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

-------- australia

Any Australians out there?

From: Greater Manchester and District CND <gmdcnd@gn.apc.org>
Thursday, July 20, 2000 3:11 AM

Dear All

If there are any Australians out there, a UK gulf war vet would like to get in touch with you re: vets in your country and their experiences.

Clare

--

From: "Laurence Aboukhater" <lozabouk@melbpc.org.au>
Sun, 25 Jul 2094 06:53:35 +1000

I am from Melbourne Australia. I have been in communications with the relevant departments conducting the study on Australian Gulf War Veterans Unfortunately I have been receiving mail from this list for a month. I would appreciate if any relevant discussions on Australia could be forwarded to me. Out of 1865 Australians who served in the Gulf, 213 have applied for medical discharges and made claims under the compensationunder the veterans' entitlements act. To date, 11 have died and an unconfirmed number have had children with congenital malformations. Australias role was largely on 3 frigates with only about 20 who were on the ground. I have not been able to confirm the vicinity of Australian ships to the Doha Fire.

-------- business

New resource on Star Wars and weapons contractors

Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:46:28 -0500
Kevin Martin kmartin@fourthfreedom.org, Director, Project Abolition

Bill Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca have written another important and useful report on Star Wars, this one on fraud and corruption by the missile defense contrators. It's titled "Nuclear Missile Deception: Corruption and Conflicts of Interest in the National Missile Defense Program" and is on the web at http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/nmdtitle.htm

-------- india / pakistan

India's Vajpayee to Visit U.S. in September

Reuters
Tuesday, July 25
Daryl Kimball dkimball@clw.org

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will make a three-day state visit to the United States from September 15, the foreign ministry said Tuesday. Vajpayee will hold talks with President Clinton who was in India in March. Clinton's visit was the first by a U.S. president in over two decades.

``Their discussions will contribute to a closer and qualitatively new relationship between India and the U.S. visualized during the visit to India of President Clinton in March 2000,'' a foreign ministry statement said.

India and the United States, who were on opposite sides during the Cold War, have in recent years warmed to each other and found common ground on counter-terrorism and in the booming information technology sector.

Nuclear non-proliferation, however remains a key area of concern after several rounds of arms control talks between the leaders of the world's biggest democracies.

Washington has repeatedly urged India, which exploded nuclear devices in 1998, to sign and ratify a global treaty that bans underground nuclear explosions.

Vajpayee has said he is seeking to build a domestic consensus on the signing of the Comprehensive Test Treaty and is likely to hold a debate in the current session of parliament.

______

25 July 2000

Dear Friends,

In memory of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and as a statement of our opposition to nuclear weapons worldwide we are holding a public meeting on Hiroshima Day this August 6th, 2000 (Sunday) at 16.00 hours (4.00 pm) at the Indian Social Institute, 10 Institutional Area, near Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

1. We will begin with a brief remembrance for the victims of those terrible bombings.

2. This will be followed by the showing of a brief video film (20-25 minutes) secretly filmed at the Los Alamos Weapons Laboratories of the USA about "Why Nuclear Weapons are Important to the US: The Los Alamos Perspective". The film will be followed by a brief discussion on matters related to the film contents, such as contemporary US plans for a national Missile Defence, etc.

3. The main item on the agenda will be a report of the July 30 national preparatory meeting at Nagpur which is preparing for the "National Convention for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace" which is to be held in New Delhi between November 11 and 14, 2000. This report will be followed by a discussion of what the Delhi host committee and supporters will have to do to ensure that the National Convention takes place and runs smoothly.

4. This will be followed by another short video film (30-35 minutes) on "Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan" with a brief discussion afterwards.

The duration of the meeting is expected to be not more than 2 hours (a maximum of two and one-half hours) and will be over by 18.00 hours or 6.00 or 6.30 pm latest.

You are urged to please attend this meeting not only to show solidarity with the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to register your opposition to the nuclearisation of South Asia and worldwide, but also to help us collectively prepare for the forthcoming National Convention. The plans for holding this Convention have aroused great enthusiasm all over the country and when held will be a major achievement and boost for building a strong anti-nuclear disarmament movement in this part of the world. We request your support to make this coming Convention a great success.

Achin Vanaik [On Behalf of Movement in India Against Nuclear Disarmament]

______

#3. We have noted with grave concern that the government of West Bengal has begun an effort to set up a nuclear power plant in the Sunderbans. The experience of the last half-a-century shows that nuclear power is extremely dangerous for health, for the environment, and it is also extremely expensive. Even the economically developed countries who had gone in for this form of power have either reduced its use or have stopped it altogether. In this situation we oppose the construction of a nuclear power plant anywhere in India, including in West Bengal. We appeal to all to participate in the rally called on 9th August to protest this. Time: 2:00 P.M. Venue: Sealdah Station Meeting after the demonstration: Oppositie Metro Cinema from 4-30 -- 6-30 This is the text of the appeal adopted at a meeting on the 24th of July by a large number of organisations -- political parties, human rights organisations, science movement organisations, women's rights organisations, etc.Those from outside West bengal who receive it on the internet are requested to write protest letters, e-mails or faxes to Shri Jyoti Basu, Chief Minister, West Bengal, and to send a copy with all the signatures they put to the initiators by e-mail to: soma1kunal@caltiger.com

_______

#4. The Statesman (India)
19 July 2000

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

SERIOUS NUCLEAR HAZARDS SIR, - Apropos of Radhika Ranjan Pramanik's article "Chernobyl best forgotten" (15-16 July) I would like to know why, in his opinion, Germany has decided to phase out 19 nuclear power plants, which supply about one-third of the country's power? Mr Pramanik thinks that "if we can install a nuclear power station in West Bengal, the spent fuels will be transported to fuel reprocessing plants in Tarapur or Kalpakkam for final burial". But are these fuels so easy to bury? What solution does he prescribe for the problem of managing liquid waste, which is increasing day by day not only through the reprocessing of spent fuels, but also as a result of the decommissioning and dismantling of nuclear power plants? This problem is haunting countries like the US, Russia, France and Germany. A recent agreement reached between the German Chancellor Ger-hard Schroeder and the major power companies of Germany is mostly due to a series of mass protests sparked by concern over the safety of nuclear waste transport and storage of radioactive materials in Lower Saxony in the late nineties. Mr Pramanik was himself present at a seminar on "Nuclear energy and environment" where Dr A Gopala-krishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Research Board, said that the workmen employed in India's nuclear reactor projects are exposed to extremely high levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that causes many serious illnesses including cancer. Mr Pramanik had not then contested Dr Gopalakrishnan's claim. - Yours, etc., JITEN NANDY. Calcutta, 18 July.

______

#5. Entries invited for essay contest by Department of Atomic Energy

The Times of India,
18 July 2000

[Write to India's Peddlers of Atomic Energy and speak your mind on the dangers of of Nuclear Power]

BANGALORE: The Department of Atomic Energy has invited essays from college and university students on the `Role of nuclear power in India's long term energy needs' or `Non-power applications of nuclear energy.' ...

----

'Peer review' of Pokhran tests sought

By Arunkumar Bhatt,
The Hindu
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/07/25/stories/02250006.htm

MUMBAI, JULY 24.The former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Dr. P.K. Iyengar, wants a white paper comparing the country's nuclear weapons capabilities with its perceived adversaries, speeding up of the missile development programme and a `peer review' of the Pokharan II tests to develop minimum credible deterrence arsenal of atomic weapons.

Dr. Iyengar, who had played a key role in the `peaceful' nuclear explosion, the first test by India in 1974, was delivering the keynote address here today at a seminar on `Role of Physics in National Security', organised by the Indian Physics Association and the Nehru Centre. He also wanted in place

a mechanism to review weapons research and development. The weaponisation should be not only speeded up but the entire system of credible deterrence be put at the disposal of the armed forces to ensure near-instant retaliation in case of an attack. But he felt that nuclear security was too serious a business to be left to generals and bureaucrats and opined that scientists should have a distinct role to play.

Later, talking to the press, Dr. Iyengar said the peer review should be entrusted only to Indian scientists and the country had people of such talent. He also said India should not brush aside the Pakistani test as something done with foreign collaboration but carefully evaluate that country's capabilities.

The AEC Chairman and an architect of the weaponisation programme, Dr. R. Chidambaram, declined to comment on the views of his predecessor. ``I am a scientist here and not the chairman,'' he said.

But he asserted, in his remarks as the chief guest, that the country had the capability to design and fabricate a range of nuclear weapons, from sub-kiloton yield to 100 kilo- tones. He said the nuclear tests were carefully planned and all scientific objectives were fully achieved. He said deterrence involved maintenance of a stockpile of weapons in order to avoid war and in this context India had a good and effective deterrence.

In the foreseeable future, countries would continue to have first and second generation nuclear weapons, i.e. fission and fission- fusion bombs (thermo-nuclear). While fourth generation weapons (for instance, pure fusion explosives having no fission triggers and which do not require either plutonium or uranium) were yet to be fully developed, the third generation enhanced radiation weapons (neutron bombs) were not found to be serving any purpose. Dr. Chidambaram had stated sometime ago that India had the capability to make neutron bombs.

Nuclear weapons is not the only area where physics can contribute to national defence, Dr. Chidambaram said. It can play a role even in cyber warfare and bio-terrorism.

----

Pak. announces procedure for export of n-materials

By B. Muralidhar Reddy,
The Hindu
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/07/25/stories/03250007.htm

ISLAMABAD, JULY 24. Pakistan today declared the procedures to be followed for commercial export of nuclear materials. The announcement, made through advertisements in leading dailies, details the procedures for commercial export of ``nuclear substances, radioactive material or any other material'', adding that a ``no objection certificate'' from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission should be obtained.

The procedures are seen as a response to concerns, particularly from the West, about nuclear materials from Pakistan reaching a third country. Just before the South Asia tour of the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, in March, Pakistan had made public a `Doctrine of command and control' of nuclear weapons.

The items, listed as nuclear substances in the advertisement, included natural uranium, depleted uranium, enriched uranium, plutonium, zirconium, heavy water, tritium, beryllium, natural or artificial radioactive materials provided the activity is not less than 0.002 microcuries per gram and nuclear grade graphite with a boron equivalent content of less than five parts per million and density greater than 1.5 gm/cubic centimetres. The notice said these substances could be in the form of metal alloys, chemical compounds or any other material containing one or more of them.

The list of nuclear equipment ``for production, use or application of nuclear energy and generation of electricity'' included nuclear power reactors, reactor pressure vessels, reactor fuel charging and discharging machines, primary coolant pumps, reactor control systems, reactor internals and other items directly attached to the reactor vessels that control the level of power in the core.

-------- iraq

Saddam's bomb

July 25, 2000
Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-200072519258.htm

When Israeli jets bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, the destruction appeared to be a clear-cut victory for nonproliferation. Tel Aviv's bold operation had denied one of the world's worst rogue states a quick entrance to the nuclear club.

But a new book by two British journalists, Shyam Bhatia and Daniel McGrory, takes an opposing view. "Brighter than the Baghdad Sun" argues that the raid hardened Saddam Hussein's resolve to build the bomb. And, more importantly, it taught him that to be successful he must expand the program into hundreds of research units, hire scores more nuclear scientists and then hide the whole operation, underground if possible.

Saddam's vast investment of oil revenues might have supported his plan had he not overreached by invading Kuwait. He was not only defeated on the battlefield, but allied jets found and destroyed most large research centers. Saddam then had to play hide-and-seek with United Nations inspectors until he finally expelled them in 1998, prompting President Clinton's "impeachment bombings."

The authors do not present a conclusive case that Iraq is still close to becoming a nuclear power. But they suggest Saddam is in possession of a nuclear device, a "beach ball," that he weighed using against Kuwait. The book traces the history of Iraq's nuclear program, sketches Saddam's life and rise to power (he was sexually abused as a boy), and tells how he runs his country through a brutal security force.

