvenile delinquency at levels as low as 2.5.

Marlene Yoss remembers officials coming to her door in the 1970s and asking to test her children's blood. Arlene, just a baby, had a lead level of 174. Her slightly older siblings measured 122 and 111. "They said we had three walking dead babies," Yoss recalled.

The mining company settled with the family for several million dollars, but Yoss said the money was never enough to compensate for the health of her children, now in their 20s. "They still have headaches, and their memory: Just remembering things from day to day, a period of time goes by and they can't remember."

"Some people call me 'lead head,' " joked a 43-year-old Kellogg man, George, who attended a school half a mile between the lead smelter and the zinc smelter. He remembers playing by the creek, which ran purple during parts of the year. "If you saw your kids playing in what I played in, you'd go out and get 'em and probably move. I did fairly well till seventh grade, and my grades dropped. . . . Pretty soon, I couldn't remember anything."

The Idaho attorney general filed suit against the mining companies for $50 million. But when the Legislature refused to fund the suit, the case was settled in 1986 for $4.5 million, less than 2% of what it cost to clean up the 21 square miles nearest the lead smelter--an area known as "the box."

The initial Superfund project has cleaned up 1,600 yards in Kellogg and Smelterville. Workers dug out the top 12 inches of tainted soil, capped it with a fabric marker and replaced it with a foot of clean soil.

Parks and schoolyards were treated in a similar fashion. Old waste piles are being picked up and hauled into a 200-acre, 60-foot-tall impoundment area in Kellogg.

The results have been marked: Where 46% of the children inside "the box" had blood lead levels above 10 milligrams per 10 liters in 1988, only 6% are above that now.

But, cautioned Steve Allred, administrator of Idaho's Department of Environmental Quality: "We have a fragile removal. It will take significant [effort] to maintain it."

What that means is that most of the contamination wasn't removed; it was simply moved to areas where people would be less likely to come into contact with it. New problems could erupt as easily as someone digging below the fabric barrier in their yard into still-contaminated soil. Dust blowing in off untreated hillsides and waste piles poses a constant threat of recontamination.

Wes Aamodt, who owns a truck stop in Smelterville, says his property was declared clean when he bought it in 1994. But since then, lead-contaminated dust constantly blows over it, fouling air filters and shutting down his refrigerators. "You can't have a cafe and have the people eating this dust," he told the EPA at a hearing last month.

And while local health officials have loaned out industrial-strength vacuums to anyone who wants them, the greatest potential source of human lead exposure, household dust, has not been part of the cleanup.

In the rest of the basin, the worries are worse. Yards, parks and playgrounds in towns like Mullan, Osborn and Wallace--up the river from the Superfund site--have tested at several times above federal safety limits for lead. A chain of lateral lakes leading into Lake Coeur d'Alene is heavy with lead sediments.

In Burke Canyon, a rustic community that sits astride an old mining creek, several children have elevated blood lead levels. The EPA, even without an official Superfund designation, has moved quickly to try to clean up yards.

"Just half a mile from here, in any direction you go from my house, there are over 70 mine openings. And there's water coming out of most of them," said Charles Tirpik, a former miner who retired when he developed a degenerative spine disease.

"It's all full of lead, zinc. And it goes right into Canyon Creek. . . . They did some [cleanup] work down at the bottom, but it was just a bunch of political mumbo jumbo. I mean, they started at the bottom of the canyon and worked their way up! That's about like washing your car from the bottom up."

Down the road, Debra Wilson had her yard replaced when county officials found high blood lead levels in her daughters, ages 4 and 7.

"They say lead can affect learning disabilities. . . . Both of my girls were 36 weeks, and they were both learning delayed, they call it," Wilson said. "The special ed department says it could be because of lead or because they were early, or a combination of the two. Or it could be nothing."

Most of the contaminated schoolyards in the basin will be cleaned up by the end of this summer, but officials did little about the interior of schools. That is until Robert C. Huntley, a former member of the Idaho Supreme Court, went to court in March and won an order mandating testing.

Huntley took the order to the EPA, where officials told him they had no funding under the current plan. Next, he went to the governor's office, the state Department of Environmental Quality, the superintendent of public instruction and, finally, the three school districts involved. All refused to pay for the testing.

So Huntley paid the $6,292 to do the first tests out of his own pocket. The first results are due soon.

"It's really a Chamber of Commerce-type thing, where we don't want to admit we have a problem because it would have an adverse effect on tourism," Huntley said.

EPA and school officials downplay the problem, saying there is little chance of exposure in schools that are mopped twice a day.

"When you drive a car, there's lead in the battery that's less than 10 feet ahead of you. That's a risk factor. In our school district, we do not have an exposure factor with the children," said Robin Stanley, school superintendent in Mullan.

Local health officials have done everything possible to minimize the risk. Homeowners in yards that haven't been replaced with clean soil are advised not to grow root vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes. Contractors who dig into contaminated soil after being ordered to halt can face fines of $300 a day and six months in jail. County nurses make regular visits to the schools, conducting puppet shows with frogs (The message: "Keep clean, eat clean and play clean."). Health officials scrutinize dust collected on doormats for contamination. Once a year, nurses go door-to-door for children's blood lead screenings.

Voluntary Program Hasn't Been Successful

There is one thing almost everyone can agree on: No one knows what the real lead exposure is because relatively few children have been tested under the voluntary program. Health officials recently raised the payment made to those who agree to blood tests from $20 to $40 to increase participation.

"There's a long list of things that are far greater risk [to children] than heavy metals," said state Sen. Jack Riggs, a physician who believes the EPA's efforts outside the existing Superfund site should be limited to a few isolated areas along the Coeur d'Alene River. For example, Riggs said, "there is older housing in the Silver Valley where lead paint is an issue. You can't just automatically conclude that it's all from meandering sediment."

The political and legal issues surrounding cleanup of the entire basin are formidable. In addition to jockeying over Superfund designation, there is the issue of how to assess legal liability. While Gulf Resources easily could be blamed for much of the pollution inside the box, at least four major companies and 22 minor companies are targets of the EPA's massive $1-billion liability lawsuit for pollution throughout the basin, scheduled to go to trial early next year.

The companies argue that 100 or more mining operations have generated waste over a period of a century or more, much of it long before there were environmental regulations prohibiting it. Much of the pollution stopped in the 1960s, a full decade before the Superfund law even was adopted, they say. And most of the companies that mined during the worst pollution years are long gone.

"We don't really know who's responsible for which materials. You've got a hundred different mining companies, and the ones who happened to survive are the ones who are being blamed," said Holly Houston of the Mining Information Center, which represents three of the four major mining companies still operating in the basin: Hecla, ASARCO and Sunshine.

Instead of spending $1 billion on cleaning up soil all over the basin, Houston said, the EPA should be finding children who have been exposed to lead, finding out where their exposure came from and stopping the problem at the source.

What about, the EPA counters, those children who haven't been exposed yet? The families who have not yet moved into a contaminated house?

EPA officials believe a recent federal appeals court decision gave them authority to begin Superfund cleanup throughout the 1,500-square-mile study area, wherever mining pollution has reached. It may be more practical, they admit, to set up individual cleanup sites in the areas of worst contamination.

And Washington Gov. Gary Locke has stepped into the fray, signaling the state's reluctance to depend solely on Idaho to clean up waters that flow across state lines.

Washington's stake in the issue is becoming increasingly clear. Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey found in the Spokane River--about 70 miles from the heart of the mining district--some of the highest levels of metals ever recorded in freshwater fish in the state. In February, the EPA completed tests showing that levels of lead and arsenic at several beaches along the upper river pose a health risk.

Warning signs have been in place on those beaches for at least a year. But last week, a young Spokane family was swimming along the shore, escaping the oppressive heat of a July afternoon.

"I didn't even see the sign," said Michele Caudill of Spokane, whose children, ages 2, 8 and 13, were splashing each other along the river's shallow bank.

If she had read it, it would have told her to avoid muddy soil that might cling to clothing, toys, hands or feet; to wash hands if mud gets on them; to avoid breathing any dust from around the river; to wash any toys, shoes or clothing that have been in contact with shoreline soils before entering her home; to avoid eating without washing her hands; and to clean out her car if any soils from the riverbank got tracked into it.

Caudill shrugged. "When we were kids, we were in this river every day."

---

Toxic Fire Poison Cloud Evacuates Thousands Near Montreal
Toxic smoke billows from a fire raging through the Regent Chemical Products warehouse approximately 16 miles west of Montreal.

ABC
July 17, 2000
(Ryan Remiorz/AP Photo) From Wire Reports
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/toxicfire000717.html

VAUDREUIL-DORION, Quebec, July 17 - An explosion and fire at a chemical plant sent up a cloud of toxic smoke outside Montreal on Sunday, prompting thousands of nearby residents to leave their homes.

By morning, all but a few hundred of the estimated 5,000 evacuees were told it was safe to return home.

The blaze erupted in a building believed to contain up to 6,500 gallons of toxic chemicals, including sulfuric and nitric acid, about 16 miles west of Montreal.

Though the blaze raged into this morning, tests detected no serious environmental damage and most residents were told they could return home shortly before 5 a.m.

"Only a few hundred people in one particular neighborhood are being told to stay away," said Wilfrid Houle, a Vaudreuil-Dorion police official.

No injuries were reported. The Regent Chemical acid-transformation plant was closed when the fire began.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Battling the Blaze

About 100 firefighters from four neighboring municipalities were battling the blaze, but a lack of water was making the task extremely difficult.

"I'm not going to risk my firemen for a building that has nobody in it," said Harold Harvey, deputy fire chief for Vaudreuil-Dorion.

"We tried our best with the water we had and the equipment we had, but it overpowered us, so we beat a retreat." Harvey said he did not know how long it would take to put the fire out, but said fires at similar factories in the United States have burned for a day or two.

Authorities began trucking earth and sand to the site to prepare for any spill of acid-contaminated water. They also planned to use truckloads of lime to neutralize any spilled acid.

Toxic Cloud

The thick cloud of smoke floated westward, visible for miles.

"I passed through the smoke and it just attacks your eyes and throat," said St-Lazare Mayor Bertrand Myre. The bulk of the evacuees were from his community.

Harvey said there was no immediate danger to the public other than symptoms such as irritated eyes or throats.

"Thank God it's not raining tonight because it would be acid rain," he said. Instead of burning, acid boils, transmitting vapors into the air. When the vapors mix with rain, acid rain is produced.

"The stench hit us and we got headaches," said Carole Godin, who left a nearby campground. "We didn't have time to worry about what to take with us.

"We left in our pyjamas."

St. Lazare is a bedroom community west of Montreal also know for horse ranches and expensive country homes.

---

Thousands return home after chemical fire

USA Today
07/17/00- Updated 01:40 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#twister

VAUDREUIL-DORION, Quebec - An explosion and fire at a chemical plant sent up a cloud of toxic smoke outside Montreal, forcing the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents. The blaze erupted about 9:30 p.m. Sunday at Regent Chemical Products in an acid-transformation plant believed to contain up to 13,000 gallons of toxic materials, including sulfuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid. Though the blaze raged into Monday morning, tests detected no serious environmental damage and most residents were told they could return home shortly before 5 a.m. About 5,000 people had been evacuated from nearby St-Lazare, the community hit hardest by the blowing smoke.

----

Romania reports toxic clouds from Bulgaria

July 17, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7470

BUCHAREST - Romania's environment ministry said on Friday that toxic gas had drifted to a Romanian Danube port town, allegedly leaked from neighbouring Bulgaria.

A ministry statement said local environment experts had identified concentrations of hydrogen sulphide in excess of admitted levels at Zimnicea, a small port town across the river border from Bulgaria.

"There are no pollution sources around Zimnicea which might be responsible for the leakages of hydrogen sulphide," it said, blaming the foul smelling gas clouds on leakages from a textile mill in the Bulgarian town of Svishtov across the river.

The ministry said Bulgarian authorities had been notified of the incident, which it said had occurred on Thursday.

In Sofia, a civil defence official told Reuters that there had been no reports "on environmental changes in the region of Shvistov on July 13".

Romania and Bulgaria have a tradition of tit-for-tat accusations of cross-border pollution from industrial plants on their Danube border, dating back to the communist era.

-------- peru

Jailed Unjustly, Peruvians Try to Rebuild Shattered Lives

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/071700peru-innocents.html

LIMA, Peru -- Outside his powder-blue shack, Antonio Alejo waits quietly for customers in need of an oil change or a brake job. He smiles faintly as his youngest child plays with his two stepchildren, running around some burning trash on the sand dune that is his front yard. With business slow, he tends a few geraniums and sunflowers and occasionally fixes a bowl of rice.

Mr. Alejo is slowly picking up the shards of his life.

For five years, he sat in jail serving a 30-year sentence on charges that he was a Maoist terrorist -- a phony case cobbled together with a forged confession and the false testimony of a neighbor.

Pardoned two years ago by President Alberto K. Fujimori, Mr. Alejo walked out of prison, his life in ruins. His wife had presumed him dead and was living with another man. His wrists were dislocated, his teeth were broken, and his intestines so badly damaged by kicks from torture sessions that he needed two operations.

Today, he looks much older than his 43 years. His sleep is interrupted by strange dreams, he says, no doubt linked to the all-night arguments between the two terrorist groups that shared his cell block.

Peruvians call Mr. Alejo and more than 1,000 people like him "the innocents," mostly poor people who were unfairly imprisoned on charges of terrorism or treason from 1992 to 1995 by special antiterrorism courts. Most have been pardoned or absolved of any wrongdoing in the last three years, but their lives and the lives of their families have been irreparably tattered.

Such injustice was the product of the chaos that gripped Peru in the early 1990's, when the Shining Path, a brutal terrorist group bent on creating a radical Maoist state, was in the final throes of a rampage of bombings and massacres. The Shining Path threatened and paid off prosecutors and judges to avert imprisonment of their own, and their efforts to dominate Peru by coercion appeared close to fruition.

In a draconian crackdown in 1992, Mr. Fujimori disbanded Congress and the Supreme Court and established the special antiterrorism courts, which convicted thousands of people of aiding rebel groups.

The fates of those accused of cooperating with the guerrillas were decided by masked judges and prosecutors working anonymously behind one-way mirrors. Sometimes the trials in those "faceless courts" did not last more than 20 minutes. There were no juries and no cross-examination, lawyers and suspects said.

Sentences were often based on phony evidence, say the office of the ombudsman and a government-sponsored commission. Suspects were arrested, tortured -- hung by their wrists as in Mr. Alejo's case -- and forced to sign pieces of paper that were turned into confessions of aiding terrorists. Some convictions were based on testimony provided by rebels, who implicated others rather than give up a fellow guerrilla.

