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

-------- australia

Nuke chief threatens future of new reactor

04/08/2000
By ANDREW CLENNELL in Canberra
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0008/04/text/national2.html

Australia's new nuclear reactor may not be built if the Federal Government cannot ensure a safe storage dump for the reactor's waste.

The chief executive officer of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, Dr John Loy, said yesterday he would not grant a construction licence for the Lucas Heights project until the Government had sorted out how it would re-process the spent fuel.

Dr Loy's statements are a clear indication that the battle over whether or not the reactor is built is far from over, despite a contract to design and build the reactor being granted to the State-owned Argentinian company INVAP last month.

"Next year when they apply for a licence to construct a reactor, I have said by then they'll need to confirm their arrangements for reprocessing the fuel they have chosen for the new reactor will be in place," Dr Loy said yesterday.

"[There will also need to be] progress on the intermediate level waste store."

Even if that is achieved and a construction licence is granted, Dr Loy said he would need to see a definite proposition that a waste store was to exist before the agency would give an operating licence in 2005.

Dr Loy's comments first came to light in the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader newspaper yesterday, after which he spoke to officials from the Department of Science, Industry and Resources. By the time the construction licence was granted, the spent-fuel arrangements would want to be "written in blood", Dr Loy told the Leader.

"Just kind of saying 'we are going to have a store but we do not know where or when ... but don't you worry about that' would not be good enough'," he said.

Last night, the Industry, Science and Resources Minister, Senator Minchin, said Dr Loy had reassured his officers that their plans were on target to gain the necessary approvals.

Senator Minchin said an announcement would be made in "two or three weeks" about the process for selection of the intermediate waste dump, and said the dump should be ready in 2005, even though it would not have to accept reprocessed waste until 2015.

"We have proposed to have a site identified in 2002. What he's [Dr Loy's] saying is basically expressing what his requirements are," Senator Minchin said.

"I'm presuming nobody asked [him], 'Based on what you have been told by the Government, are they likely to satisfy you?'

"He's indicated that if we stick to that sort of plan then we'll meet those requirements."

Dr Loy replied last night that he was pleased to learn for the first time yesterday that the Government was to announce its site selection process soon.

Nevertheless, he said that his comments remained consistent, in that the Government had to deliver.

Senator Minchin has received some heavy criticism in his home State over the possibility of locating the intermediate waste dump in South Australia. "I'm not ruling in or out any State or Territory," he said last night.

The NSW Greens fear that a site at Olary, near Broken Hill, which had been the subject of previous talks, will be reconsidered.

A spokeswoman for the NSW Minister for the Environment, Mr Debus, said the State Government would oppose any attempt to base a dump in NSW.

The issue of fuel for the Lucas Heights reactor, which Dr Loy wants sorted out by next year, has been contentious for months.

INVAP based its bid on uranium-molybdenum fuel, which can be reprocessed but has not been developed yet.

There has been speculation that INVAP will have to use silicide for an interim period. Critics say silicide is a fuel that is difficult to reprocess.

--------

Lucas Heights, the tough nuclear call we have to make

04/08/2000
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0008/04/text/features4.html

Decision makers in Australia are caught between a rock and a hard place, writes Rick McLean.

Picture the following scenario in a small factory in suburban Engadine: three people are at work, one is standing on a small ladder, pouring a bucket of a mixture into a container through a funnel held by another technician; a third, who prepared the mixture, is in a nearby room. Suddenly there is a flash of blue light and a soft noise.

Last September, this actually happened, not in Sydney but at a small nuclear fuel processing plant run by a private company in Tokai Mura, Japan. The mixture was an enriched uranium solution and the blue light and noise indicated that a nuclear chain reaction had occurred. It continued for 18 hours.

The problem was that the solution was too concentrated and two of the men died several months later from the effects of acute radiation sickness. The third recovered but has about a 10 per cent greater chance of developing cancer.

As we mark Hiroshima Day tomorrow - the 55th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb which killed 140,000 people within five months and caused 60,000 serious injuries - it is an appropriate time to consider what is happening on the nuclear front around the world and in our own backyard.

In May, the International Radiation Protection Association conference in Hiroshima discussed the latest findings from the Tokai Mura accident and research from the Radiation

Effects Research Foundation, set up by the United States and Japanese governments in 1950 to study A-bomb survivors.

Studies confirm that above a certain level, the higher the radiation dose received the higher the risk of getting cancer. This level is roughly the dose received from 25 back x-rays. Importantly, it is still impossible to be sure if any risk exists below that level.

So what does this mean for Australia? Is the aging reactor at Lucas Heights or the planned new research reactor a Tokai Mura or Chernobyl waiting to happen?

Although the prospect of an explosion is low, questions relating to radioactive emissions for the reactor still exist and the vulnerability of the area to earthquakes needs to be addressed.

Radiation can cause cancer and death but there are benefits, too. It allows us to perform x-rays and nuclear medicine scans which look inside the body without the need for surgery. It also allows radiotherapy to treat cancers. Some nuclear medicine and radiotherapy materials come from the Lucas Heights facility.

So is it worth the risk?

Apart from the possibility of an accident, there is still the question of disposal of radioactive waste produced by the proposed reactor. This waste, called intermediate level waste, cannot be stored in the low-level waste repository that is being developed in northern South Australia.

Each step in the process of siting and building the reactor is under the eye of Australia's newest nuclear watchdog, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), whose mission is to protect the health and safety of people, and the environment, from the harmful effects of radiation - from mobile phones to nuclear reactors.

The agency's chief executive, Dr John Loy, has said that progress needed to be made on the strategy to dispose of spent fuel from the reactor before he will give the go-ahead for the construction of the reactor.

Opponents of the new reactor believe that the lack of a store for the intermediate level waste could help their cause. This might be so but significant amounts of intermediate level waste are stored in various sites around Australia and less than half comes from Lucas Heights.

It is worth noting that a recent accident at a radiation therapy source in Goyanya, Brazil, resulted in the death of four people and the economic and social isolation of a city of a quarter of a million people for several months.

For decision makers in Australia, it is like being caught between a rock and a hard - or should that be hot? - place. The agency will be looking at the options and asking for public input in the near future.

Dr Rick McLean is chairman of the Radiation Health and Safety Council of ARPANSA.

-------- business

Billions For ABM While Politics Threaten Nuclear Warhead Destruction Agreement

Oscar Lurie, Research Analyst, olurie@cdi.org
with Charles Yulish, United States Enrichment Corporation
Defense Monitor,
August 4, 2000 owner-weekly@cdi.org

Congress and the Administration appear willing to spend $60 billions on a limited national missile defense project that is probably technologically infeasible. But today, the Administration is in effect snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by failing to approve an agreement reached with the Russians that will ensure the continuing success of an existing program that is destroying thousands of Russian nuclear warhead explosives -- without spending a penny of taxpayer money. Negotiators for the U.S. and Russia reached agreement on future terms and were ready to sign the 13-year pact, only to be told at the last minute that the deal was put on hold by a lone dissent in the Administration.

Some background is essential. At its peak the Soviet arsenal of nuclear warheads stood at over 30,000. In 1992, anticipating dismantlement of thousands of Russian warheads when START II would be mutually ratified, the US and Russian governments agreed to an unusual arrangement. Russia would extract the highly enriched uranium (HEU) explosives from their dismantled nuclear warheads and downgrade it to low enriched uranium (LEU). LEU is no longer useful as a weapon, although it is perfect for use as fuel for electric power generation. In 1993, Russia and the United States signed a government-to-government agreement that stipulated a commercial arrangement for the U.S. to purchase the Russian LEU derived from the HEU. In 1994, executive agents for the two governments signed a commercial implementing contract that provided a framework for purchasing LEU derived from 500 metric tons of Russian HEU taken from dismantled weapons. This is a twenty-year, $8 billion contract. For perspective on its importance, 500 metric tons of HEU will isolate roughly two-thirds of the fissile materials in Russia's nuclear inventory.

The beauty of this commercial arrangement was that it wouldn't cost the taxpayer any money. No appropriations were necessary for this impressive national security program that would support itself by the sale of resulting LEU fuel to utilities. But this attractive solution to destroying Russian nuclear warheads had serious economic and political side effects and consequences.

In 1992, while the Bush Administration was negotiating this deal, Congress was putting the finishing touches on the 1992 Energy Policy Act. This far-ranging energy legislation culminated 30 years of attempts by

government to get out of the uranium enrichment business. The Act declared the goal of privatizing the government's uranium enrichment activities. It created the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) and transferred operation of the two DOE enrichment plants in Kentucky and Ohio to USEC. It stated that USEC was to run these operations like abusiness and to submit to the President and Congress a plan for privatization. USEC did so in 1995. After three years of Congressional hearings, additional legislation and due diligence by the Administration, the Federal Board of Directors and the Secretary of the Treasury sold USEC to investors in July 1998 for $1.9 billion in cash and kept an additional $1 billion in USEC funds.

At the same time, President Clinton appointed a ten-agency Enrichment Oversight Committee (EOC) headed by the National Security Council and the State Department. Their job was to oversee USEC's implementation of the HEU purchase contract after privatization.

As executive agent for the U.S. government, USEC was responsible for annual negotiations with its Russian counterpart on quantities and price. Both parties recognized that these annual negotiations were vexing. In 1996 the government approved USEC's signing a five-year agreement that fixed quantities and price. Solve one problem, create another. Since 1998, market prices for LEU have declined by nearly 20 percent. USEC wound up subsidizing the U.S. government, which refused to make up the $200 million difference between the purchase and the selling price. That money-losing formula expires at the end of 2001.

USEC and the Russians have been negotiating the next tranche of this agreement for over eight months. The U.S. side is insisting on market-based pricing (less a small discount) beginning in 2002. The Russians recognize that is inevitable and put their demands on the table. They insisted that the U.S. agree to take an additional amount of non-weapons LEU to provide them with additional money on the front end of the deal to help the transition to market pricing. The U.S. EOC evaluated this proposal and authorized USEC to proceed with the final negotiations. In early May the parties were in Moscow ready to sign a 13-year market-based contract with the terms approved by the EOC. At the last minute the U.S. team was suddenly directed not to proceed. Apparently, domestic election politics took a front seat to this momentous national security achievement. According to published news reports, DOE, headed by Bill Richardson, put a hold on the signing because Richardson feared perceptions that the agreement would result in USEC laying off workers and finally closing one of its production plants. That's not a perception he wanted people to have as the election campaign swung into high gear.

Frustrated negotiators on both sides left the unsigned agreement on the table and went home. Since then, USEC's board of directors concluded that given the global overcapacity of uranium enrichment, they could not afford to operate their two production plants at 25 percent capacity. On June 21, the board announced they would cease enrichment at the Portsmouth, Ohio plant a year later and consolidate operations at their Paducah, Kentucky facility. This decision was necessitated by market conditions, not, as Mr. Richardson's feared, that the new Russian agreement would trigger such an action. Nevertheless, his objection is still sustained and the negotiated terms for the 13 year agreement are in danger of expiring.

Embarrassed by its position, DOE promptly cranked up its smokescreen machine. In June, news reports quoted the Secretary as saying that USEC had kept DOE in the dark about these negotiations. He raised several questions about USEC's motives and raised a host of items to obscure the real issue at hand -- that signing the agreement that will ensure the continued success of this vital program.

The USEC CEO wrote to Mr. Richardson, documenting and naming names to prove that USEC had been in close consultation with DOE before and during these negotiations and refuting the Secretary's laundry list of reasons for delay.

One wonders why the National Security Council and the State Department could not gracefully note the objections of the Energy Secretary and instruct the executive agent to sign this vital national security agreement. We are forced to conclude that, for reasons known only to them, they are afraid to do so.

The cries and whispers of special interests continue to dog USEC at every turn. Labor unions at the two USEC plants are strong and oppose the announced plant closing. The domestic nuclear power utilities are seeking the lowest price for LEU and have argued that they, not USEC, should be able to purchase the Russian commercial LEU directly at the discount price. Domestic natural uranium miners and producers along with others in the fuel cycle claim that the Russian contract and USEC's privatization have hurt their business and they are looking for relief. The Congressman from the Ohio plant district has just introduced legislation to nationalize USEC. Is it possible that pressure from such groups is the real cause of DOE's actions?

Despite these various perspectives, some simple facts must rule. First, national security considerations must remain paramount. The Administration should immediately instruct that the negotiated agreement be signed. This will guarantee that the remaining 13 years of this Russian nuclear conversion program covering the equivalent of 13,000 nuclear warheads will be on a safe and predictable footing, without cost to the taxpayer. Second, issues about jobs, plant closings and impact on industry have been with us every time a war ends, including the Cold War. Wrenching adjustments have been made in aerospace, defense, electronics, weapons, etc. Bases have been closed and inefficient factories shut; massive workforce adjustments have been necessary. None of this is new, nor is the nuclear industry entitled to special treatment in facing these changing business realities.

The new agreement should be signed immediately.

----

North Limited to accept takeover bid

Fri, 4 Aug 2000 14:13 AEST
ABC ONLINE
BREAKING STORIES : Weekly Archive
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-4aug2000-62.htm

The share market value of mining house Rio Tinto has slumped by almost 3 per cent, following a second bite at takeover target North Limited.

Rio Tinto yesterday raised its offer for North Limited coming over the top of a rival bid by Anglo American with a new offer of $4.75 per share.

North's board of directors has today recommended that shareholders accept the $3.5 billion bid in the absence of any further move.

Rio Tinto shares are down 71 cents, or 2.8 per cent, at $24.83.
North, meanwhile, is up 27 cents to $4.88.

The Australian Conservation Foundation says Rio Tinto should consider ditching the Jabiluka uranium project, if its takeover bid of mining and forestry group, North Limited, succeeds.

North has a controlling two-thirds interest in ERA, which owns both the Jabiluka uranium deposit and the nearby Ranger mine on a lease inside Kakadu National Park.

The ACF's nuclear campaigner, Dave Sweeney said: "What's motivating Rio Tinto is not uranium or Jabiluka".

"They've been after North because of North's iron ore reserves and so Jabiluka is not the main game with Rio Tinto.

"There's a very clear call from the Australian Conservation Foundation, from the Australian anti-nuclear movement for Rio not to develop Jabiluka."

-------- china

China objects to Taiwan leader's U.S. visit

August 4, 2000
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20008422230.htm

A brief visit to Los Angeles later this month by Taiwan's new president has triggered a new round of squabbling between Beijing and Taipei and prompted new worries for the Clinton administration's troubled China policy. Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian will stay overnight on the day before the start of the Democratic National Convention on his way to visit some of the countries that have diplomatic relations with Taipei, Clinton administration officials said Thursday.

Upon arrival Aug. 13, Mr. Chen will be greeted by Richard Bush, the U.S. representative to the island nation, which China views as a breakaway province. The State Department calls the visit a "transit stop" and does not expect the new president to do public appearances or media interviews, said administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Chinese government opposes the one-day visit and has expressed its views to U.S. officials here and in Beijing, said Zhang Yuanyuan, press spokesman for the Chinese Embassy. "Of course we're opposed to this kind of action on the part of the U.S. government," Mr. Zhang said in an interview. "Especially when the new Taiwanese leader, since his coming to power last March, has not embraced the one-China principle. This kind of action might send out some wrong signals to the forces in Taiwan that promote separatism and independence." "They always make this kind of comment," retorted Eric Chiang, director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, when asked about China's opposition. "We don't think that helps to promote the atmosphere between the two sides," said Mr. Chiang, whose agency represents the Taiwanese government in the United States.

Beijing and Taipei continue to engage in diplomatic wrangling over Taiwan's ties with other countries. Beijing has insisted Taiwan is legitimately part of the People's Republic of China, ruled by the Communist government formed in 1949 as a result of a civil war. Nationalist Chinese leaders and forces fled to the island after the Communist victory. The State Department and the White House said the stop was routine, although officials acknowledged there could be political fallout from Beijing any time the leader of Taiwan comes to the United States. "President Chen will make a brief transit stop in the United States for the purpose of traveling to the Caribbean area," a State Department official said.

During the visit, Mr. Chen will stay at a hotel in Los Angeles. Democrats will hold their presidential convention in Los Angeles beginning Aug. 14. Mr. Chen is scheduled to depart that day on his trip to three of the 29 nations in Latin America and Africa that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, officially called the Republic of China. Mr. Chen will visit the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and the West African nation of Burkina Faso during his first overseas visit as president, Taiwanese officials said.