The dictator, who escaped a series of assassination attempts, has grown as secretive as his atomic program. His main palace is described this way:

"Each of the men from the Amn Al Khass brigade lives in a luxury villa inside Saddam's fortress. They have their own hospital, restaurant, sports club and schools for their children. Every six months they are given a new car and they earn twice the salary of a cabinet minister."

The book's sourcing is vague. A large part of the material seems based on 1995 defector and Saddam brother-in-law Hussein Kamil, who blabbed to the Central Intelligence Agency, then was executed upon returning home from Jordan. Some scenes are questionable. The authors contend that Hillary Clinton slapped her husband in clear view of his national security team. They also recreate Saddam's private meetings, complete with verbatim quotes, a la Bob Woodward.

The book is particularly tough on the West. London trains Iraq's future bomb-makers. The greedy French ship a reactor to Iraq, feigning ignorance at its real purpose. Germany looks the other way as nuclear bomb and chemical weapons components clear customs. "Shopping Trips on the Rhine," the authors call it.

In Washington, the CIA is largely in the dark on the extent of Saddam's nuclear ambitions. The authors charge the spy agency did not even know of one key nuclear facility at Al Atheer.

Saddam has hired hundreds of nuclear scientists. Two Western-trained experts are featured: Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, who, after the Osirak bombing, devised a nuclear comeback based on 1940s technology; and Hussein Shahristani, who was imprisoned and tortured for noncooperation, then rehabilitated. In all, the authors estimate Saddam has spent over $300 billion in oil cash on nuke development, the ill-fated "super gun," and terrorists such as Abu Nidal.

Saddam is portrayed as a rapist, torturer and paranoid who understands the advantages of charm. During the costly 1980s war with Iran, he dispatched the suave and urbane Nizar Hamdoun to Washington to woo the Reagan administration. Mr. Hamdoun impressed congressmen with his warnings that only Iraq stands between Israel and militant Iranians. Few in the capital seemed to realize that the charming diplomat rose from the same Ba'ath Party that produced Saddam and his henchmen.

In those early days, before the Gulf War unmasked Iraq's full intentions, Baghdad was a mirage of friendship to the West. Only Israel saw through the charade. The authors suggest that the Mossad assassinated a number of international arms dealers and scientists helping Saddam.

Mr. Bhatia and Mr. McGrory also report that the Clinton administration has backed assassination attempts against the Iraqi president. But they argue the policy is flawed, since the Ba'ath Party's rigid control will only produce another gangster as Saddam's successor. "Clinton's policy was, in short, simplistic," the authors write.

If Saddam's heir apparent is his jet-setting and reckless son, Uday, there will be no drop off in cruelty, no overtures to the West. The book portrays him as just as ruthless and maniacal as his dad. After all, he has diverted milk and medicine meant for a suffering people and pocketed the cash.

-------- japan

TRIPLE SHUTDOWN AT FUKUSHIMA!
Leak and halt at Fukushima I-6, I-2 and II-4 reactors following an off coast earthquake

25 July 2000
hosokawk@cc.saga-u.ac.jp (Hosokawk)

Three large reactors of the Tokyo Electronic Power Company's Fukushima-I and Fukushima-II Nuclear Power Stations, in Ohkuma Town and Tomioka Town respectively, Fukushima Prefecture, in the Pacific coast of Japan, 250km north of Tokyo, got successively shut down by rather unusual mechanical failures, probably caused by a moderate quake off coast.

First, on Friday 21, the Unit-6 reactor (BWR 1,100MW, 21 years old) had an emergency shutdown. Around 4:30am that morning, just after an off-coast grade-4 earthquake hit the region, the alarm indicated an excess of waste gas from the radiation containment system, and the operators had to trip the reactor in that afternoon.

It was later found out that a tube (of 34mm in external diameter and 25mm in internal; i.e. 9mm thick), which constitutes the safety relief valve for the turbine building, had a deep crack, little less than a rupture.

In BWR system, turbine building is a rad-contaminated zone.

TEPCO refrains from commenting whether the failure is related to the earthquake or not. However, according to Jiji News, technical staff of the company regard that the earthquake may well be the cause of expansion of an existing smaller crack in the tube.

Then, Unit-2$B!J(JBWR, 784MW, 26 years old) suffered from over 150 litters leak of radioactive coolant inside the reactor building (secondary containment).

Earlier on the same day, leakage of valve control oil in the turbine bypass system had been detected. Some 300 litter of oil spilled out of a stainless pipe (20mm in internal diameter). The reactor had to be manually shut down at around 21:17pm on Sunday 23.

TEPCO claims no radioactive release into atmosphere. The spilled water contained 210 million Bq of radioactivitiy.

Also found out on inspection, after the operators decided to switch off the reactor, was leakage of water out of the control rod drive mechanism.

The causal relation and time sequence of these three incidents are under investigation.

Now, today (Tuesday 25), Unit-4 (BWR, 1,100MW, 13 years old) of the Fukushim a-II Nuclear Power Station, south of the Fukushima-I NPS, both operated by TEPCO, has been put into the manual process of an emergency shut down. The reactor power output will be cut off at around 23:00pm tonight.

Abnormal iodine concentration was detected in the coolant (i.e. core water). Radiation monitors for the waste gas also indicated elevated figures. Pin holes on the fuel rods are the most likely cause. (If so, it is a typical failure and may not be directly connected to the quake.)

Again TEPCO claims no atmospheric release of radioactivity.

The successive failures after the quake, though moderate in scale, cast serious doubts on the safety of the aging BWRs.

Sources: Jiji News 24 and 25 July, Mainichi Newspaper 24 and 25 July, Kyodo 24 July 2000

Magpie comment:

Fukushima-I reactors (6 BWRs) are one of the oldest running reactors in Japan, and there has been a growing concern on their safety. Now that Units 2, and 6 are switched off, and Unit 4 and 5 under inspection, only two react ors (Units 1 and 3) are running at Fukushima-I. The neighboring Fukushima-II reactors (4 BWRs) are less old, but share the vulnerability of BWRs against earthquakes.

The triple shutdown does not immediately jeopardize the supply of electricity to the Tokyo metropolis, since TEPCO has an enormous capacity of non-nuclear back-up power plants. The series of accidents are significant, however, in that they clearly show the horrifying fact that multiple reactors can fail at virtually the same time.

For those participants of NNAF 2000 (i.e. the 8th No Nukes Asia Forum) in Fukushima the week before last, the two Fukushima NP stations are located just to the north of the Naraha Town, where you had the conference, and also enjoyed the spa.

also see: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000724/wl/japan_nuclear_5.html http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/asia/article.html?s=singapore/headlines/000721/asia/afp/Nuclear_plant_shut_down_after_strong_quake_rocks_Japan.html http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000724/ts/japan_nuclear_dc_2.html

----

JPS 07-104
Govt wants more nuclear reactors

Tue, 25 Jul 2000
Japan Press Service jpspress@twics.com

TOKYO JUL 25 JPS -- In a move that goes back on the world's current towards less dependence on nuclear energy, the government's Atomic Energy Commission published a new long-term nuclear energy policy proposal on July 24 stressing the need for Japan to have more nuclear power plants and to depend more on plutonium.

The proposal fails to show details on the total potential capacity of nuclear power generation. But it says that the fast breeder, including when it will be of practical use, needs flexible approaches; the operation of the fast breeder Monju, now being suspended due to the sodium leakage and a fire accident, be resumed as soon as possible.

Commenting on this new policy, Akahata on July 25 said:

The government's policy is completely isolated from the world's and Japan's common sense.

Last year's criticality accident at the uranium processing plant of JCO in Tokai Village in Ibaraki Prefecture added fuel to public anxieties and criticism of the government's nuclear power generation-first policy.

In a national survey on nuclear energy issue, 90 percent of the respondents expressed concern about nuclear power plants and only ten percent supported the idea that Japan needs more nuclear power plants.

Germany decided to withdraw all nuclear power plants by 2020, and no European and American countries are planning to have a new one. They also gave up their fast breeder development plans.

Their decision to stop developing the fast breeder is leading them to stop, or at least consider stopping reprocessing plutonium.

But, with little prospects of a commercial operations of the fast breeder, Japan is pushing ahead with the use of the plutonium for light-water reactors now under operation ("Pluthermal"), which is criticized for harming nuclear safety and wasting money.

Now Japan's nuclear development policy is faced with serious contradictions because of its failure to develop how to deal with the issues of increasing waste storage and high-level waste stockpiled through its reprocessing. The new government policy will only help worsen such position. (end item)

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Unveils Nuclear Procedures

July 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Pakistan-Nuclear.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan has a new procedure for the export of nuclear material and equipment, according to full-page advertisements placed by the government in English- and Urdu-language daily newspapers Tuesday.

The army-led government published application forms for any firm that might want to export material referred to in the advertisement as ``nuclear substances, radioactive material or any other substances prescribed by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.''

This procedure is apparently part of Pakistan's earlier promise to establish clear controls over its nuclear material and equipment.

Pakistan and hostile neighbor India declared themselves nuclear powers in 1998 after conducting tit-for-tat nuclear explosions. Both countries say they possess a nuclear deterrence, but neither has said which nuclear weapons they possess and how many.

The international community has been pressing both countries to come up with legislation that will protect the transfer of nuclear technology.

Pakistan has repeatedly given assurances that its nuclear know-how would not be for sale.

The commerce ministry's public notice also covers the sale of ``equipment used for production, use or application of nuclear energy, including generation of electricity.''

The notice lists the substances that require special permission to sell. The 11 items on that list include enriched uranium, plutonium, heavy water, nuclear grade graphite, and natural and depleted uranium.

The ministry also has listed 17 pieces of nuclear-related equipment that requires special permission to export. The list includes nuclear power reactor, reactor control system, nuclear research reactor, and equipment for separating uranium isotopes, including gas centrifuges and magnets.

The notice is the first detailed explanation of what Pakistan's military government considers sensitive materials that require controls. It also gives responsibility to the Atomic Energy Commission, a government agency, to verify equipment and material to be exported.

-------- russia

Russia's rogue ambitions

EDITORIAL •
July 25, 2000
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-2000725185517.htm

Russian President Vladimir Putin was the star attendee of this weekend's summit of the Group of Eight industrialized countries. Although he can't look to a booming economy to underpin his country's prominence, Mr. Putin has found a way to make Russia a player on the global stage.

By meeting with China's and North Korea's leaders right before arriving in Okinawa for the summit, Mr. Putin was able to make a dramatic entrance. Many heads of state were eager to speak to the Russian president to gain insights on China and the reclusive North Korean leader. By using Russia's eclectic connections, Mr. Putin is becoming a kind of power broker to rogue states.

On Wednesday, Mr. Putin announced that North Korea would abandon its missile program if only the West would supply the Asian country with rockets to explore space. Since these rockets would use similar technology as missiles that deploy nuclear, biological and conventional warheads, some experts wondered if the dry Mr. Putin was making an attempt at deadpan humor.

But Mr. Putin wasn't joking. "One should expect other countries, if they assert that [North Korea] poses a threat for them, would support this project. They can minimize the threat by supplying [North Korea] with their own rocket boosters," he said. The Russian president is posing as a mediator for peace, but his efforts are disingenuous, and transparently so. Giving North Korea advanced rocket capabilities would only serve to intensify tensions on the Korean peninsula.

By downplaying the threat that North Korea poses, Mr. Putin is also trying to undermine U.S. efforts to build a defensive shield to guard against a missile or nuclear attack. Mr. Putin fears Russia's geopolitical stature would be severely undermined if the United States were successful in developing this technology - and he is right.

While in China, the Russian president reiterated his opposition to U.S. plans to build such a defense system. In a joint statement, the Russian and Chinese leaders accused Washington of using the shield "to seek unilateral military and security advantages that will pose the most grave, adverse consequences" to China, Russia and the United States itself. Mr. Putin added: "Our two countries presently share a common position on the global security balance."