"It was war justice applied to civilians," said Jorge Santistevan, the congressionally appointed ombudsman who has investigated the plight of the innocents. "These people have done nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And their suffering has been boundless."

As the struggle against terrorism has wound down, 1,089 of the innocents have been freed, the authorities say, either by pardon or reversals of their sentences. Under international pressure, Mr. Fujimori set up a review commission to examine individual cases. But 54 more prisoners deemed innocent by the panel remain in jail as petitions for their release have sat on Mr. Fujimori's desk for more than six months. At least 227 others who also have credible claims of innocence are still sitting in Peru's dank prisons. But those cases had not been reviewed before Mr. Fujimori allowed the commission's term to expire last year.

Mr. Fujimori, who did not respond to requests for an interview, has turned the commission's work over to the Justice Ministry, saying Peru has to be careful not to let potentially guilty people go free. His personal representative on the commission, the Rev. Hubert Lanssiers, said: "I have no idea how many more innocent people remain in jail. It is a tragedy."

As he sits at home, Mr. Alejo nearly always folds his arms tightly across his chest as if to ward off a blow or a kick. His few words come in an expressionless monotone. "Justice is not justice in this country," he said. "Only God can explain what happened to us."

Mr. Alejo's imprisonment left his family destitute, forcing them to wander Peru for work and shelter. Taking him for dead, Mr. Alejo's common-law wife took up with another man, a violent alcoholic, with whom she had two children. She finally ran from the violence and back to Mr. Alejo in April, but the relationship is not the same, they both say.

Still he is a determined survivor. In prison, he learned to read and write, and he has begun a business with rudimentary mechanic's skills he learned from another former prisoner. The Victims Railroaded After Mass Arrests

If there is any small comfort in Mr. Alejo's story, it is that he was not alone. These cases, for instance, are based on human rights and government reports:

Alicia Zamalloa Cáceres, an impoverished widow, was imprisoned after the police found a raffle ticket she sold in the house of a terrorist.

Juan Mallea Tomailla, a taxi driver, was imprisoned after he dropped off a customer at a house once used to edit the newspaper for the Shining Path guerrillas.

Juana Quispe Rojas, a housekeeper, was mistakenly arrested on a warrant for a suspected terrorist who happened to have the same name. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

All were eventually released. But Genaro Cáceres Camones, a day laborer, is still serving a 10-year sentence for treason. According to a 1995 report by Human Rights Watch, Mr. Cáceres was "tricked into carrying the supplies of a Shining Path band, and escaped by giving himself up to an army patrol after an armed clash."

"Nevertheless, he was tried for treason and sentenced," the report said.

Mass arrests were made by soldiers and policemen who earned extra cash based on the number of people they rounded up. In court, the suspects were railroaded into convictions and prison sentences.

Alfredo Márquez, a 36-year-old artist pardoned in 1998 after serving three years in jail, remembers his 1994 hearing in a court in which he was not allowed to talk to his lawyer. The judge and prosecutor sat behind a one-way mirror speaking to him through microphones outfitted with equipment to distort their voices beyond recognition.

"It was like listening to Darth Vader," said Mr. Márquez, who was sentenced to 20 years, accused of being a member of Shining Path after he produced a silk-screen pop print of Mao. He confessed in exchange for the release of his girlfriend.

"The courtroom was so surreal it made Kafka look like child's play," he said.

Not a single military or police officer, prosecutor or judge has been disciplined for their routine malfeasance.

Once in jail, the prisoners say, they bunked in threes or fours in tiny, windowless cells outfitted with a hole for a toilet and concrete slabs for beds. Most were denied anything to read, and the only recreation allowed was a half hour of daily exercise. Visiting privileges were limited to two adults for 30 minutes a month, and children could visit only for 30 minutes every three months.

The prisoners were not allowed to touch their visitors. They could see only the outlines of their loved ones through chicken wire and curtains that were so tightly woven they were barely translucent.

"They were savage years for these people," said Susana González, a social worker who worked for the review commission. "It was an experience that destroyed the most intimate corners of a person's psyche." One result, psychologists say, has been severe depression and lasting rage among most of the people who have been released. To this day not one has received a penny in reparations from the government. The Arrest: Misunderstanding Leads to Torture

All of Mr. Alejo's suffering hinged on a simple mistake made on Dec. 10, 1992, he recalled.

He had ridden his mule down from the mountains to the market town of Paucartambo to sell oranges and bananas and to have a bowl of soup at a restaurant.

A group of six soldiers came into the restaurant while on patrol, searching for Shining Path rebels who were at the time terrorizing the central highlands.

One soldier asked Mr. Alejo a simple question: "Have you seen any tucos?"

Unaware that "tucos" is a slang word for terrorists, the shy, illiterate jungle farmer said that he had. For Mr. Alejo, "tucos" were the little gray birds that fly in the jungle at night, waking up the peasants with their wild screeches. The soldiers then asked for his papers and became more suspicious when they noticed that he had failed to vote in the most recent municipal election -- a technical violation of the law.

"It seemed like a game," he recalled. "Somebody had to be kidding."

But for that simple misunderstanding, the soldiers hauled Mr. Alejo away. For three days, he said, he was tied up in an outhouse without food or water, and left to gag on the odor. Then over eight more days of torture army personnel hung him from a ceiling by his wrists, dislocating them, and applied electric currents to his penis.

One night during his capture, he said, he was forced to sleep beside the mutilated remains of a woman who had been the girlfriend of a terrorist. When he cried in horror, the soldiers accused him of sympathizing with her.

Mr. Alejo said his military torturers had grilled him for information about the Shining Path guerrillas, who had recently begun operating in the area.

But Mr. Alejo said he had no information to give. "They said, 'All your neighbors say you are a terrorist and you won't talk because you are a terrorist,' " Mr. Alejo said, mixing his flat rendition of events with an occasional tear.

A lawyer assigned by the review commission to study Mr. Alejo's case said a neighbor of his, who was picked up by the army in the Paucartambo restaurant the same day the same soldiers questioned Mr. Alejo, had signed a statement implicating him and others to avoid torture.

The torturers told Mr. Alejo he could end the torture by signing a confession, he said. When he said he could not read or write, they had him sign a blank piece of paper. Someone later filled in the blanks -- with a confession by Mr. Alejo that he took part in six terrorist activities, including two killings.

According to the pardon request filed by the review commission, which was eventually approved by Mr. Fujimori, that confession was the basis for his conviction during a military court trial.

At his trial, Mr. Alejo said, his defense lawyer told him the only way he could defend him was if he provided names of other terrorists. The lawyer then requested a $30 fee.

Mr. Alejo repeatedly tried to tell someone that he could not have possibly written or understood the confession he supposedly signed because he was illiterate. But he said his pleas were ignored. The Release: Trying to Restore a Shattered Family

Mr. Fujimori allowed Mr. Alejo and 27 other pardoned prisoners to leave Castro Castro prison in Lima on Nov. 28, 1998. Most cheered wildly as they walked through the gates to freedom. A throng of television and radio reporters recorded the occasion and noticed that Mr. Alejo was sobbing.

Mr. Alejo explained that he was all alone. In his five years in prison, he had not seen or heard from his wife and four children, the youngest of whom was only 3 months old when he was arrested. He had heard that they had left their village, but that the Red Cross could not find them.

Mr. Alejo's wife, Teresa Pareja González, a peasant woman with long braided hair, had heard about his capture but was too frightened to investigate. As the years passed, she took him for dead. Hungry and scared of the terrorist violence swelling through the highlands near the farm she shared with her parents, she and her children first moved to the nearby town of Huanta and finally to the Apurímac valley, where she found work picking coca plants for drug traffickers.

While she struggled to make ends meet, earning $3 a day in the coca fields, her 3-year-old daughter, Sonia, suddenly fell ill. A traditional healer could not help, and Sonia died. Then, after Mr. Fujimori began shooting down the planes of cocaine traffickers in 1995, the price of coca dropped, and Ms. Pareja González was out of work.

Desperate for food, she accepted the advances of a part-time farm hand who turned out to have a ferocious temper. "He was a bad man," Ms. Pareja González said, "and when he drank with his friends, he came home and kicked me and the children." Still, she had two sons by him.

Mr. Alejo did not know any of this when he was released, but one of Ms. Pareja González's sisters heard him interviewed on the radio when he left the prison. She called her sister and finally reached Mr. Alejo through a journalist.

Mr. Alejo waited a year to visit his family, which had moved back to Huanta. He needed time to get his papers in order, he explained, and until he did, he feared that he would be seized again. At the fateful reunion, Ms. Pareja González said she was happy with her new man. But she let Mr. Alejo return to Lima with their two eldest children.

Finally she left her abusing mate last spring, and pleaded with Mr. Alejo to take her back along with the two sons she had while he was prison.

The reunited family now lives in the Villa el Salvador shantytown in Lima in a cramped shack of thatched bamboo, concrete and plastic sheets. Mr. Alejo said he and his wife were struggling to rebuild their old intimacy. There are plenty of disagreements between them.

"Before I went to jail, I accepted things I won't accept anymore," he said. "I express myself more readily now, and she doesn't always understand."

All of Mr. Alejo's three surviving children are having trouble coping after their father's long absence and the beatings of their stepfather.

The whole family are squatters who can be thrown off their land at any time. But Mr. Alejo said he could not return to his old jungle farm because "the memories are just too painful." A tear begins to roll from an eye before he regains his control.

"We do the best we can," Mr. Alejo said. "I still have a life to live."

-------- police

Beating casts shadow over GOP convention

USA Today
07/14/00- Updated 03:53 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/e98/e2310.htm

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Ever since Philadelphia was selected as the site of the Republican National Convention, civic leaders have been giddy over the chance to promote the city as an exciting example of urban renewal.

But less than three weeks before the convention, millions of television viewers have seen something else: Philadelphia police officers kicking and punching a black carjacking suspect over and over.

Police and the mayor promised a thorough investigation of the beating of Thomas Jones, and the Justice Department has opened a separate inquiry into whether Jones' civil rights were violated.

The city, meanwhile, has suffered a blow at precisely the wrong time.

Civic leaders have spent months sprucing up Philadelphia for the July 31-Aug. 3 convention. They have proudly noted how the nation's fifth-largest city, with 1.4 million people, has rebounded from fiscal mismanagement and added jobs, restaurants and a new sports arena.

It is a far cry from the days Philadelphia was known for little aside from the Liberty Bell, cheesesteaks and ''Rocky.''

GOP convention officials declined to comment on Wednesday's beating, though delegates from around the country said it would not affect their perceptions of the city, nor cast a pall over the festivities.

''I have complete confidence in the mayor of Philadelphia. He says he is investigating and will let the chips fall as they may,'' said Glenn Freeman, 65, an at-large delegate from Omaha, Neb.

Speaking at a church in Orange, N.J., the Rev. Al Sharpton said Wednesday's beating ''sends a terrible signal as the Republican convention begins in that city.''

''I think that when you see the footage that has been seen around the country, no matter what the gentleman was guilty of or not, police do not have the right to turn into judge, jury and executioner,'' Sharpton said.

However, leaders of the city's black community said the beating did not appear to be racially motivated. Several black officers took part in beating Jones, who had allegedly stolen a police cruiser and shot an officer.

Jones, 30, also was shot several times, and was listed in fair condition Thursday. He is charged with attempted murder of a police officer, assault, resisting arrest and other offenses, and police are awaiting the results of toxicology tests.

''If officers are found to have overstepped their bounds, they will be dealt with. But we are not going to make determinations solely on that video. I can guarantee you that,'' said Police Chief John Timoney, who ordered two Internal Affairs investigations.

Timoney noted the video shows only an aerial view of the beating and does not indicate whether Jones was resisting.

A frame-by-frame analysis of the video by The Philadelphia Inquirer showed Jones was punched and kicked 59 times in 28 seconds before a supervisor rushed in and backed the officers away. Most of the blows, 41, were inflicted by just three officers, two of them plainclothes officers, the newspaper said.

In the 1960s and '70s, Philadelphia was accused of having one of the most brutal police forces in the nation under commissioner and later Mayor Frank Rizzo. More recently, the department reached a legal settlement calling for internal reforms, including creation of a corruption task force.

David Rudovsky, a civil rights attorney, said he was disturbed that police acted Wednesday even though a news helicopter was hovering above capturing images that were broadcast around the world.

''I think it's still a department that many of the officers still think there's nothing wrong with what happened other than being caught,'' he said.

Timoney said one officer has been assigned to desk duty for firing his weapon during the chase, which is standard procedure during an investigation. Several others in the video will also be reassigned.

''Those people are not walking the beat today (in Philadelphia) and that's good news,'' the Rev. Jesse Jackson said from Baltimore.

Police said they began chasing Jones after spotting him driving a car that had been taken in a carjacking July 1. Police said the car crashed, and they exchanged gunfire with Jones, who stole a police car and fled before he was cornered and subdued.

Police said Jones shot a policeman in the thumb and bit another officer's hand. The policeman who was shot, Michael Livewell, 24, was listed in good condition at a hospital.

Timoney has rejected any comparison to the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1991, noting that King was unarmed and offered no resistance to officers who clubbed him with batons. All four officers were white; two were eventually convicted of federal civil rights charges.

''There is a huge, huge difference,'' Timoney said.

-------- spying

Unwarranted law

Washington Times
July 17, 2000
Nat Hentoff
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/ed-column-2000717171829.htm

The Constitution would not have been ratified by the individual states without a Bill of Rights, and its Fourth Amendment contained very specific restrictions on government search and seizure: a warrant that must list the exact place and persons to be searched, and there must be probable cause to believe a crime is being, has been, or will be committed. But the imperious J. Edgar Hoover authorized what were called "black-bag jobs" - secret, warrantless searches by FBI agents in the name of national security. According to the Senate's Church Committee report, there were hundreds of "black-bag jobs." Now, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, or his staff, has slipped into a methamphetamine bill - which passed the Senate on Nov. 19, 1999, by unanimous consent - a provision that brutally undercuts the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment. I've asked the staff members of the few senators who support civil liberties whether those senators knew what they were voting on, and I'm told that it went right by them - except for Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Mr. Hatch's provision, if he owns up to whether his name is on it, would allow federal law-enforcement agents without a warrant to search your office, home or apartment while you're away, seize or copy things, and not tell you what they've taken for 90 days. Indeed, they could ask a judge to extend the period during which you're not notified for many more days.