Asked whether Mr. Chen is restricted from holding meetings or giving press interviews, the State Department official said, "We understand Mr. Chen's activities will be private and consistent with the purpose of a transit stop." Such stops are granted for senior Taiwanese leaders' "safety, comfort and convenience" on a case-by-case basis, he said. "We understand there will be no public and media events," the official said. Officials said the visit is not expected to touch off another Taiwan crisis, as occurred following the 1995 visit to the United States by Mr. Chen's predecessor, Lee Teng-hui.

Mr. Lee was granted a visa to attend a meeting in New York after Secretary of State Warren Christopher had told Beijing there would be no visit by the Taiwanese president. A year later the United States and China had a military face-off after China's military fired short-range missiles into areas near Taiwan, prompting the Pentagon to dispatch two aircraft carrier battle groups. Mr. Chiang, the Taiwanese representative, confirmed that Mr. Chen is not expected to have any public schedule during the visit. "There is an understanding between our two countries that the U.S. side only provides for the convenience of the traveler," Mr. Chiang said. "He will not have any public activities during his stay." Mr. Chen's aides said earlier this year that the Taiwanese president might visit the United States before his inauguration in May.

China's government also opposed that plan. Tensions have remained high between China and Taiwan for the past year over Mr. Lee's statements about having state-to-state relations - language interpreted by Beijing as a step toward formal independence. Mr. Chen's election in March was preceded by new threats against Taiwan by Chinese leaders. His Democratic Progressive Party in the past has called for independence. U.S. relations with China plummeted last year after NATO warplanes accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Since then, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen have visited China to repair relations. Chinese officials rebuffed an appeal from Mrs. Albright to renew Beijing-Taipei talks. Meanwhile, China's official news media reported Thursday that the Chinese military is conducting large-scale military exercises opposite Taiwan involving some 110,000 troops. The war games in the Nanjing military district are taking place along the 3,700-mile coast line encompassing Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, the official People's Daily stated.

A military spokesman told the newspaper the drills include naval, amphibious and ground forces, submarines, gunboats, paratroopers and attack helicopters. The forces are needed "to prevail in future local wars under high-technology conditions," the spokesman said. The exercises are taking place as the guided missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville is visiting the Chinese port of Qingdao, the first visit by a U.S. ship to a mainland port in two years.

-------- japan

P.M. shows antagonism to abolishing nuclear weapons in a definite time frame

Wed, 2 Aug 2000
Japan Press Service jpspress@twics.com
JPS 08-005

TOKYO AUG 2 JPS -- Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in a House of Councilors plenary session on August 1 showed extreme antagonism toward the idea of abolishing nuclear weapons from the world within a definite time frame.

P.M. Mori said that a resolution on eliminating nuclear weapons in a set time frame "could involve the danger of increasing disputes between nuclear haves and nuclear have-nots, and thereby obstructing the progress of talks on nuclear disarmament."

This statement was made in reply to Japanese Communist House of Councilors member Yoshiki Yamashita's questioning about the complete lack of reference to the abolition of nuclear weapons in the G-8 Summit Declaration and why the prime minister of the A-bombed Japan has failed to call for it.

P.M. Mori also described Japan's position for an "ultimate abolition" of nuclear weapons as "having played a historical role in getting the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference in April-May committed to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear arsenals."

Akahata on August 2 commented on the prime minister's explanation as being contrary to fact. The Japanese government arguing for nuclear weapons to be eliminated in an indefinite future is contrary to the world peoples' aspiration for the nuclear weapons eliminated, far from achieving it. The Japanese government in the NPT Review Conference was only anxious about whether its position is acceptable to nuclear weapons countries, above all, the U.S. with the strategy of preemptive nuclear strikes.

The developments in the NPT Review Conference show that nuclear weapons countries have found it difficult to ignore the call of the New Agenda Coalition and the non-aligned nations for abolishing nuclear weapons in a definite time frame. Every year these countries submit to a United Nations General Assembly a resolution to that effect, to the result of it being adopted by an overwhelming majority.

The Japanese government used to vote against such a resolution and used to advocate "an elimination of nuclear weapons as the ultimate goal" which is totally against the world trend.

In the NPT Review Conference, nuclear weapons countries at last had to agree to the word "ultimate" being deleted from the final document. These moves are clear evidence that the world is denying Japan's advocacy for nuclear weapons being eliminated as the ultimate goal.

Akahata said the government of the A-bombed Japan has the responsibility to change its position and take the lead in international movement earnestly calling for immediate abolition of nuclear weapons. (end item)

--

JPS 08-008
Scientists pursue nuclear-free 21st century

TOKYO AUG 2 JPS -- Japanese scientists at a gathering on August 1 solidified their will to contribute to the abolition of nuclear weapons from their capacity as scientists.

Organized by the Japan Scientists' Association, the gathering took place at Waseda University in Tokyo with 135 scholars attending, as an event related to the 2000 World Conference against A and H Bombs.

Toshihiko Fujita, former professor at Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, reported the recent international move surrounding nuclear weapons.

He evaluated that the New Agenda Coalition nations drew a clear promise from nuclear possessing countries to achieve the total abolition of nuclear armaments, and the majority of non-nuclear states are now driving the nuclear powers into a corner by urging them to abandon their nuclear warheads.

Fujita criticized the U.S. for still clinging to the nuclear deterrence policy and strengthening its nuclear strategy of both defense and attack.

Andreas Toupadakis, former researcher of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S., called for an international partnership to find substantial solutions toward the nuclear-free 21st century as a new role of all conscientious scientists. (end item)

--

JPS 08-009
Overseas delegates to the 2000 World Conference against A&H Bombs enter Hiroshima

TOKYO AUG 2 JPS -- The first legion of the overseas delegates to the 2000 World Conference against A and H Bombs arrived at Hiroshima City on August 1 and visited the Peace Park to lay a wreath to the cenotaph.

Among the 50 delegates is June Stark Casey from the U.S., who was a resident of a down-wind area of the U.S. nuclear test site where the local people were not informed of what was going on at the site.

She said that it is an honor for her to take part in the conference and that she would learn the long-term movement by the Japanese people to go forward together.

Mary Varghese, from India, said that she came to Hiroshima to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons that are useless for human beings, and that she would rather put more emphasis on the questions on water, food, and education of children. (end item)

----

Int'l meeting of World Conf. goes 2nd rolls

Fri, 4 Aug 2000
Japan Press Service jpspress@twics.com
JPS 08-019

TOKYO AUG 4 JPS -- The International Meeting of the 2000 World Conference against A and H Bombs entered its second day of discussion on August 3 in Hiroshima City.

Kazushi Kaneko, a Hiroshima A-bomb survivor, complained that state compensation to A-bomb sufferers has not been achieved yet despite persevering efforts of the victims and their supporters. He called on all A-bomb survivors to struggle against nuclear weapons as living witnesses.

Nathalic Mironova, a member of the Movement for Nuclear Safety in Chelyabinsk in Russia, reported on three disasters of the local nuclear processing plant, dumping of radioactive waste, and an accident of the local nuclear stockpiling facility. She said that the repeated nuclear tragedies caused severe diseases among the locals.

Hiroko Langinbelik, a Rongelap victim of the 1954 Bikini hydrogen bomb test, spoke about her tragic experience after she was exposed to the radioactive fallouts. She said that the number of leukemia and cancers are jumping in the area.

June Stark Casey, a Hanford downwinder and a member of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area Liaison for Peace Links, said she was continuously exposed to massive radioactivity of secret living body-tests. She now suffers from miscarriages, skin cancer, and thyroid disorder.

Zhenisgul Konarova, executive director of the International Anti-nuclear Movement "Nevada-Semey," said that the third generation of the Semipalatinsk nuclear tests receives the most serious effects of the test. The number of leukemia, mental disorder, and even suicide are increasing in the area.

Dennis Nelson, a Utah downwinder of the Nevada Test Site, said he lost his parents of lung cancer and cerebral tumor. He criticized the U.S. government for carrying out subcritical nuclear tests although many people are dying of after-effects of the tests.

Anthony Guarisco, director of the Alliance of Atomic Veterans, could hardly believe that each government ignore the nuclear victims and expressed his determination to urge both Japanese and the U.S. governments to completely compensate to the sufferers.

Joseph Gerson, program coordinator of the New England Office of the American Friends Service Committee, pointed out that the U.S. nuclear policy has not changed much for 55 years. The U.S. uses its nuclear strategy as a tool to guarantee the U.S. power over broader parts of the world.

--

JPS 8-020
2000 World Conference against A&H Bombs Int'l meeting workshop discussion

TOKYO AUG 4 JPS -- The second day program of the 2000 World Conference against A and H Bombs International Meeting was workshops on three sub-themes. Participants had focused discussion on the abolition of nuclear weapons, non-nuclear municipalities and foreign military bases, and solidarity with Hibakusha and nuclear victims.

In the first workshop, discussion was centered on how to push the nuclear-weapons states to decide to abolish their nuclear weapons.

Daniel Durand, national secretary of the French Peace Movement, said that the commitment of unequivocal elimination at the NPT Review Conference was the reflection of the world public opinion and the people of France, one of the nuclear-weapons states, should bear a heavy responsibility on this issue.

In the second workshop, participants reported on their movement to make local municipalities nuclear-free and to oppose foreign bases and troops.

A woman from the Hokkaido Council against A and H Bombs reported that they monitored U.S. Marines' training and told a U.S. Marine in English that the Japanese people opposed such U.S. military training. "The U.S. Marine said that he made a mistake that he took part in such training," she said.

Guid Grunewald of the German Peace Society-War Resisters League expressed concern over Germany's inclination to military buildup, after it became a member of NATO and EU, to advance against other countries.

In the third workshop on solidarity with the Hibakusha of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and nuclear victims in the rest of the world, Gulnar Iskakova from Kazakhstan called for medical aid to the children in Semipalatinsk, where nuclear tests have been carried out for 40 years, as many of them have leukemia, Down's syndrome and other diseases.

Denis Nelson from the U.S. said that the U.S. government has refused to compensate for damage from nuclear tests but the citizens movement has succeeded in gradually increasing the compensation.

Participants agreed that tenacious activity is necessary to investigate the damage and make the public know about it to get government compensation to victims.

--

JPS 08-021
A hibakusha gets certification of atomic bomb disease after 12 years of court struggle

TOKYO AUG 4 JPS -- Abiding by the Supreme Court decision, the Health and Welfare Ministry on July 31 recognized a Nagasaki resident Hideko Matsuya as a survivor of atomic bomb with symptoms caused by the radiation. The Nagasaki City handed her the certificate on August 3. With the certificate, Matsuya can receive a special medical care allowance and free medical treatment.

"I'm very happy. Now I can concentrate on the treatment. I remember the memories of these 12 years one after another, such as gathering signatures when it was hot." Matsuya talked in the press conference with deep emotion.

"Although the government should be blamed for ignoring her application for 23 years, to my disappointment, no apology has been made. It is not just a problem for Miss Matsuya, but method of recognition is the question," Hirotami Yamada, secretary of the supporters association of Matsuya criticized the Health and Welfare Ministry. (end item)

-------- russia

Russian Troops Face 'Chechnya Syndrome'

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday , August 4, 2000 ; A20
http://washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A39456-2000Aug4

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia -- In a rehabilitation center in this city on the Volga River, 500 men have been treated during the past six months for similar symptoms: restlessness, sleeplessness, hostility and unexplained physical illnesses. Some hear voices; others are reluctant to speak.

Psychologists call it the "Chechnya syndrome." Its sufferers are veterans of the war against Chechen separatists in southwestern Russia, young men wrestling with the aftershocks of combat during Russia's third anti-guerrilla war in less than two decades.

Experts say the successive wars are creating consecutive generations of psychologically wounded Russian men. During the first Chechen war, between 1994 and 1996, hundreds of men came home scarred by violence and forsaken by an indifferent society. Only a few years before, Russians spoke of an "Afghanistan syndrome." Veterans returned from a decade of combat that ended there in 1989, brutalized and weakened by battlefield stress.

"Basically, the syndromes are the same," said Irina Panova, director of the Rehabilitation Center for Veterans of Local Conflicts here. "We are facing hundreds and perhaps thousands of men who cannot adapt to society. They can't enter a normal cycle of life."

The Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a national anti-war organization that advises soldiers and draftees of their legal rights, says that veterans frequently turn to crime to make a living. Jobs are hard to come by and the no-holds-barred war in Chechnya creates in the soldiers a moral vacuum. "It seems every other soldier coming back from Chechnya has some law-and-order problem," said Galina Lebedeva, director of the local mothers committee.

The current Chechen war was advertised to Russians as a low-cost campaign designed to hold down casualties while "terrorists" in the breakaway region were wiped out by airstrikes and artillery. But as Russian troops regained control of Chechnya, they became targets for hit-and-run attacks. It soon became clear that the war would neither be short nor clean, but instead a long nightmare of ambushes, car bombings and sabotage.

At the same time, the military has been accused of widespread human-rights violations in Chechnya, including at least three large-scale shootings of civilians. The brutality visited by Russian troops also takes a psychological toll on those who disapprove, Panova said. "It is not easy to bear the sight of dead children," she said.

Much psychological rehabilitation is left to regional authorities; the center in Nizhny Novgorod, about 250 miles east of Moscow, is funded by the local government. There are some signs that Moscow has begun to consider the strains created by the war that has killed more than 3,000 Russian soldiers and untold numbers of civilians in months of artillery and aerial bombardment. At the main military base at Khankala in Chechnya, the army has set up a psychological support center where soldiers can talk out their problems.

Here in Nizhny Novgorod, psychologists also try to get the veterans to talk. "We are not here to judge; we are here to listen," said Panova.

One has only to look into the glassy eyes of Vladimir, an air force mechanic, to see the strain. His stress seems to have originated through witnessing the parade of wounded and dead. "I have nightmares; I don't sleep well," he said. "I have trouble talking to regular people. I do better with people who have been to Chechnya; I stay around them."

A comrade, Vasily, is a policeman who has fought in both Chechen wars. Russian military police maintain checkpoints in Chechnya, searching cars for arms and watching for guerrilla infiltration into towns, and Vasily knows he will be called up again. In the first war, a member of his unit was killed when rebels retook Grozny, the Chechen capital. In this war, he lived in fear. "You feel guilty when a friend dies. I locked myself into a depression. I don't want to talk with anyone. I come here to restore myself."

Civilians look at him coolly. "It used to be that girls admired men who fought, thought they were real men. Now, they don't want to talk to you. I wish I could be treated as if I was never in Chechnya."

Like Vladimir, Vasily prefers the company of men who have experienced combat in Chechnya. "You feel at ease among your comrades," he said. Both men declined to give their last names because they expect to return to active duty.

Andrei Sadyshev, a veteran of the first war, never wants to return. He has been depressed, almost suicidal, since 1996. He says he sometimes hears voices and dreams of being in Chechnya, under fire, trapped and captured. "Personally, it's difficult. I have trouble concentrating on daily routines. I lost my spirit. I feel I have no future." His eyes were rimmed with red and tears began to form.

A carpenter, Sadyshev has had trouble finding work. One of the shocks for veterans of Russia's latest war has been the return to a standoffish society that seems indifferent to their needs. "We don't fit," Sadyshev said.

"The veterans are looked at as people who can shoot and kill. The soldiers are offended by society which sent them to war and then does not take care of them," said Panova.

Andrei Kozhankov, a young draftee, returned a few months ago and tried to join the police force. He took psychological tests and was rejected for being a "risk." The examiners refused to elaborate on just what kind of risk he was, or to show him the results of the test. "I was wounded. I was a marine. We're the elite. And no one cared. They can go to hell," said Kozhankov, who was drinking beer with fellow veterans at the Russian Cafe, a pool hall on the outskirts of Nizhny Novgorod.

Kozhankov and his friends have formed an outfit called Brotherhood that collects money for unemployed veterans and tries to find them work. They also spend time in each other's company, reliving the war.

"After Chechnya, you forget what it's like in civilian life," said Pavel Yudahin, who recently returned from duty there. "Routine, daily problems seem unimportant. You have no patience. Family and friends seem to press onto you from all sides."

They seethe at suggestions that their war was inferior to World War II, whose veterans are idolized in Russia. "I talked with a World War II soldier at the plant," said Yudahin, who worked for a time at an automobile factory. "He said we weren't real soldiers, that we don't die like soldiers, but only in stupid circumstances."