In other words, Mr. Putin is seeking to undercut U.S. power by building informal alliances with some undistinguished company and blocking U.S. plans to build a national missile defense. He is not doing his country any good this way. Although Russia certainly doesn't have a stellar international image, it is still more respected than North Korea. Far better were it for his people, if Mr. Putin would instead concentrate on the arduous task of rebuilding his country's economy. The Russians deserve as much.

-------- turkey

TURKEY CANCELS AKKUYU NUCLEAR PLANT
NUCLEAR AWARENESS PROJECT - nucaware@web.ca
Media Release: Tuesday July 25, 2000

Toronto - Following a cabinet meeting in Ankara today, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit announced the cancellation of the controversial nuclear power plant that was proposed to be built at Akkuyu Bay on Turkey's Mediterranean coast north of Cyprus.

In a stunning front page interview yesterday (July 24th) in the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet, Ecevit observed that "The world is abandoning nuclear power." In a public statement following a cabinet meeting today, Ecevit stated "It is unnecessary for us, for the time being, to invest in nuclear energy." Ecevit emphasized that Turkey would focus on energy conservation and invest in natural gas, hydro-electricity, as well as solar and wind generation.

Ecevit's statement reflected the fact that most of the world has stopped building new nuclear plants, and has opted for cheaper, cleaner, and safer means of generating electricity. Nuclear power has been plagued by high cost, erratic performance, endemic technical problems, the risk of catastrophic accidents, and environmental problems such as routine radiation releases and radioactive waste management. World nuclear power use is expected to peak in 2002, and then begin a period of sustained and permanent decline. Reliable independent cost studies show that nuclear power plants are about twice as expensive to build and operate as high-efficiency natural gas generating plants. Canada has been forced to temporarily shut down one-third of its own nuclear power reactors because of poor performance, bad management and safety problems.

The decision is a serious blow to the three nuclear vendors bidding to build the nuclear plant, and a major setback for the international nuclear industry. Canada's state-owned nuclear company, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) was competing against Nuclear Power International (NPI -- a consortium of the German company Siemens and the French company Framatome), and a third bidder, a partnership of Westinghouse (USA/UK) and Mitsubishi (Japan).

The Akkuyu nuclear plant had sparked an unprecedented groundswell of opposition within Turkey, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean region and around the world. Turkey's latest attempt to build a nuclear plant at Akkuyu began with a request for preliminary proposals in 1992, although revised bid specifications were not released until December 1996. Following the final bid deadline of October 15, 1997, Turkey delayed the selection of a vendor no less than eight times between June 1998 and April 2000.

The extraordinarily high cost of nuclear power has been the indirect cause of Turkey's decision. This spring, the Turkish Treasury department refused to provide a sovereign (state) financial guarantee (at least initially) for the loans being made by vendor country governments for the nuclear plant, which was costing about $3.6 billlion (CDN) (about $2.5 billion US). In a surprise development, Westinghouse reportedly offered to proceed without a sovereign guarantee. AECL also confirmed last week that it was willing to proceed without a sovereign guarantee, and was searching for private sector "bridge" financing of $100 million.

The loss of the Akkuyu contract is a blow to AECL, a publicly funded federal Canadian crown corporation. AECL has seen its reactor export plans collapse over the last 5 years. As part of a federal government program review in 1995, AECL identified a plan to sell "ten reactors in ten years". On the basis of this plan, the Chretien government committed to provide a $100 million-per-year subsidy indefinitely to AECL. However, the only sale since that time has been two reactors to China in 1996. Since its founding in 1952, AECL has received subsidies of over $15 billion from the federal government.

In 1997 a leaked cabinet document revealed that the Chrétien government had agreed to provide $1.5 billion of government funds in financing for the Akkuyu plant. AECL's bid was for $2.572 billion (US) (about $3.6 billion Canadian) for two 700 MW CANDU reactors. AECL's bid was targeted by an effective international campaign. Nuclear Awareness Project worked closely with activists opposing Akkuyu in Canada, Europe, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean for the last four years. The campaign included speaking tours throughout Canada, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. The international campaign flooded the office of Prime Minister Chretien and other cabinet ministers with over 100,000 cards, letters and e-mails.

Dave Martin, Research Director for Nuclear Awareness Project, stated,

"The cancellation of Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear plant is a death knell for the international nuclear industry. Renewable energy is the way of the future."

"It's time to pull the plug on 48 years of senseless Canadian government subsidies to AECL. More nuclear subsidies are just throwing good money after bad."

"Turkey has made a wise decision to forego nuclear power and focus its electricity program on conservation, renewable energy, and high efficiency natural gas. There will be huge environmental, economic and security benefits from this decision."

"A nuclear program would only have interfered with Turkey's hard road ahead in building a sustainable energy future, healing its economy, democratizing its political system, and improving its human rights record."

The Akkuyu nuclear plant was opposed for a variety of reasons, including earthquake risk at the site, the possibility that it would contribute to nuclear weapons development, and ongoing human rights abuses in Turkey.

Some of Turkey's most prominent earthquake experts have demanded a halt to the nuclear plant until further research is conducted on the Akkuyu area. The death of over 18,000 people in the Izmit earthquake is a tragic testimony to the human cost of poor planning and inadequate regulation. The Turkish government and the nuclear vendors conspired to cover up the real earthquake risk at the Akkuyu site. An earthquake would have been the most likely cause of a catastrophic nuclear accident at Akkuyu. Such an accident could have had devastating consequences for the 165 million people in the eastern Mediterranean region.

The dark underside of nuclear power has always been its potential for nuclear weapons proliferation, either through the production of plutonium -- an inevitable byproduct of reactor operation -- or through the transfer of sensitive nuclear information, technology and materials. Turkey's nuclear program would have fanned the flames of the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Turkey has already been implicated in nuclear arms aid to Pakistan. An earlier attempt to build an Argentinean-designed reactor was likely aimed at plutonium production for nuclear weapons. Evidence of nuclear smuggling based in Turkey, and Turkey's push for its own nuclear fuel capability and indigenous reactor design, all pointed to possible nuclear weapons development. The support of prominent Turkish citizens for nuclear weapons development has leant credence to this evidence.

Turkey has a long history of gross human rights abuses, which include systematic widespread torture and murder of prisoners in custody; death squad murders; disappearances; restrictions on freedom of speech; and incommunicado detention without legal representation. Despite the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, and his ceasefire call, human rights improvements have been minimal. Incidence of torture actually worsened in 1999 as compared to the previous two years. Restrictions on free speech and overt political repression have continued despite pressure on Turkey to meet western standards in order to join the European Union.

Turkish political history over the last 40 years has been characterized by a series of unstable governments, interrupted at intervals by four military coups -- in 1960, 1971, 1980, and most recently in June 1997, when the government of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, was forced out of office. Allegations of corruption at the highest levels have added to this political instability, which has been accompanied by economic instability. Inflation has averaged more than 80% per year over the last ten years, and the national debt is over $100 billion (US). It remains to be seen if the current $4 billion (US), three- year anti-inflation program sponsored by the International Monetary Fund will succeed. Five similar programs in the 1990s failed, and many Turks believe that the cure may be worse than the disease.

----

Turkey Puts Off Nuclear Plant Plans

July 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Turkey-Nuclear-Plant.html

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey is giving up any immediate plans to build its first nuclear power plant -- a project the prime minister said Tuesday is too costly, at least for now.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said the government cannot afford to spend $3 billion to $4 billion on the nuclear plant, while it is committed to an economic austerity program.

``It is unnecessary for us, for the time being, to invest in nuclear energy.... Our economic stability program could seriously be hampered,'' Ecevit said.

He said Turkey would reconsider building the plant in 10 to 20 years. The plant had been planned for Akkuyu near the Mediterranean coast.

``It would not be right for us to totally abandon building nuclear energy plants, but it would be appropriate to delay it for a while and allow new generation nuclear stations to come into effect,'' Ecevit said.

Ecevit said Turkey would invest in natural gas and hydroelectric plants and seek to reduce energy waste to meet its increasing energy demands.

Turkey has an increasing shortage of energy. Whole districts of Ankara, the capital, and other cities had their natural gas supplies cut for several days last winter. The country plans to buy more electricity from Bulgaria.

-------

Turkey Puts Nuke Power Plans on Indefinite Hold

July 25, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-turkey-.html

ANKARA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Tuesday that Turkey was postponing plans to build its first nuclear power plant to wait for nuclear technology to improve and for the country's finances to stabilize.

Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Ecevit said Turkey had scrapped a long-delayed tender to building a multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast near Akkuyu.

But he stressed that Turkey was not ruling out a possible return to nuclear power as a means to meet the country's growing energy needs.

``It would be wrong for us to abandon building a nuclear power plant but it would be right to delay it for a while and wait for new technology in this area,'' Ecevit told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

Ecevit also said that the multi-billion-dollar cost of the planned nuclear plant in southern Turkey could throw the country's IMF-backed economic reform package off track.

``The cancellation of the Akkuyu tender does not mean we have abandoned nuclear energy, once the (economic) stability program has reached its aims, nuclear plants will come back onto the agenda,'' he said.

Turkey's treasury had refused to provide financing guarantees to the Akkuyu project, arguing the terms of Turkey's three-year $4 billion stand-by accord with the International Monetary Fund forbids such large guarantees.

The project has also faced environmentalist opposition focusing on concerns that the planned site lay too close to active earthquake fault lines and that it might deter tourists from visiting Turkey's Mediterranean coastline.

Ecevit said such concerns were unfounded and were not the reasons for the decision to delay Turkey's entrance into nuclear energy production.

Turkey plans to increase imports of natural gas as a central way of meeting its rapidly growing power needs.

``As a country committed to large numbers of natural gas and hydro-electric power plants, like other OECD countries, it is presently unnecessary for us to direct ourselves to nuclear energy. It is undesirable economically,'' said.

He also cited a report by Turkish power authority TEAS saying that most of the Western world had either slowed down or stopped their program of nuclear power plants.

U.S. Westinghouse Electric Co (a unit of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd BNFL), Canada's AECL and Franco-German Nuclear Power International (NPI) competed to build the $2.5-$4.5 billion plant on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

-------- us nuc politics

Our Nuclear Legacy

July 25, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/00/07/25/letters/l25nuk.html

To the Editor:
Richard Rhodes provides a useful reminder that "when it comes to developing nuclear weapons, there are no real secrets anymore" (Op-Ed, July 24). But he does not follow that to the conclusion that our nuclear laboratories should be scaled back, simplified and largely mothballed.

It is illogical that the United States should still have vast scientific programs for developing new nuclear weapons. That just means more waste and more potential for security leaks and for the ultimate use of some nuclear device.

VICTOR CHEN New York, July 24, 2000

----

Alvin L. Alm, 63, Dies
Environmental Official With Federal Agencies

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post
Tuesday, July 25, 2000; Page B06
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/25/025l-072500-idx.html

Alvin L. Alm, 63, a former high-ranking federal environmental official who at his death was president of Chambers Associates Inc., a public policy consulting firm in Washington, died July 24 at Georgetown University Hospital.

A spokesman for the D.C. medical examiner said determination of Mr. Alm's death was under investigation.

His government career began in 1963 at the Bureau of the Budget, where he became a senior budget examiner. He worked on water pollution control programs before holding posts with the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In his last government post, as the Energy Department's assistant secretary for environmental management from 1996 to 1998, he helped engineer a controversial 10-year cleanup of many of the nation's nuclear waste dumps--a task that had been estimated to take up to 70 years. The Engineering News-Record reported in 1997 that the previous plan would have cost up to $350 billion but that Mr. Alm's would cost less than $150 billion.

"Our goal is to clean up the sites so they can be used for a wide variety of uses and reduce the obligations on future generations," he told an interviewer in 1997.

At Chambers Associates, which he joined last year, he and a co-worker were promoting a plan to create a nongovernmental association supervised by Chambers to address the environmental goals he worked on at Energy.