You would only find out what they've taken or copied if they decide to prosecute. The way the provision is worded tells you how sneaky it is. It's called "Notice Clarification."

The clarification is that the raid is secret, carried out while you're away, and you don't get any notice of it until 90 days or more later. There's more. If the federal agents take something that is "intangible," they don't even have to inform you about what they have seized. For instance, they can read what is on your computer screen and copy it. That's "intangible" material. What happens if they make a copy of the hard drive of your computer? Georgetown University law professor Paul Rothstein tells Lawyers Weekly that "that's also probably intangible."

In the first wiretapping case before the Supreme Court - Olmstead vs. United States (1928) - Justice Louis Brandeis warned ominously that the day would come when the government would be able to know what's in your private papers without your knowing that they'd found them.

As Jim Dempsey - a privacy expert for the Center for Democracy and Technology - points out, under this provision, "in the age of computers, it is possible for the government to copy a great deal of sensitive evidence without disturbing anything and without the subject knowing."

This subversion of the Framers' clear and original intention in the Fourth Amendment will make life easier for government prosecutors. As Mr. Rothstein notes, "You may not find out until right at the time of trial about evidence, and that puts a defense lawyer at a disadvantage."

I am told that the president and the Justice Department support this assault on the Constitution, but the Justice Department says it has reached no decision yet. In any case, defense attorney Stephen Glassroth notes, "Those behind the provision are trying to get in the back door something they couldn't get in the front." The "Notice Clarification" provision has not yet passed the House. As of this writing, it's still before the Judiciary Committee chaired by Henry Hyde of Illinois. Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia - the most vigilant defender of privacy in Congress - is trying to get it killed.

But even if the House does not approve this provision, Mr. Hatch or another member of the Senate can slip it into an omnibus Senate-House conference report on appropriations bills for multiple federal agencies. Because a conference report is an agreement between the two chambers, it cannot be amended on the floor of the House or the Senate. Mr. Barr, Rachel King (of the American Civil Liberties Union) and other protectors of the Fourth Amendment are watching very closely to detect any attempt to sneak this provision into a final bill that the president - who is so often in contempt of the Constitution - may sign.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Tell that to your representatives and senators before it's too late.

Nat Hentoff is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column runs on Mondays

-------- terrorism

Lockerbie Bombing Prosecution Hits Roadblocks at Trial in the Netherlands

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/071700lockerbie-trial.html

CAMP ZEIST, the Netherlands, July 13 -- All that can be fairly predicted about the trial of two Libyans accused of blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the skies above Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 is that it may take less time -- and be somewhat less painful -- than expected.

Beyond that, the only clear feature of the little-watched proceedings at this military camp an hour outside Amsterdam is that not all has gone as the prosecution might have hoped. Some witnesses have failed to appear, and the testimony of others has been less than crystal clear.

One expert from the University of Edinburgh law faculty has confidently predicted that the trial will be over by November and that the defense may not have to present a case. Another from the University of Glasgow suggests that the prosecution is making methodical progress and that April is a likely target.

Clare Connelly, leader of the Glasgow law school's Lockerbie trial team, said that the prosecution seemed "meticulously prepared" and that the evidence was being carefully presented. Robert Black, a professor of Scottish law at Edinburgh, seemed to view the situation more pessimistically, saying that so far "there is no evidence that is positively incriminatory of either accused."

The prosecution and defense cut at least two months from the proceedings here by agreeing not to argue over the discovery of each bit of wreckage found scattered over 850 square miles of Scotland. They also agreed that the 270 victims had all died in the crash, meaning that a relative of each did not have to take the stand as Scottish law -- under which the case is being tried -- usually requires.

Meanwhile, there have been minor delays over the sound system and translation and the dismantling of a blown-apart luggage container so it could fit through the door of the high-tech courtroom here, where bewigged judges inspecting exhibits on desktop monitors make the trial look like "Rumpole of the Bailey" shot in a high school computer lab.

More of a problem is that the prosecution is having some trouble producing its witnesses as it would like. They have to be flown here from Malta or Germany or Scotland or the United States, and some have proved uncooperative. Just this week a prosecutor, Alan Turnbull, had to apologize for the refusal of some Maltese witnesses to appear or testify on a live television link, and expressed his frustration at being unable to subpoena witnesses as he would in Scotland.

The trial began May 3 and is approaching its planned summer break, from July 29 to Aug. 22. The caravan of reporters and photographers that mobbed families in the first week has dwindled to a half-dozen toiling quietly in the cavernous media center.

The most eagerly anticipated witness is said to be a turncoat Libyan intelligence officer now in a witness-protection program in the United States. There is much speculation about how he will be delivered to this well-protected camp and how his identity will be kept hidden.

This week, for the first time, a witness pointed out one of the defendants in court. Toni Gauci, the owner of Mary's House, a clothing store in Malta, said Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi resembled the man who bought a jacket, pajamas, trousers, shirts, sweaters, a baby sweater and an umbrella, all without trying anything on.

The singed remnants of such items from Mr. Gauci's store were found in the wreckage, and the prosecution says they were used to pad out the brown Samsonite suitcase that contained the bomb.

But in the years since the bombing, Mr. Gauci has been asked many times to look at photo displays and lineups and has seen articles with photos, which have blurred his memory. The defense got him to admit that he once told investigators that a newspaper picture resembled the man he had seen. That picture was of Muhammad Abu Talb, a member of a Palestinian group. The defense is expected to argue that Palestinian terrorists in Frankfurt slipped a bomb just inside the plane's fuselage, and that it was not placed on board in a suitcase by the Libyans.

Mr. Gauci was touching in his honesty about his confusion: "Yes, yes, 11 years, so many years," he said. "I would like to have a computer in my head, but. . . ."

Professor Black said Mr. Gauci's testimony could not have helped the prosecution, which now must hope for convincing identification from the defector. "If they don't get damning evidence from him, then there's nothing else," he said.

Most of the earlier testimony has been about forensic evidence, with experts analyzing where in the plane the bomb exploded and how one pound of Semtex could have torn apart a 747. Most insisted that the blast emerged from inside the damaged baggage container and blew a 20-inch hole in the fuselage "as if a shotgun had been fired at close range," as one put it.

A witness who elicited open criticism was the co-owner of the Swiss electronics company, Mebo, that supplied bomb timers to Libya. Edwin Bollier, 62, spent a week on the stand in May. The Glasgow team updating the trial's progress on its Web site (www.law.gla.ac.uk/lockerbie/) commented that he "is not a credible and reliable witness," and had "repeatedly changed his story and indeed changed it in court as he was examined."

(Professor Black has his own Web site at www.thelockerbietrial.com)

A defense lawyer, Richard Keen, accused Mr. Bollier of being "mired completely in a web of deceit, cunning and lying of your own invention," and the prosecution admitted it had considered charging him as a co-conspirator.

Certainly, according to his own contradictory accounts, Mr. Bollier has led a checkered life. He began, he says, running offshore pirate radio stations, then developed Libya as his best customer for timers, antennas, listening devices and other electronics. He said he once supplied electronic detonators to Stasi, the East German intelligence agency.

He helped the Libyans test his timers on an aircraft at a desert military base. But in late 1988, two days before the Lockerbie bombing, he said he got into a dispute over paying for timers he supplied.

He admitted that in January 1989, a month after the bombing, he wrote to the C.I.A. blaming specific Libyan officials, including Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, for ordering the destruction of Pan Am 103.

In 1991, he wrote to a Libyan intelligence officer saying he had gone to authorities, but had told them that he had sold timers to someone in Beirut. On the stand, he denied that this letter was a veiled blackmail threat.

Some time later, he testified, Libya paid him 23,000 Swiss francs to do his own "investigation" of the Lockerbie bombing, and a lawyer for the two Libyan defendants met with him in 1993 to discuss a $1.8 million loan. He concluded that a bomb placed against the fuselage had been responsible and could have been constructed with a timer like those he had supplied to the Stasi in 1985.

On the witness stand, he said he had himself been blackmailed into writing the 1989 letter to the C.I.A. by a man who visited his Zurich office and ordered him to write it on a Spanish typewriter. In a 1991 interview, confronted by prosecutors, he said he had written the letter, which he now says was "pure fantasy," to throw investigators off the track.

Mr. Bollier was also confronted with various versions of what he said was in a brown suitcase he admits taking from Zurich to Libya. At different times, he has claimed he took with him a blue baby sweater, a present for his Libyan driver. At different times, he has said the other clothes were for different people.

The prosecutor suggested he had been lying all along, changing his story as different facts emerged from the investigation. He also suggested that an invoice found in Mr. Bollier's desk saying he sold timers to the Stasi in 1985 had been fabricated and backdated.

---

Securing embassies

Washington Times
July 17, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-2000717214858.htm

Sen. Rod Grams is urging the State Department to deal with the "emerging threats" to the security of American embassies, which have been attacked by car bombs or surrounded by mobs in troubled spots around the world.

"To focus solely on the threats of the past without preparing ourselves to confront emerging threats would be an error," the Minnesota Republican wrote in an article in the Foreign Service Journal.

Mr. Grams, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on international operations, noted that Congress has long been complaining about lax embassy security. Mr. Grams sponsored a bill this year that requires the department to concentrate on the embassies and other diplomatic missions that are most under threat.

He also advocated the installation of "chemical and biological agent detection and identification" devices "to allow personnel to respond appropriately to an attack, minimizing causalities."

"Congress, once again imposing its will through reporting requirements, is compelling the State Department to decide if there are some diplomatic facilities that are so vulnerable they should be closed," he wrote.

Mr. Grams called for "new ways of doing [diplomatic] business, like examining the feasibility of opening new regional outreach centers."

"There are steps that we should be taking to provide a higher level of security in this age of transnational terrorist threats," he wrote.

"Secretary [of State Madeleine K.] Albright has said that no overseas embassy can be considered a low-threat post. Therefore, we must acknowledge that the world is changing - doing business as usual is not going to work.

"We need to think outside the box and explore new ways to confront new challenges. I understand that there is a tradeoff between security and accessibility. . . .

"Those who talk about open embassies are harkening back to an era that is long passed. We don't want our facilities to be fortresses, but sacrificing aesthetics may be the price we have to pay for safe lives."

---

ETA suspected in new attacks

Washington Times
July 17, 2000
World Scene
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200071722519.htm

MADRID - A car bomb exploded outside a Civil Guard barracks in central Spain yesterday just hours after a town councilor was shot dead in the latest wave of attacks blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.

The blast, which injured one person, occurred as Spaniards mourned the death of Jose Maria Martin Carpena, a ruling-party politician gunned down Saturday night in the coastal resort of Malaga.

ETA made no claim of responsibility - it rarely does until weeks later - but government officials said there was no doubt the rebels were behind both attacks.

Interior Minister Jaime Mayor Oreja accused ETA of "savagery" and vowed that the government would not bow to "acts of terror."

-------- activists

Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Trident Actions (part 2)

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 10:41:57 -0400
From: Stephen Kobasa <skobasa@pop.snet.net>

(1) AUGUST 8th-10th encampment at Richland, WA site of Hanford Nuclear Reservation where plutonium for Nagasaki bomb was produced and then sent to Las Alamos. Includes vigil at Richland Federal Building on the 9th from 11am to 1pm. We are a consensus decision-making group and welcome other groups or individuals who wish to do civil disobedience or other direct actions or demonstrations. For more info: PHer909836@aol.com; 206-417-3922.

(2) We are having services and actions at Faslane/Coulport on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki days during our two week disarmament camp. Trident Ploughshares 2000: tp2000@gn.apc.org -- "To watch a crime in silence is to commit it." - José Martí ("Ver en calma un crimen es cometerlo")

----

Warning of violence

Washington Times July 17, 2000
Inside Politics Greg Pierce
http://208.246.212.80/national/inpolitics.htm

Dozens of activists who are determined to speak out in downtown Los Angeles during the Democratic National Convention say the city is writing a prescription for violence by labeling some of them as unruly anarchists while arming city police with rubber bullets and pepper spray, Scripps Howard News Service reports.

Activists from groups such as the Ruckus Society of Berkeley, Calif., complained last week about the city's rejection of an application to protest in Pershing Square, a downtown gathering place. They objected to the city's establishment of a no-access zone around the Staples Center, where the convention will be held. And they complained of plans to use pepper spray and rubber bullets to control unruly protesters.

Several activists directed their criticisms at Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who recently wrote a newspaper column that characterized the D2K Network's Web site, as a kind of headquarters for anarchists. D2K is an umbrella organization composed of many different activist groups interested in protesting while Democrats are in Los Angeles the week of Aug. 14.

State Sen. Tom Hayden, a leader of rioters at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, said Mr. Riordan is on "a collision course with the demonstrators, which will cause the nightmare he says he's trying to prevent."

Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or by e-mail: Pierce@twtmail.com

---

Insular Tribe of the Hamptons Struggles for a Political Voice
A Younger Generation of Shinnecock Indians Asserts Itself Calling Attention to Land Claims

New York Times
July 17, 2000
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/regional/071700ny-shinnecock.html

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- The road leading into the Shinnecock Indian reservation is not a welcoming one. The sign marking the way reads, "Trespassers will be arrested."

Some uninvited people -- drug dealers and government workers -- have been fired upon after crossing onto tribal lands. Tourists are simply asked to leave.

The Indians are by nature an insular lot. The world outside their 800-acre reservation here on Shinnecock Neck knows little about them, and for 350 years, that's the way they have preferred it. Their dealings with society, they say, have never been good.

"It seems every time we've dealt with the white man, we've come out the worse for it," said Harriet Gumbs, a 79-year-old elder and a tribal historian.

The reservation is a postage stamp of marshland swamped by poverty and unemployment. For years, the Indians watched as land that was once theirs was transformed into upscale housing subdivisions. Although they quietly complained, there were few sympathetic ears at the local courthouse and Town Hall. After all, they had signed treaties and land-swap agreements, town officials say.

"They built on our ancestors' bones, and we never really did anything to stop it," said Elizabeth Haile, 69, a member of the Thunderbird clan who watched over the years as houses and other buildings sprouted up around the reservation. "That's changing with the young people."

East End power brokers on Long Island have taken notice as this new breed of Shinnecock have lain in front of bulldozers, marched on Town Hall and protested on the steps of the State Capitol in Albany to stop the development of 62 acres of virgin woodland to the north of the Montauk Highway, the road that separates the reservation from the rest of Southampton. The news of the protests has spread from Indian-run radio in Canada to the editorial pages of The News From Indian Country, a national newspaper published in Wisconsin.