Kozhankov, Yudahin and their friends are also unhappy with the image of Chechen veterans, or for that matter, Afghan veterans, as troublemakers. In the popular mind, the model for the Chechen veteran was set by the movie "Brother," in which a young soldier becomes a gunslinger in St. Petersburg.

"It's true that some veterans go into crime. But it's because there aren't jobs, except maybe as security guards," said a veteran named Andrei. "It's a myth that we're different."

They are aware that some of their comrades are afflicted with the Chechnya syndrome. "They're locked into themselves. That's why we formed this group--in case we have problems," said Yudahin. "Only we can really understand each other."

They toasted each other, and then the war dead, by pouring a little drop of vodka from a shot glass into an ashtray. The Brotherhood symbol is a red and black five-pointed star. Black symbolizes the fallen.

They have begun a program of lecturing schoolchildren about Chechnya to create a better image of themselves.

"Of course, coming back from any war can be a problem," said Yudahin. "But you feel better if you come back a hero."

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

NUCLEAR REGULATORS TAKE PUBLIC MEETINGS ONLINE

August 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug2000/2000L-08-04-09.html

From now on, people interested in the government's oversight of America's nuclear power plants can view public meetings online. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will use "media streaming" technology to broadcast some of the agency's public meetings live over the Internet. The first streamed meeting, featuring a briefing on the agency's international activities, will begin at 9:30 am on August 15. Over the next eight months, up to 20 public NRC meetings will be broadcast over the Internet as a means of improving communications with the public. All such streamed meetings will be archived and available to Internet users worldwide at www.nrc.gov/live.html.

To observe NRC meetings, users will need a computer equipped with a sound card and speakers, access to the Internet, and Real Networks Player software - a free version is available for download from the www.nrc.gov/live.html web page. Detailed instructions are provided at the web site for accessing the meetings, as well as a toll-free telephone number and email address for assistance. The web page provides viewers an opportunity to provide comments on the broadcasts. The agency will use this feedback in determining the value of providing this service in the future. Meeting transcripts and a complete listing of Commission meetings will continue to be available on NRC's home page at www.nrc.gov/NRC/PUBLIC/meet.html#COMMISSION.

-------- new mexico

China-Linked Hackers Stole Los Alamos Documents

NewsMax.com
Friday, August 4, 2000
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/8/3/204714

Hackers suspected of working for China hacked their way into a top-secret computer system at Los Alamos National Laboratory and stole massive amounts of sensitive information, according to the Washington Times.

"They [the Chinese] obtained the equivalent of a stack of documents 3 feet high," one official told Times reporter Bill Gertz.

The theft was uncovered more than a year ago by a National Security Agency (NSA) computer expert but has been kept secret, the Times reported.

Officials said the hackers "disguised their attack by entering a Los Alamos 'file transfer protocol' site, or FTP, on the Internet through several computer system gateways at U.S. universities."

Such FTP sites often are used to store information that is available for downloading by authorized individuals.

The hackers broke into the Los Alamos computer system in late 1998 or early last year, the officials told the Times.

The NSA analyst used electronic tracing techniques developed by his agency to trace the hacker back to a research institute in Beijing. The Times noted that under China's communist system, all such research institutes are part of the government and have been used in the past for spying.

Data stored on Los Alamos computers until recently was "sensitive," but not secret, and included information dubbed "unclassified," "controlled nuclear information," "official use only," "naval nuclear propulsion information," "export controlled information" and "corporate proprietary data," the Times reported.

But officials said that such information stolen by China and other nations has been invaluable in helping them develop high-tech weapons systems.

The data helped foreign governments save time and money on their nuclear weapons programs while undermining U.S. national security and economic competitiveness, a counterintelligence source told the Times.

National Security Agency spokesman Fred Lash would not comment on the agency's role in tracking the Chinese computer attack, but Los Alamos spokesman Jim Danneskiold told the Times that the laboratory was under intensive computer attack during the time in question, although security officials say they have no record of any specific incident involving Chinese downloading information from an FTP site.

"Certainly there were massive attacks around that time as part of Moonlight Maze," Danneskiold said, using the Pentagon code name for a series of worldwide computer assaults, primarily launched against Defense Department computers.

Danneskiold suggested that failure to detect the Chinese hacking might have been due the fact that security officials at Los Alamos were installing a security "fire wall" system designed to keep out unauthorized computer intruders.

There is "an enormous amount of Chinese activity hitting our green, open sites," Danneskiold said. "We're talking Web hits, and it happens continuously."

He explained that the computer systems at the laboratory were partitioned during the period in question by creating a "green" system for open access to all Internet users, a limited-entry "yellow" site for remote access to sensitive but unclassified information and a classified "red" system closed to unauthorized users.

"Yeah, sure, people have gotten into the unclassified system," Danneskiold said. "Our unclassified site has been hacked."

There has been a long history of hacker attacks on U.S. computer systems, sources said, citing 792 computer security incidents, including 324 attacks from outside the United States during just one 10-month period in the late 1990s.

The hacker attacks included efforts to obtain password files, probes of computer defenses and scans of system vulnerabilities to intrusion.

Several computer systems have been compromised by intruders who gained "root" access to Energy Department computer systems, the Times revealed.

Such access allows hackers to gain complete access and total control over computer systems. Many of the attacks, the Times reported, are from foreign intelligence services seeking restricted nuclear information or other sensitive material, particularly on science and technology.

-------- new york

NRC approves transfer of ComEd, PECO nuke licenses

Friday August 4,
Reuters
From: "Scott D Portzline" happen@pipeline.com

NEW YORK - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Friday it has approved the transfer of operating licenses for 20 commercial nuclear power plants from Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) and PECO Energy Co. (NYSE:PE - news) to Exelon Generation Co.

Exelon is being formed following the merger of ComEd's parent company, Unicom Corp. (NYSE:UCM - news) with PECO. The deal is expected to be completed in the autumn of 2000.

ComEd's 13 nuclear units in Illinois include the 1,120-megawatt (MW) Braidwood units 1 and 2, the 1,105-MW Byron units 1 and 2, the 800-MW Dresden units 1 (permanently down), 2, and 3, the 1,100-MW LaSalle units 1 and 2, the 825-MW Quad Cities units 1 and 2, and the permanently shut down 1,040-MW Zion units 1 and 2, the NRC said in a statement Friday.

The PECO units include the 1,100 MW Peach Bottom units 1 (permanently shut down), 2 and 3, the 1,134-MW Limerick 1 and 1,055 MW Limerick 2 units, all in Pennsylvania, as well as the 1,106 MW Salem units 1 and 2 in New Jersey, partially owned by PECO but operated by Public Service Electric & Gas Co., a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (NYSE:PEG - news).

The approval becomes effective immediately, the NRC said.

--New York Power Desk, +212-859-1627, fax +212-859-1758, newyork.newsroom@reuters.com

------- us nuc politics

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/8/4/13.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
August 4, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES JOHN D. HOLUM AS UNDER SECRETARY FOR ARMS CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

President Clinton today recess appointed John D. Holum to be Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs at the Department of State. Mr. Holum was nominated to the United States Senate on March 5, 1999, and his nomination is currently pending.

Mr. John D. Holum, of Annapolis, Maryland, has served as the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, serving as the principal advisor to the President and the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament issues. Mr. Holum previously served as legislative director for Senator George McGovern and was a member of the Policy and Planning Staff at the United States Department of State from 1979 to 1981. He practiced law for twelve years with the firm of O'Melveny & Myers, concentrating on regulatory and international matters.

Mr. Holum received a B.S. from Northern State Teachers College and a J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law.

In his capacity as Under Secretary of State, Mr. Holum will serve as senior advisor to the President and Secretary of State on arms control and nonproliferation issues.

----

Moderate or Militant: Will the Real Dick Cheney Please Stand Up?

By William D. Hartung hartung@newschool.edu,
World Policy Institute and Arms Trade Resource Center
August 4, 2000
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/commentary/cheney.html

Prior to George W. Bush's decision to choose Dick Cheney to head up his search for a running mate--a quest which ended on Tuesday, July 25th with the announcement that Cheney himself had landed the job--for most Americans, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate was at best a dimly remembered figure from the bygone days of the Gulf war.

Gulf War Myths, Gulf War Realities

If you remember Dick Cheney at all, it is probably from his supporting role in the "Dick and Colin Show" (my title, not theirs), that slick exercise in televised spin control that kept America mesmerized during the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict. The show was so popular that it achieved the ultimate "preemptive strike," displacing the afternoon soap operas on more than one occasion.

While Colin Powell had the star power, Cheney added a certain low-key, matter-of-fact credibility to the Bush administration's effort to sell the Gulf War as an antiseptic, "humane" conflict.

To hear Dick and Colin tell it, every U.S. weapon worked as advertised, "collateral damage" (i.e., deaths of innocent men, women, and children) was limited, and the successful coalition effort to reverse Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait had ushered in a new post-cold war order in which tyrants and human rights abusers would no longer go unpunished.

Those of us who stayed tuned to the Gulf War story after it dropped out of prime time soon learned that the Cheney/Powell PR machine had badly distorted the fundamental military and political facts of the conflict.

Militarily, it ended up that U.S. "wonder weapons" hadn't been so wonderful after all. MIT weapons scientist Theodore Postol and the Israeli military persuasively demonstrated that the "star" of the air war, Raytheon's Patriot missile, was successful in intercepting Scud missiles just 10 to 40% of the time, not the 90%-plus rate broadcast by Cheney and Powell. (Ironically, just in the past year, Raytheon has been forced to recall as defective hundreds of upgraded Patriot PAC-2 missiles that it had sold to U.S. allies in the wake of the Gulf War).

Iraqi military casualties were much smaller than the Bush administration had originally claimed, in large part because tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers--exhausted from eight years of war with Iran and fed up with Saddam Hussein's empty promises to take care of their basic needs--decided to "vote with their feet" by beating a hasty retreat from the front lines. Meanwhile, deaths of Iraqi non-combatants from disease and hunger spawned by the destruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure were much higher than originally acknowledged. More than nine years after the Bush administration's glorious victory in Iraq, the flood of unnecessary civilian deaths continues, driven by the Clinton/Gore policy of stiff economic sanctions punctuated by periodic outbursts of massive aerial bombardment.

On the global political front, needless to say, the bombardment of Iraq did nothing to stop mass killing and repression in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, southeastern Turkey, or East Timor. In fact, in many of these places, the United States armed and trained the perpetrators of ethnic slaughter in keeping with the "Cheney Doctrine" of "arms for our friends and arms control for our enemies." This deeply hypocritical stance helped enrich U.S. arms merchants, but only at the unacceptably high cost of undermining the prospects for arms control and enduring peace in the Middle East, East Asia, and southern Africa.

Yellow ribbons and self-congratulatory rhetoric aside, the main military and diplomatic consequences of the 1991 Gulf War have been the perpetuation of the myth of "war without casualties" (U.S. casualties, that is); the emergence of the United States as the world's leading arms merchant; and the weakening of diplomatic and multilateral approaches to peacekeeping and conflict prevention in favor of a series of ad hoc, U.S.-led "posses" that generally enter zones of conflict too late and use the wrong tools once they get there (e.g., bombing from 15,000 feet as an antidote to ethnic repression in Kosovo).

So far, none of the U.S. principals of the 1991 Persian Gulf War have been called to account for the lies and manipulation they engaged in before, during, and after the conflict. On the contrary, they have profited from the war. And more than any other player in the war, Cheney had to reap his windfall the old-fashioned way, by exploiting conflicts-of-interest to line his own pockets.

Unlike his more charismatic cohorts, Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf, Cheney didn't get a multi-million dollar book contract after the Gulf War. And no one was hounding him to run for president (or vice president, for that matter) in the wake of the war, as was the case with Colin Powell. Instead, Dick Cheney, the man who helped direct a war that was largely aimed at keeping "our oil supplies" out of the hands of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, decided to get into the oil business, just as his longstanding friends in the Bush administration had done. Wall Street analysts make no bones of the fact that Cheney's new employer, the oil industry services firm Halliburton, hired him NOT for his experience in the industry (he had none), but rather for the doors he could open for the firm in key Middle Eastern markets (including, but not limited to, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).

Cheney has done a damned good job of opening doors, helping the firm pursue new business opportunities with old friends (like Saudi Arabia) and "states of concern" (like Iraq and Iran) alike. He also engineered Halliburton's purchase of the construction giant Brown and Root, which is involved in everything from providing security at U.S. embassies to building military bases for the United States and its closest allies. This in turn allowed Cheney to trade on his connections inside the Pentagon to boost the firm's level of military contracts to more than $650 million per year--enough to bring it into the ranks of the department's top 20 contractors in FY 1999, up from 42nd in FY 1998. Not a bad few years' work for a guy everyone assumed had vanished into the woodwork after his 15 minutes of fame expired in the spring of 1991.

Aside from offering reassurance to the Pentagon and corporate America that "young" George W. (who at 54, is actually only five years younger than Cheney) won't do anything rash or stupid, Cheney brings another key asset to the ticket: after a distinguished (albeit extremely conservative) career that has included stints as President Ford's chief of staff, a well-regarded member of Congress from Wyoming, and Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration, Dick Cheney is actually qualified to serve as president of the United States. The same cannot be reliably stated for George W. Bush himself, who has served one term and change as the governor of Texas, a state whose system gives so little power to the governor that anyone who wants to get anything done goes first to either the legislative leadership, the comptroller, or the lieutenant governor (who presides over the legislature). In fact, Bush/Cheney looks a lot like Bush/Quayle in reverse, with George W. representing the role of the potatoe-spelling pinhead and Dick Cheney playing the polite but accomplished career politician with a resume longer than your arm.

Despite his reputation as a moderate, Dick Cheney is in reality one of the most conservative political figures of the modern era of American politics. During his Congressional career as Wyoming's member of the House of Representatives in the 1980s, he pulled off the conservative equivalent of the "daily double:" a 100% rating from the American Conservative Union, paired with a 0% rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. That put him in company with such right-wing luminaries as Jack Kemp, Dick Armey, and Dan Burton, and slightly to the right of Newt Gingrich, who got a whopping 5% ADA rating. Cheney's conservative votes include staunch support for aid to the Contras, opposition to abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and opposition to common sense gun safety measures such as a ban on "cop killer" bullets and an end to the manufacture of plastic guns that can fool airport security devices (a vote on which he was joined by only 3 House colleagues).

His record as a moderate stems largely from his tenure as George Bush's Secretary of Defense, when he presided over significant cutbacks in U.S. troops and opposed several unnecessary weapons programs, such as the Navy's A-12 "stealth" fighter plane and the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey. Clearly, the defense industry harbored no grudge, as Cheney's wife has sat on the Board of Directors of defense giant Lockheed Martin for years. Former Reagan administration Pentagon official Lawrence J. Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations points out that Cheney's image as a "budget cutter" is vastly over-rated. During his tenure at the helm of the Pentagon, the Berlin Wall fell, Soviet troops were pulled out of Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its constituent republics. Yet despite the disappearance of its cold war adversary, Cheney wanted to cut the U.S. military budget by only 10 percent over a multi-year period, and was only convinced to cut deeper by Colin Powell, who argued that anything less than a phased-in reduction of 25% would be laughed off of Capitol Hill.

To his credit, Cheney seems to be more closely allied with respected, internationalist Republicans like former Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz and former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, rather than right-wing true believers like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. This difference could be crucial, since it was folks like Shultz and Scowcroft who helped convince the Reagan and Bush administrations to trade off distorted visions of a leak-proof missile defense for real, negotiated reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. If he were to use his inherent caution to put George W.'s harebrained National Missile Defense scheme on the slow track while nuclear arms reductions are resumed in earnest after an eight year hiatus during the Clinton term, he could make a positive mark on U.S. security policy. And if his newfound experience in the oil business makes him more open to normalizing relations with former "rogue states" like Iran and Iraq, all the better. But before we can gauge how Cheney might perform as vice president, we will need a much more vigorous and detailed foreign policy debate than either Al Gore or George Bush have offered thus far. There's no time like the present, on the eve of the Republican convention, to get started on that debate.

--

For more on Cheney's corporate ties, see the excellent new investigative report from the Center for Public Integrity's Public-I. The report exposes Republican Veep Candidate Cheney as a corporate welfare king while at the helm of oil giant Halliburton. "Under the guidance of Richard Cheney, a get-the-government-out-of-my-face conservative, Halliburton Company over the past five years has emerged as a corporate welfare hog. benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans." Access the article at http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm

Trent Lott's "Lott Hop" and Tom DeLay's golf tournament during the Republican National Convention did not escape public scrutiny. Two fabulous articles on how corporate interests are financing these shin digs as a way to curry favor and maintain access to Members of Congress appeared in both the Washington Post and the Legal Times (the Public-I - www.public-i.org has these and other articles about the convention posted).