Alvin Leroy Alm, a Falls Church resident, was a Denver native and a 1960 graduate of the University of Denver. He received a master's degree in public administration at Syracuse University and came to Washington in 1961 as an Atomic Energy Commission intern.

In 1970, he was hired as the first staff director of the newly created Council on Environmental Quality and, three years later, joined the EPA as assistant administrator for planning and management. He left the EPA in 1977, then returned in 1983 for two years as deputy administrator under William D. Ruckelshaus.

Ruckelshaus, in a July 24 interview, said he had asked for Mr. Alm in an effort to help resuscitate the agency's morale after run-ins with the Reagan administration.

Between EPA jobs, he was assistant secretary of policy and evaluation at the Energy Department and lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he directed the energy security program.

From late 1980s until rejoining Energy, he worked in the private sector. He was chairman and chief executive officer of Thermal Analytical Corp., chief executive officer of Alliance Technologies Corp., and senior vice president and board member of Science Applications International Corp.

At his death, he was executive director of the Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities.

At EPA in the mid-1970s, he received the Arthur S. Fleming Award to honor outstanding young professionals in the federal service, and he later received an Energy Department Distinguished Service Medal.

-------- idaho

Nuclear shipments resume

Associated Press
July 25, 2000
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/07/07282000/ap_idafire_15160.asp?P=1http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=072500&ID=s830445&cat=

IDAHO FALLS _ After a 10-month hiatus, shipments of plutonium-contaminated waste from eastern Idaho to the federal dump in New Mexico will resume this week, the Energy Department announced on Monday.

Beverly Cook the department's Idaho manager, limited her commitment to the requirement that 15,000 barrels of plutonium-contaminated waste be shipped out of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory by the end of 2002.

The full shipment of 42 drums of radioactive waste is scheduled to leave the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory on Wednesday.

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

July 25, 2000
Daybook
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000725213719.htm
TODAY'S HEADLINERS

Missile defense testimony - 9:30 a.m. - Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing to receive testimony on the national missile defense program. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen testifies. Location: 216 Hart Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3871.

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

-------- arms sales

DIA excluded on transfers of arms

July 25, 2000
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200072523144.htm

The Pentagon is excluding the Defense Intelligence Agency from reviewing weapons sales to Israel, raising fears that American technology will be diverted to unintended third countries. A memo circulating within the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency says its analysts no longer must contact the DIA for input before approving transfers to Israel of sensitive technologies such as aircraft and missile parts.

"There has been a new focus on Israel upstairs," says the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. "That is what's prompted the guidance."

"Cases for Israeli companies or the Israeli [Defense Ministry] should be staffed to [technology security operation] only," says the memo. "Israeli cases will not be routinely staffed to DIA."

The memo, say Pentagon officials opposed to the change, means the Defense Department will be hamstrung in stopping transfers since it is the DIA that determines whether an Israeli company would divert the material.

These officials, who asked not to be named, expressed puzzlement over the change in light of the fact that Israel is suspected of transferring U.S. weapons technology to China. They wonder if the loosening of oversight is tied to the Clinton administration's attempts to convince Israel to sign a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The June 27 memo says, "As a result of a meeting with Dave Tarbell, the previous guidance of staffing all Israel cases to [technology security operation] and DIA is rescinded."

The technology operation is a small shop inside the threat agency's Technology Security Directorate, which is headed by Mr. Tarbell.

The internal agency memo lists four circumstances in which only the technology review office - and not DIA - needs to review a proposed U.S.-to-Israel transfer. They are a new start program; sensitive technologies such as aircraft and missiles; large quantities of previously exported material; and companies "that have a history of unsavory dealings."

The memo does not explain why the DIA is being excluded.

A spokeswoman at the agency said yesterday Mr. Tarbell was traveling and unavailable to comment.

"This is something we would prefer Mr. Tarbell have a response to and he isn't available right now," she said.

Said a Pentagon employee who opposes the policy change: "Israel is a technology risk for reverse engineering. It's a great technology risk, one of the greatest in the world. . . . It's tantamount to a blank check approval for anything they want, which is a tremendous change in policy."

Israel, like other buyers of U.S. components, agrees in writing not to transfer the goods, which may include radars, computer parts and sensors.

The Pentagon official said that in the past the agency has opposed supercomputer sales to Israel for fear the technology would be diverted to another country.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have suspected Israel of taking U.S. advanced technology and illegally shipping it to third countries, especially China.

Earlier this month, Israel announced it had suspended - under intense U.S. pressure - plans to sell advanced radar equipment to China for installation in an early-warning spy plane.

The U.S. intelligence community has evidence that Israel in the mid-1990s sold avionics components from its abandoned Lavi fighter to China for its developing F-10 fighter-bomber.

Washington convinced Israel to cancel the Lavi in the late 1980s on grounds it was eating up too large a share of $1.8 billion in annual U.S. defense aid. Modeled on the U.S. F-16 Falcon, the Lavi prototype contained some of the latest American know-how in composite materials and flight controls.

After the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the United States also compiled evidence that Israel transferred Patriot anti-missile technology to China.

The Washington Times reported last year that the DIA suspects Israel of sharing laser-gun technology with China that Tel Aviv gained from an American-Israeli joint program.

Publicly, Israel and China have denied violating U.S. export regulations.

Republicans have accused the Clinton administration and its oversight agencies, which includes the Pentagon's Technology Security Directorate, of being too lax in controlling U.S. technology exports.

The process of approving weapons and so-called "dual use" commodities to Israel, as well as other countries, typically involves the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and the Commerce and State departments.

If analysts in the Technology Security Directorate oppose a transfer, and Mr. Tarbell agrees, the Pentagon's case is taken to an interagency committee. If this group cannot agree, the decision is kicked up to the deputy secretary level.

Pentagon officials say there is a steady stream of applications to transfer technology to Israel.

-------- iran

Hitler in a turban

July 19, 2000
Arnold Beichman
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2000719194149.htm

Whatever the outcome at Camp David, Iran has just announced that it will not tolerate any kind of peace, let alone an armistice, in the Middle East. The ayatollah theocracy, which runs the most efficient terrorist apparatus in the world, made this bellicose announcement in dramatic, shot-across-the-bow fashion: It successfully test-fired a ballistic missile with an 800-mile range carrying a 1-ton warhead.

This test-firing of the Shahab-3 missile, which could reach either Israel or Saudi Arabia, where American troops are stationed, in little more than a minute, is, first, a direct slap at President Clinton's Mideast diplomacy and, second, highlights the bankruptcy of the administration's policy of sucking up to nonexisting or powerless "moderates" in Iran. It is also a warning to Yasser Arafat and the PLO not to make a deal with Israel under any circumstances - or else.

In the face of this Iranian intervention what course should the ever endangered Israel pursue? This life-and-death question has pertinence in light of an historic event which involved Israel 19 years ago.

On Sunday, June 7, 1981, at precisely 6:37 p.m., nine Israeli jets destroyed an almost-completed Iraqi nuclear reactor located 12 miles east of Baghdad. With that pre-emptive strike, the Israelis destroyed the 75-megawatt, $275 million Osirak reactor because they claimed it could have been used to make atomic bombs to be directed against the Jewish state. There was only one casualty, a French technician.

Israel explained the raid in stark, simple language: "We under no circumstances will allow an enemy to develop against our people weapons of mass destruction."

The pre-emptive bombing of the Iraq reactor was heartily condemned - yes, condemned - in Washington and the United Nations, even though U.S. sources disclosed that the facility, according to the Associated Press, might have been operational "within two weeks."

As it turned out, what Israel did in 1981 was a service not merely to itself or to other democracies but to the Arab world as well. For with atomic weapons at his command, Saddam Hussein could have conquered Iran, seized Saudi Arabia (let alone Kuwait) and made himself master of the Persian Gulf.

On July 15, Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, said in different words what Israel had stated 19 years ago:

"When such a regime has a long-range capacity combined with a tremendous effort to combine it with nuclear projects, it's of great concern to Israel."

Mr. Sneh told the Associated Press, without giving details, that Israel is prepared to forestall "the dangers of Iran's weapons technology."

Iran's dictatorship today is mired in a pre-revolutionary crisis in which people, especially university students, are turning out almost daily in protest parades. Iran's economy is in shambles despite increased oil revenues. Internal terror against the Iranian people is routine despite seeming democratic practices like elections whose results are ignored. The results of the last presidential election in 1997 showed that an overwhelming 70 percent of the voters wanted reform and a liberalized government.

The Iranian missile threat is a calamitous event, the dangers of which cannot be exaggerated. Iran has already developed or will soon develop, with help from Russia, China and North Korea, weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivery within 800 miles of the launch site. Iran's xenophobic rulers are fanatics - think of the fatwa against the novelist, Salman Rushdie - who combine ancient belief systems with ultramodern weaponry. They are ready to sacrifice 65 million Iranians and the rest of the Middle East in their quest for sectarian domination.

Israel knows all this; Saudi Arabia knows all this. The White House knows all this; the national security adviser, the secretary of state, Congress - everybody - knows that Iran's Supreme Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 61, is Hitler in a turban. Or is that too impolite to say?

Wake up, Mr. Clinton, and let's hear the true story of how this administration has in eight years created a crisis which need never have happened. Is Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, to be sacrificed on the altar of Clintonian diplomacy?

Arnold Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a Washington Times columnist.

-------- korea

The 'BW' Myth Debunked

By Stephen S. Rosenfeld
Tuesday, July 25, 2000; Page A23
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/25/014l-072500-idx.html

The Korean War was raging in the Cold War '50s, and the North Korean aggressors and their Chinese patrons were accusing the United States, which had come to the defense of South Korea, of conducting biological war. These allegations created an international furor and could not be put away by repeated official American denials. Many people vaguely nurse them to this day.

Indeed, as recently as two years ago, Indiana University Press published a reiteration of the charges. In "The United States and Biological Warfare; Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea," Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman claim that new Western and Chinese documents have "lifted the veil of secrecy to provide new evidence that the United States had an operational biological weapons system, and that it was employed in the Korean War."

The document game isn't what it used to be, however, now that some (far from all) Soviet archives are being opened to scholars not under Communist discipline.

In this case the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun scored a grand scoop two years ago in reporting findings from 12 Central Committee documents on "BW." They were subsequently translated and issued by the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The documents were written in the politically charged atmosphere that enveloped the Kremlin just after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died in March 1953. They provide, says Milton Leitenberg, a leading expert now at the University of Maryland, "explicit and detailed evidence that the [BW] charges [against the United States] were contrived and fraudulent."

One citation sums it up. It's a Soviet government statement directed to the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. "The Soviet Government and the Central Committee of the [Soviet Communist Party] were misled," says the statement accusingly. "The spread in the press of information about the use by the Americans of bacteriological weapons in Korea was based on false information. The accusations against the Americans were fictitious."

In another of the documents, Stalin's would-be successor Lavrenti Beria, later to be murdered by his colleagues, informs them that to throw off a panel of visiting foreign inspectors, the Soviet ambassador in North Korea had somehow been involved in hoking up "two false regions of infection" to blame on the Americans. Apparently rival Soviet security bureaucracies were at work.

Until the Soviet documents surfaced, it was possible at least to wonder whether the United States had been capable of conducting BW in Korea. There had been an American World War II BW program, though it had not resulted in weapons being used in the field. The American government had then made a grant of war-crimes immunity to buy the technical cooperation of the team with which Japan had actually practiced BW in China in World War II. The United States itself did not sign the Geneva Protocol forbidding BW until 1972.

But once these sensational Soviet documents surfaced, it became no longer possible for anyone to believe in good faith that the United States had been guilty as charged.

The North Koreans are a special case. After the BW book came out, and citing it, North Korea's United Nations ambassador on March 9, 1999, revived the BW accusations in the Security Council. A North Korean domestic radio broadcast followed. Is this despicable word North Korea's last on the subject? A moment when North Korea is lurching into diplomatic engagement with the United States is a good time to know.