The young Shinnecock have been radicalized by the success of tribes that were once destitute, like the Oneida Indians. The Oneida reservation was once a tumbledown 32 acres in upstate New York, but the tribe now owns the state's largest casino and has a land claim wending its way through federal court asking for the return of 250,000 acres between Syracuse and Utica.

As a result, the young group of Shinnecock are talking aggressively about seeking claim to 3,600 acres of prime Southampton real estate that includes three golf courses -- among them the renowned Shinnecock Hills, site of the United States Open in 2004 -- and Southampton College of Long Island University.

It is land that once belonged to the Shinnecock. It is land they want back. The tribe filed a petition with the federal government three years ago seeking recognition and has since raised the specter of casinos on the East End.

"A lot of my people are scared about what we're doing," said Becky Genia, 43, who left the reservation as a teenager in the mid-1970's and learned the politics of protest with the American Indian Movement. "We're surrounded by very rich people. The folks on the rez think that raising Cain about broken promises and miserable living conditions means they're going to take what little land we got left. I got news: they aren't going to touch another acre of it."

The developers say that they hold a title to the disputed 62 acres that dates back more than a century and that their claim to the property is built on firm legal ground.

"The homes are being built as we speak," said John J. Bennet, a lawyer for the developers, Parrish Pond Associates. "The Indians' lawsuit was thrown out of court."

The Indians have stopped short of laying formal claim to the 62 acres, but say the wooded site is a small but sacred portion of their heritage that should be preserved.

The Shinnecock are a state-recognized tribe, but one of more than 100 Indian tribes not acknowledged by the federal government. They have no access to federal education and health money and run no gambling operations. More important, they receive no legal assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, so their land claims hang in limbo.

According to archival records, in the early 18th century, the Town of Southampton paid the tribe $20 for its land and gave it a 1,000-year lease on the 3,600 acres. In 1859, town officials convinced the State Legislature that the Shinnecock were willing to break that lease to allow the Long Island Rail Road to go through in exchange for outright title to the current reservation on Shinnecock Neck.

Dr. John A. Strong, a professor emeritus of history at Southampton College, believes the Shinnecock were pressured into the deal and that the signatures on the document were faked. If a court should ever rule in the Shinnecock's favor, the tribe would hold legal title to billions of dollars in property.

"This new group of Indians have got people's attention," said State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, a Republican who represents the area. "The buzzword is casino. Right now, the Indians don't have a friend in the world, but if they get the feds on board, imagine the fight. The Hamptons are the playground of the powerful. You think they'll stand for rabble coming out from the city to play cards?"

The Shinnecock, like most American Indians, are of mixed blood. Some look as black as Africans, and others so white you have to study their faces to find a glimpse of Indian blood. Others look as Indian as Cochise. About 500 people live on the reservation, and 200 are scattered across the country. They honor the old traditions, partake in the sweat lodge and sing the old songs.

But those traditions are borrowed from the Western tribes. The last fluent speaker of Shinnecock passed away 40 years ago.

New homes are being built on the reservation by retirees who, after living in black society in cities like Washington and Los Angeles, have returned to the reservation, where they pay no property taxes. The income disparity has widened. The main employers are the smoke shops and hot dog stands that line the highway and serve the weekend tourists. The tribal schoolhouse has been closed and Indian children attend public schools.

The Shinnecock, for the most part, take a hostile view of politics, whether they are federal, state, town or tribal. But it is especially the tribal politics that tie the community in knots. Without a coherent voice of resistance for the tribe, the bulldozers continue to clear trees.

Ruben Bess Valdez, 45, a university-trained environmentalist, said the tribal leaders had in the past made land-use and right-of-way deals with the state, kept the money for themselves and kept the tribe in the dark. "If you're in it for yourself, how can you fight for anyone else?" he asked.

With little money for court battles, the tribe remains divided over the more aggressive tactics. On one side are the tribal trustees who hold nearly all the decision-making power on the reservation. On the other side are the brash group of college- and street-educated Indians who want a settlement now.

The Indians await word of their application for federal recognition. Such status would give the tribe the right to negotiate gambling deals with the state. The application process can take years, experts say, and the tribal trustees have yet to respond to a 1998 letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs requesting more application materials.

Federal recognition would also mean that the tribe would have to draft a new constitution and set up a new government.

"The truth of the matter is that we need to come together on the reservation before we can make our demands to the general public," said Dr. Harold Dent, a Shinnecock and an adviser to the tribal trustees. "I am trying to make this point to the trustees. But people running around shouting willy-nilly isn't going to help our situation."

The reservation is a world apart from the rest of the Hamptons. Cancer rates among the Shinnecock are among the highest on Long Island. In a town where a poolside bungalow rents for $30,000 for the summer, the median per capita income on the reservation is about $6,000.

The reservation, in addition, has yet to be hooked up to the Suffolk County water supply. The Indians drink from an aquifer that is contaminated with the pesticide Temik at levels seven times the amount considered safe for human consumption, according to the County Health Department.

"The water authority simply won't run them pipes," said the Southampton town supervisor, Vincent J. Cannuscio. "Somebody has to pay for it. And it's going to have to be the Shinnecock."

The Indians also cannot get home-improvement loans because the land is held in common and they have no mortgages. What is more, no Indian holds any meaningful elected or appointed town position.

That leaves people like Ms. Genia. Her little house is as shaggy as a wet dog. She bathes in the poisoned water. She brushes her teeth with it. She makes coffee with it. In the mornings, she walks down the road to make sure a desperate friend has not hanged herself.

Her friend's house is falling in on itself. The rain drips through the roof like mercury. The woman inside has written a letter to the local churches asking for financial help.

"Can you believe there are still people living like this?" Ms. Genia asked while looking in the broken window of her friend's shanty. She kicked on the door, looked in another window. There was no one hanging from the ceiling.

"At least that's one good thing," she said. "Why do people have to live like this in this day and age? I'm telling you, we're not going to take it no more."

---

Iranian students stage protest sit-in

Washington Times
July 17, 2000
World Scene
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200071722519.htm

TEHRAN - Leaders of Iran's largest student group began a sit-in outside the parliament buildings yesterday to protest the acquittal of police forces on charges of storming a student hostel last July.

Eight leaders of the pro-reform Office for Fostering Unity sat in front of the reformist-dominated parliament, or Majlis, to denounce the "judiciary's double-standard practices."

On Tuesday, a military court acquitted the former Tehran police chief, Brig. Gen. Farhad Nazari, and 17 of his subordinates of storming a Tehran University dormitory.

OneList subscribers:

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From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
From: magnu96196@aol.com

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13. PLEASE CALL & FAX BELARUS EMBASSY RE POLITICAL HARRASMENT OF CHERNOBYL SCIENTIST FORBIDDEN TO CONTINUE STUDIES
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

14. Ally Consumers' Fears
From: ivan buchbinder <pentaske@memes.com>

15. GAO Report on Radiation Standards
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16. FW: Who says AP news is biased??
From: "Viviane Lerner" <vlerner@interpac.net>

17. FW: 'Don't support US NMD system' - Oz Lib ex-PM
From: "Viviane Lerner" <vlerner@interpac.net>

18. G 8 HEADS OF STATE MEETING FRI 21-23, FAX THEM NOW RE STAR WARS/NMD
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

19. Signs of a Disease
From: ivan buchbinder <pentaske@memes.com>

20. NucNews 00/07/18 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates' Schedules; Gore on BMD and Yucca Mountain
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

--------

VOINOVICH DRIVING FORCE IN PIKETON COMPENSATION BILL

Message: 1 & 2
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>
From: magnu96196@aol.com
Sunday, July 16, 2000
The Columbus Dispatch
Compiled by Jonathan Riskind
http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli.pl?DBLIST=cd00&D

A compensation program for southern Ohio uranium-enrichment workers exposed to radiation and other hazardous materials during the Cold War was part of a $309.8 billion defense authorization bill approved last week by the U.S. Senate.

Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers harmed by radiation in the workplace could get as much as $200,000 plus health benefits for life under the provision, first included in the bill in early June. Passage of the overall legislation was held up by arguments over other provisions.

Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, succeeded in raising the amount of federal compensation from the $100,000 proposed by the Clinton administration, but was rebuffed in his effort to gain federal compensation for chemical exposure.

"The federal government has an obligation to live up to our responsibilities to these workers,'' Voinovich said. "This is just the first step in giving back to those who sacrificed so much to ensure the security of our country during the Cold War.''

Although the legislation provides federal payments for workers exposed to radiation and beryllium, a toxic material used in some stages of nuclear production, those exposed to other harmful chemicals are relegated to requesting state workers' compensation benefits.

The House did not include a compensation initiative in its version of the defense authorization bill. Proponents of the program will have to persuade a House-Senate conference committee to retain the provision even as they work to expand its benefits to chemical exposures.

A Dispatch investigation of past conditions at the plant in Piketon, Ohio, revealed that many workers were exposed to radiation, harmful chemicals and toxic materials ranging from asbestos to mercury. A recent Energy Department report confirmed those findings.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson last week urged the House to include the Senate version of the program in the final bill.

USEC privatization still under scrutiny

A congressional committee continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the 1998 privatization of USEC, which runs the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and a sister facility in Kentucky.

The former federal corporation recently announced plans to close the Portsmouth plant in Piketon, Ohio.

The agreement privatizing USEC called for it to run both the Piketon and Paducah, Ky., plants until at least 2005, but it also contained caveats allowing USEC to close a plant if its financial condition flagged. USEC said its downgraded credit rating met one of those conditions.

But Rep. Tom Bliley, R-Va., chairman of the House Commerce Committee, said last week in a letter to William H. Timbers, USEC president and CEO, that his committee is "continuing its review of USEC privatization and its impact on national security and the domestic uranium industry.''

Bliley told Timbers his committee wants documents and other information related to the privatization. Bliley's committee held a hearing in April to investigate privatization and another reportedly is planned for the fall.

During the Cold War, the Piketon and Paducah plants combined to produce weapons-grade uranium for the nation's nuclear-defense program, with the Piketon plant carrying out the final phase of the operation to manufacture the highly enriched uranium. Now, the plants produce commercial-grade uranium for nuclear-power plants. Nuclear plants supply about 20 percent of the country's electricity.

Bliley said in his letter, dated Tuesday, that he was troubled by published statements by Timbers that USEC's decision to close the Piketon plant was the reason USEC was privatized.

"I can assure you this is not the case,'' Bliley said. "A single operating gaseous diffusion plant with no credible plan for succeeding enrichment technology is not what Congress intended for the privatized company.''

Ohio included in 2001 military spending

President Clinton last week signed into law a 2001 military construction-spending bill that includes $58 million for Ohio projects.

Among the Ohio items are $7 million for a consolidated Navy and Marine Corps Air Reserve Center at Rickenbacker International Airport and $4 million for the first phase of work needed at the Springfield Air National Guard Base to permit construction of a taxiway for F-16 fighter planes.

The legislation was shepherded through Congress by Rep. David L. Hobson, R-Springfield, chairman of the House Appropriation Committee's military construction subcommittee.

The legislation provides $8.8 billion for military family housing, barracks, medical facilities, child- development centers and other projects. The bill is an increase of 4 percent over 2000 military construction funding and is almost $800 million more than the Clinton administration's request.

"This is a solid, responsible piece of legislation which supports our military troops and their families,'' said Hobson, who contends the administration has under-funded military quality-of-life projects.

The military construction bill is the first of 13 annual spending bills signed into law this year.

---

Comments:
Chemical exposure and especially the UF-6 to HF chemical exposures are what I am emphasizing as they represent likely 90% of the health effects in gas diffusion worker illnesses. Omitting the pre-admission for HF health symptoms in this bill is a huge wrong and hardly represents the Govt. having protected cold war diffusion plant workers----or those sits that made, UF-6 and HF, or used HF in processing.

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Tight budget delays SRS cleanup plans

Message: 3
From: magnu96196@aol.com
Associated Press
7-17-00
http:// www.thesunnews.com/news/stories/C03-3404177100125.htm

AIKEN | The U.S. Energy Department says cleanup plans for the Savannah River Site will be delayed. In a letter last month to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said strained budgets and scientific dilemmas have delayed cleanup plans at SRS and other nuclear weapons facilities.

Among the delays the Energy Department reported at SRS: Treating residues with lower plutonium content will not be completed until June 2008, a delay of three years, nine months. Treating waste with high plutonium content also is scheduled for completion in June 2008, a delay of six years. Treating solutions that contain americium and curium will be completed in December 2005, a delay of three years, three months. Treating spent nuclear reactor fuel should be completed by March 2004, a delay of two years, three months. Disposal of uranium solutions will not be completed until September 2005, a delay of one year, nine months. John Anderson, SRS acting assistant manager for facility and materials stabilization, said the decision not to open the Actinide Packaging and Storage Facility also contributed to the delays. The facility would have repackaged and stored many plutonium wastes, but the Energy Department suspended the project last year, citing the facility's cost. SRS officials plan to retrofit an existing building, Anderson said. But to fund that project, officials want to take about $48 million from other SRS programs this year, he said. That would require congressional approval.

--------

TVA's nuclear plants are now among the country's most efficient and receive top grades from the NRC.

Message: 4
July 17, 2000
By The Associated Press
From: magnu96196@aol.com
http://www.knoxnews.com/new s/11935.shtml

CHATTANOOGA -- The Tennessee Valley Authority is beginning the process of extending its 40-year licenses for all of its five operating nuclear reactors. In doing so, the federal utility now expects to get an extra 20 years of life out of the reactors.

TVA Chief Nuclear Officer John Scalice said the Browns Ferry, Sequoyah and Watts Bar plants are now performing well and with proper maintenance could remain a critical part of TVA's power generation for decades to come.

"Initially, everybody thought that 40 years of plant life was a reasonable period," Scalice said. "But as we have gotten more experience in this industry and demonstrated better maintenance and operations, we recognize that these plants can safely operate much longer than their original licenses envisioned."

TVA informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month that it intends to request license extensions for all three of its operating nuclear plants, pending approval by the TVA board.

TVA must formally apply for the license extension at Browns Ferry, in north Alabama, by December 2003. The Sequoyah and Watts Bar extension requests are still more than a decade away. Those two plants are in southeast Tennessee.

Nuclear energy represents 28 percent of the power generated by TVA. The agency began building nuclear plants in the 1960s.

Anti-nuclear activists who opposed construction of TVA's nuclear plants plan to fight any license extensions. But the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, for instance, is focusing more attention these days on shutting down aging coal-fired plants that pollute the air.