The first one, "Party Favors for the GOP: Industries with Business on the Hill Come Out to Play - and Pay - at Convention," by Sam Loewenberg, appeared July 31st in Legal Times. The article comments on the many companies - including Lockheed Martin, Philip Morris, Fannie Mae, and AT&T - that have been bankrolling the parties for not only Trent Lott and Tom DeLay but also Billy Tauzin [R-LA], Don Nickles [R-OK], and Michael Oxley [R-OH]. Go to http://www5.law.com/dc-shl/display.cfm?id=3588

The second article, "On the Outside Looking In as Tom DeLay Whips Up Some Fundraisers" by Dana Milbank, appeared August 2nd in the Washington Post. The article begins, "There are 15,000 reporters here for the Republican National Convention. Tom DeLay's goal is to avoid them all. ... He unapologetically packs cocktail parties and golf outings with cigar-smoking lobbyists, whose money provides perks to Republican congressmen and keeps them in power. 'That's what politics is about,' he says." To read more go to: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19950-2000Aug1.html

Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 12:45:08 -0400 From: "Frida Berrigan" BerrigaF@newschool.edu

----

New York Times
Letters to the Editor
uudre@aol.com
August 4, 2000

Dick Cheney served as Secretary of the Department of Defense under President Bush from 1989 to 1993. During 1991, he helped formulate U.S. strategy in the Gulf War.

In early 1991, Agent Orange Vietnam veterans finally got recognized by Congress in a long needed compensation bill. Cheney dragged his and his administration's heels on Agent Orange vet recognition for their 2 years in power up to then.

It was also during Cheney's DOD watch that Persian Gulf War veterans (within 30 days of the start) began presenting with the serious symptoms later named Gulf War Syndrome. Cheney dragged his heels on the needs of the sick vets from this combat, too.

Without adequate research or fact collecting, Cheney's DOD publically began connecting Gulf War Syndrome vets' debilitating symptoms to: old football injuries, rashs like civilians have, poor dental care, male pattern baldness and plain ole depression.

In that same year, 1991, the DOD buried early reporting by Czech troops that troops were exposed to chemical agents. The DOD did not admit to seeing this report in 1991 until the next administration.

VA physicians were prohibited from exploring the possibility of chemical and biological agent exposure due to DOD denial that they were used. The doctors did not feel safe enough in their positions to publicize that until the change in administrations.

Anthony Principi, #2 in the Veteran's Affairs Department and a Vietnam vet himself, wanted to open a registry for Gulf War vets similar to the Agent

Orange vet registry to track future health problems. He was told no and even chastised for puting the idea in a trackable memo. The VA's reasoning was that the DOD could not afford the number of Gulf vets who might register their medical needs.

The VA/DOD argument over what diagnostic code might apply to sick Gulf vets began then behind closed doors.

In 1992, under Cheney, The DOD reported to Congress on the conduct of the Pers ian Gulf War. They reported that "In the beginning of the deployment, the

services were not adequately prepared to deal with the full range of CW (chemical warfare)/BW (biological warfare). There were limitations in most area, including drug availability, protection, detection, decontamination, prophylaxis, and therapy."

But, the DOD still would not admit that U.S. troops were actually exposed to chemical and biological agents during the 1991 war.

Nick Roberts, from Phoenix, Alabama, a Gulf War Syndrome vet who has since died of his symptoms, said that "...they kept feeding us this line of bull that nothing was wrong with us."

By March 1994, an average of 1,000 Gulf War vets a month were signing up on the Department of Veteran's Affairs hotline asking for needed medical help for symptoms first experienced during or immediately after the 1991 Gulf War.

It was also when many Americans learned, for the first time, that the Bush administration had secretly and illegally supplied many of the chemical and biological agents in Iraq's weapons arsenal before our war with them.

That revelation meant that, as a country, we may have contributed to the death and disability of thousands of our own troops.

Many political pundits share the belief that the fact of our own contribution may have been at the heart of the Bush administration's snail-slow recognition of Gulf War Syndrome.

Using the most current statistics from the Department of Veterans' Affairs: 696,628 U.S. troops served in the Gulf War between August 2, 1990 and 1991. All are considered "Gulf War Conflict" veterans by the VA.

575,978 (83%) of those were eligible for VA benefits.

263,000 (45%) of those sought medical care at VA facilities for Gulf War Syndrome symptoms.

Of the remaining 312,978 (575,978 less 263,000), 183,629 (32%) filed claims for service-related medical disabilities.

Of those 183,629 disability claims, 136,031 (74%) were approved in whole as total disability.19,976 have been approved for partial disability payments.

Bottom Line: At least 64% of all U.S. troops who served during the Persian Gulf War were (and still are) at high risk of developing the symptoms and disabilities of Gulf War Syndrome.

Here is what the Cheney/W. Bush Republican team have to answer for: An estimated 9,600 veterans have died of their symptoms since their Persian Gulf War service. The lack of speed in recognition and treatment; and the Department of Defense not funding enough independent research during Cheney's watch from 1989 to 1993 means that we will never have an accurate figure for those veterans whose military service killed them once they returned to their homes.

--

Can Cheney Come Clean?

Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome Disabled Veterans During His Watch as Secretary of the Department of Defense (1989-1993)

1989-1993: Richard Bruce (Dick) Cheney served as Secretary of the Department of Defense Appointed by President George H. W. Bush

1991: Cheney helped formulate military strategy of the U.S. during the Persian Gulf War

January 30, 1991:
Agent Orange Vietnam veterans finally recognized by Congress in long needed compensation bill.

Cheney dragged heels on this recognition for 2 years as Secretary of the DOD from 1989 up to January 1991.

Also, first ground battle of Persian Gulf War began on this date. Within 30 days, participating veterans presented with serious symptoms later named Gulf War Syndrome.

Note that during much of Cheney's watch as the Secretary of DOD, neither Agent Orange vets or Gulf War Syndrome vets got the recognition and medical help they needed.

Sources of Gulf War Syndrome in 1991: Not admitted by DOD during Cheney's time:

Up to 100,000 U.S. troops exposed to low-levels of warfare agents included: sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gases

More than 250,000 U.S. troops received investigational new drug, pyridostigmine I (PB Pills).

800,000 U.S. troops received investigational new botulinum toxoid (Bot Tox) vaccine.

150,000 U.S. troops received hotly debated anthrax vaccine.

436,000 U.S. troops entered or lived for months within areas contaminated by 315 tons of depleted uranium radioactive toxic waste possibly also laced with radioactive Plutonium and Neptunium. The DOD admitted (after Cheney's time) that U.S. troops in these areas received almost no training, education, equipment or medical evaluations involving these highly radioactive living arrangements.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops lived outdoors for months near more than 700 burning oil well with no protective equipment or training.

As early as March of 1991: Gulf War vets began reporting symptoms that included: fatigue, rashes, muscle and joint pain, headaches, memory loss, shortness of b reath, sleep disturbances, diarrhea and coughs.

By June 1991, 17,248 U.S. GW vets were reporting the above symptoms.

The DOD, still under Cheney at this time, began to officially and publically attribute these symptoms to previous injury and surgery, normal rashes found in the general civilian population, poor dental care, teeth grinding, male patterned baldness and depression.

Source for much the above: "Diagnosis Unknown: Gulf War Syndrome: Triumphant in the Desert, Stricken at Home," by David Brown, THE WASHINGTON POST, July 24, 1994. [See below]

By the end of 1991 (still Cheney watch): the DOD still officially denied any U.S. troops exposed to any chemical or biological agents. The DOD also claimed at time that only about 250 of all Gulf War vets had any unexplained symptoms.

Well respected veterans' support groups and several House members said at time that "250" figure was actually thousands of affected GW veterans.

The DOD buried early reporting by Czech troops that troops were exposed to chemical agents. DOD will not admit seeing this report in 1991 until Clinton administration.

VA physicians prohibited from exploring possibility of chemical and biological agent exposure due to DOD denial that they were used, according to Dr. Robert Roswell, chief of staff of the VA Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. He did not feel safe enough to go to the media with that 1991 prohibition until the 1993 change in administrations.

Hester Adcock, of Ocala, Florida was the mother of son, Michael, a Gulf War veteran. Michael Adcock died 11 months after returning from the Gulf due to cancer of the heart, lungs, spleen, kidney and brain.

At the time of his death, Mrs. Adcock said: "The Department of Defense needs to come clean with all of us. There is no doubt in my mind that my son died as a result of chemical and biological warfare while serving in the Gulf."

Sources: "Gulf War Vets Say U.S. Ignored Chemical Role in Illnesses," SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Wire Services, January 10, 1993.

"Pentagon Says Nerve Gas Dtected During Gulf War," Dave Parks, BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) NEWS, October 29, 1993.

"VA Doctor Says Denials Blocked Probe," Michael Brumas, BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) NEWS, November 3, 1993.

"Pentagon Got Czech Report Early in War," Michael Brumas, BIRMINGHAM (Alabama) NEWS, November 5, 1993.

Still 1991 (still Cheney watch):

The U.S. Military measurement of the Gulf oil fires smoke incomplete. Why?: DOD did not smoke-track during March and April of 1991, the period preceeding the arrival of the Shamal winds which blow from northeast to southwest between May and September each year.

Anthony Principi, #2 in the Veteran's Affairs Department and a Vietnam vet himself, wanted to open registry for Gulf War vets similar to Agent Orange registry to track future health problems. He was told no and even chastised for puting the idea in a trackable memo. The VA's reason was that the DOD and themselves could not afford the number of Gulf vets who might register their medical needs.

The VA/DOD argument over what diagnostic code might apply to sick Gulf vets began behind closed doors.

Source: "Diagnosis Unknown: Gulf War Syndrome: The Search for Causes," David Brown, THE WASHINGTON POST, Sunday, July 24, 1994

1992 (still Cheney watch):

The DOD reported to Congress on conduct of Persian Gulf War, April 1992: "In the beginning of the deployment, the services were not adequately prepared to deal withthe full range of CW (chemical warfare)/BW (biological warfare). There were limitations in most area, including drug availability, protection, detection, decontamination, prophylaxis, and therapy."

Note: The DOD still did not admit at this time that U.S. troops were actually exposed to chemical and biological agents during the war.

Dr. Charles Jackson, Tuskegee, Alabama Veteran's Administration hospital: " (The) Pentagon (is) unwilling to acknowledge even the presence of chemical and biological agents in the Persian Gulf..."

Nick Roberts, Phoenix, Alabama, Gulf War vet who has since died from Gulf War Syndrome: "...they kept feeding us this line of bull that nothing was wrong with us."

Source: "Dying for Their Country," Mary A. Fischer, GENTLEMAN'S QUARTERLY, May 1994.

1993

Cheney returned to private life with the swearing in of President Clinton. The new administration had to immediately begin playing catch-up with GWS vets' historically unmet and unrecognized needs, but not before these three events during the last of Cheney's watch:

-The Army Surgeon General acknowledged in a memo that "when soldiers inhale or ingest depleted Uranium dust, they incur a potential increase in cancer risk." The Pentagon admitted Gulf War U.S. troops weren't trained in proper handling of depleted Uranium.

-A report to the National Academy of Sciences by U.S. Army Major Richard Haines admitted the following: of GWS vets studied to date:

6 out of 6 (100%) showed central nervous system damage in SPECT brain scans. 13 out of 13 (100%) who took batteries of neuropsychchiatric tests showed central nervous system and vision damage.

43 out of 46 (93%) checked for toxic metallic levels showed high levels of lead and cadmium in hair samples. 27 out of 28 (96%) of those given low level chemical challenges had confirmed multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) to low levels of many common chemicals.

-In another study involving 79 Gulf War veterans with GWS symptoms:

71% had extreme fatigue
57 % has severe sleep disturbance
54% had significant joint pain
43% had difficulty concentrating
37% had constant and severe headaches.

October 29, 1993 Pentagon admitted:

-Low level of chemical warfare agents were actually detected in the air during the Persian Guld War

-Czech report of chemical agent use and exposure given to U.S. military leadership early in war. The DOD discounted that information.

1994

As of March 1994:

An average 1,000 Gulf War vets a month were signing up on the Department of Veteran's Affairs hotline asking for needed medical help for symptoms experienced since 1991.

Many Americans learn for the first time that the Bush administration had secretly and illegally supplied many of the chemical and biological agents in Iraq's weapons arsenal before the Persian Gulf War.

That revelation meant that, as a country, we may have contributed to the death and disability of thousands of our own troops.

Many pundits share belief that fact of our own contribution may have been at heart of the government's snail-slow recognition of Gulf War Syndrome.

1999: (using the most current statistics from the Department of Veterans' Affairs):

696,628 U.S. troops served in the Gulf War between August 2, 1990 and 1991. All are considered "Gulf War Conflict" veterans by the VA.

575,978 (83%) of those were eligible for VA benefits.

263,000 (45%) of those sought medical care at VA facilities for Gulf War Syndrome symptoms.

Of the remaining 312,978 (575,978 less 263,000), 183,629 (32%) filed claims for service-related medical disabilities.

Of those 183,629 disability claims, 136,031 (74%) were approved in whole as total disability.

19,976 have been approved for partial disability payments.

As of October 1999, there were still 27,622 unresolved Gulf War Syndrome claims pending with the VA.

Bottom Line: At least 64% of all U.S. troops who served during the Persian Gulf War were (and still are) at high risk of developing the symptoms and disabilities of Gulf War Syndrome.

Finally, it is estimated that 9,600 Gulf War Syndrome veterans have died of their symptoms since their Persian Gulf War service. The lack of speed in recognition and treatment; and also in Department of Defense funded independent research during Cheney's watch from 1989-1993 means we will never have an accurate figure for those veterans whose military service killed them once they returned to their homes.

A Partial Bibliography on the Gulf War Syndrome Veterans Story While Cheney was the Secretary of the Department of Defense (1989-1993):

"Agent Orange Compensation," President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities," WASHINGTON FAX, vol. 2,#2, November/December 1993.

"VA Establishes Persian Gulf Registry," Ibid., October 1993.

"Gulf War Vets Need Your Input!," THE NEW REACTOR, Environmental Health Network, vol.2,#2, September/October 1992.

"Rockerfeller Wins Passage of New Law to Help Veterans with Persian Gulf War 'Mystery' Illness," SENATE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS NEWS RELEASE, November 22, 1993.

"Is It Agent Orange Revisited?," SOUTH BEND (Indiana) TRIBUNE, November 23, 1993.

"Gulf Vets Say U.S. Ignored Chemical Role in Illness," SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, November 10, 1993.

"House Votes to Assist Gulf War Veterans," Ibid., August 3, 1993.

"Hospital Prepares for Influx of Veterans," OAKLAND (California) TRIBUNE, August 9, 1993.

"The Gulf Gas Mystery," TIME MAGAZINE, November 1993.

"Agent Orange Compensation," Ibid., October 11, 1993.

There are many fine articles in the archives of the BIRMINGHAM NEWS in Alabama. The reason is twofold.

First, Alabama sent more soldiers to the Gulf War than any other state. Thus, the state had more Gulf War Syndrome vets with disabilities than any other state, too. Second, their medical and military reporting on this story from 1991 on was, and still is, outstanding.

----

Some Disappointed in Gore's Choices

By Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer
Friday, Aug. 4, 2000; 3:37 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000804/aponline153752_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- Plagued by security problems at nuclear weapons labs and near-record gasoline prices, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has become an also-ran in the Democratic vice-presidential sweepstakes.

It's a huge disappointment for New Mexico Democrats, who had hoped their former congressman's globetrotting resume and Hispanic heritage would make him an ideal choice as Al Gore's running mate.

"I hated to see that happen because he certainly would have helped Gore's campaign in terms of bringing in Hispanics," said New Mexico state Sen. Mary Jane Garcia.

Richardson, 52, had been in the running mate mix this spring. But his name is not among the six that Gore confidants now say are on the short list to be the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

The only Hispanic in President Clinton's cabinet, Richardson is a former U.N. ambassador whose free-lance diplomatic missions as a congressman freed captives in Iraq, North Korea and Sudan. Both parties are targeting Hispanic voters this year, and supporters say Richardson could help with that bloc, as well as helping Democrats in the Southwest and California, where he was born.