Indiana University Press and co-authors Endicott and Hagerman, both teachers of history at York University in Toronto, have their own explaining to do. Is not a university press obliged to pursue truth as well as nourish controversy? Are not scholars under a particular burden of rigorous truth-seeking?

Americans can take comfort in the belated but virtually complete discrediting of hideous BW charges that do not die. But that is not the only reason to chase these charges to ground. Notes the relentless BW researcher Leitenberg: "Making false allegations of the use of any weapon of mass-destruction--chemical, biological or nuclear weapons--is a serious affair. It is extremely detrimental to efforts to maintain the international norms against the use of such weapons. Hence it is anything but a trivial propaganda issue."

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

Pentagon Uncertain on ABMs by 2005

July 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Missile-Defense.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two consecutive failures to shoot down a mock warhead in space with a land-based interceptor have ``called into question the realism'' of having a national missile defense ready by 2005, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Tuesday.

Nonetheless, Cohen said that it is too early to give up on the 2005 target date. Yet he conceded in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the failed flight tests in January and July were unhelpful.

``Perhaps it has called into question the realism of the date,'' Cohen said, noting that this was the view of retired Gen. Larry Welch, head of a panel that is advising the Pentagon on its national missile defense project. He added that both he and Welch believe the 2005 target date is ``the date we ought to continue to focus on.''

Cohen is due to make a recommendation to President Clinton -- probably in mid-August -- on whether to proceed toward having a system of 20 missile interceptors and a new high-powered X-band radar ready by 2005.

It is possible that Cohen would recommend moving the start-up date to 2006 or later. He gave no indication in his Senate testimony that he thinks this is necessary, although he pointedly left open that possibility by conceding under questioning that testing thus far has failed to show the system is technically feasible.

The 2005 date is important because, according to Pentagon projections, it would take five years to complete the construction necessary for an anti-missile shield capable of defending all 50 states against a limited attack of ballistic missiles from North Korea.

The initial system is designed explicitly to intercept a threat from North Korea, which the Pentagon expects will have missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil by 2005.

If Clinton does not give the go-ahead this fall to begin groundbreaking work next year at the X-band radar site on Shemya Island, Alaska, then the entire project will be set back by at least one year, Cohen said.

Cohen noted that it might be possible for Clinton to approve awarding the construction contracts this fall, with the stipulation that a separate decision would be made next year to actually execute the contracts. Because of the harsh weather conditions on Shemya, work can only be done during the summer.

Congress passed a law last year requiring the Pentagon to deploy a national missile defense as soon as technologically possible.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that in his view this law amounted to a national decision to go ahead with missile defense. The only question is how soon, he said.

Cohen said, however, that determining when missile defense is technologically possible is a more complicated question involving such things as its affordability and the implications for broader U.S. national security concerns, such as arms control agreements with Russia, relations with China and European concerns.

``It's not simple. It's complicated,'' Cohen said. ``But that's part of the work of diplomacy and persuasion, and that's what we've been seeking to do.''

Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee, told Cohen he believes Clinton should put off a decision on moving ahead with deployment, in light of the January and July flight test failures.

``The time has come to acknowledge that the 2005 deployment goal is no longer realistic, and should be adjusted,'' Levin said.

``President Clinton does not need to -- and should not -- make the determination this year that the currently proposed (national missile defense) will be deployed,'' Levin said. Instead the president should adopt a ''3-D'' policy of continuing development of the technology, discussion of related arms control issues with the Russians, and deferral of any decision to deploy a national missile defense to the next administration.

Levin pressed Cohen to say whether he agreed that the Pentagon's testing so far has failed to show that the proposed national missile defense is technologically feasible.

``I think that's accurate, but I believe that the trend is such that these are problems that are correctable,'' Cohen replied.

-------- OTHER

-------- spying

Forsaking our security?

July 20, 2000
Robert L. Maginnis
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000720161217.htm

Majority Leader Trent Lott promises that the Senate will soon grant China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) but at the same time they should send a pro-security message to the next president by passing the "China Nonproliferation Act." Without an aggressive security stand, Chinese spies will continue to fleece America of its technology.

Either our government is incredibly naive about China or it is corrupt. Earlier this week, for example, The Washington Times reported that communist China annually sends hundreds of low wage technicians to work inside American high-tech firms on military-related programs. This is especially alarming given last year's Cox report.

That report warned that Beijing forces American firms to hand over technology to obtain entry to Chinese markets. It also revealed that Beijing uses Chinese nationals employed by U.S. firms to steal technology.

The "China Nonproliferation Act," which is pending passage in the Senate, would restrict the sale, transfer or misuse of sensitive technologies to the communist Chinese. It would require the president to closely monitor all transactions with China that might help that regime's military forces and compel China to stop transferring missile technology to rogue countries such as Iran.

A serious effort to curb China's feast on American technologies is overdue. During President Clinton's stewardship, China has bought or stolen some of our technological crown jewels: secrets to seven nuclear warheads, ballistic missile know-how, and deep-sea and stealth technologies.

Mr. Clinton's Commerce Department blatantly circumvented important security checks to allow high-technology sales to China. Missile and satellite firms like Loral and Hughes sold know-how to the Chinese, which helped their ballistic missile program. The administration liberalized high-performance computer exports to China. These computers are now being used to test and design nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. In 1996, in order to sell technology, the administration falsely certified that China is not a nuclear proliferator, but recent reports indicate that China continues to help Pakistan and Iran develop atomic programs.

Security problems at Los Alamos were exacerbated by Mr. Clinton's first energy secretary, Hazel O'Leary, who dramatically loosened security procedures at the lab. This decision drew national attention last year after the Wen Ho Lee spy scandal broke. At that time, the new energy secretary, Bill Richardson, promised to fix the security nightmare, but this spring, there was more bad news when hard drives containing top secret nuclear information mysteriously disappeared for a time.

The security crisis is pervasive. This spring the FBI discovered monitoring bugs planted inside State Department rooms. The State Department also lost a laptop computer loaded with top secret military information.

Last month, China's Xinhua News Agency, a front for China's Ministry of State Security, purchased a new headquarters building that has a view of the Pentagon's outermost corridor, where senior officials work and an array of antennas on the Pentagon's roof are located. Interestingly, this same complex was once owned by the East German government, known for its aggressive spying. Days after the purchase was publicized, Congress voted to block the sale.

Security against Chinese intrusion isn't much better inside the Pentagon. The Defense Department's Technology Security Policy Office (DTSPO) that oversees high-tech transfers to potential adversaries is being moved miles away and key intelligence assessments of proposed technology transfers are being shut down.

The DTSPO, which was previously known as the Defense Technology Security Administration, has been the lone administration voice that has consistently objected to the Commerce Department's open door treatment of the Chinese.

Recently, Dave Tarbell, who directs the DTSPO, made technology transfers to China easier. He directed his staff to cut the Defense Intelligence Agency out of the review process for technologies bound for Israel. Insiders complain that decoupling DIA from the review process removes a major barrier to the transfer of sophisticated technologies to Israel, that could then be sold to China.

Mr. Tarbell's directive came days prior to the arrival of Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Shen who came to Washington to "straighten things out" over a planned sale of Phalcon, an airborne warning and control system, to China. Under pressure, last week, Israel pulled the Phalcon sale.

Recently, Mr. Tarbell ordered DIA to exclude foreigners who are working for U.S. high-tech firms, so-called "deemed export" cases, from their threat assessment to Congress. This is significant because some of our best technology firms clamor for cheap, highly trained Chinese labor. Beijing eagerly ships them to Silicon Valley where using special visas, they displace American workers and may eventually return to China with our secrets.

American companies and our government have been poor custodians of this nation's technology and the problem has become worse under this administration. Immediate action is needed.

The Senate should reject PNTR but, if Congress must grant China PNTR, then it should protect our technology by passing the "China Nonproliferation Act."

Congress should ask the DIA about Pentagon guidance regarding intelligence assessments of technology bound for Israel and other countries that sell military technology to China.

Congress should also investigate why Chinese nationals with access to U.S. export controlled technology are specifically excluded from their threat assessment.

Finally, the American people must insist that this administration's security ineptitude not be repeated. The next president must appoint reliable people who will guard our secrets.

Since 1993, stolen or purchased American technology has enabled China's military to advance decades beyond where it would have been without our help. That nation, which considers the U.S. an "enemy" and whose defense minister said war with the U.S. is "inevitable," soon will be prepared to face our military on the battlefield.

Robert L. Maginnis is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and is the Family Research Council's vice president for national security and foreign affairs.

--------

Former counterspy calls probe retaliation by FBI

July 25, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000725231642.htm

Former Energy Department counterspy Notra Trulock charged yesterday that an FBI leak investigation of him is a politically motivated effort to retaliate for his criticism of FBI failures over Chinese nuclear spying.

Mr. Trulock asked the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees in letters sent yesterday to investigate the circumstances surrounding the FBI's July 6 seizure of a computer containing his personal information, without a warrant, as part of an investigation into disclosures of classified information.

The FBI action is part of an effort "to intimidate me and was in retaliation for my whistleblowing," he stated.

"The FBI came into my home after threatening and intimidating the homeowner for nearly three hours and seized a personal computer containing not only a draft of the offending manuscript but also all my personal files, banking records, tax records, and personal information," Mr. Trulock said in letters to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Porter J. Goss, Florida Republican.

"The FBI did so without a search warrant, having coerced consent from the homeowner with threats of breaking in doors and bringing in 'media people' with them," he stated.

FBI spokesman John Collingwood said the computer was taken after the FBI received information from other government agencies that it might contain improperly stored classified information.

He defended the seizure as proper procedure, but he said he had not seen Mr. Trulock's letters to the committees.

Mr. Collingwood said that "if any individual has a concern about the conduct of any FBI employee, that individual should bring that concern to the attention of the FBI's watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility."

The FBI action followed publication of an article by Mr. Trulock in National Review and a letter Mr. Trulock had sent to FBI Director Louis J. Freeh on March 3.

The letter said Neil Gallagher, FBI National Security Division director, gave false testimony to the Senate during its investigation of Chinese spying at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Mr. Gallagher had testified that the Energy Department began investigating Wen Ho Lee, a key suspect in the transfer for W-88 warhead technology to China, in October 1995.

Mr. Trulock, however, told Mr. Freeh that the Energy Department counterspies did not begin looking into Mr. Lee until the spring of 1996 and that the false testimony was intended to deflect criticism of the FBI's mishandling of the case.

"In short, it is evident in retrospect that the FBI did not take seriously the fact of Chinese nuclear espionage," Mr. Trulock said in the letters sent yesterday.

"After I wrote FBI Director Freeh highlight[ing] these issues, the FBI embarked on a campaign to destroy my professional reputation. The seizure of my personal computer on trumped-up allegation of mishandling classified information is the latest outrage," he said.

Mr. Trulock said he believes an FBI official working for the CIA suspected that classified information was contained in an unpublished manuscript Mr. Trulock wrote early this year and notified the FBI of a possible violation of secrecy rules.

Mr. Trulock, Energy Department counterintelligence chief from 1994 to 1998, said normal procedures involving review of classified information in past manuscripts involved an exchange between the agency reviewing the material and the author.

In his case, Mr. Trulock said, the CIA, instead of talking to him, notified the FBI to begin a leak probe.

The passages the FBI did not like "criticize the FBI for its handling of the investigation and the [Department of Energy's] cover-ups, politicization of intelligence, and failure to implement needed security and counterintelligence reforms," Mr. Trulock said.

Mr. Trulock said he has heard the FBI is seeking to "indict me" and is pressuring the Energy Department and CIA to come up with classified data in the manuscript.

In a related development, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, has written to Mr. Freeh asking him to investigate the FBI's case against Mr. Trulock.

"I am concerned that this may be a situation where Mr. Trulock is being harassed for having been a whistle-blower at the Department of Energy and for writing a magazine article critical of the Clinton administration's security policies," Mr. Rohrabacher said in the Thursday letter.