"There are serious safety questions because nuclear plants were designed to operate 40 years, not necessarily 60 years," said Dr. Steve Smith, executive director of the alliance. "We don't like the idea of these plants generating another 20 years of radioactive emissions with basically 1960s design technology."

TVA officials are still studying whether to reactivate the idled Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry. But the utility wants to extend the life of Unit 2 at Browns Ferry beyond the current licensing expiration date in 2014 and extend Unit 3 at Browns Ferry beyond the current operating deadline of 2016.

At Sequoyah, the Unit 1 license will expire in 2020, and the license for Unit 2 ends in 2021. The Watts Bar plant, which took 24 years to build, has an operating license through 2035.

"Over the long haul, I think this country is going to have to see a resurgence of nuclear power," Scalice said. "But it certainly doesn't make sense, in my view, not to at least extend the life of these plants, which continue to operate very efficiently."

In the mid-1980s, TVA idled its entire nuclear-power program because of safety questions and an inability to meet regulatory standards. But TVA's nuclear plants are now among the country's most efficient and receive top grades from the NRC.

TVA is the largest public power producer in the country, serving nearly 8 million people in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi.

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More Bi-213 released Isotope research may transform nuclear nuisance into life-saving cure

Message: 5
July 17, 2000
By Frank Munger News-Sentinel staff writer
From: magnu96196@aol.com
http://www.k noxnews.com/science/munger/fm07172000.shtml

Oak Ridge National Laboratory's production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial purposes has always been an important part of the lab's mission. In fact, former ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg often said that was the laboratory's most enduring legacy.

That legacy got a new boost recently with the decision by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to increase the supply of bismuth-213 -- an isotope with great promise as a cancer treatment.

Bi-213 is one of the decay products from uranium-233, and Richardson's move guarantees a more productive use of ORNL's stockpile of U-233, which some folks have considered a nuclear nuisance more than anything else.

In fact, if Bi-213 proves successful in treating acute myologenous leukemia -- the focus of current clinical trials -- and other forms of cancer, it could alter plans for the U-233 inventory maintained in a highly shielded lab facility.

"It's really exciting," said Jim Rushton of the ORNL staff. "This is an opportunity to get a real benefit out of this material."

There's quite a decay chain before uranium-233 becomes bismuth-213, and I won't go into all those isotopes involved.

One of the byproducts of U-233, however, is thorium-229, and that's what ORNL workers chemically extract from the inventory to provide the supply for medical research purposes. The thorium is the parent of actinium-225, which in turn generates bismuth-213 -- an alpha-emitting isotope that appears to be particularly effective in killing cancerous cells without destroying the surrounding healthy tissue.

Interestingly, ORNL has an inventory of about a ton and a half of U-233. Of that, only about 40 grams is thorium-229, but that would still be enough to provide radiotherapy treatments for thousands of patients.

The U.S. Department of Energy and ORNL officials, in consultation with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, have been weighing what to do with the Oak Ridge storehouse of U-233 -- leftover from nuclear-fuel experiments conducted decades ago.

Some folks want to dispose of the material because of its highly radioactive decay products, which make safe storage difficult and costly. Also, there are proliferation concerns because U-233 is a fissile material and potentially could be diverted for use in atomic bombs.

The outcome of research with bismuth-213 may figure into that decision.

DOE recently ordered a 30 percent increase in the supply, which can be obtained from quantities of thorium-229 already extracted from the Oak Ridge inventory, Rushton said. The federal order also calls for a doubling of the supply by 2002, which will require some additional extractions, he said.

Still, that's only about 2 percent of what's available from ORNL's stockpile of U-233.

If the demand for bismuth grows, it's possible that ORNL could extract all of the thorium-229 from the U-233 stockpile -- even if there's a decision to ultimately get rid of the uranium.

"That would be a major processing campaign," Rushton said.

But, as he noted, it would be a shame to dispose of the U-233 as a hazardous waste, only to realize afterwards that it contained highly valuable material that could save lives.

Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/.

-------------

Physicist Mark Oliphant Dies at 98

Message: 6
From: magnu96196@aol.com
July 17, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2000/jul/17/071700339.html

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Mark Oliphant, a physicist who helped lay the foundations for the world's first nuclear bomb before turning against weapons of mass destruction, died Friday at age 98, his family announced Monday.

As a young physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory at Britain's Cambridge University, Oliphant worked with the team that split the atom in 1932.

Oliphant later led a team of British scientists who traveled to the United States in 1943 to assist with the Manhattan Project working to develop the atomic bomb.

But profoundly shocked at the use by the United States of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945, he turned his focus to promote peaceful uses of nuclear power.

His part in the development of the bomb haunted Oliphant throughout life, his biographer, David Ellyard, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio.

"There was that pride of achievement and shame of being associated with it," Ellyard said. "Those contradictions, I think, remained with him until the end."

Oliphant once described himself as a "war criminal" for his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

Ahead of World War II, Oliphant also worked on research into radar, successfully developing the cavity magnetron, which allowed radars to be built small enough to fit in aircraft. Descendants of that device now form the basis of microwave ovens.

Oliphant returned to Australia in 1950, continuing his research in the capital, Canberra. He was a founder of the Australian Academy of Science.

In recognition of his achievements, Oliphant was appointed Governor of South Australia state, serving from 1971 to 1976.

He also maintained an interest in science, lecturing on topics such as nuclear disarmament, the environment and alternative energy.

He is survived by his daughter, Vivian Wilson, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A private family memorial service and cremation were held Monday.

----------

Hanford audit underscores obvious

Message: 7
From: magnu96196@aol.com
July 16, 2000
http://www.tr i-cityherald.com/opinion/2000/0716-1.html

The recent federal audit focusing on Hanford's underground tanks revealed something that shouldn't be news to anyone.

Hanford cleanup, projected to be a 30-year job when the Tri-Party Agreement was signed in 1989, might well not be completed for an additional 47 years hence.

The audit by Truman Beeler, the Environmental Protection Agency's regional inspector general, blames the Department of Energy's inadequate funding and management of the tank farms cleanup as well as accuses its regulators - the EPA and the state Department of Ecology - for lax enforcement of milestones.

Beeler's report says the delays "significantly increase" the risk of leaks from the deteriorating tanks into the air or ground water. About 1 million gallons of radioactive waste already have leaked from 67 of Hanford's 149 single-shelled tanks. Most of those tanks are well beyond their design life, and for many, there is no way to monitor leaks.

In responding to Beeler's report, top EPA and Ecology officials concurred with his findings. And, in comments to a Herald reporter, they vowed to do better.

We hope they can, but it's hard not to be cynical about their chances.

Key to the tank farm cleanup is construction of the proposed Hanford Waste Vitrification Project. Under the so-called privatization plan, a private company was to build plants that would turn liquid radioactive wastes from the tanks into glass logs, a more stable and safer long-term storage condition.

But the company, BNFL Inc., recently was fired from the project. Although the Energy Department generally liked the design work BNFL had done, the company's final cost estimate of $15.2 billion over 18 years - more than double the original estimate - was unpalatable.

The BNFL example was among those cited in another report released last week by the General Accounting Office, which blasted the Energy Department's dabbling with the privatization concept. Under the approach, private companies pay the upfront costs and later are reimbursed by the government. In the BNFL case, the company was not to be reimbursed until it produced its first glass log sometime around 2007.

The Energy Department plans to hire a new Hanford vitrification plant contractor under a more conventional contract by January, but the switch poses serious obstacles to the department meeting its 2007 milestone of starting to turn the waste into logs.

Recently, because the Energy Department didn't want to commit to specific, interim milestones leading up to actual glass log production, the state Ecology Department unilaterally imposed milestones, as is its right under the Tri-Party Agreement.

This dispute alone indicates the difficulty regulators have in enforcing cleanup deadlines. If nothing else, the EPA's federal audit adds up the batch of minor setbacks and mixes in the batch of major delays to provide a picture of long-term delays that could pose serious problems for our community and environment.

It should be a wake-up call that no more serious delays, mistakes and mismanagement can be allowed.

The Energy Department, its contractors, the EPA and the Ecology Department must do more than resolve to do better.

----------

DIFFERENT VIEWS: For the Goshutes, a Test of Tradition

Message: 8
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:13:17 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com
BY BOB MIMS SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/0 7172000/utah/utah.htm

To outsiders, Skull Valley is an aptly named inferno, a sagebrush wasteland populated mostly by rattlesnakes, rodents and the occasional hawk. But to Sammy Blackbear, it is a holy place.

As sunrise chases away the stars and pre-dawn stillness of Utah's western desert, he communes with his ancestral past and seeks strength for his ongoing battle against a massive high-level nuclear waste repository proposed for the land of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes.

Blackbear's view of the land as sacred, a dwelling place of ancestral spirits and deities, is one traditionally held by American Indians. It also is a belief increasingly compromised by economic necessities -- and the Skull Valley Goshutes are a prime example.

"You pray to the sun and give thanks," says Blackbear, one of only two dozen Goshutes still living on his tribe's 18,000-acre reservation. "We have such traditions. We dance, we hunt, we use the same medicines, plants and herbs we did hundreds of years ago.

"You don't disturb things, dig things up except for something like agriculture, or bother the animals," he says. "You respect Mother Earth; that is how we have been taught."

Other tribes have struggled with the modern dichotomy of tradition vs. practicality, erecting dams to tame wild rivers or allowing casinos to sprout on reservation lands in hopes of attracting white gamblers.

Now, it is the Skull Valley Goshutes' turn to test tradition. The tribe's 125 members, most forced by economic necessity to live off the reservation, are bitterly divided over plans to store 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on the reservation 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Blackbear and his supporters, about a third of the tribe, have fought the project as a toxic assault on sacred lands. Goshutes Chairman Leon Bear, who signed a 1997 lease with a consortium of eight out-of-state utilities for the $3 billion facility, defends the deal as the best hope for jobs and revenue.

"We're simply looking at this as economic development," Bear says. "We did an extensive study of the project, we talked with tribal members about it. In all, this has been going on almost 10 years. We didn't rush into it."

As for traditions, Bear has said, he prefers another: survival. That, he says, is a trait Goshutes perfected in scouring subsistence from the desert for centuries before they were herded onto their barren reservations in 1863, having lost a war with encroaching Mormon settlers.

At the opening of the 21st century, Bear argues, the struggle is for economic survival, and salvation comes in hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue promised by Wisconsin-based repository developer Private Fuel Storage (PFS).

"I consider myself to be a traditionalist, too, to some extent. I have reverence for the animals, plant life and the Earth," he says. "But I also have reverence for the people; we're trying to balance things with this venture."

Bear bristles when it is suggested the repository betrays traditional American Indian reverence for Earth.

"In our circumstances, that is hypocritical. People talk about environmental justice, but in Skull Valley we talk about environmental injustice," he says. "The impact on us [from the nuclear repository] will be a lot less than all the hazardous sites we already have around us."

Bear refers to nearby Dugway Proving Ground and its chemical and biological warfare laboratories; three hazardous waste dumps, including one handling low-level radioactive materials; MagCorp, which emits millions of pounds of chlorine from its Great Salt Lake plant; and outside Tooele, the Deseret Chemical Depot, which stores 43 percent of the nation's aging chemical weapons stockpile and the Army incinerator that is burning it.

"Those things are fearful to us because they are gasses that go wherever the wind goes," Bear says. "This [nuclear] material won't be gases or liquids, but solid material.

"You know, the Army didn't ask us if it was OK to store all that nerve agent in our back yard, and the Army also didn't ask us if they could bring anthrax out here to their labs to study it."

Growing opposition has not withered Bear's stance. Besides the Blackbear contingent, the proposed dump site 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City has drawn fire from environmentalists, 71 Indian tribes -- including the Skull Valley Band's cousins some 200 miles to the west near the Deep Creek Mountains, the 410-member Goshute Tribe -- and Gov. Mike Leavitt.

Last year, Leavitt declared the PFS dump would become reality "over my dead body." Bear fired back, denouncing the governor's opposition as a "blatantly racist" undermining of tribal sovereignty.

"It's a matter of survival for us now. But we've survived all these years and will continue to do so," Bear says. We're not going anywhere. This is our home. We will always be here."

Two prominent historians well-versed in American Indian and Mormon settlement in Utah say their sympathies are with the Goshutes, perhaps the most mistreated tribes in the annals of the Great Basin.

"When the Mormon settlers moved in, the hills were covered with wheat grass, one of the main sources of food for the [Goshute] Indians. The women could gather the seeds in their winnowing baskets, make mush out of it, grind it into flour," says Brigham D. Madsen, University of Utah history professor emeritus and author of numerous books on area tribes.

"When the pioneers moved in, they brought their cattle herds and destroyed these grasslands. Now you have Skull Valley and it looks like a desert."

Still, Madsen does not think the answer is to add one more hazardous waste operation to the west desert area. "My sympathies are with the traditionalists. I think [a nuclear waste dump] is a mistake.

"Why can't the federal and state governments help them out in other ways? After all, we took their homeland from them," he says.

D. Michael Quinn, a leading scholar on Mormon history now living in Los Angeles, says the record of Goshute relations with whites was typical of American Indian contacts with European settlers in America.

"You have traditionalists who resist European inroads in their lives, and you have . . . assimilationists [who] take what they can, and sometimes that pertains to [compromising] religious beliefs like veneration of the land and its spiritual meaning," he said.

"It's always been a question of whose ox is gored, or whose cattle feed on green pastures," Quinn adds. "When it suited the white majority of Utah to invite hazardous waste in, they did so . . . now they want to deny both the benefits and the risks to the Goshutes."

Bear and his supporters have insisted the reservation has no viable economic alternatives to the nuclear waste project.

"We can't do anything here that's green or environmental," Bear said in May's edition of Outside Magazine. "Would you buy a tomato from us if you knew what was out here? Of course not. In order to attract any kind of development, we have to be consistent with what surrounds us."

Even tomatoes might be a stretch for the water-starved reservation, which has only an estimated 160 irrigable acres along with some meager grasslands to graze some cattle.

Blackbear knows the argument well, but remains unconvinced. Better to go without the new jobs than accept potentially dangerous radioactive wastes, he insists.

"We don't have a large reservation, it's a small one. But this is what our ancestors left us, and what we will leave our children," he said. "Do we leave them toxic wastes, or do we try to leave the land to them as it was left for us?"

It is a question unlikely to be answered anytime soon. In addition to weathering ongoing litigation, the lease Bear signed three years ago has yet to clear regulatory hurdles. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has not granted final approval, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of drafting its final environmental impact statement. In all, the permit review alone is expected to take two more years.