"He has a national Hispanic audience, as well as a very broad understanding of domestic issues and global issues," said New Mexico Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Denish. "He's got charisma and he's a wonderful campaigner."

Richardson took over at the Energy Department two years ago as a string of security scandals started breaking. Despite his vows to crack down, problems kept erupting through earlier this summer.

"I think that killed his chances right there," said Greg Salazar, a delegate to the Democratic convention from Las Vegas, N.M.

And if that didn't, Richardson faced another problem: Gasoline prices skyrocketed despite his attempts to get OPEC to increase oil production, leaving drivers fuming.

-------

Transcript of George W. Bush acceptance speech
Gov. George W. Bush Republican National Convention •

http://www.washtimes.com/election2000/transcript-200084205142.htm

[Excerpted]

.... The world needs America's strength and leadership, and America's armed forces need better equipment, better training, and better pay. We will give our military the means to keep the peace, and we will give it one thing more ... a commander-in-chief who respects our men and women in uniform, and a commander-in-chief who earns their respect. A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam.

When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming. I will work to reduce nuclear weapons and nuclear tension in the world -- to turn these years of influence into decades of peace. And, at the earliest possible date, my administration will deploy missile defenses to guard against attack and blackmail. Now is the time, not to defend outdated treaties, but to defend the American people....

--------

Readers' forum: No evidence that missile defense works

toledo blade
August 4, 2000
http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/letters/0h04lett.htm

This fall President Clinton is expected to decide whether to deploy a limited, national defense system. The latest test of the system failed on July 7.

If the President elects to recommend this system, it could have a devastating impact on U.S. efforts to reduce nuclear weapons and on U.S. relations with other countries with nuclear weapons.

The planned system is costly, destabilizing, and unproven. It would cost tens of billions of dollars and there is no evidence that it will work. Tests are being rushed and even technical supporters of the program have recommended against a deployment decision this year.

A recent report by an independent panel of scientists with the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that the system would never be effective against relatively simple counter measures.

President Clinton and our senators and representatives need to hear from citizens who are concerned about another military industrial boondoggle and the threat of a renewed nuclear arms race. Urge the President and members of Congress not to deploy this unproven, costly national defense system.

Meaningful security does not lie in pursuing a costly, dangerous illusion of safety.

BONNIE BISHOP and ARLENE HENDREN Co-Presidents, League of Women Voters of Toledo-Lucas County

-------- us nuc waste

CRYSTALLINE CERAMICS COULD HELP STORE RADIOACTIVE WASTES

August 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug2000/2000L-08-04-09.html

Scientists from the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan have pinpointed a group of materials that may contain radioactive waste for safe long term storage. Their findings are reported in the August 4 issue of the journal "Science." High level nuclear waste, such as spent fuel from nuclear reactors, is now stored in containers that hold up for about 100 years, says Kurt Sickafus of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and lead author of the study. But long term storage of nuclear waste will require containment materials that can resist water and radiation damage for thousands of years.

Radioactive emissions can jostle the atoms of the storage material out of arrangement, making the material unstable and prone to cracking, swelling or structural change. "If a material wants to be highly ordered, and the defects are putting atoms where the material doesn't want them, that raises the energy in the structure," said Sickafus. "Ultimately, the material may have so much energy that it will suffer unwanted structural change." Sickafus and his colleagues have hit upon a class of ceramic materials that may resist these problems. The atoms in this class of materials are somewhat disordered and can shift positions with ease, tolerating minute defects caused by radiation. "Fluorite type ceramic materials show promise as safe, radiation proof materials and should be further developed for containing nuclear wastes," Sickafus said. He and his colleagues suspect that other crystalline materials with disordered structures may be resistant to radiation damage as well.

---

A safer material to contain nuclear waste?

By Maggie Fox,
REUTERS,
Friday, August 4, 2000
http://web.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/08/04/national/WASTE04.htm?template=aprint.htm
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7702

WASHINGTON - A new crystalline material that can withstand pounding radiation might provide a safer grave for high-level nuclear waste, an international team of scientists said yesterday.

The scientists hope they can fine-tune the material into a form that can be used to contain waste safely for tens of thousands of years.

"If this work points the way toward finding the absolute best radiation-tolerant material, and it is then used as an encapsulation material, then this is phenomenally important," said Robin Grimes of London's Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, who worked on the study.

The secret of the material, called erbium zirconate, is its ability to put up with a little disorder, Grimes said.

High-level nuclear waste, such as spent fuel from nuclear reactors, is currently stored in containers that may last for only about 100 years.

These are put into geologically stable places such as disused salt mines, or buried very deep in the earth, but if the containers rupture, the radiation could escape into the environment.

The materials used in containers are glasslike chemicals. When these are bombarded by constant radiation, the carefully arranged atoms get jostled out of place. The result can be eventual cracking, swelling and instability.

"Glasses absolutely get completely screwed up," Grimes said in a telephone interview. "They are very, very good, cheap ways for shortish-term storage . . . but what we are looking for is material that will last tens of thousands of years."

Grimes and graduate student Lisia Minervini ran a series of computer models aimed at predicting the kinds of materials that would tolerate having their atoms shifted around a bit. They came up with a kind of map, with erbium zirconate at one end and erbium titanate at the other.

Kurt Sickafus and colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico created the two compounds and ran tests in which they bombarded them with xenon gas.

The experiments confirmed what Grimes had predicted - that erbium zirconate was the best at resisting the bombardment.

He described the material as being like a punching bag that can absorb a punch and then slowly regain its shape.

Grimes and Sickafus said they believed that other disordered crystalline materials might work even better.

"We think this might be a basic rule that applies to other materials beyond those in this study, but we'll have to do more work to be sure," Sickafus said.

Grimes said the new material, a ceramic with properties resembling sapphire, could be physically combined with the nuclear waste to create a more stable storage system.

"The radioactive material is actually embedded within the crystal lattice on the atomic level," he said.

Congress has been battling with the problem of how to dispose of 400,000 tons of spent fuel from 80 reactors in 40 states, much of it held at sites not intended for long-term storage. In April, President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have created a site in Nevada to store the waste. (c) 2000 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.

----

RADIOACTIVE ROADS AND RAILS
A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRRADIATED FUEL SHIPMENTS

NIRS, Kevin Kamps,
June 2000
http://www.nirs.org/roadsrails/accidentshistorybrochure.htm

The nuclear industry wants you to believe that the transportation of high-level atomic waste is safe. Its Washington, D.C. lobbying arm, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), claims that 2,900 shipments of irradiated nuclear fuel have traveled U.S. highways and railroads since 1964 with no radiation leaks nor container cracks. Although NEI admits that eight accidents have occurred, they say that only four involved containers loaded with "used" (that is, highly radioactive) nuclear fuel.

But in a 1996 U.S. Department of Energy report, "Reported Incidents Involving Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipments, 1949 to Present," a full 72 "incidents" are described. Four involved "accidental radioactive material contamination beyond the vehicle," 4 with contamination confined to the vehicle, 13 traffic accidents with no release or contamination, 49 of accidental container surface contamination, and 2 incidents with no descriptions. Three of the incidents resulting in contamination beyond the vehicle occurred in 1960 (a leaking rail cask that contaminated "small areas" at three rail yards), 1962 (a leaking truck cask that contaminated a roadway), and 1964 (a leaking truck cask that contaminated a terminal) - which may explain why NEI chose 1965 as the year to start counting "safe" shipments. However, a "slow drip from bottom front end of empty cask while stored in transportation terminal" occurred in a truck cask in 1984.

Upon closer examination, innocent-sounding "incidents" can be quite significant. DOE reports an 8/25/1980 incident merely as "surface contamination on cask". But there's much more to the story, as Dr. Marvin Resnikoff revealed in his classic 1983 book The Next Nuclear Gamble: Transportation and Storage of Nuclear Waste.

A NAC-1 truck cask (a Nuclear Assurance Corporation container capable of shipping one irradiated fuel assembly) was delivered to the San Onofre nuclear plant in California on August 20, 1980. Unknown to the workers about to handle the cask, it had been used four months earlier to ship a leaking fuel assembly from the Oyster Creek, NJ reactor to a research facility near Columbus, Ohio. The cask had become so severely contaminated in the process that NAC added external lead shielding to try to lower the exposure to workers and the public from the harmful gamma rays and neutrons emanating out from the interior. This earlier April, 1980 contamination incident is not listed in the DOE report, nor mentioned by NEI.

When the empty cask arrived at San Onofre, the radiation level in the truck driver's cab was over twice the maximum legal limit. Two NAC technicians flew in to decontaminate the cask, which at points emitted 11 to 40 times the legal limit of radiation. A San Onofre health physics technician assisted-his role: to safeguard workers' health against harmful radioactivity. However, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents reveal that the he was not qualified for this task: "He had no familiarity with irradiated (spent) fuel casks," and "he received no briefing or instruction with regard to the potential hazard" of working with this contaminated cask nor even "what procedure or actions were going to be performed."

The NAC technicians opened a capped pipe leading to the interior of the cask. Highly contaminated water began pouring out. One NAC worker caught it in a plastic bag and measured the radiation. The water emitted up to 100 rems/hour of radiation--a level high enough to deliver a lethal dose to an adult after just five hours of whole-body exposure. Shorter exposure time to such intense radiation can lead to other forms of severe health and genetic damage. The NAC workers used a paper towel to wipe up moisture in the pipe. It gave off an even higher 300 rems/hr. One NAC worker attempted to place the plastic bags filled with contaminated waste into a shielded container. When it wouldn't fit, "he held his breath, turned his head, pushed the bags into the cavity while puncturing them with a screwdriver." NRC later fined San Onofre $125,000 for lax health physics supervision. Water samples showed that contamination was so high that the release of several gallons of water from this cask could have resulted in billions of dollars in clean up costs.

The very same NAC-1 cask later exceeded its radioactive decay heat temperature limit, had a leaking valve, and had a radioactive "hot spot" that mysteriously moved from one end of the cask to the other after it had been decontaminated several times.

In Feb., 1981 another NAC-1 cask at Oyster Creek was found to have surface contamination, even though it was empty and had not shipped fuel for five months. A layer of heavy paint was applied to hold the contamination in place during the cask's next journey, to Ohio. However, water soluble paint was used that began to dissolve during a rainstorm in Pennsylvania. The drivers noticed the paint peeling off, but continued on, apparently oblivious that radioactive contaminants likely were falling off onto the highway for hundreds of miles. How much radiation was released will never be known.

High surface contamination incidents continued. Casks arrived at the La Crosse, WI nuclear plant with radiation levels 90 times the legal limit. NRC allowed the casks to be used, merely requiring them to be wrapped in a large plastic bag. Only after the shipments were completed did NRC require the casks to be decontaminated. Unfortunately, the La Crosse management did not warn their workers about the cask, and several were contaminated when they handled it without gloves. The NRC reported that in less than a year, this particular cask had excess surface contamination 7 times, and released some radiation during transit.

NAC also had used faulty casks for more than 5 years, from 1974 to 1979, to ship irradiated fuel more than 300,000 miles. The casks bowed out of shape, a defect that NRC noted could compromise its crashworthiness. However, NAC only reported bowing problems after shipments had been completed. Eventually, 4 of 6 NAC-1's were pulled from the road due to the bowing problem. The NAC-1 had been regarded as the "workhorse" of irradiated fuel transport in the U.S. before its problems surfaced.

In addition to its "glowing" safety record, the U.S. nuclear industry speaks of decades of experience in transporting "spent" nuclear fuel. However, 2,900 shipments over the past 35 years averages out to just over 80 shipments per year. Most of those involved relatively short transport distances (traversing 3 or fewer states), and took place many years ago. From 1988 to 1997, there were only 205 shipments in the U.S.; in 1996-97, there were only 30 shipments.

However, recent nuclear industry-supported Congressional legislation would launch an unprecedented number of shipments. In the first two years of the proposed program, 2007-2008, some 2,400 shipments were mandated, almost as many as over the past 35 years combined in the U.S. In 2009, 2,600 shipments were called for, nearly doubling the past 35 years experience in a single year. The numbers would skyrocket from there: 4,200 shipments in 2010; 6,200 in 2011; 6,600 every year from 2012 to 2014; 6,800 each year from 2015 to 2030; and 7,800 shipments per year thereafter (shipment numbers assume containers capable of holding half a metric ton of fuel, about equal to one pressurized water reactor irradiated fuel assembly).

When confronted about the relative lack of experience in the U.S., the nuclear industry often points to the European and Japanese experience, where there have been more irradiated fuel shipments because those countries send fuel to reprocessing facilities. However, Europe has had its own irradiated fuel transport controversies.

The numbers show the intensity of the resistance to irradiated fuel shipments to "interim storage" sites in Germany. March, 1997: 6 casks, 173 injured, 500 arrested, 20,000 protestors, 30,000 police, $100 million in costs. April, 1998: 6 casks, scores injured, 1,000 arrested, 7,000 protestors, 30,000 police, $100 million. These protests effectively ended "interim storage" at Gorleben and Ahaus, respectively. Irradiated fuel shipments between Europe and Japan, some traveling through the Panama Canal, have been dogged by protests and controversy on a growing scale.

From the early 1980's to the late 1990's, contamination incidents like those in the U.S. were occurring on irradiated fuel casks being shipped to and from COGEMA's La Hague reprocessing plant in France. But this was kept secret from the public by the nuclear industry and government agencies. It took the work of investigative reporters and activists to break the story in 1997. On May 12, 1998 according to Reuters, French officials admitted that contamination from German casks bound for COGEMA had exceeded radiation limits by up to 3,000 times.

When the nuclear industry and government talk about a spotless record of transporting "spent" nuclear fuel, it's important to look beneath the surface.

Nuclear Information and Resource Service, 1424 16th St NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036, 202-328-0002; www.nirs.org

Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy & Environment Project, 215 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003, 202-546-4996; www.citizen.org/cmep

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

New Book: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons
Power versus Prudence

by T.V. Paul
Fri, 04 Aug 2000 09:51:55 -0400
From: Hisham Zerriffi hisham@ieer.org

With the end of the Cold War, nuclear non-proliferation has emerged as a central issue in international security relations. While most existing works on nuclear proliferation deal with the question of nuclear acquisition, T.V. Paul explains why some states have decided to forswear nuclear weapons even when they have the technological capability or potential capability to develop them, and why some states already in possession of nuclear arms choose to dismantle them.

In Power versus Prudence Paul develops a prudential-realist model, arguing that a nation's national nuclear choices depend on specific regional security contexts: the non-great power states most likely to forgo nuclear weapons are those in zones of low and moderate conflict, while nations likely to acquire such capability tend to be in zones of high conflict and engaged in protracted conflicts and enduring rivalries. He demonstrates that the choice to forbear acquiring nuclear weapons is also a function of the extent of security interdependence that states experience with other states, both allies and adversaries. He applies the comparative case study method to pairs of states with similar characteristics - Germany/Japan, Canada/Australia, Sweden/Switzerland, Argentina/Brazil - in addition to analysing the nuclear choices of South Africa, Ukraine, South Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel. Paul concludes by questioning some of the prevailing supply side approaches to non-proliferation, offering an explication of the security variable by linking nuclear proliferation with protracted conflicts and enduring rivalries.

Power versus Prudence will be of interest to students of international relations, policy-makers, policy analysts, and the informed public concerned with the questions of nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, and disarmament.

"Power versus Prudence makes a valuable and timely contribution to the debates surrounding nuclear proliferation and arms control. The work is cogent, original, and theoretically sound. Paul succeeds brilliantly at proving his initial hypotheses." Albert Legault, Institut Québecois des hautes études internationales, Université Laval.

"A significant contribution to the field. The author makes a convincing case. This is a refreshing approach to an issue that has been previously explored by scholars but not in this manner. Paul argues his point persuasively." David Haglund, Centre for International Relations, Queen's University, and author of Security, Strategy and the Global Economics of Defence Production.

"An able, nuanced, and richly informed analysis of a much underconsidered puzzle: why, despite decades of predictions to the contrary, have so few countries chosen to acquire nuclear weapons?" John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University, and author of Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War, and Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World Politics.

T.V. Paul is professor of political science at McGill University. He has published several books and numerous articles on international security and the politics of nuclear weapons, including Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers, The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order, and International Order and the Future of World Politics.