"The perceived political motivation behind prominent Justice Department activities has generated a breach of trust with many lawmakers and the American public," he said.

--------

Serb Journalist Denies Charges at Espionage Trial

July 25, 2000
By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-yugosla.html

NIS, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - A Serb journalist who reported allegations of Yugoslav army atrocities in Kosovo last year denied charges of espionage and spreading false information at his trial Tuesday.

Miroslav Filipovic could face up to 15 years jail if he is found guilty by the military court, defense lawyer Zoran Ateljevic said.

``All accounts of the prosecution are groundless, because the evidence has shown that Filipovic was not guilty of the crimes he was charged with,'' Ateljevic told the court.

Ateljevic addressed the court at the end of the one-day trial. The verdict is due to be announced Wednesday.

Filipovic, who will have the right to appeal, demanded his release from detention regardless of the verdict.

``I am a family man and I miss my wife and my children. I haven't escaped or evaded the court or police during the investigation. If I wanted to run away, I could have done so a number of times before,'' he told the court.

TRIAL BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The first part of the trial, dealing with the espionage charges, took place behind closed doors.

Asked by the judge during the afternoon session whether he denied the charges of spreading false information, Filipovic said: ``Of course, like I did in the first part of the trial.''

Filipovic worked as a correspondent for the Belgrade-based independent daily Danas. He was also a stringer for the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) and reported for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

He wrote about the activities of Yugoslav security services, alleged police repression in southern Serbia, and Yugoslav army reservists' protests in Kraljevo last year.

Basing his reports on soldiers' accounts, he wrote about atrocities alleged to have been committed by troops in Kosovo during the 1999 NATO air campaign aimed at halting Serb repression of the province's ethnic Albanian population.

The charges were read out at the opening of Tuesday's trial.

Those relating to espionage said that ``as of May 1999 until May 2000, Filipovic obtained secret military data with an intention to pass them on to the IWPR and to AFP.''

He was also charged with ``using information (in his articles) on organizational and mobilisation tasks of Yugoslav Army (VJ) units in the territory of Sandzak,'' a southern Serbian region with a large Muslim Slav population.

The charge of allegedly spreading false information said Filipovic wrote that ``during the NATO aggression, the VJ committed atrocities in Kosovo and Metohija.''

Filipovic was arrested in the central town of Kraljevo on May 8 after state security forces searched his apartment and confiscated files and a computer hard drive. He was released on May 12 but re-arrested 10 days later.

The case has prompted worldwide protests from fellow reporters and media and human rights organizations.

--------

Congress Probes F.B.I. E-Mail Snooping Device

July 25, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/biztech/articles/25fbi-carnivore.html

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers of both parties grilled FBI officials Monday over the bureau's use of "Carnivore," a device designed to monitor and capture e-mail messages in a criminal investigation.

Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla., called the hearings amid concerns from privacy groups about an ordinary computer filled with special software that the FBI calls a "reasonable balance" between privacy and law enforcement in an age where crime has gone online.

"Carnivore raises the question as to whether existing statutes protecting citizens from 'unreasonable searches and seizures' under the Fourth Amendment appropriately balance the concerns of law enforcement and privacy," said Canady, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Constitution panel.

"There seems to me to be a growing level of generalized concern about Big Brotherism that I suspect is being fed by the increasing electronic world," said Rep. Melvin L. Watt, D-N.C.

FBI officials defended Carnivore and the bureau's use of the tool to Canady's panel, saying it is used only with proper legal authorization -- in many cases coming from both a senior Justice Department official and a judge.

The FBI likened Carnivore to a traditional telephone tap, saying both need probable cause to be undertaken.

Carnivore is the term used for the entire system, a computer running the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system and software that scans and captures packets, the standard unit of Internet traffic, as they travel through an Internet Service Provider's network. The FBI can install a Carnivore unit at an ISP's network station and configure it to capture only e-mail going to or from the person under investigation.

FBI officials said Carnivore has been used 25 times, including 16 times this year. None of those cases has yet gone to trial, so the FBI would not disclose detailed information about them.

Donald M. Kerr, director of the FBI's laboratory division, said Carnivore searches only the sender and recipient lines of e-mail, not the subject line, as was previously reported. It does not search through the message content for keywords, nor does it monitor Web browsing -- except for Web-based e-mail -- or Instant Messaging, just e-mail traffic, authorities said.

Privacy advocates and some lawmakers voiced concern that only the FBI truly knows what Carnivore does, since after it is installed it is neither supervised nor checked by an ISP's technicians; there isn't even a mouse or keyboard attached for someone to access the machine.

"When you see some things that have happened here in Washington, it gives one reason to worry," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill.

To find out, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request last week for Carnivore's source code, the inner workings of how the device functions.

The FBI gave a preview of its objections to the FOIA request, explaining why the bureau wouldn't want Carnivore's innermost details to be public.

"We would have a problem with full open disclosure, because that, in fact, would allow anyone who chose to develop techniques to spoof what we do an easy opportunity to figure out how to do that," Kerr said.

Deputy Associate Attorney General Kevin V. DiGregory said that for a "rogue FBI agent" to circumvent the law, "he would need to engage the aid of technical people, perhaps even technical people at the Internet service provider, and he would also have to find some way to cover up or change the audit trail that is left by the system so that it doesn't expose his going beyond the court order."

Legislators seemed unconvinced.

"I don't know if we have any way of verifying that the technological part of the response to my question that you've given me, and I know that unfortunately in the past, we've had many agencies, including law enforcement, that have gone beyond the scope of their responsibility," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat. "There's hardly anything new about that."

-------- us politics

Democrats Snag Bush-Cheney Web Site

July 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-Bush-Cheney-Internet.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Minutes after George W. Bush announced his running mate, Democrats were up with a Web site detailing Dick Cheney's conservative voting record.

The Democratic National Committee gobbled up the site, www.bush-cheney.net, late Sunday, and by Tuesday afternoon had posted scores of votes he cast as a member of Congress, where he served in the 1980s.

The site is also sprinkled with quotes from politicians and the media describing Cheney as ultra-conservative, anti-abortion and opposed to affirmative action. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is quoted as saying: ``Cheney's voting record was slightly more conservative than mine.''

The Bush campaign said Democrats were trying to deceive Americans by making the site appear to be generated by Bush-Cheney supporters. ``This is exactly the type of attack politics that has characterized Vice President (Al) Gore and his allies,'' said spokesman Ray Sullivan.

It is not unusual for opponents to snag Web sites that appear, at first, to represent the other side. In this case, the site is clearly labeled as a DNC project.

Detailed sections feature Cheney's votes on family issues, civil rights, education, health care, labor and the environment.

The DNC spotlights scores of votes. It cites votes where he opposed: raising Social Security benefits, spending on a variety of social programs, creation of the Department of Education, reauthorization of Head Start, the Superfund environmental cleanup program and the Clean Water Act.

Bush is running as a ``compassionate conservative,'' more moderate than his GOP predecessors. It is unclear whether Cheney has modified any of these positions over time.

``There's a lot more conservatism in Bush's 'compassionate conservative' than compassion,'' said DNC spokeswoman Jenny Backus. ``Bush's choice of Cheney really demonstrates his true ideology.''

-------- activists

Philadelphia cops prepare

July 25, 2000
By John Drake
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000725231737.htm

Visit our Election 2000 page for daily election news and analysis

Police and would-be demonstrators in Philadelphia are engaging in a battle of wits as each side prepares for protests during next week's Republican national convention.

Philadelphia police last week said they are closely watching people at the activists' private planning meetings, but officials denied accusations that undercover officers were infiltrating protest groups.

Meanwhile, activists have spread their forces throughout the city to prevent a pre-emptive police strike before the first major demonstration on Saturday, citing events during massive protests in the District in April.

Yesterday, activists accused police of trying to intimidate them by following organizers, using electronic listening devices, putting black-clad spotters on rooftops and breaking into activists' headquarters.

Several members of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, an advocacy group for the poor, found electronic devices for listening and tracking a vehicle's location in the trunk of a car and in a building they were using over the weekend, a spokeswoman said.

The devices were not sophisticated, and the group speculated that authorities are using the "bugs" more as a scare tactic than for real surveillance, the spokeswoman said.

"Their primary objective is to put us on the edge and scare us away," said Beka Economopoulos, an organizer with R2K, the umbrella organization of protest groups.

Miss Economopoulos noted that a community arts center for puppet-making that a city agency had declared unsafe and shut down on Friday was reopened later that day after critical news coverage.

"That's consistent with the pattern of pre-emptive strikes" police used in the District of Columbia, Miss Economopoulos said. "We're obviously frustrated, but we're not going to allow that to derail us. We have nothing to hide."

D.C. fire and police officials in April shut down activists' headquarters the day before they were to begin massive protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Activists in Philadelphia also said that black-clad police officers have broken into their offices and photographed supplies, Miss Economopoulos said, adding that the officers refused to identify themselves to an activist who saw them.

Police officials did not return telephone calls about surveillance of activists yesterday.

Police have monitored Web sites the groups are using to organize the demonstrations, a Philadelphia police official told The Washington Times last month.

"Some of these kids in some of these organizations are looking for a confrontation," said Deputy Police Commissioner Robert J. Mitchell.

"They're taking a perverse delight in trying to make things very uncomfortable for us, to really thwart our security planning and delay the delegates," he said.

Authorities said they don't expect demonstrations of the same intensity as those in the District, where more than 1,200 activists were arrested, or last year in Seattle, where nearly 600 were arrested during protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO).

But police have made preparations similar to those taken in the other cities - a mass-arrest plan, extra police and sending officers to crowd control training, or "Riot 101," Commissioner Mitchell said.

A small number of officers have reviewed the use of pepper spray, but Commissioner Mitchell said that is "one of the tools of last resort."

Philadelphia police will have at least two advantages over protesters that D.C. police didn't - a wrought-iron fence and a relatively open area around the convention site.

The fence around the First Union Center, where the Republican convention will be held, was installed when the center was built. It can't be shoved down like the portable barricades used in the District and is much harder to climb.

D.C. police contended with protesters who quickly amassed large groups in between high-rise buildings and surprised officers at barricades. Philadelphia police will be better able to spot large pockets of protesters and adjust officers accordingly.

Unlike Seattle's WTO demonstrations and the District's IMF protests, Philadelphia activists are not calling for a shutdown of the Republican convention.

"We all know what will happen inside. It's just a coronation," Miss Economopoulos said, referring to the likely presidential nomination of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Instead, activists will march throughout the city to highlight a variety of causes, though some human blockades to disrupt the convention are likely, protest leaders said.


--------

Peru's Fujimori Faces Mass Protest

July 25, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Peru-Fujimori.html

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- President Alberto Fujimori prepares to assume a third five-year term this week, facing what could be the largest mass protest in modern Peruvian history against his authoritarian regime.

Alejandro Toledo, the opposition candidate who withdrew from the May presidential runoff accusing Fujimori of planning to rig the results, has vowed to put hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets of Lima to disrupt Fujimori's inauguration Friday.

Toledo said Tuesday that the aim is to show the world that there is widespread opposition in Peru to Fujimori's ``illegitimate government.''

If the protests -- due to begin Wednesday and peak Friday -- turn violent, ``it is the exclusive responsibility of Fujimori's government,'' Toledo told foreign correspondents.

Tens of thousands of police troopers will be in place to prevent demonstrators from reaching the National Palace and Congress, where the inauguration will take place.

Fujimori is also taking office amid growing international isolation. Only two presidents will attend the swearing-in ceremony in Congress -- Gustavo Noboa of Ecuador and Hugo Banzer of Bolivia, both with questionable democratic credentials. Banzer is a former military dictator and Noboa, elected vice president, came to power in January after a military-backed coup ousted President Jamil Mahuad. Fourteen Latin American presidents turned down invitations to attend.

``It will be a victory for us if we force him to be sworn in at the Pentagonito,'' Toledo said, referring to the pentagon-shaped building that is army headquarters. It is located in a Lima suburb.