If approved, rail and truck shipments of nuclear waste could begin as early as 2003. The Skull Valley's 40-acre, above-ground concrete storage facility is supposed to be temporary; the Department of Energy is building a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, expected to be operational by 2010.

The battle has left Utah's other tribes with mixed feelings. None would want radioactive waste on their land, but in varying degrees they defend the Goshutes' sovereign right to make a different choice.

The Deep Creek Goshutes have formally condemned the repository, but there remains much sympathy for their Skull Valley cousins.

"We're opposed to it, but there are a lot of conflicting issues involved," said Rupert Steele, the Ibapah, Utah-based, tribal vice-chairman. "We all know that land has been a dumping area for a long time, a wasteland."

Ray Baldwin, spokesman for the Navajo Nation, also sympathizes with the Skull Valley Goshutes' plight. However, the Navajo reservation spanning parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico would never allow the repository on its lands

"We have respect for the land. It is sacred and we wouldn't want to do anything to put it out of harmony in any way," Baldwin said, noting that a movement to make Navajo holdings a nuclear-free zone, off-limits to any radioactive shipments, is gaining momentum.

Northern Utes Chairman Roland McCook declined to comment, saying the Skull Valley issue does not concern his eastern Utah tribe.

However, Bruce Parry, executive director of the Northwestern Band of Shoshoni, said that while it is important for the tribes to be good neighbors to the state, the repository decision is for the Goshutes alone to make.

"It seems whenever Indians come up with something that works in the desolate areas where they are put, whether it is gaming [outlawed in Utah] or something like this repository, everyone comes out against it," he said.

"What do people want them to do? Remain destitute like they have been for the past 150 years? I guess they think another 100 years won't hurt."

----------

BILL ADDS CASH FOR NATIVES $7 MILLION TO SETTLE IODINE TEST CLAIMS

Message: 9
From: magnu96196@aol.com
July 16, 2000
By David Whitney
Daily News Washington Bureau
http://www.adn. com/metro/story/0,2633,177791,00.html

Washington -- House and Senate negotiators working on a compromise defense spending bill have agreed to include $7 million to compensate Alaska Natives tested with radioactive iodine during Cold War experiments four decades ago.

Aides to Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the money is being included at the request of the U.S. Air Force in order to settle claims filed by the Natives.

The testing was done between 1955 and 1957 on 102 Native men, women and children to determine why they were able to withstand prolonged cold weather.

At the time, there was great concern that Alaska would be a battleground in a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The experiments were intended to test whether the thyroid gland played any role in adjusting to cold weather. It doesn't.

The National Research Council was asked by Congress in 1994 to look into the experiments. In a report released in January 1996, it concluded that the testing did not harm the Natives.

But the report said the Natives were "wronged" because they were not adequately informed before they were given oral doses of Iodine-131.

The report urged the federal government and the Air Force to acknowledge their wrongs, give participants their records from the experiments and conduct follow-up examinations of participants younger than 20 at the time because they had the longest sustained risk of developing thyroid cancer as a result of the experiments.

Reporter David Whitney can be reached at dwhitney@adn.com.

---------

No danger detected after Flats brush fire

Message: 10
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:18:48 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com
By Theo Stein Denver Post Environment Writer
July 15, 2000
http://www.denverpost.c om/news/news0715n.htm

JEFFERSON COUNTY - A lightning strike caused a brush fire in the southeast portion of the Rocky Flats buffer area Monday, but no hazardous levels of radioactivity were released, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The fire consumed between 10 and 12 acres of grassland, said Karen Lutz, a spokeswoman for the department, not the 40 to 60 acres initially reported.

Richard Graham, a toxicologist and health physicist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said the fire occurred in an area where previous sampling had not revealed radioactive contamination associated with the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. No elevated levels of radioactivity were detected by air monitors downwind of the site during or after the fire, he added.

Lutz said the fire was reported at 7:30 p.m. and was extinguished about one hour later. The blaze prompted officials to activate the Emergency Operations Center, which notified local residents.

Firefighters from the Rocky Flats Fire Department, backed up by crews from Arvada, Westminster and North Metro, responded to the incident. No contamination was found on their equipment or clothing during monitoring afterward.

Initial sampling by the Department of Energy returned readings of between 1 and 10 picocuries per gram. "Those levels do not pose any risk to human health or the environment," Lutz said.

----------

Nevada Test Site not forgotten

Message: 11
From: magnu96196@aol.com
July 15, 2000
By Kristen Peterson <kristen@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2000/jul/15/510508695.html

Wearing a souvenir Nevada Test Site baseball cap, Layton O'Neill pointed to a scale model of a building used to disassemble radioactive parts.

"That's the biggest hot cell in the Free World," O'Neill said enthusiastically about the now-vacant Test Site building.

The retired health physicist, who spent years driving through clouds of atomic blasts to detect radiation levels, has hundreds of stories. Depending on which day you visit the Nevada Test Site History Center, you may get an earful.

Wedged into a Energy Department building at 2621 Losee Road in North Las Vegas, the center offers self-guided tours. Former Test Site employees serve as hosts. O'Neill, who schedules the volunteers, occasionally works a shift himself.

"It's a history that needs to be told," said O'Neill, a self-described patriot who says of his career: "I couldn't have done anything better."

From 1951 to 1992, the Nevada Test Site was where 928 above- and below-ground nuclear tests were conducted. Bombs were dropped from planes, detonated on towers, from balloons and in tunnels. The mushroom clouds from atmospheric blasts could be seen from Las Vegas.

In 1998, six years after President George Bush signed a moratorium that stopped all nuclear weapons test, the Nevada Test Site History Foundation was formed to preserve the site's information. Members have been gathering memorabilia since then.

"Things were being thrown away," O'Neill said. "A couple of guys decided we need to preserve this history."

Among photos of fireballs, mushroom clouds and soldiers in trenches watching the early tests are other memorabilia: A model nuclear reactor, a Davy Crockett nuclear projectile and portable ion chambers used to measure levels of radiation. A model train set featuring Area 25, where nuclear reactors were tested, sits in the corner.

A mannequin's head wears a pair of goggles used to protect against the bright explosions. Next to the head is a black-and-white photo of VIPs wearing the goggles to watch the tests.

"With those on and with my back to the first aerial I ever saw, you could have read a newspaper," said host Jack Busick, who worked as a timing and firing engineer and an assistant test director.

A framed letter from President Harry Truman establishing the Test Site, known then as the Nevada Proving Grounds, hangs near a blow-by-blow photo series of a 16-kiloton atmospheric explosion destroying a house in less than three seconds.

A T-shirt featuring the shot can be purchased in the gift shop, along with coffee cups of the foundation's mushroom-cloud logo, postcards of fireballs and declassified videos of the nuclear age.

More controversial are the earrings in the shape of Little Boy and Fat Man -- bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. "We can hardly keep them in stock," Ernie Williams, a foundation charter member, said.

Visitors also receive a complimentary sample of a borosilicate glass marble. The glass was proposed as a way of encasing liquid high-level nuclear waste from defense projects -- a technique that was never adopted.

The controversy surrounding the testing at the site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas and the devastation after bombs were dropped on Japan are not part of the center's displays.

In recent years, some former workers have complained of illness caused by radiation exposure. Legislation compensating them is working its way through Congress. Downwinders -- those living downwind of above-ground atomic blasts at the Test Site who have contracted various diseases -- already receive compensation.

"There is a plan to include that aspect of the Test Site in the final display," O'Neill said.

A future site, a $10.9 million joint venture involving the foundation, the Energy Department and the Desert Research Institute, will be housed on the DRI campus at Swenson Street and Flamingo Road.

The 59,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open late next year. It will include 8,000 square feet of permanent exhibit space and a smaller area for temporary exhibits. The foundation's recent affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution allows the exchange of items.

The current center is within walking distance of a public reading room and information center where more than 350,000 documents, newspaper clippings and videos can be accessed. All will be transferred to the new site.

The history center opened in July 1999 as a precursor for the new facility, Loretta Helling, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said. Until recently, it was open only on Wednesdays, but still drew more than 500 visitors, Helling said.

"We're getting a lot of people who picked us up on the website," said Williams, a former Test Site worker who conducts daylong tours through the site. "And when they come to town, they want to see this."

Visitors from different states, the United Kingdom and Japan have signed the guest book. Most visitors are from Southern Nevada and many are former Energy Department employees interested in seeing information previously unavailable to them.

"A lot of the people who worked at the Test Site weren't allowed to go to other places," O'Neill said."It was all on a need-to-know basis."

Despite lack of space, the center does offer telling memorabilia of the era. Among items on display are a 1953 Las Vegas High School yearbook, which features a color photo of a fireball from an atmospheric atomic explosion.

On-site computers contain photos of John F. Kennedy's visit to the Test Site; life in Mercury, the small town at the entrance of the Test Site; mannequins posed in mock fallout shelters; and even a look at the Nevada Test Site employees' 1961 Christmas party.

"People on the tours ask what it felt like when that atmospheric shot went off," he said

First there is a bright light, Williams explained. Then a heat wave, then shock waves.

"By the time the shock wave arrives, you can see the stem of the mushroom, then the cloud," he said. "The heat wave feels like a gust of wind coming at you 60 to 80 miles an hour.

"We moved 6.2 million cubic yards of material in 2 1/2 seconds," Williams said, pointing to a crater formed by 104-kiloton explosive buried underground. The explosion was part of a program to test peacetime uses of explosives. The crater is 320 feet deep and 1,280 feet in diameter.

"I think it's great we stopped the war," O'Neill said. "But it's a terrible weapon."

-------------

Time For Complacency About Using Fossil Fuels Is Over

Message: 12
From: magnu96196@aol.com
July 17, 2000
St Paul Pioneer Press
by Jerry Brown
Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views/071700-106.htm

In another era, we might have expected the federal government to advance our national security interests by establishing America as the superpower of energy independence and sustainability.

Given the absence of bold ideas in Washington, the burden of innovation must be shouldered by cities and local governments. That's why Oakland has decided to send a message to the rest of the country that the moment has arrived for breaking America's addiction to fossil fuels.

Buying foreign oil is a major contributor to our persistent and ever-increasing trade deficit. Moreover, conventional energy production is the largest industrial source of pollution in the world, contributing to smog, acid rain, global climate change and a host of other environmental problems.

Record high temperatures were set again last year, in what has become an annual confirmation of the effects of global warming.

The time for complacency is over. The city of Oakland took the lead and has become America's largest green power city. We will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and will purchase 100 percent of our electricity from sources such as geothermal steam, wind power and biomass.

Our $4 million annual municipal electricity budget will now be a force for something better -- a sustainable energy future. As a major energy consumer, Oakland is expanding the market for renewable energy, and we're doing it quickly: By 2004, 20 percent of our electricity will come from new renewable energy facilities brought online to serve the growing demand the city is creating for green power. Annually, Oakland consumes approximately 9 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 27,000 homes.

Our new green-power purchases will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 20,000 tons. If Oaklanders as individuals would join their city government in purchasing sustainable energy, our collective CO2 reduction would exceed 150,000 tons.

For at least 25 years, it has been obvious that the world must shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

When I was governor of California, an energy crisis prompted government at the state and federal levels to offer generous energy and conservation incentives. President Jimmy Carter described the energy challenge as the moral equivalent of war. As a result, industry responded by producing an array of new energy technologies.

Now -- finally -- after years of official indifference, there are renewed stirrings of concern, brought on by high gasoline prices and damaging foreign oil dependency.

Every year, people in the San Francisco Bay Area use more and more energy, both for electricity and transportation. Yet, what better place in the world than Silicon Valley for taking the lead in developing new and sophisticated forms of energy and energy efficiency?

Leaders in government and the private sector should be doing much more. Local government could install various types of distributed energy technologies, such as photovoltaics and fuel cells. Companies could establish modular micro-power plants that would create both greater efficiency and the reliability needed for an information economy that cannot afford a millisecond of power loss.

Cities, as well as businesses and residents, must ask two fundamental questions:

First, how can we be more efficient?

Second, how can we decrease fossil fuels by increasing purchases of renewables to meet our continuing energy requirements?

Each of us must take responsibility to do our part to cut pollution and reduce global warming. Purchasing green power is an important first step.

Brown, a former Democratic governor of California, is the mayor of Oakland, CA.

-----------

repression in Belarus

Message: 13
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 12:26:59 -0400
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

PLEASE CALL & FAX BELARUS EMBASSY
RE POLITICAL HARRASMENT OF CHERNOBYL SCIENTIST FORBIDDEN TO CONTINUE STUDIES

Dear Friends, I received the following post from Professor Solange Fernex concerning the political harrasment of the Chernobyl scientist Professors Nesterenko. Please call and fax the Belarus embassy in your country. In the United States, the Belarus Embassy contact is:

1. Fax#: 202-986-1805
2. Phone#: 202-986-1604
3. Web Site: http://www.belarusembassy.org
4. Mailing address:
Embassy Of Belarus
1619 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009

Many thanks for your efforts and concern on behalf not just of this hero but his work in trying to expose the nature of the Chernobyl catastrophe and the people of Belarus and surrounding countries who are suffering and dying from the effects of Chernobyl.

-Bill Smirnow

Dear Friends,
Today we learn that Professor Vassily Nesterenko, a very well known scientist, physicist, Direcxtor of the Institute Belrad, has received a letter from the Ministry of Health, forbidding him to continue to monitrhe level of radiation contained in the food, thus allowing him to help people to avoid contaminated food, and to monitor the level of incorporated radiation in children, with radiameters offerend to his Institute by many charitable organizations in the West, for the Children of Chernobyl. (The authorities of Belorussia continue to pressure one more scientists, physicist Vasily Nesterenko, who is leading an independent Institute "Belgrad" in Minsk. He was threatened by deprivation of the licence, that gives him a right to research contain of Cesium-137 in the organisms of children."Le Monde" 2000.07.03)

If Professor Nesterenko does not comply, which signifies the end of his cooperations with our organizations, he risks that his material will be confiscated, and he even risks prison, like Prof. Yuri Bandazhevsky.