Published July 2000 228 pp 6 x 9 Paper ISBN 0-7735-2087-2 $27.95 US price $22.95 Cloth ISBN 0-7735-2086-4 $60.00

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

-------- arms sales

Taiwan Seek Better Fighter Jets

By Annie Huang
Associated Press Writer
Friday, Aug. 4, 2000; 3:02 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000804/aponline030201_000.htm

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Facing the threat of a Chinese military buildup, Taiwan needs to acquire more advanced warplanes and upgrade its fighter jets in the next two decades, the island's president says.

The current air balance could be severely threatened in five years when China completes the production and deployment of new planes and also has more sophisticated early warning and electronic warfare capabilities, President Chen Shui-bian said.

Speaking Thursday to senior air force officers, Chen said Taiwan must plan ahead to "improve combat tactics and come up with more effective strategies."

Chen said the air force needs to come up with a new shopping list of warplanes and decide on how the current fighter jets could be upgraded, equipping more of them with air-to-land and air-to-ship attack capabilities.

Since taking office in May, Chen has repeatedly stressed the importance of fighting Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait before they land on Taiwan to avoid damage on the populated island.

Analysts say China is working with Israel to develop the Jian 10, a fighter jet that can escort Chinese battleships.

In recent years, Taiwan has acquired and deployed 150 U.S.-made F-16s, French-made Mirages and 130 locally built Indigenous Defensive Fighters.

The United States, which is bound by law to sell Taiwan defensive weapons, has refused to equip the warplanes with air-to-land or air-to-ship missiles, which can be considered offensive.

Some defense experts say the United States is realizing that Taiwan no longer plans to attack China and retake the mainland. However, the Taiwanese military needs offensive weapons to knock out Chinese air bases and halt a mainland attack.

Yang Chih-heng, a military analyst with the Taiwan Research Institute, said Washington also may have realized China's increasing air power when it agreed to sell Taiwan middle-range air-to-air missiles in April.

Taiwan may also want to buy the U.S.-made F-22 fighters, which are more destructive than the F-16s, Yang said.

----

Taiwan's Leader Considers Purchase of Updated Jet Fighters

August 4, 2000
By CRAIG S. SMITH
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/080400china-taiwan.html

SHANGHAI, Aug. 3 -- Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, said today that the island should begin considering new fighter aircraft purchases, warning that in five years China could threaten Taiwan's ability to control the skies over the Taiwan Strait, a key factor in repelling a mainland invasion.

That Mr. Chen, who spoke during an inspection of Taiwan's air force headquarters in Taipei, would make the politically charged suggestion during the Republican Party's convention suggested to some analysts that he hoped to interject the issue into the American presidential campaign. The United States is the most likely supplier of any advanced fighter jets to Taiwan. But such a sale would be hotly contested by Beijing, which regards the island as a province separated from the mainland by civil war.

"Chen may be trying to smoke out the United States and have some sort of bidding war on reassurances from both candidates," said Jonathan Pollack, a China specialist at the Rand Corporation in California.

Support for Taiwan is always an emotional issue in the United States, but this year it became particularly so with Mr. Chen's election, which drew threats of war from Beijing. China distrusts Mr. Chen because of his past support for Taiwan's formal independence from the mainland.

In the midst of the 1992 presidential campaign, President Bush decided to sell Taiwan 150 advanced F-16 fighter aircraft after it became clear that China had bought advanced Sukhoi-27 fighters from Russia. The F-16 sale, the last major American arms sale to Taiwan, infuriated Beijing and complicated already difficult relations between the United States and China.

Under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is obligated to help Taiwan maintain its defenses. But in a 1982 joint communiqué with Beijing, Washington pledged not to increase the quantity or quality of arms sold to Taiwan.

More recently, though, China has ordered as many as 40 advanced Sukhoi-30 fighters from Russia as part of a steadily growing arms procurement program intended to give China an edge over Taiwan.

One military official here said this week that air force personnel have been told to expect the first of the planes to arrive in China later this year. The Sukhoi-30 is capable of carrying air-to-surface guided anti-ship missiles and has a longer range than the Sukhoi-27.

China has already fielded 48 of the Sukhoi-27 fighters at bases around the country and first deployed them over the Taiwan Strait during war games last year. It has plans to assemble as many as 200 more with help from Russia.

Bates Gill, a military expert at the Brookings Institution, said it is natural that the reports of Sukhoi-30 purchases from Russia should inspire Taiwan's air force to look for a next generation aircraft itself.

"Given the aging of the F-16 and the lead times needed to get next-generation aircraft in fighting shape, these decisions need to be made within the next three to five years at the latest," said Mr. Gill.

Other analysts said Mr. Chen may simply be raising the issue generally to put the next American administration on notice that the shopping list will be longer than usual when the island makes its annual arms purchase requests in the spring.

For the time being, Taiwan enjoys clear air superiority over the 100-mile-wide body of water separating the island from the mainland, thanks to its F-16's and 60 French-made Mirage 2000-5 fighters.

While China has the largest air force in the world with about 6,000 planes, nearly half of those date from the 1950's and only a few dozen of the rest are viable machines for modern warfare. Even with its Russian purchases, military analysts say China is a long way from dominating the skies over Taiwan because few of its pilots have received aggressive training in the advanced fighter aircraft. China is believed to have lost several Sukhoi-27 jets in training exercises already and Beijing is reluctant to push harder training for fear of losing more of the expensive planes.

The country also lacks the sophisticated battlefield command technology necessary to deploy its jets effectively. It had hoped to meet that need with help from Israel, which agreed to sell China a Phalcon advanced-warning and air-control system mounted atop a Russian jet. Israel canceled that sale last month in response to American pressure.

But Mr. Chen warned that Taiwan must not be complacent and should start planning for the next generation of fighters. He said Taiwan should look into fighters for 2010 to 2020 and upgrade its weapons systems. China's modernization drive will "dramatically boost the Communist Chinese Air Force's overall air combat capability, seriously affecting the military balance" after 2005, Mr. Chen said today.

The Pentagon evidently concurs. It told Congress in its annual report on the Chinese military this June that "if projected trends continue, the balance of air power across the Taiwan Strait could begin to shift in China's favor" after 2005, unless Taiwan enhances its air power.

-------- chechnya

Rebels Decapitate Russian Colonels

By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Chechnya.html

GROZNY, Russia (AP) -- Chechen rebels who kidnapped two Russian colonels decapitated them and left their heads at a Russian base in the republic, the Kremlin said Friday.

The colonels had been seized several days ago in the Vedeno region, deep in the rugged southern mountains where the rebels are concentrated. The rebel Web site on Friday carried a proposal to trade them for a Russian officer accused of raping and killing a Chechen girl.

``It can be said with absolute certainty that these monsters had no intention of trading the officers,'' said a statement from Rosinformcenter, the Kremlin office for Chechnya information, the news agency Interfax reported.

The grisly report, which could not immediately be confirmed, came as Russian forces clamped tight security on the republic, fearing that rebels may launch attacks on Sunday, which separatists regard as Chechnya's independence day.

Troops blocked vehicles from entering or leaving Grozny, the shattered Chechen capital. The city's streets, many gouged with deep trenches to block traffic, were empty.

A helicopter roared around the city with a loudspeaker telling residents not to panic.

Tight security also has been imposed in Gudermes, which is the headquarters of the Russian-run administration in Chechnya. Those precautions have affected food supplies to Grozny, the capital's deputy administrator Saidali Umalatov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

Food prices have doubled in Grozny over the past five days, the report said.

Also Friday, security officials in Dagestan, which borders Chechnya to the east, said five alleged Islamic rebels have been charged with terrorism in connection with a wave of bombings of apartment buildings that claimed some 300 lives.

The five were charged with terrorism and will face trial later this month, said Ali Temirbekov, an aide to the prosecutor general in Dagestan. He said two more suspects were being sought by police, and that all were members of the Wahhabi sect, a strict Islamic group that has made inroads into Chechnya.

The five suspects were charged in connection with a blast in the Dagestani town of Buinaksk last September, which destroyed an apartment building that housed Russian military officers. The blast killed 64 people and wounded more than 100 others.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that Russian officials believe the warlord Khattab, a Jordanian operating in Chechnya who goes by one name, ordered the Buinaksk bombing.

Russia has reported making several arrests in connection with the four blasts, which killed some 300 people in Buinaksk, Moscow and the city of Volgodonsk. No trials had been announced until now.

The Kremlin said the explosions, along with rebel raids into Dagestan last summer, forced it to send troops back into Chechnya. The region won de facto independence after Russian forces were defeated in a 1994-1996 war. Rebel leaders have denied responsibility for the blasts.

-------- chemical weapons

US wants private, world role in Agent Orange plan

August 4, 2000
Story by David Brunnstrom
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7703

HANOI - The United States would like to see U.S. firms and international organisations take part in a cleanup of Agent Orange in Vietnam and does not intend to do the work itself, a U.S. defence official said yesterday.

Gary Vest, principle assistant deputy under-secretary of defence for environmental security, said he held ground-breaking meetings with Vietnamese counterparts this week and they made clear Agent Orange was their highest environmental priority.

Vest's trip follows a March visit to Vietnam by U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen, who pledged cooperation on Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant employed by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War and blamed for serious health problems.

Vest told a news conference the two sides agreed to consider joint workshops to address control and cleanup issues which he hoped would lead to more comprehensive cooperation.

But he stressed: "It's very important to emphasise we were not here to discuss a U.S. government cleanup of contamination.

"We were here to discuss how to create capacity and capabilities and share technologies and management approaches in how to deal with these issues."

U.S. forces sprayed some 72 million litres of herbicides, of which Agent Orange is the best known, over southern Vietnam during the war to deny communist guerrillas jungle cover.

Agent Orange contained dioxin, a known carcinogen, and Vietnam has long sought compensation for the spraying, saying the health of large numbers of people has been ruined.

AGENT ORANGE "HOTSPOTS"

Researchers have identified at least two Agent Orange "hotspots" where dioxin has found its way back into the food chain in Vietnam and say there could be many more.

Asked why the United States could not consider directly funding or carrying out a cleanup, Vest replied:

"In terms of international and U.S. law, the U.S. military can only fund cleanups outside the U.S. where there is a clear liability under an international agreement.

"In the absence of such a liability it would need the specific authorisation of Congress."

Instead, the United States would like to see American firms involved, especially where investment opportunities existed.

"Almost all of the environmental work that has been done and is currently being done by the United States military is done by American private-sector firms," he said.

"It would be our hope or anticipation that as environmental projects and works develop here in Vietnam, regardless of whether they are contamination cleanups or water projects, American firms would have a substantial involvement."

He said he envisaged funding for a cleanup coming from the international donor community, non-governmental organisations and private foundations, but could not estimate the cost.

Vest said he was not aware of any restrictions to prevent the U.S. helping fund a cleanup via such organisations.

"But in any case, the prerequisite for investment or funding is to get a clear understanding of the nature and magnitude of the problem and alternative ways it can be fixed," he said.

Vest said he had not been provided by the Vietnamese with a "quantitative assessment of the scope of the problem".

He said he had visited one affected site near Danang which was not particularly large and to "define (it) in terms of clean up and extent would require certain studies and analysis."

"There are an unspecified numbers of other sites in the country which logically and obviously would need to be identified and scoped over time in an orderly process."

-------- colombia

FACT SHEET
Presidential Decision Directive on the Colombia Initiative: Increased U.S. Assistance for Colombia For Immediate Release August 4, 2000

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/8/4/11.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary (Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts)

Colombia is enduring difficult, mutually reinforcing social, economic and security challenges, with serious implications for U.S. national security and humanitarian interests. The President has directed, as a matter of national priority, an increased U.S. Government effort to support the creation or enhancement of Colombian host-nation capabilities essential to the successful implementation of Plan Colombia.

Plan Colombia is President Pastrana's comprehensive and balanced response to Colombia's interrelated challenges. In addition to targeting the critical drug trafficking problem, the integrated strategy addresses human rights, democratization, judicial reform, social development, the economy, and the peace process.

Colombia's lawlessness, corruption, and long internal conflict are exacerbated by the immense profits generated by the drug trade. Ninety percent of the cocaine supplied to the United States originates in or passes through Colombia, as does two-thirds of the heroin seized in this country. As a result, Colombia has become the central focus of the United States' Western Hemisphere efforts to reduce the supply of illicit drugs.

Domestic drug abuse costs the United States society an estimated 52,000 lives and $110 billion annually. In Colombia, pervasive violence has cost an estimated 35,000 lives in the past fifteen years and displaced more than 700,000 people in the past three years alone. According to some estimates, there are as many as 1.4 million internally displaced persons in Colombia, the fourth largest such crisis in the world and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia is also a dangerous working environment for American government officials and private citizens, with homicide and kidnapping rates among the highest in the world. In addition, regional security is increasingly strained by the spillover of drug trafficking, insurgent and paramilitary activities into neighboring countries.

This Administration has been actively pursuing a comprehensive and balanced strategy to help Colombia fight the drug trade, institute judicial reform, promote the rule of law, enhance respect for human rights, assist the internally displaced, expand economic development, and foster peace. With today's announcement, the Administration is intensifying that coordinated effort at a critical juncture in the fight against illicit drug production both in Colombia and throughout the Andean region.

In support of the Colombia initiative, Congress recently approved an Administration request for a substantial increase in assistance for Plan Colombia implementation. The $1.3 billion package also provides increased assistance for other countries in the region, primarily to consolidate counterdrug gains in the major Andean drug-producing countries and to ensure that successful law enforcement efforts in Colombia do not simply drive illicit drug cultivation and production into neighboring countries.

The additional U.S. assistance for Colombia will target:

-- Boosting democratic governing capacity and respect for human rights throughout Colombia through programs that will provide human rights training to the military, strengthen human rights monitoring and enforcement, promote the rule of law and expand access to justice;

-- Increasing the capability of the Colombian National Police, in conjunction with Colombian Armed Forces, to curtail the cultivation and production of illicit drugs in Colombia;

-- Increasing the drug interdiction capabilities of both the Colombian National Police and the Colombian Armed Forces;

-- Promoting a broader based macro-economic recovery, including through economic reform and incentives to create new jobs and lawful economic activity throughout Colombia.

Our increased support for the Colombian National Police and Armed Forces will continue to be focused on the common counter-drug objective. As a matter of Administration policy, the United States will not support Colombian counterinsurgency efforts. The United States will, however, provide support, in accordance with existing authorities and this policy, to the Government of Colombia for force protection and for security directly related to counterdrug efforts, regardless of the source of the threat. The Administration remains convinced that the ultimate solution to Colombia's long-standing civil conflict is through a successful peace process.

Increased U.S. assistance for Colombia will support important programs that strengthen human rights monitoring and enforcement throughout Colombia and that provide human rights training to Colombian security forces. In addition, U.S. assistance will be restricted to only those police and military units that are carefully vetted with respect to allegations of human rights abuses.

The classified Presidential Decision Directive establishes the coordination framework and assigns key agency roles and responsibilities for enhancing the U.S. effort to assist President Pastrana and the Colombian people in implementing their national strategy. This broad-scope support will entail significant efforts by many agencies throughout the U.S. government, including the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and the Treasury, as well as the Agency for International Development, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

----

Clinton To Make Trip To Colombia

By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Clinton-Colombia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton will travel to Colombia on Aug. 30 to show solidarity with President Andres Pastrana in his efforts to defeat narcotics traffickers and end the country's 36-year civil war.

The administration has strongly supported Colombia's counter-narcotics effort, persuading the Congress to approve $1.3 billion in assistance last month. The funding is being used mostly to equip and train Colombian military units assigned to anti-drug duty.

It will be Clinton's first trip to Colombia. He will fly to the port city of Cartagena for his meetings with Pastrana, returning to Washington the same day. A U.S. official, asking not to be identified, said an overnight stay was ruled out for security reasons

The visit mirrors a trip former President George Bush made in February, 1990 when, highlighting his administration's anti-drug campaign, he spent four hours in Cartagena. Bush was joined there by Colombia's president and leaders from other Andean countries.

Clinton said in a statement that it is ``profoundly in the interest of the United States'' for Colombia to succeed in its efforts to seek peace, fight illicit drugs, build its economy and protect democracy.

He will be joined on the trip by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering will travel to Colombia next week to help lay the groundwork for the trip and also to speak to a conference of business leaders.

Clinton also signed a Presidential Decision Directive on Colombia, calling for an intensified U.S. effort to assist the Colombian government.