Normally, a president takes the oath of office before Congress in downtown Lima, driving three blocks from the National Palace to Congress.

The government has announced plans to cordon off 35 square blocks in the center to prevent protesters from clogging the downtown area and blocking Fujimori from reaching Congress. Businesses in the area have been ordered to shut their doors beginning Wednesday for security reasons.

To guard the barricades, the Interior Ministry is deploying 40,000 helmeted police troopers armed with tear gas and assault rifles, including 8,000 brought from the provinces.

Demonstrators are preparing for clashes with homemade gas masks. Masks made from recycled plastic bottles are selling for 30 cents each, and have become a hot item.

Army troops will be inside the National Palace to protect it if demonstrators break past police lines, according to intelligence sources.

Toledo has called his protest the ``March of the Four Suyos,'' a reference to the four cardinal points of the ancient Inca empire.

Toledo said Tuesday that he expected as many as 250,000 people to participate in the street marches in Lima. He said large protests also will take place in major cities around Peru.

According to news reports, police have been trying to stop protesters from reaching Lima by pulling over trucks and buses and questioning the legitimacy of vehicle ownership papers and drivers' licenses.

But Toledo said Monday that 30,000 had already arrived in Lima, where many were sleeping in municipal parks and being fed in soup kitchens set up by organizations opposed to Fujimori's continued stay in power.

OneList subscribers:


1. NucNews 00/07/25 - Daybook; Announcements
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

2. The Republican Convention: Be There Or....
From: "Frida Berrigan" <BerrigaF@newschool.edu>

3. Needs to Upgrade
From: ivan buchbinder <pentaske@memes.com>

4. SIGN-ON NOW: FULL DISCLOSURE OF THE 3 MILE ISLAND COVER UP BY PRESIDENT CARTER
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

5. Press Release on National Missile Defence/Star Wars and Press Items from Aust
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

6. More on Missile Defence in Australia
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

-----------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 07:57:07 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

NucNews 00/07/25 - Daybook; Announcements

1) Washington Daybook, by FIND/AFP and The Washington Times. - July 25, 2000 http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000725213719.htm

Missile defense testimony - 9:30 a.m. - Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing to receive testimony on the national missile defense program. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen testifies. Location: 216 Hart Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3871.

9:30 a.m. - Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing on the disposal of low-activity radioactive waste. Location: 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-6176.

2 p.m. - House Science Committee's energy and environment subcommittee holds a hearing on "Nuclear's Energy Role: Improving U.S. Energy Security and Reducing Emissions." Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building. Contact: 202/225-6371.

Nunn-Wolfowitz Task Force Report discussion - 10 a.m. -The Center for Strategic and International Studies presents the release of the Nunn-Wolfowitz Task Force Report, which provides a "best practices" export-compliance program and roundtable discussion. Location: Room B1-C, 1800 K St. NW. Contact: 202/775-3186.

Turner speech - 6 p.m. - American University's Nuclear History Institute hosts a discussion by retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, former CIA director, on how to reduce the nuclear threat. Location: Bentley Lounge, Gray Hall, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. (Nebraska Avenue entrance). Contact: 202/885-5950.

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE

6:30 p.m. - Hosts reception with Tipper Gore honoring the 10th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, vice president's residence, 34th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW.

2) July 25, 2000 - An Indefinite Fast for Peace and Justice in Vieques begins - in Vieques - in front of the main gate of Camp Garcia - and in Washington, DC, in Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Some participants in this witness in DC will carry on an open-ended, liquid-only fast (with calories) until the meeting with Clinton is granted. This fast will become a liquid-only no-calory fast if the USS Harry S Truman Carrier Group begins bombing Vieques, which the Navy has announced will take place between August and October. This fast will continue open-ended until Clinton grants the meeting to the leaders of Vieques, even after the bombing stops temporarily. All who share the commitment to stop the bombing in Vieques are invited to support this fast as called. Please contact Andres Thomas Conteris at 202-232-1999 for more information.

3) Fellowship of Reconciliation's People's Campaign for Nonviolence today: An Event to Highlight the Cost of Nuclear Weapons & Create Change. Music, drama, speakers & more, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., US Capitol (NE lawn). 404-524-5999. Women's Action for New Directions.

-----------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 14:13:12 -0400
From: "Frida Berrigan" <BerrigaF@newschool.edu>

The Republican Convention: Be There Or....

The media is all abuzz with comparisons of the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions to Chicago 1968-- perhaps with good reason. There is definitely a sense that "the times, they are a changin'" with a new spirit of activism and dissent. The old peace movement lament of "where are the young people" has been drowned out by the beat of marching feet, and chants of "this is what democracy looks like," in the streets of Seattle, Washington and now Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

The Republican and Democratic Conventions will take place amid a cacophony of marches, lectures, training, teach ins, "shadow" conventions, nonviolent direct action and planned mayhem.

The two major players are the UNITY 2000 Coalition and THE PARTY'S OVER direct action coalition.

UNITY 2000 is in charge of the big legal march on Sunday July 30th. Organizers, who hope this will be the largest ever demo at a Convention, say the message is "NO to business and politics as usual and YES to new priorities for our nation and the world." More info at www.unity2000.org

The Direct Action Network, through their www.thepartysover.com website, will oversee the not-so-legal aspects of Convention demonstrations-- with protests to Free Mumia, disrupt the Convention, and "other surprises." They remind us that "Nonviolent direct action has been an essential part of every successful social change movement in U.S. history and is used by people all over the world to take back our power from corporations and governments."

The list of involved organizations includes most of the familiar faces from Seattle and Washington with their anti-globalization, pro-democracy messages. What seems new, or at least more prominent, in this episode is an elucidation of the connections between militarism and globalization, greed and war.

In this spirit, Bill Hartung is kicking off the Convention season a little early with a panel discussion STAR WARS AND THE MEANING OF NATIONAL SECURITY: WHAT'S BEST FOR AMERICA? hosted by Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

The event will shed light on the real reasons the Republicans are so keen on pursuing National Missile Defense, despite the mountains of evidence to demonstrate that the contractors charged with making it work can't perform a successful test of the system to save their lives. As Hartung observed, "Given their recent performance, it would be risky to buy a used car from these companies, much less trust them to build one of the most technically demanding and costly weapons programs ever undertaken by the Pentagon."

The week of the Convention itself, the Arms Trade Resource Center will release the latest in its series of Issue Briefs on the politics of Missile Defense, entitled REVENGE OF THE NEO-REAGANITES: The Role of Republican True Believers in the Missile Defense Revival. High on the list of True Believers is Philadelphia area Republican Curt Weldon who has used his post as head of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee to throw billions of dollars at Missile Defense programs for his favorite contractors; Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The program, Tuesday July 25th, will also feature Dr. Theodore Postol, MIT professor and author of a technological critique of the NMD program and Lawrence Korb, former assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, and will be held at the Friends Center Meetinghouse (151 Cherry St., Philadelphia). The event begins at 5:30 PM and a $10 donation is suggested. Contact Mary Boardman at BLSP 212-988-9808 for more information.

Cheri Honkala, the founder of the KENSINGTON WELFARE RIGHTS UNION (KWRU), has no difficulties making the connections between greed and war. At the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999 she compared her experiences as a single parent on welfare in the ghetto of Philadelphia to those of a woman enduring NATO bombing in Kosovo. She said, "While military spending is increasing to destroy the lives of those of Kosovo, the dismantling of our safety net to keep people alive is occurring at home. We at the KWRU are absolutely convinced that in order to really talk in terms of abolishing war, we must talk about abolishing poverty."

That's what they'll be doing in Philadelphia. KWRU, a poor people's organization based in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, will erect a TENT CITY just a stone's throw from the Convention to make visible the poor people who have been "disappeared from the debates, the media and discussion about the so- called economic boom" in America.

KWRU's "unpermitted" MARCH FOR ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS will kick off on Monday, July 31st, 11 AM at City Hall and will bring together thousands of poor people, students, social workers, unions, lawyers and religious leaders to protest. For more information about KWRU and the March visit www.libertynet.org/krwu.html

The Peace Movement will be a visible participant in both the UNITY 2000 march and r2K demonstrations during the Convention. The folks that brought 10,000 people to a remote and once anonymous military institution that trains Latin American soldiers and officers, is coming to Philly, and they are bringing their friends. That's right, the School of the Americas Watch, along with other solidarity and peace and justice organizations, will be in "full effect." Their "WAR NO MORE" PEACE CONVERGENCE will "confront the injustices of our government and the corporate power hogs." Their call to action connects the School of the Americas to other issues of War and greed. Their statement reads, "Let us put an end to the training of soldiers at the School of the Americas (SOA) which has caused unimaginable suffering and trauma and has led to the death and disappearance of tens of thousands....Let us declare shame on a system that allows corporations to not only sell billions of dollars of weapons each year to tyrannical leaders -- at a cost of millions of lives -- but who also "buy out" government leaders by pumping millions of dollars into their pockets through campaign contributions." For more information visit www.soaw-ne.org/WNM.html or email WarNoMore30@aol.com

THE SHADOW KNOWS Syndicated Columnista and author Arianna Huffington is the driving force behind the SHADOW CONVENTIONS taking place in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The Philadelphia event, kicked off by Senator and one time Presidential hopeful John McCain, will begin Sunday July 30 at The Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania (3680 Walnut Street, Philadelphia). The three days that follow will be chock full of issues and speakers.

Monday, July 31 will focus on CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM, in a series of panels convened by Common Cause director Scott Harshbarger, featuring Doris Haddock (aka "Granny D" the 90-year-old great grandmother who walked across the country for campaign finance reform) and Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN).

Day Two, convened by Ethan Nadelmann, from the Lindesmith Center will focus on THE FAILED DRUG WAR. Day Three, POVERTY AND THE WEALTH GAP will be divided into three conversations between academics, grass-roots workers, elected officials, representatives of faith based organizations, and other well-known personalities. For more information and a full line up of speakers visit www.shadowconventions.com

THANK GOODNESS THE MOVEMENT STILL HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR

UNITED FOR A FREE ECONOMY has launched THE BILLIONAIRES FOR BUSH (OR GORE) campaign to make sure that the unrecognized needs of the under represented population are met. Their POLITICAL PLATFORM is worth quoting at length

"Vote for Bush (or Gore): Although they differ on some policies and sometimes wear different colored power ties, we're confident that both candidates are deeply committed to economic inequality. They bring their hard-won personal experience making millions in a business subsidized by taxpayers (Bush: oil & gas, baseball stadiums; Gore: agribusiness) to national economic policy. Both oppose raising the minimum wage to match the cost of living. Both will continue taxpayer subsidies of generous CEO salaries, as well as taxing earnings from the stock market at a lower rate than income from actual work."

They've got great campaign materials, speeches, sermons, and posters. For the complete picture check out www.billionairesforbushorgore.com

Frida Berrigan Research Associate Arms Trade Resource Center 65 Fifth Avenue, Suite 413 New York, New York 10003 212-229-5808 ext. 112 fax: 212-229-2279 email:berrigaf@newschool.edu

-----------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 13:59:39 -0700
From: ivan buchbinder <pentaske@memes.com>

Subject: Needs to Upgrade

Y'all, Got ta laugh to keep from crying... these bastards BULLSHIT about gee whiz we just kinda got a little lax with this POISON the worlds deadliest. "lab officials had ignored earlier warnings about workers exposed to radiation"

"However, LANL health officials say the doses of plutonium-238 were still low enough that the exposed workers probably will not suffer health effects"

That's rich, no conscious with these bastards eh! "chelation treatments to encourage their bodies to expel the plutonium before it settled in their bones, livers or other organs.