We are extremely concerned. Could you please :

- fax and phone the belarussian embassy in your country - send copies of this mail to the OSCE office in Minsk

tel: +375-17 272 34 97
fax: +375-17 272 34 98
E-Mail: osceamg@osce.org.by Timeframe GMT+1 care of Ambassador H.G.Wieck,

-and a copy to the ODIHR in Warsaw OSCE Office of Democratic and Human Rights tel.: +48 22 520 0600,
fax.: +48 22 520 0605
email : office@odihr.osce.waw.pl

----------

Please find hereafter my letter from today to Ambassador Wieck, concerning Professor V. Nesterenko

De : solange <s.m.fernex@wanadoo.fr>
Date : Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:01:11 +0800
À : <osceamg@osce.org.by>
Objet : Possible repression against Professor V. Nesterenko, Institute Belrad, Minsk

Paris, le 11 juillet 2000

Monsieur l'Ambassadeur,
Notre organisation a un projet au Belarus de soutien aux enfants de Tchernobyl.

Notre corrrespondant est l'Institut Belrad, avec Monsieur le Professeur Vassily Nesterenko.

Nous venons d'apprendre que le Professeur Nesterenko, physicien de grand renom, vient de recevoir l'interdiction de poursuivre ses mesures de la charge radioactive de l'alimentation et des enfants des écoles.

Nous sommes très intéressés à ce programme et avons soutenu l'Institut Belrad pour la publication de ses résultats.

Sans la mesure de radioactivité, il est impossible de conseiller les enfants et leurs familles sur les aliments à éviter.

Il est également impossible de savoir quels enfants ont besoin d'être suivis ultérieurement par des médecins sans des données précises sur le taux de radioactivité et les radio-nuclides qui se trouvent dans le corps des enfants.

Si le Professeur Nesterenko poursuit son travail pour les victimes de Tchernobyl, il risque la confiscation de son matériel et même l'emprisonnement, comme cela a été le cas u Professeur Youri Bandazhevsky.

Nous vous demandons instamment d'intervenir le plus rapidement possible en faveur du Professeur Vassily Nesterenko, de l'Institut Belrad, Minsk, auprès des autorités de Biélorussie.

Vous remerciant par avance pour votre aide, et pour votre réponse, nous vous prions d'agréer, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, l'expression de notre considération très distinguée,

Pour la Ligue des Femmes pour la Paix et la Liberté, Section Française
Solange Fernex, Présidente
LIFPLP, 114, rue de Vaugirard, 75006 - Paris

-----------

Dear Friends, here are also news from Prof Bandazhevsky; It is still very important to write to President Lukashenko, via the Belarussian Embassy in your country Yours in Peace Solange Fernex

---------- 1 de 25 Le mardi 11 juillet 2000 à 15h35 De Jean-Yvon Landrac <Jean-Yvon.Landrac@gmx.net> A 'Solange Fernex' <s.m.fernex@wanadoo.fr>

Ajouter dans mon répertoire
Objet Tr. : Authorities of Belorus insistently persecute scientists, who research consequences of Chernobyl disaster Maintenant Le Monde en Anglais ! Ça peut-être utile pour passer à des anglophones. Le bonjour de Bretagne, Jean-Yvon

---------- Von: galina[SMTP:galina@inca.donetsk.ua] Gesendet: Freitag, 7. Juli 2000 20:55 An: chiche-tcherno Cc: Harms, Rebecca (DN=Rebecca.Harms, Recipients, Landtag Gruene, Niedersachsen); i.sturm@sadnet.de; Tkoopbbs@aol.com; Wolfehmke@aol.com; Alfred Koerblein; Bernd Frieboese; BI-LØchow-Dannenberg; Jean-Yvon Landrac; tycho; Ulrike Laubenthal

Betreff: Authorities of Belorus insistently persecute scientists, who research consequences of Chernobyl disaster

Authorities of Belorus insistently persecute scientists, who research consequences of Chernobyl disaster.

In Belorus authorities don't welcome at all research about impact of the consequences of accident on Chernobyl NPP on health of human being. Initiatives, undertaken by authorities of the President Lukashenko testify it. The few scientists, who dared to announce on public about the danger for the population, continue to be under high pressure. The scientists report, that 500.000 children are still not evacuated from the most contaminated regions, and that authorities undertake insufficient measures on protection and correct informing of population 14 years after the accident.

Professor Yuriy Bandagevsky is still in danger of legal action, that can be taken against him, the authorities are going to consider him for getting bribes. Amnesty International calls him "potential prisoner of consciousness", because in 199 he was arrested for five months already.

French Association "Doctors against nuclear war" send an invitation to Bandagevsky to arrive to France on Friday, June 30, in order to get a special prize, which was awarded to him, but the scientist didn't get a permission to leave the territory of Belorus.

For some time Bandagevsky did not have a possibility to leave Minsk. Only recently he was able to return to Gomel, a city, where young brilliant scientist for nine years was leading a medical institute, that was dealing with research of consequences of Chernobyl disaster.

According to the words of wife of the scientist, who were in Paris passing through, Bandagevsky lost the position, and his lawyer cannot study the materials of the investigation.

This young women, who also conducts scientific research, tells very emotionally about isolation of her husband, who has no support of Belorussian community and is afraid because of despotism of authorized institutions and four disappeared persons, who opposed the president Lukashenko.

"My husband is a doctor, he has never dealt with politics," - says she low. Troubles of Yuriy Bandagevsky have started, when he started to criticize the activities of State funds on protection of victims of Chernobyl disaster and to publish results of his research, dedicated mostly to influence on life-important organs of children of increased amount of Cesium-137, kept in the organism.

Resulting from fire on Chernobyl NPP, huge amount of nuclear particles, including Cesium-137, got to the atmosphere. The biggest part of these particles fell in Belorus, it's the country, that suffered most of all from Chernobyl Catastrophe, because during the fire on the nuclear reactor a wind blew in south direction.

Establishing connection between concentration of Cesium-137 in the organisms of children and different pathologies, for example, of heart, Bandagevsky publishes official version of the picture of the consequences of Chernobyl disaster and draws attention to the fact, that they mostly lead to increasing number of cases of thyroid gland cancer.

Feeling nostalgia about Soviet times, authorities of Belorus stimulate population to return to the most contaminated zones and classifies real scale of the problem for several years already, in order to diminish budget costs, say those, who criticize the authorities.

Thousands of Russians, who escaped after collapse of USSR from the muslim republics, were settled in the districts of Belorussia, contaminated because of Chernobyl disaster, and the settlers are used as cheap-paid workers there. The authorities of Belorussia continue to pressure one more scientists, physicist Vasily Nesterenko, who is leading an independent Institute "Belgrad" in Minsk. He was threatened by deprivation of the licence, that gives him a right to research contain of Cesium-137 in the organisms of children. "Le Monde" 2000.07.03

------------

Message: 14
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 11:33:16 -0700
From: ivan buchbinder <pentaske@memes.com>

Subject: Ally Consumers' Fears

Y'all, This should be very interesting eh! Droogies. I wonder if they will "Spin" their lettuce before they it eat?
Later

http://www.sfnewmexican.com/health/index.las

----------

GAO Report on Radiation Standards

Message: 15
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 16:13:22 EDT
From: easlavin@aol.com

There is a new GAO report on radiation standards, web posted today:

Radiation Standards:
Scientific Basis Inconclusive, and EPA and NRC Disagreement Continues.
RCED-00-152. 31 pp. plus 8 appendices (32 pp.)
June 30, 2000.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc00152.pdf

With kindest regards,
Ed Slavin

------------

Who says AP news is biased??

Message: 16
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:50:17 +0100
From: "Viviane Lerner" <vlerner@interpac.net>

Verbatim transcript, AP 6th NewsMinute, 7/14/00:

"(Washington-AP) -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is suspending the sale of radioactive scrap metals from nuclear weapons sites. He says he wants to make sure the material isn't radioactive. It's sometimes recycled into braces, zippers, and toys."

"My faith is in the individual and in the capacity of free individuals for united endeavor." Emma Goldman

-----------

Former PM warns US missile alliance would threaten security
'Don't support US NMD system' - Oz Lib ex-PM

Message: 17
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 17:25:05 +0100
From: "Viviane Lerner" <vlerner@interpac.net>
Australian ABC news,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2000/07/item20000718085237_1.htm

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has urged the Federal Government not to commit any support to the United States' proposed missile defence shield.

The National Missile Defence system being considered by the US would intercept long-range missiles heading towards North America.

The US Defence Secretary, William Cohen, has indicated bases in Australia could play a role in the system.

Mr Fraser says if Australia contributed to the shield it would jeopardise this country's security.

"An Australian government cannot just accept what the United States says, what the United States wants," he said.

"An Australian government has to judge our own national interest, our own security interest and requirements.

"The needs and desires of the United States do not necessarily conform with what is necessary for the security and integrity of Australia."

International opposition

China and Russia are preparing to step up their opposition to an American missile defence program.

Chinese officials say the issue will be raised during today's talks in Beijing between the leaders of the two countries.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Chinese host Jiang Zemin first discussed their opposition to the American Nuclear Missile Defence project earlier this month on the sidelines of a central Asian summit.

Chinese foreign ministry officials suggest today's talks will take the issue further.

Arms control is top of the agenda, with both sides suggesting closer military cooperation is possible.

The talks will also cover ways of helping each other's economic prospects by boosting two-way trade and plans for a new oil pipeline connecting the two countries.

After his visit to China, the Russian President will make an historic visit to North Korea.

---

MULTIMEDIA CLIPS available:
Defence Minister John Moore was non-committal after talks with US Defence Secretary William Cohen on the missile defence system.
Gillian Bradford reports.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2000/07/17/video/20000717pm-missile.ram
Requires RealPlayer

--------

The US Defence Secretary William Cohen has said the US will look to Australia for leadership in how to respond to problems in the region.
Alexandra Kirk reports.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/2000/07/18/20000718am02.asx
Requires Microsoft Media player

------------

G 8 HEADS OF STATE MEETING FRI 21-23, FAX THEM NOW RE STAR WARS/NMD

Message: 18
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:47:17 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

John Hallam Friends of the Earth Sydney,
17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042
Fax (61)(2)9517-3902
ph (61)(2)9517-3903
nonukes@foesyd.org.au
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd

PLEASE PASS THIS EMAIL ON TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT TAKE ACTION ON IT. SPREAD AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE BUT DON'T SPAM. (Apologies for multiple postings - Just delete the excess copies)

G 8 HEADS OF STATE MEETING IN OKINAWA FRIDAY - ASK THEM TO SAY 'NO' TO NMD/STAR WARS

Dear All who get these emails,

The heads of state of the US, Russia, Canada, The UK, France, Germany, Italy and Japan will be meeting in Okinawa from 21-23 July.

Amongst other things, they will be discussing the US scheme to deploy a 'National Missile Defence' scheme, which would violate the ABM treaty.

Last Thursday, the G 8 foreign ministers met, and expressed strong concern over US plans to deploy a National Missile Defence (NMD) system.

They need to have your support for having done this, and the non- US G8 Heads of State need to hear from their people that you support their expressions of concern over NMD and want them to do more.

IF YOU LIVE IN A G 8 COUNTRY OTHER THAN THE US (UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan), --Let your government know that you share their concern over NMD --Let them know you support the stand they took last thursday (esp if you are in Canada, France or Germany) --Let your government know that you want them to do more. (Esp if you are in Japan, which hasn't done much).

IF YOU LIVE IN THE US: Let President Clinton and Defence secretary Cohen, as well as presidential candidates Bush and Gore know that you think NMD is indefensible, that it will not make the US safer and that it will derail efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons to which the nuclear weapons powers and every other nation are legally bound, and may lead to another arms- race. Clintons fax number is 1-202-456-2461. Secy of Defence Cohen's is 1-703-695-1149. Vice- President Gore 1-202-456-2461, Candidate George W Bush: 1-512-637-8800.

Sample letters are below, also at: Http://www.abolition2000.org A global list of foreign ministers fax numbers is also there.

You should also visit the 'Dont Blow it' website at http://DontBlowit.org. from which you can send the president a free e-postcard.

IF YOU ARE IN A COUNTRY OTHER THAN A G 8 COUNTRY (ie, anywhere in the rest of the world, where the majority of people actually live), let your government know that you would like them to ask the US not to proceed with NMD, and that you do not want joint facilities (such as those that exist at Pine Gap in Australia) to be used for NMD.

WHEREVER YOU LIVE: Greenpeace has established a website http://www.stopstarwars.org that will allow people from around the world to record their concern about the US proceeding with this program, which could re-open the nuclear arms race.

HERE ARE SOME USEFUL FAX NUMBERS AND URLS
(OR USE THE ONES ON THE TOPS OF THE LETTERS)

FAX NUMBERS OF SOME FOREIGN MINISTERS

A URL where the fax numbers of every head of state and foreign minister in the world is listed plus lots of information is this: Http://www.abolition2000.org.

(Another URL that has the fax numbers of heads of state, foreign ministers and UN missions and also has lots of information on the NPT Review is: Http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org )

Some of the relevant fax numbers are listed below. If your country is not on this list, you can find your foreign minister or head of state on one of the two URLs above. (The + in front stands for whatever your countrys ISD access code may be. You only really need it if you are faxing some other country. I hope however, that people may like not only to fax their own foreign minister but also those of Russia and the US.)

Some of these numbers may have changed. If any of them don't work, let me know at <nonukes@foesyd.org.au> and check the number on the URL or with your own telephone system.

If you are in the US, Secy of State Madeleine Allbrights fax number is: +1 202 647 6047 President Clintons fax number is +1-202-456-2461

If you are in Russia, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's fax number is +7-095-244-3276 or +7-095-244-2203. (You need to be persistent with these numbers) The general Kremlin fax number is +7-095-205-4330. (This is the slowest fax in the universe)

If you are in France, your foreign ministers fax number is +33-1-45-51-60-12, Jacques Chirac's fax number is +33-1-47-42-24-65.