The U.S. assistance package is earmarked solely to aid in counterdrug efforts but some lawmakers are concerned that the United States might get bogged down in the war the Colombian army has been waging against two leftist guerrilla groups.

For the administration, the situation is complicated because the narcotic traffickers receive protection from both the guerrillas and paramilitary units. The drug growing areas for the most part are located in guerrilla-held territory.

Since Clinton signed the aid package in July, there has been a marked increase in guerrilla activity, often against remote hamlets with minimal protection. The State Department's top counterdrug official, Randy Beers, said in an interview Friday that the large death toll during these offensives ``underscores the nature of this movement. It is difficult to think of it other than as a criminal organization,'' he said.

He added that it would be ridiculous not to take action against a group involved in drug trafficking just because they are part of a political movement.

-------- iraq

Iraq: Ten Years After

Christopher Hellman, Senior Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
Defense Monitor,
Fri, 4 Aug 2000 04:51:04 -0400

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops poured over the boarder in to Kuwait. Within seven months the United States and its coalition allies had transported over one-half million military personnel into the region, invaded Iraq devastating the Iraqi military, and liberated Kuwait. Iraq eventually agreed to all the terms of United Nations cease-fire resolution, including permitting access by U.N. inspectors to facilities suspected of being involved in the development or production of weapons of mass destruction.

On the 10th anniversary of the invasion, the Clinton Administration attempted to paint the current situation in the Persian Gulf in the best possible light. According to David Welch, the head of the State Department's international organizations bureau, Iraq is much less threatening to other countries in the region. "A decade has now lapsed with [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] unable to invade a neighbor. That fact alone marks an important success of the international community," said Welch. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon echoed these sentiments, saying "Iraq is contained, it has a broken economy, it is an isolated state."

Yet there seems to be little reason to celebrate. U.S. military forces remain heavily engaged in the region. According to the Pentagon, the United States currently has 24,000 troops in the Persian Gulf. The United States has flown more than 200,000 combat sorties since August 1992 to enforce the Iraqi southern no-fly zone, and 16,000 sorties since 1997 in the northern no-fly zone. The Pentagon spends about $2 billion a year for Operations Northern and Southern Watch.

The international community is no longer able to monitor Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, although it is widely believed that they have resumed their efforts to develop them. The Iraqi government has refused to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors since December, 1998. According to a Washington Post article by Richard Butler, former head of the U.S. arms inspection team, Iraq is "manufacturing the weapons of mass destruction with which he threatens the Iraqi people, his neighbors, and by extension, the safety of the world."

And while the U.S. bombings -- which have become almost daily occurrences -- have been insignificant in military terms, they have had a major political significance, both in Iraq and throughout the region. Saddam Hussein has used the attacks, which come in response to Iraqi efforts to challenge U.S. enforcement of the no-fly zones, as a way to preserve his power. Meanwhile, neighboring Muslim countries, which initially supported the liberation of Kuwait, are no longer comfortable with the United State's continued use of force, as well as the continued economic sanctions against Iraq. For example, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has called for a lifting the sanctions, saying that all the arab nations except one now favor an end to the embargo. "Sanctions don't work," said President Ben Ali. "You are hurting the people, not the regime, and Saddam Hussein can keep blaming their inhuman plight on the U.S." According to him, the lone arab nation still supporting the embargo is Kuwait.

What the continued air strikes have shown, however, is that the United States doesn't know how to quit. Unwilling to withdraw and be perceived as having to lost to Saddam Hussein, and in the absence of any viable diplomatic initiatives, the United States continues to rely on the military as the primary implement of its foreign policy in the region, even though it is entirely negative.

What little international support remains for the economic embargo and continued military operations cannot last forever. The United States, along with its allies in the region and the international community, must renew diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation. This should include the resumption of on-site weapons inspections and the loosening and eventual elimination of economic sanctions provided that the Iraqi government gives its full cooperation.

-------- kosovo

Serb War Crimes Suspects Escape

By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Kosovo-Escape.html

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Three Serbs accused of genocide and war crimes escaped from a hospital in the Serb-controlled part of the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica, a U.N. spokeswoman said Friday.

The three, who had been transferred from a U.N detention center in the city to the hospital for medical treatment, slipped out early Friday, U.N. spokeswoman Claire Trevena said.

Two of the Serbs, Dragan Jovanovic, 50, and Vlastimir Aleksic, 54, had been charged with genocide, while the third, Dragica Peica, 34, had been charged with war crimes, Trevena said.

The three, arrested in July and August 1999, had been transferred to the hospital on the advice of doctors from the NATO-led peacekeeping force and U.N. police, she said.

Jovanovic was receiving treatment for lead poisoning. The northern, industrialized Kosovo city has high levels of lead pollution due to mines in the area. Aleksic was in the hospital for high blood pressure, and Peica was being treated for kidney stones.

U.N. spokeswoman Susan Manuel said the three were detained last summer by NATO-led peacekeepers and their trials had not begun although they had been indicted. She said the three cases were not related. She said prisoners would no longer be sent to the hospital.

The United Nations offered no details on who was guarding them.

``Officers on duty at the hospital report the detainees were in bed, apparently sleeping,'' at about 1 a.m., Trevena said. ``When the room was checked sometime later, the detainees were gone.''

In previous months there have been several breakouts. In February, three Serbs and one Albanian charged with war crimes escaped from the prison. A 15-year-old Kosovo Albanian boy accused of killing a Russian KFOR soldier has broken out of jail several times. A Serb war crimes suspect escaped from Mitrovica hospital last month.

-------- palestine

Palestinian Kids Learn Warfare

By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Palestinian-War-Games.html

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Four blindfolded children, chosen as the most nimble-fingered, raced to see who could first assemble an assault rifle.

Friends, parents and military commanders proudly cheered on the youngsters this week at their summer camp graduation ceremony in a high school yard.

In recent weeks, some 30,000 Palestinian children have learned military skills and even guerrilla tactics, such as abducting enemy officers, in day camps across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, courtesy of the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinians say they are teaching patriotism, but also preparing the children for a possible confrontation with Israel, should peace talks fail.

Many Israelis are appalled. ``This is a major mistake,'' said Israeli legislator Uri Savir, who helped negotiate the interim peace accords that were based on creating mutual trust. ``The education of the children will determine the nature of the future relationship between our two states.''

Such camps aren't new -- they've been held in Palestinian areas for years -- and some Palestinian Authority officials went through them as children. However, Israelis had hoped the Palestinians would send a different message to the younger generation.

On Thursday evening, about 800 campers, ranging in age from 10 to 17, demonstrated their new skills in a graduation ceremony at the Ramallah Secondary School for Boys.

Mahmoud Ramadan, 10, said military training was the favorite part of his 10-hour camp day during which he also learned about Palestinian history, including Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Mahmoud, short and skinny, excitedly described how he learned to clean, aim and take apart Kalashnikovs and M-16 assault rifles. When he grows up, he said, he wants to ``join the army and liberate Palestine.''

While junior high school youngsters learned how to handle weapons, the 15- to 17-year-olds participated in full-fledged military drills. In one camp in the West Bank town of Nablus, campers crawled on their bellies, carrying wooden Kalashnikovs, and rehearsed the kidnapping of an officer from an enemy camp.

Not all parents were thrilled about military training.

Adly Monsour, a Palestinian engineer who works in Saudi Arabia, said he sent his 11-year-old son, Hassan, to camp to learn more about Palestinian history, a subject not taught in schools in the Gulf.

Other parents see the camps as a way to keep their children busy at least for part of the three-month summer holiday. The children are given two meals a day, and the camps, lasting for two to three weeks, are free.

Sitting in the front row of the Ramallah graduation ceremony, Palestinian police Brig. Gen. Khaled Musmar laughed off suggestions the children were being trained to fight Israel. ``We can't face an army with these children,'' he said.

However, Waji Afouni, a senior Palestinian police official in Nablus, did not discount the possibility that some camp graduates could one day fight Israelis. Afouni said Israel has been stalling in the peace talks and has refused to make the concessions to conclude a treaty.

``If the Israeli government continues to do this, maybe we will find ourselves in the future forced to defend our rights and get them back by violence,'' Afouni said. ``So we are preparing our people and the new generation ... to use different ways in a future battle.''

Since the first interim peace agreements were signed in 1993, there have been a series of bloody confrontations between Israel and the Palestinians including gun battles in 1996 in which 80 people were killed.

More trouble is expected if peace talks fail and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declares a Palestinian state unilaterally on Sept. 13, the deadline for a treaty with Israel.

Those who support force were heartened by the success of the Islamic militant guerrilla group Hezbollah against the larger and better equipped Israeli army in southern Lebanon earlier this year.

Ahmed Abdel Minhem, 17, who has received military training in Nablus for three summers, said: ``Look what happened in Lebanon. The war on the land is very easy for the Palestinians. We know the mountains and the roads. This makes us very strong.''

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

In Sky Over Ocean City, Multiple Mysteries

Washington Post
Friday, August 4, 2000; Page B01
By Steve Vogel Washington Post Staff Writer
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-08/04/161l-080400-idx.html

OCEAN CITY, Md., Aug. 3-The mysterious silvery balls came first--pretty, 12-inch-diameter spheres that floated down from the sky in and around this resort town, amid rumors that they had been dropped by black helicopters.

This was followed by widespread alarm when word spread that the City Council--meeting behind closed doors--had granted the military permission to test the Patriot missile's radar at the municipal airport.

Toss in a few sonic booms from military jets in recent days, and some Ocean City residents are up in arms.

"They have no business putting this on in a resort community," said Hollis Martin, a homeowner in nearby South Point. "Go out to the desert and do your testing."

Even Maryland's Democratic senators, Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes, have weighed in, sending a letter last week to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen asking for information about the radar testing.

"We are also requesting that the report include information on any . . . helicopters in the West Ocean City area and the launching of 32-ounce spheres," the letter said.

Margaret Pillas, a City Council candidate helping spearhead the resistance, puts it more simply: "Just tell us what's happening to us, not 30 years from now, when we learn they've done God knows what to us."

What's happening is: Next week, at the height of the beach season, the military will start a series of tests designed to improve the performance of the Patriot antimissile system, known for its decidedly mixed results 10 years ago in the Persian Gulf War.

No missiles will be fired--or even brought to Ocean City.

Instead, jets will fly in circles far offshore, and technicians will assess how well the Patriot's radar system tracks them, in conjunction with radars on nearby Wallops Island and a Navy cruiser at sea.

Ocean City makes a convenient spot for testing because of the possibilities for triangulation and integration among the three radar sources.

"We surveyed north and south, and the bottom line is, the best geometry was the Ocean City airport area," said an official from the Ballistic Missile Defense Office. The military wants to do the tests now, during the peak summer season, to avoid delaying missile firing tests scheduled elsewhere this fall.

Of course, none of that explains the silvery balls.

They do, in fact, exist. Pillas has one hidden in a secret location. "It's the only actual evidence we have so far," she said. "We don't have a helicopter yet. This is the first thing we've had that everybody said we didn't see."

A resident named Wendy Garliss first spotted one of the silvery balls during the winter in a field off Route 50 near the new Wal-Mart. She kept it in her back yard, where her dog and children played with it. She gave it little thought until the radar controversy erupted, when she turned it over to Pillas.

Pillas drove it around town in her Jaguar for several days, trying to get someone to identify it. "Source of Mysterious Balls Unknown," read a headline in a local paper.

Last week, the Patuxent River Naval Air Station identified the balls, saying they are harmless aluminum spheres routinely released from P-3 aircraft to calibrate radar at the Southern Maryland installation. They have nothing to do with the planned Patriot radar testing, according to military officials.

Pillas remains skeptical about the explanation, and today she took a reporter and photographer to see her sphere on condition they keep its location confidential.

"I have it buried until we know exactly what it is," Pillas said of the ball. "I want it to be analyzed by a group independent of the government."

The Navy has no problem with that. "Anyone who finds a sphere is welcome to keep it or put it in with other aluminum recyclables," read a statement released by the naval air station.

The source of the sonic booms remained unclear. Spokesmen for several East Coast installations said they knew nothing about them. As for the black helicopters, no one is claiming them, either.

City officials acknowledge that residents are not imagining things, or at least not everything.

"I'm not going to say that the silver balls, black helicopters and sonic booms don't exist," Mayor James N. Mathias Jr., clad in a golf shirt and shorts, said in an interview today in his office.

But the mayor said he is convinced that the radar tests do not pose a danger to residents or wildlife and are important for the national defense. "Who knows when the next time our sons and daughters will need these weapons for protection," he said. "This is the least the town can do."

A book-length environmental assessment conducted by the military--released Wednesday and rushed to Ocean City by courier early this morning--concludes that there would be "either no impacts at all or minimal impacts that could be readily mitigated."

"People who are at the beach or in a residential area a half-mile away will be more hazardously affected by the sun or a cell phone than from this radar," said the official at the Ballistic Missile Defense Office.

The radar operation is scheduled to start Friday, though the radar equipment probably will not arrive at the airport until Monday and actual testing is not expected to start until Thursday. "All systems are go," said Jennifer Canaff, a spokeswoman for the ballistic missile office.

Officials say that the radar emits no hazard beyond a 400-foot zone, which will be restricted, and that the testing will not interfere with airport flights.

The testing proposal got off to a bad start May 30 when military officials briefed the City Council on the plan behind closed doors, which angered residents once they found out.

The council approved the proposal unanimously.

"To be quite frank, and no pun intended, I thought it would be the patriotic thing to do," said council member Vincent Gisriel. "Little did I realize how this would fester in the public."

Military officials said the closed meeting was the city's idea.

At a July 17 public meeting called to quell the controversy, military officers were bombarded with questions from residents, who also raised the issue of the silvery balls and black helicopters.

"It's not like I'm a Greenpeace person or anything," Garliss, a former commercial fisher, said in an interview this week. "I don't want to see military. We're not at war. For Ocean City to decide this whole thing without consulting the public is really rotten."

----

Marines' most wanted

August 4, 2000
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon.
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-200084213031.htm

If former Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney is elected vice president, he will have a chance to settle some important unfinished business: finding the terrorist killer of Marine Corps Col. William "Rich" Higgins.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report we obtained leaves no doubt who is responsible for Col. Higgins' death. He is Imad Mughniyeh, one of the most notorious Lebanese terrorists.

"Imad Mughniyeh was in charge of the execution," the report, labeled "secret," states. The report describes the grisly videotape of Col. Higgins' hanging that was obtained by Syrian security agents. It shows Mughniyeh directing Col. Higgins execution in a windowless room believed to be in an apartment building in West Beirut.

"As Higgins was brought into the room, Mughniyeh appeared to be reading from a piece of paper which he held in his hand," the report said.

Placed on a step ladder, his neck in a rope noose, "Mughniyeh gave an order in Arabic to remove the step ladder," the report said.

The report revealed that Mughniyeh was "responsible for killing of three hostages, two of whom were Americans."

Col. Higgins was taken hostage in 1988 as a U.N. peacekeeper, then hanged by Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists in 1989, his execution recorded on videotape. His body was returned in November 1991. A Navy destroyer was named in his honor.

The Bush administration talked tough about conducting retaliatory military raids and covert commando operations to grab those responsible, but did nothing. "We will hold those who bear responsibility for these murders to account," Mr. Cheney said in January 1992.

The promise was never fulfilled. And so far, none of the terrorists has been captured - much less arrested. The only response has been to offer rewards and to hand up a secret indictment.

Mughniyeh was almost captured in 1995 en route from Iran to Sudan. But rather than cooperate with the FBI, the Saudi government tipped off Mughniyeh to the snatch operation. Since the early 1990s, his address remains: Tehran.

The Clinton administration wants to ignore Iran's backing for terrorists like Mughniyeh. In March, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright called for a "new season" of U.S.-Iranian relations.

China sanctions

One of the issues that continues to be a thorn in U.S.-Chinese ties is the sanctions imposed on Beijing for the brutal crackdown on democratic protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The Pentagon's military-to-military exchange program, restarted in a major way with the visit to China last month by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, has gone to great lengths to ignore or play down the massacre. The killings were carried out by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) armored units that attacked unarmed Chinese camped out in the square.

A major question surrounding the pending China trade bill is whether the current ban on U.S. military technology to Beijing would be lifted.

The sanctions can only be removed by new legislation because they were codified in law. But technically, passage of the trade legislation would make it illegal to continue penalizing China for the massacre, we are told. President Clinton's top China policy aide, National Security Council staffer Kenneth Lieberthal, is on record as favoring removal of the Tiananmen sanctions.