This is news to me, can anyone explain this process?
Later

http://www.sfnewmexican.com/health/index.las

-----------

Message: 4
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 01:18:58 -0400
From: "Bill Smirnow" <smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>

SIGN-ON NOW: FULL DISCLOSURE OF THE 3 MILE ISLAND COVER UP BY PRESIDENT CARTER

Dear Friends, Please SIGN-ON to the letter below which calls on President Carter to hold a press conference with the 1,990 victims of the Three Mile Island Accident now suing, Dr Rosalie Bertell and her colleagues from the public sector[NO NRC or DOE personnel] of President Carter's Blue Ribbon Panel convened to investigate the Three Mile Island accident and finally reveal the complete truth about the full nature and extent of the accident.

Please forward this SIGN-ON LETTER to other lists and to other individuals and NGOs.

I will be posting this SIGN ON LETTER on a regular basis and engaging in a faxing campaign to President Carter to try to get President Carter to finally disclose all the facts. If you live outside of the USA please realize that such a disclosure would probably have ramifications for all commercial nuclear reactors throughout the world, not just Three Mile Island or any of the other reactors in the United States.

In the meantime, please fax President Carter at: 404-331-0283

You can also, after you fax him, mail the fax to him at:

President Carter The Carter Center 1 Copenhill 453 Freedom Parkway Atlanta, Ga. 30307 USA

PLEASE SEND ALL SIGN-ONS TO ME, BILL SMIRNOW, AT: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com

Dear President Carter, We, the undersigned, call on you to ask that you `hold a press conference and tell the world what you had originally intended to about the Three Mile Island Accident. That is, just how extensive the radiological releases and the full extent and nature of the accident were and that your former mentor, Admiral Hyman Rickover strongly encouraged you to not tell the complete truth as to just how dangerous the accident really was. I have spoken with Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Rickover, in depth a number of times and have read her signed, notorized statement[http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/rickover.html] made July 18, 1986 in the wake of the Chernobyl catastrophe. This statement, corroborated by what Ms. Rickover has told me herself and the testimony of several pro-industry nuclear employees and scientists who have independantly contacted me, some sworn to secrecy, all indicate that the accident at Three Mile Island was much more extensive and dangerous than the American and world public were ever lead to believe. In addition to this, the growing number of leukemias, other cancers and deaths that are appearing in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area cry out for your publiclly addressing this issue. This is both your moral and legal responsibility not only to the victims of the Three Mile Island accident and their families but to the world which now has 433 commercial nuclear power reactors operating,103 of them in the United States alone, anyone of which could melt down at any time bringing Chernobyl like or even more catastrophic results to humanity. Now is the time for you to tell the world just what really happened at Three Mile Island.

In addition to Ms. Rickover's signed, notorized statement and repeated personal corroboartion of said statement, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, winner of the Right Livelihood Award or alternative Nobel Prize and a reknown biostatistition was among those invited to investigate what really happened at Three Mile Island by your Blue Ribbon Panel. She and some of her colleagues in the public sector of the panel did not have FBI clearance and access to certain information which might prove to be extremely valuable to her and those of her colleagues without such clearance in determining the true nature and extent of the accident. When Dr Bertell raised this issue of security clearance and access to information and one of her colleagues also without such security clearance raised a similar, related question to that part of the panel staffed with NRC and DOE officials, this was enough to have the entire panel dissolved by Dr. Kemmeny, one of the key people on the panel who the final report was named after. This all appears in Dr. Bertell's signed, notorized statement of July 10, 1998 at: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/bertell.html

A recent study by Dr Joseph Mangano shows that the closing of 5 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States was accompanied by a statistically significant drop in infant mortality: http://www.geocities.com/mothersalert/infant.html The most vulnerable segment of our population are the ones that have and continue to suffer the most. They need and deserve not to be KILLED by the commercial nuclear industry. You have the information, responsibility, and media access to simply tell the truth about the entire nature of the Three Mile Island accident. This is exactly what you had originally intended to do before Admiral Rickover convinced you to hide the true nature of the accident from the public.

Once again, we implore you to exercise your legal and moral responsibility and to hold a press conference with many of the key players like Dr Bertell and her colleagues on this dissolved panel and the 1,990 residents of the Three Mile Island area who are suing over adverse health effects they have suffered. We call on you in this press conference to tell the people of the United States and the world exactly what the full nature of the Three Mile Island accident was and continues to be.

Please respond to me at the contact information below:

Most Sincerely/Warmest Regards, Mr. William Smirnow

Mr. William Smirnow 168 Maple Hill Road Huntington, New York 11743 USA Phone:631-421-0836 Fax:631-421-0818

-------------

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 17:41:35 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

Press Release on National Missile Defence/Star Wars and Press Items from Aust

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

26.7.2000 IMMEDIATE USE AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE ANTI-BASES CAMPAIGN PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT W.A. FRIENDS OF THE EARTH GOVT MUST SAY NO TO MISSILE DEFENCE

With proposals now afoot for a missile test range in W.A, that according to West Australian press will be involved in the controversial National Missile Defence plan, with a statement some two weeks ago from foreign minister Downer that Australia 'understands' US plans to proceed with NMD, and with possible Australian involvement in NMD via Pine Gap being suggested by US Defence Secretary Cohen, the time has come, according to the Australian Peace Committee, the Anti-Bases Campaign, and FOE, for Australia to say a clear 'no' to NMD.

According to the Anti-Bases Campaign, APC, PND-WA, and FOE: "On the 29th of June, the Australian Senate voted against Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD), or as the current scheme is called, National Missile Defence (NMD) - Star Wars by another name. BMD/Star Wars will violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, and will give rise to another arms race. Country after country has asked the US not to proceed with BMD/Star Wars, and within the US, 50 Nobel prizewinners have asked the US government to give up the idea as have the American Physical Society, the Federation of Atomic Scientists, Congresspeople, Generals, and church people."

"In the light of last months Senate vote against BMD/Star Wars, and in the light of widespread international opposition to this scheme, and most particularly in the light of the extremely destabilizing potential of BMD/Star Wars to create another nuclear arms race, Australia should be using its position as a close ally of the US to send a clear message to Washington - the same message that has been sent by Canada, Germany, France, and the EU - No BMD/Star Wars." John Hallam, 9517-3903 h9810-2598 Denis Doherty, Anti-Bases Campaign, 0418-290-663 Ron Gray, Australian Peace Committee, 08-8364-2291 Jo Vallentine, 08-9272-4252

--

Americans target WA site for secret rocket base

The West Australian
July 25, 2000
By Sean Cowan and Ruth Callaghan

RESIDENTS of northern WA are up in arms over a proposal to use the area to test American missiles.

United States and Australian defence officials have slated WA as home to a site from which to launch ballistic missiles for US warships to use as target practice.

The plan could draw the State into an international row over weapons proliferation.

An Australian Defence Department spokesman said the North-West and Kimberley region was being considered for a facility which could be built within five years.

But he cautioned there was still a big question mark over whether the facility would go ahead. Royal Australian Navy officers and US defence officials visited the region recently to scout for a possible site.

Analysts said one site being considered was a secret location between Broome and Port Hedland where the US and Australia launched four unarmed missiles to test tracking systems in 1997.

Derby-West Kimberley Shire Council president Peter McCumstie said he had not heard of the plans.

"But I will be asking about it now, you betcha," he said.

Mr McCumstie said native title would be a major consideration if a new facility was to be built.

"If they were looking for new land they would have to go way out into the desert," he said.

Labor MLC Tom Stephens said local industry could be devastated and all details should be revealed so people could make an informed reaction.

"While it may make sense to some boffins in Washington or Canberra to stick (this facility) in an isolated part of the world, it could kill the pearling, fishing and tourism industries."

Plans to build the testing site would draw Australia further into the debate over the controversial US national missile defence system.

Australian defence officials say they are resisting pressure from the US to cooperate in the test range north of Broome.

The navy prefers American help for a range on the east coast.

But defence experts said Australia was almost certainly investigating participation in a joint facility in WA, because it made strategic sense to become involved in the US missile defence scheme.

This system has been tagged "son of Star Wars" in reference to former US President Ronald Regan's proposal to shoot incoming missiles from space with a laser.

It would put missiles on Alaskan soil capable of intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Countries such as Australia could host theatre missile defence systems which could destroy short-range missiles.

China and Russia have criticised the plans for destabilising the nuclear balance.

(c) 2000 West Australian Newspapers Limited All Rights Reserved.

--

We don't want base, says Navy

West Australian Newspapers
By Rebecca Rose
CANBERRA

THE Royal Australian Navy says it is engaged in a fierce tug of war with the United States over the location of a future missile test range, with the Pentagon pushing for a facility in the Kimberley.

Defence officials say they are resisting pressure from the US to cooperate in a joint ballistic missile test range north of Broome. Instead, the navy is trying to get American cooperation for a range on the east coast to test wave-skimming missiles.

But defence experts dismissed that as a smokescreen, claiming Australia was almost certainly investigating participation in a joint facility in WA, because it made strategic sense to become involved in the US missile defence scheme.

RAN officers accompanied US defence officials on a recent visit to the remote WA region to scout for a possible site. But defence spokesman Colin Blair said a site had not been identified.

Instead, the navy wanted to set up a range to test sea-skimming missiles on the Beecroft peninsula, near Jervis Bay in NSW, because this was the kind of weaponry more likely to be used against Australian ships.

"The Americans have been lobbying us over the ballistic missile test range - they are not so much interested in our sea skimming missiles," Mr Blair said.

"They like the look of the North-West of WA, it is nice and remote and there is very little commercial air traffic. But the navy is not interested in that. We don't see that as a major threat to our region."

Mr Blair said the ballistic missile facility was well behind the Beecroft peninsula facility in terms of priority. The navy would begin a feasibility study into the latter in six months, with a view to completion of the site by 2005.

Michael O'Connor, from the Australian Defence Association, said the Defence Department was trying to divert attention from the fact that it was getting involved in the contentious US defence strategy to build a missile defence shield.

The move would anger neighbours - especially Beijing, which fears the technology would be used to protect Taiwan from attack should the two countries come to blows if China tries to force reunification.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials said yesterday they expected China to protest strongly against Australia's involvement in a US missile defence system during meetings with South-East Asian leaders later this week in Bangkok.

--

A bolt from the blue for councils

By Sean Cowan
West Australian Newspapers

KIMBERLEY councils are flabbergasted at plans to test United States ballistic missile defences in the area.

Critics say the area is subject to native title claims and does not have necessary roads or infrastructure.

They say existing defence facilities at the old Truscott air base, near Kalumburu, the RAAF Curtin base, near Derby, or the army's Yampi training ground, 100km north of Derby, would be more suitable.

International training exercises have taken place at Yampi in the past.

Derby-West Kimberley Shire president Peter McCumstie said he had never heard of plans to test US missile defences in the area.

"But I will be asking about it now - you betcha," he said. "The other thing I would suggest is that native title would have to be taken into consideration and they would probably have to search for an existing site.

"If they were looking for new land they would have to go way out into the desert."

Labor MLC Tom Stephens said the result could be devastating to the environment and the tourism industry.

"We want all the details on the table so the community can make an informed reaction," he said. "While it may make sense to some boffins in Washington or Canberra to stick it in an isolated part of the world, it could kill the pearling, fishing and tourism industries."

Greens (WA) MLC Giz Watson said such activities in the North-West would contravene the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

But Kalgoorlie MHR Barry Haase said plans were still in their infancy.

"If this conception analysis progresses to the stage where it might ever be considered to be viable, it will then take into consideration all manner of things," he said.

Mr Haase said the plan would be open to heavy public scrutiny.

Broome Shire Council president Kevin Fong called on the Federal Government to keep local councils informed during the planning stage.

Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire chief executive Tony Brown said he would ask the Defence Department for an explanation.

--

WA mooted as site for test range

By Ruth Callaghan
West Australian Newspapers

FOUR ballistic missiles were fired from the north of WA in 1997, tracked as they travelled 117km through the air at high speed and allowed to land in the ocean.

At the time, the Defence Department stressed that the "scientific experiments" were not an indication of plans to create a ballistic missile defence system.

Three years later, Australia is under considerable pressure from the United States to help its cont