If you are in the UK, Tony Blairs fax number is +44-171-925-0918. The Foreign Minister, Robin Cook's fax number is: +44-171-270-2144 The United Nations mission is on Fax. +1 212 745 9316

If you are in Germany, the Chancellors fax number is: +49-228-56-2357, or +49-30-4000-2357 Foreign Minister Joschka Fischers number is any of these: +49-228-168-6662, +49-30-20186-252, +49-228-1734-02, +49-30-201-8619-24

Here are the fax numbers of some foreign ministers and UN missions: If you are in Canada, your foreign ministers fax number is: +1-613-996-3546. If you are in Japan, you need to fax +81-3-3581-9675 If you are in Italy please fax +39-6-628-6210, or +39-6-3222-850 or +39-6-3222-734 If you are in Hungary, please fax your foreign minister on +36-1-356-3801 If you are in Korea, try your minister of foreign affairs on +82-2-724-8291, +82-2-739-5370 If you are in Brazil, your foreign ministers fax should be +55-61-226-1762 If you are in Mexico, try +52-6-782-4109 If you are in Greece try +30-1-645-0094 (or 0095) If you are in Thailand, try +66-2-225-6155, or +66-2-226-1374

SAMPLE LETTERS BELOW - PLEASE CUSTOMISE AND BE CREATIVE

(These letters are also on Http://www.abolition2000.org and a global list of fax numbers of foreign ministers can be found there also)

1)Letter to Clinton, Cohen, Albright, Gore, Bush 2)Letter to French Government 3)Letter to German Government 4)Letter to British Government 5)Letter to Japanese Government

(Fax Nos above or use the numbers on the letters)

1)SAMPLE LETTER FOR US FOLKS ESPECIALLY, TO SEND TO BILL CLINTON, WILLIAM S. COHEN, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, BUSH, GORE, AND RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEES.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1-202-456-2461,
SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 1-202-647-6047
SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE, WILLIAM S. COHEN 1-703-695-1149 cc George Bush Al Gore

Dear President Clinton, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, and Presidential candidates,

I am writing to urge you not to proceed with proposals for a national ballistic missile defence system. Missile defence schemes respond to a nonexistent or exaggerated threat, are not the solution to real threats, make the rest of the US's security environment less safe, sabotage nuclear disarmament efforts to which the US is legally committed along with the rest of the world, and show contempt for the opinions of US allies and the rest of the world.

At the recent NPT Review Conference, the US together with 187 other countries, signed a final declaration that commits it to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Plans to deploy a missile defence system threaten that vital goal, to which the US is legally committed.

At the very same conference, the UN Secretary General, and representatives of Russia, China, the UK, France, Sweden, the European community, the New Agenda Coalition and the Non- aligned movement have all expressed strongly that they believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of global strategic stability. They do not think it should be modified to allow a missile defence system, still less abrogated unilaterally. On your recent European trip, leaders of Europe and Russia have made the same point. America simply cannot ignore the strongly repeated opinion of the whole world, that the ABM treaty should not be modified to permit BMD.

Furthermore:

1)The threat that the national missile defence system is supposed to address, namely that of missile - equipped so- called 'rogue states' is in all likelihood, nonexistent.

2) A state that really wished to inflict serious damage on the US would probaby rather smuggle a nuclear explosive device into a US city by means that are more reliable and more difficult to trace than missiles.

3)There are serious doubts as to whether this system can work at all, or as to whether any missile defence system can ever work. The problems posed even by relatively simple decoys are probably technically insoluble.

4)National (and theatre) missile defence schemes are unsustainably costly, and cost estimates are likely to rise without limit.

Instead of pursuing missile defence, it is vital that the US focus on real solutions to global strategic security. The highest priorities have to be the elimination of as many warheads as possible under any START-III agreement with Russia, and the removal of strategic missile forces from high alert status as advocated by the Canberra Commission, subsequent UN resolutions and the final NPT declaration.

In this respect, the commitment of Candidate Bush to deep cuts in warhead numbers and to reductions in alert status are worthy of support. Commitments to costly and dangerous missile defence schemes are worthy only of opposition.

Yours Sincerely, Signed ....

2)LETTER TO FRENCH GOVERNMENT

PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC +33-147-42-2465 PRIME MINISTER LIONEL JOSPIN +33-142-34-2677 MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS +33-1-4317-5203 33-1-45-51-60-12

Dear President Chirac, Prime Minister Jospin, and Minister for Foreign Affairs Hubert Vedrine,

I am writing to you to urge you at the coming G8 meeting in Okinawa, to express strongly your support for the 1972 ABM treaty, and your opposition to the US proposal to deploy a ballistic missile defence scheme.

I am happy to see that at the recent nuclear nonproliferation treaty review conference, France expressed strongly its support for the ABM treaty and opposition to ballistic missile defence, and that France has continued to forcefully express its opposition to this ill-considered scheme since that time.

I urge you to continue doing this.

A ballistic missile defence scheme would:

(a)Attempt to defend the US (but not Europe) against a threat that either does not exist or that if it did exist, would strike in ways that missile defence cannot prevent. (ie using means of delivery other than missiles)

(b) Is likely not to work at all because of the problem posed by relatively simple decoys that can easily be deployed even by a relatively unsophisticated attacker.

(c) Will be seen as potentially threatening by Russia and China, and will therefore prompt those countries to expand their nuclear arsenals, threatening to re-commence the nuclear arms race, just after the US has together with France, the UK, Russia and China, signed a final declaration at the recent NPT Review, committing them to the total and unequivocal elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

(d) Missile defence as proposed by the US administration, in no way helps the position of US allies or Europe.

I urge you at the coming G8 summit to make the most vigorous representations to the US not to decrease global security by proceeding with plans for missile defence, or weakening the ABM treaty. I ask you to instead urge the US to increase global security by accepting the lowest of the warhead totals on offer by Russia in START-III negotiations, and by standing down nuclear missiles from 'launch on warning' status.

(Signed)

3)SAMPLE LETTER TO GERHARD SCHROEDER, JOSCHKA FISCHER,

ATTN GERMAN CHANCELLOR GERHARD SCHROEDER +49-228-56-2357, +49-30-4000-2357.

GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER JOSCHKA FISCHER, +49-228-168-6662, +49-1888-171-928, +49-228-173-402, +49-30-201-861-924,

RE: BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENCE AND THE ABM TREATY

Dear Chancellor Schroeder and Foreign Minister Fischer,

I am writing to express my support of the position you have taken with respect to US plans to deploy a ballistic missile defence system and to modify, or possibly to abrogate, the ABM treaty in order to allow the deployment of this system.

I note that you have already made clear to US President Clinton your strong disapproval of any such moves. I urge you to continue in your opposition to this highly destabilizing scheme.

I am urging you to put this position strongly to the US at the coming G8 summit in Okinawa.

Ballistic missile defence in the form in which the US now seeks to deploy it, (either national missile defence or theater missile defence),

a) Seeks to defend against a threat that either does not exist or which if it exists, will strike in ways that missile defence systems cannot affect.

b)Is likely to be wholly ineffective because of the problem posed by relatively simple decoys, and at the same time will be seen as threatening by those with whom the US is legally obliged to negotiate for the elimination of nuclear arsenals. Missile defence therefore acts to sabotage vital arms control efforts.

c) National missile defence as currently proposed by the US administration, in no way helps the security position of US allies, who are thus likely to be exposed to whatever threat NMD seeks to counter - if that threat is real.

(d) These proposals make more difficult, and may reverse, nuclear disarmament efforts, decreasing the security of the whole world while violating US obligations under the NPT.

I urge you to make the most vigorous representations to the US government, particularly at the G8 summit, not to decrease global security by proceeding with plans for NMD/BMD or TMD,or weakening the ABM treaty, but rather to increase global security by accepting the lowest of the warhead totals on offer by Russia in START-III negotiations, and by standing down nuclear missiles from 'launch on warning' status.

(Signed)

4)DRAFT SAMPLE LETTER TO TONY BLAIR, ROBIN COOK

TO: PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR +44-171-925-0918 FOREIGN MINISTER ROBIN COOK +44-171-829-2417 +44-171-270-2833

Dear Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Minister Robin Cook,

I am writing to you to urge your government to take a strong stand against US plans to build a ballistic missile defence system, and to urge it to maintain and strengthen the ABM treaty.

I urge you to put this very strongly to the US at the coming G8 summit in Okinawa.

At the recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, the UN secretary general, the governments of Russia, China, France, and the UK, the Non-Aligned movement, the New Agenda Coalition, and the European Union all expressed strong support for the maintenance and strengthening of the ABM treaty. This cannot be interpreted to mean modifying it to allow a ballistic missile defence system.

The missile defence systems currently under discussion in the US seek to protect the US (but not Europe) against a threat that either does not exist at all, or for which missile defence is a completely inappropriate response. In addition the options proposed in the US may in fact not work at all, while causing those countries with whom the US is legally obliged under the final declaration of the NPT Review Conference to seek to negotiate the elimination of its nuclear arsenal, to abandon arms control measures altogether.

The very discussion by the US of missile defence options is itself destabilizing and puts progress toward the global goals of elimination of nuclear arsenals in doubt.

We/I urge you to put to the US government in the very strongest terms that it should no longer contemplate missile defence options, and to make it clear that the UK will not in any way cooperate with such options.

Your government has said it wants to maintain and strengthen the ABM treaty. It must follow on from this good beginning by making it clear that it is absolutely opposed to BMD.

The US government should instead be strongly urged to accept the very lowest warhead numbers on offer from Russia and to stand down its nuclear weapons systems from 'launch on warning' status.

Signed.....etc.

5)LETTER TO JAPANESE GOVERNMENT

THE PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF JAPAN, 81-3-3581-9675, 81-3-3591-3613

Dear Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Japan,

I am writing to you to urge you at the coming G8 summit in Okinawa on July 21-23, to make strong representations to the United States concerning the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and its plans for a ballistic missile defence system.

At the recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, the UN Secretary General, the New Agenda Coalition, the Non-Aligned Movement, France, Russia, China, and the European Community all expressed opposition to the deployment of a missile defence system and support for the ABM treaty as the cornerstone of strategic stability.

A number of European nations have subsequently expressed strong opposition to Ballistic missile defence.

Ballistic missile defence (a) Seeks to guard against a problem that does not exist, or which if it does exist, is not best answered by costly and high tech systems such as BMD.

(b)Is likely to be ineffective against missile attack because of the problem posed by relatively simple decoys.

(c) is likely to be seen as threatening by those with whom the US is legally obliged to negotiate toward the unequivocal and total elimination of its nuclear arsenals, thereby sabotaging a process to which the US has only recently reaffirmed its commitment.

(d) In no way helps, and may harm, the security position of US allies such as Japan and Europe who are likely to be exposed to whatever threat is sought to be countered by missile defence - if that threat is real.

(e) By encouraging arms- racing again, is likely to degrade the security position of the world as a whole.

Accordingly I urge your government to make the most vigorous representations to the US at the coming G8 summit, and to urge the US instead, to consider the lowest START-III warhead numbers offered by Russia and to take strategic warheads off launch-on-warning status.

Yours Sincerely, (signed) etc.

John Hallam Friends of the Earth Sydney, 17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042 Fax (61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903 nonukes@foesyd.org.au http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd

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Signs of a Disease

Message: 19
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 00:05:30 -0700
From: ivan buchbinder <pentaske@memes.com>

Y'all,

Suicidal Greed, it is the first sign of a technological bankrupt civilization.

http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,344519,00.html

---------

Message: 20
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 07:31:58 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

NucNews 00/07/18 -
Daybook;
Presidential Candidates' Schedules;
Gore on BMD and Yucca Mountain

1) Washington Daybook, by FIND/AFP and The Washington Times. -
July 18, 2000 http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000718213557.htm

10:30 a.m. - Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on the national security implications of granting permanent normal trade relations status to China. Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-4651.

2 p.m. - House Science's space and aeronautics subcommittee holds a hearing on "Financing Commercial Space Ventures." Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-6371.

2) Presidential Candidates

Nader speech today - Washington DC, 12:30 p.m. Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate for president, addresses a National Press Club Newsmaker luncheon program, discussing third-party presidential candidacy and the importance of third-party access to the presidential debates. Location: National Press Club, 14th and F streets NW. Contact: 202/662-7468

Bush Schedule today - Milwaukee WI and Chicago IL 8:35 a.m. - Leadership Forum on Fatherhood, FaithWorks Milwaukee, Hadley Terrace Bldg., The Hadley Commons Room, 3515 West Hadley St, Milwaukee, WI, 414/449-0459 12:50 p.m. - National Council of State Legislatures, Navy Pier Convention Center, Grand Ballroom, 600 East Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL, 312/595-5355

OnPolitics Live:
Vice President Gore
Monday, July 10, 2000
Washington Post Online
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/00/politics/freemedia071000_ gore.htm

Free Media: Good afternoon, Vice President Gore, and welcome. Given the failed test this weekend of the missile defense system, many of our readers have written in to ask you about it. This first question is from--

Bloomington, Ind.: What effect have the results of the recent test of the proposed National Missile Defense system had on your opinion of the short-term necessity of its deployment? Your opponent, Gov. Bush, seems to favor a very robust system, despite technological and diplomatic odds, which leads me to hope your position will remain more open, and based on the true need and viability, not domestic political sentiment.

Vice President Gore: OK. Here we go. I favor an effort to develop a limited missile defense system -- and not a massive "star wars" system (for reasons I'll briefly describe) -- because our country will probably face a new threat later in this decade from a small arsenal of relatively unsophisticated ICBMs in the hands of a so-called rogue state. The failure of the test last Friday night doesn't mean that such a system is impossible to build, although the specific lessons from the failure will have to await a more thorough analysis. The much larger, space-based star wars approach that Gov. Bush is committed to is far more difficult to design and build, far more expensive to purchase, less likely to work, and is calculated to destroy existing arms control arrangements with the Russians which have calmed down the old arms race for the last 28 years, ever since the ABM Treaty was signed....

Fort Bragg, N.C.: I am a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division and I am curious as to how you would react to the situation in the Middle East if the peace talks fail. It seems that they are already faltering and I am worried that I might be deployed to participate in a war that does not directly concern this country in any way.

Vice President Gore: My hope and prayer is that these talks will succeed. Bear in mind that Israel has never asked for help from American soldiers. Israel is our closest ally in the region and the only true democracy, and we will always support her.....

New York, N.Y.: If Fidel Castro were to live another 25 years, which is possible, can you conceive of the possibility of your opening up to Cuba since he no longer has the threat of the cold war Soviet Union backing him up?

Vice President Gore: I favor only openings to the Cuban people -- not to the Castro government. Incidentally, you can find more detail on virtually all of these exchanges on my campaign Web site algore2000.com webster. Also, you can register to vote online at http://www.algore2000.com/briefingroom/releases/pr_0710_nat_1.html....

Manhattan, Kan.: With current scientific knowledge of the Yucca Mountain Permananent Waste Repository, will you recommend that the site be built if elected as president?

Vice President Gore: We don't have the results of the full scientific analysis yet. The decision should be based strictly on the science and not on politics.

Portland, Ore.: Why do you support capital punishment?

Vice President Gore: I support it for particularly heinous crimes because I believe there are some offenses for which it is just. I know that many feel it does not really have a deterrent effect, but I think it probably does. I want to add, though, that I strongly support the use of the new DNA techniques that can make our criminal justice system fairer and more accurate.... I deeply respect those who are opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds, but I do support it.