Capitol Hill sources tell us Republican senators may seek to add an amendment to permanent normal trade legislation that would keep the Tiananmen sanctions in place.

Asked about the easing of the sanctions during his recent visit to China, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen hinted that he favors ending them.

"Of course the sanctions legislation was tied to human rights and to the extent that we can see progress made in extending human rights in China, then I believe that there can be an easing and indeed a lifting of the sanctions in the future," Mr. Cohen said during a press conference in Shanghai.

Race and the Air Force

The nation's oldest predominately black denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, has weighed in on racial bias charges against the Air Force's No. 2 chaplain.

At a general conference last month, delegates unanimously approved a resolution demanding the resignation of Brig. Gen. Lorraine Potter. The document, signed by Bishop McKinley Young, was sent to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

The dispute centers on whether Gen. Potter, the service's first female chaplain to achieve general rank, made a biased remark against black chaplains during a personnel meeting in September 1999.

An Air Force inspector general report cleared her, saying attendees gave conflicting accounts of what she said. Some Air Force black chaplains say the probe was flawed and want a new investigation. Gen. Michael Ryan, Air Force chief of staff, responded by ordering a deputy to conduct a racial climate survey of the chaplain corps.

"The alleged statement by chaplain Potter has undermined the church's confidence in her ability to treat African-American chaplains fairly," the church's resolution reads. "We, the 46th Quadrennial Session of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, go on record demanding her resignation."

Gen. Potter and the Air Force chief chaplain, Maj. Gen. William Dendinger, spoke to black chaplains at a retreat in Hampton, Va. Later, the attendees sent a letter to Gen. Dendinger, saying, "Although we do not agree with the explanations that were provided by you and chaplain Potter, and the findings of the IG report, we want to reassure you that you have our full support, good will and best efforts toward moving the chaplain service forward."

Intercepts

• Pentagon insiders say Army Secretary Louis Caldera's political stock dropped after he mishandled his proposed shake-up of the Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Caldera, a former California legislator, has been mentioned as a long-shot vice presidential candidate or as a Cabinet member in an Al Gore administration.

But he didn't help himself earlier this year when leading Republican senators beat back his attempt to take key decision making away from the Corps and put it in the hands of Army political appointees. The Corps has become a major target of the White House, The Washington Post and major environmental groups. Mr. Gore is counting on environmentalists support to win the White House.

• Some Republican senators are praying for a George W. Bush victory for more than the obvious reasons. A Bush win means Sen. John McCain will likely get a Cabinet post and quit the Senate. Mr. McCain has been a major irritant to Majority Leader Trent Lott as he pushes billion-dollar cigarette taxes and more government control over political campaigns. "I think the Commerce Department would be a good place for John," said an unadoring Republican aide.

• We hear that former Republican Sen. Dan Coats is on George W. Bush's list of possible defense secretaries. Mr. Coats, who didn't seek re-election in 1998, served on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Coats is a solid social conservative.

He criticized the military for sexually integrating boot camp. He would be expected to roll back the policy, at least for the first few weeks of training. Mr. Coats also blocked the promotions of some Navy officers who attended the notorious "Tailhook" convention.

Insiders say Mr. Bush may announce his defense secretary selection before the election, using the theme that such pre-appointments let the American people judge how he would govern.

Bill Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertz@twtmail.com. Rowan Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbo@twtmail.com.

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Army Weighs an Expanded Role For National Guard Combat Units

August 4, 2000
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/080400war-guard.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 _ The Army is proposing to give the National Guard a greatly increased role in combat, which would mean that tens of thousands of part-time soldiers would almost certainly be mobilized and sent to fight if war broke out on the Korean Peninsula or in the Persian Gulf, senior Pentagon officials say.

The combat divisions of the Guard, which a generation ago was the place to go to avoid fighting in Vietnam, have been assigned no role in the Army's war plans since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

But if the Army's proposals are approved, six out of the eight divisions -- each with roughly 15,000 soldiers -- would be assigned specific roles in the Defense Department's newly revised war plans, the officials said.

The move reflects the Army's increasing dependence on the Guard as it has reduced the size of the active force, even while taking on new missions from the Balkans to Africa to Latin America.

Throughout the cold war, the National Guard's combat divisions were held in reserve, to be mobilized only if the Soviet Union started World War III by invading Western Europe.

But over the last few years, the Army, like the other armed services, has increasing turned to the National Guard and Reserve to support military operations around the world. In March, troops from the 49th Armored Division of the Texas Guard took over the American peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, the first time since the Korean War that a guard division commanded an overseas operation.

The Army's proposal, drafted last week, would represent an even more marked shift in the Guard's role that could have profound effects on its budget, equipment and training -- and on the willingness of people to join a service that has traditionally demanded only a weekend a month and two weeks each summer.

"We're making a big step toward better use of the National Guard in the nation's military strategy, particularly in the war plans area," said Maj. Gen. Michael W. Davidson, the assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for guard affairs.

The war plans -- or "op plans," as they are known -- are highly classified documents prepared by the nation's regional commanders in chief and regularly updated. In the event war breaks out, they detail which forces would be used to fight and where; they also assign roles in other military operations, like peacekeeping missions, or in "backfilling" for other units sent to war.

Under the proposal now being considered, the Army would assign six of the Guard's eight combat divisions specific missions in the war plans, two senior officials said.

Four of the divisions would be assigned to participate in the two "major theater wars" -- in the Persian Gulf and in Korea -- that are the bedrock of national military planning. The other two divisions would have missions supporting other operations in the Southern Command, which has responsibility for Central and South America, and in the European Command.

Army officials declined to discuss the Guard's specific missions, saying that details of the proposal are still being ironed out and must be approved by the Army's civilian and military leaders before being formally presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the regional commanders later this month. The Army has also not yet decided which of the divisions would be assigned to each mission.

If the Joint Chiefs accept the Army's proposal, then the Army's Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, is expected to unveil the proposal at the annual convention of the National Guard Association of the United States next month.

Individual units, including the Guard's 15 combat brigades, have for some years been assigned missions in the war plans and, like the 49th Armored Division, have increasingly participated in Army operations. But the fact that the war plans have not included the eight guard divisions has been perhaps the greatest source of contention between the Army and the National Guard.

Guard commanders have long complained that without specific missions, the divisions have received the lowest priority when it came to dividing up dwindling budgets, leaving them with older equipment and less money for training.

In the early 1990's, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, now the Republican vice-presidential nominee, and Gen. Colin L. Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tried to make deep cuts in the Guard divisions, arguing that the Army no longer needed so many reserve combat forces that had no real mission. But those efforts where blocked in Congress, where the Guard has had strong support.

The Army National Guard was increased to 10 divisions during the Reagan build-up in the 1980's. But after the cold war, it was reduced back to eight while the regular Army was reduced from 18 to 10 today.

The world has changed since then. As the Army has shrunk by 40 percent from its cold-war high of nearly 800,000 troops, its 10 active divisions have become increasingly taxed, officials say, by the pace of operations like those today in the Persian Gulf, the Sinai Peninsula, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Last fall, two of the active divisions -- the 10th Mountain and the 1st Mechanized Infantry -- classified themselves as unready to fulfill their missions in the war plans because so many of their troops were committed to the Balkans. Army officials said it was that predicament that forced them to consider relying on the Guard to fulfill some of the war-time missions and other objectives.

At the same time, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen has made better use of the Guard and reserves a priority, ordering the services to remove "all structural barriers" between active and reserve forces.

The National Guard has made major contributions to the nation's wars. Guard divisions fought in both World Wars; the 29th Infantry Division of Virginia was one of two divisions that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Two guard divisions fought in Korea.

Since then, however, the divisions have not been deployed to fight, though some units and individuals served as volunteers in Vietnam.

During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the Pentagon mobilized more than 265,000 reservists, including 85,000 guard members, but most of them served in support roles.

During that war, the Pentagon did activate a combat tank brigade from the Georgia National Guard, but after putting the unit through two months of training, commanders deemed it unprepared for combat and refused to send it to the Gulf -- a decision that causes bitterness even today.

Within the Pentagon, there remains lingering doubts about the ability of the Guard divisions to be ready for combat, especially in a major regional war, but with General Shinseki pledging to fully integrate the National Guard into the Army, officials say they are determined to overcome them.

Richard C. Alexander, a retired major general who is executive director of the National Guard Association in Washington, said the Army's willingness to include the divisions in the war plans signaled a significant change in its attitude toward the guard forces.

"We're satisfied there is a relevancy being established for the Guard -- and relevancy is the key," he said. "Once relevancy is established, we are obligated to do whatever we can to see that it is adequately resourced."

Including the divisions in the war plans will almost certainly require the Army and the Guard to spend more on equipment and training, though officials say it is far too early to estimate what the costs would be. "If we know they're going to be missioned, they're going to have to have the equipment they need," one Army official said.

Even then, the Army will still have to set priorities.

"This nation as a whole is not going to spend the money to bring every guard division, every reserve unit and every active-duty division up to the pinnacle of readiness 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," said P. T. Henry, the Army's assistant secretary for reserve affairs.

Another obstacle will be the amount of time it takes to mobilize a guard division, compared with an active division, since most of its soldiers serve only part time and, in many cases, are scattered in units spread over several states.

The war plans today require the Guard's combat brigades, with roughly 2,000 soldiers, to be ready to deploy into combat within 90 days of mobilization.

Officials said they are now increasing the readiness standards at the platoon level and working on a plan that would require the guard divisions to be combat ready within 150 days.

That would mean that the divisions would not likely be the first ones deployed to a conflict, though one official noted that the Army had six months after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to assemble the force that ultimately drove the Iraqis out.

The officials said the Army's proposal would also give the guard divisions the role of filling in when an active division is pulled away from an overseas base or from a peacekeeping mission like those in Bosnia or Kosovo.

Perhaps the biggest question will be the effect on recruiting and retention. While many guard commanders have wanted an increased role, the increasing possibility of deploying for war could cause some of those who signed up to rethink their commitment.

Charles L. Cragin, the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, said that the contract with the nation's citizen soldiers has evolved as much as the role of the military in general. He derides the widely used phrase "weekend warrior" for reservists because, he said, it simply is no longer relevant.

"The basic premise throughout the cold war was that unless the Russians started pouring through the Fulda Gap," Mr. Cragin said, referring to the hilly area that was once the border of eastern and western Gemernay, "we were not going to call up the reserves. The reserve force was reserved. That equation has changed."

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Arms Show Cost Over Half a Million

August 4, 2000
THE MILITARY
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/080400gop-military.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 -- The cost to the Pentagon for sending an array of weapons and other military equipment for an exclusive viewing by members of Congress and their guests as they were gathering for the Republican National Convention is in at more than half a million dollars.

A decision by Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen to approve the display of military might -- despite a Pentagon policy forbidding military involvement in partisan politics -- prompted criticism from Democrats and even some within the military, who said the effort would drain resources.

The display -- including such weaponry as a Marine V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, an Army unmanned aerial vehicle and a tank from the Pennsylvania National Guard -- spent three days at the Philadelphia Naval Yard, where some 100 Congress members have been staying during the convention in what is being called Congressional Village. The display came down on Monday, but even today some Navy personnel were still breaking down the show.

The Army spent the most: $280,000, which included the transportation and lodging costs for the soldiers who accompanied the equipment, which also include an Apache attack helicopter and a Theater Area Air Defense System.

The Air Force, which also sent an unmanned aerial vehicle and a virtual armory of missiles, estimated its costs at $100,000, while the Marine Corps said it had spent only $35,000. The Navy, which sent the least equipment, reported an unusually precise estimate of $246,796.

Was it worth the costs? Because the shipyard was closed to the public, the services reported relatively few people saw the display -- as few as 25 delegates, according to Air Force estimates. As luck would have it, though, there was a convention of firefighters at the shipyard last weekend, and they made up most of the visitors.

-------- OTHER

-------- alternative energy

Issue #141 (week of July 31 to August 4)
TRENDS in RENEWABLE ENERGIES (the condensed version)

This is the weekly summary of most articles carried last week. It is a "heads up" service; for details in a daily format, go to https://www.solaraccess.com/newsprojects/trends/trendssub.htm

- Of $150 billion spent on U.S. solar, wind and nuclear energy in the U.S., nuclear received 96.3 percent, according to an analysis by REPP-CREST. Nuclear received higher levels of support per kilowatt-hour when they first started than either wind or solar power and, since 1947, cumulative subsidies had an equivalent cost of $1,411 [1998 dollars] per household, compared to $11 for wind. Few energy technologies have reached maturity without public investment, and the analysis provides information for the debate on government support for nuclear and the claim that renewables are heavily subsidized. U.S. support for nuclear has "far surpassed" support for renewables. Of the $151 billion in federal subsidies from 1943 to 1999, nuclear received $145 billion, while subsidies to PV and solar thermal power was $4.4 billion, and wind technology received $1.3 billion. Data on hydro are incomplete, but estimated at $1.6 billion in subsidies. After 15 years of support, nuclear received subsidies worth $15.30 per kWh between 1947 and '61, compared with $7.19/kWh for solar and 46¢/kWh for wind between 1975 and '89.

- A California company claims to have invented a plastic PV solar cell that can cut the price of solar energy in half. The flexible and lightweight plastic substrate solar cell technology will be 57 percent cheaper than current solar cell technology, and can generate electricity at $0.09/kWh compared with $0.21 for current PV cells and $0.135 from fossil fuel sources. Solar cell sales have grown by a double-digit rate since 1974, and the market is projected to be 20 percent compounded annually.

- Solar energy will be one of the top ten energy innovations within a decade, according to a major U.S. research group. Solar energy is considered the ultimate sustainable energy form, and advancements in solar heating and in solar cell efficiency "hold the promise of making widespread terrestrial application a reality," says NREL. Other innovations to be significant by 2010 include advanced batteries with three times as much energy capability and bio-engineered crops for fuels. Distributed power generation technologies, including fuel cells, are also on the top ten list, as are smart energy management systems that increase efficiency of transportation.

- The chairman of one of the world's largest oil companies will co- chair a task force on renewable energy, which was created at the G8 summit in Okinawa last month. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, will work with Dr Corrado Clini, Director General of the Italian Environment Ministry, to promote increased use of renewable energy sources to improve the quality of life in developing countries. The task force will prepare concrete recommendations for consideration on "sound ways to better encourage the use of renewables in developing countries," and report by the next summit in Italy. The G8 leaders called on all stakeholders to identify barriers and solutions to elevating the level of renewable energy supply and distribution in developing countries.

- A student-built solar car has set a world record. The Radiance left the east coast of Canada on July 1, and took 29 days to travel 7,044 km to the west. It drove through more than 30 cities to demonstrate its solar PV source of energy, on a route that exposed the car to 90 percent of Canada's population. The 320 kg vehicle is powered by 1.3 kW of PV panels that have an efficiency rate of 20.5 percent. The vehicle can reach a top speed of 125 km/h.

- The demand for renewable energy to serve the 'green power' market in the U.S. is continuing to expand, according to NREL. Wind and solar PV are most common in utility projects, with wind well ahead. Twenty-six utilities have installed new renewables capacity for green power programs, and 20 have announced plans for future capacity. Across the country, 125 MW of new capacity has been installed, with another 180 MW planned. The data include only new resources to respond to customer demand for green power and does not include 700 MW traded through the APX California green power exchange. As of July, 72 MW of new facilities had been installed as a result of utility programs, with another 121 MW likely to be installed within the next year. Wind turbines represent 75 percent (54 MW), and the same ratio of forecast additions (90 MW). Solar photovoltaic has 4 percent of the total (3 MW), and will install only 2 percent of new capacity in the near future (2 MW).

- Production of electricity from renewable energy sources in the United Kingdom increased 9.5 percent last year, according to government reports. Generation from wind increased by 2.2 percent, while hydroelectric facilities delivered 2 percent more and biofuels generated 23 percent more. Renewables provided 2.8 percent of U.K electricity in 1999, up from 2.6 percent in 1998 and 1.8 percent in 1993. Britain has a target of obtaining 5 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2003 and 10 percent by 2010. Two-thirds of renewables in Britain is transformed into electricity, with the balance used for heating. Total generation from renewables last year amounted to 10,237 GWh, 50 percent from large hydro generation. In 1990, NFFO projects accounted for 34 percent of total capacity; by 1998, this figure had risen to 86 percent but dropped to 47 percent in 1999 due to the expiry of NFFO.

- Measures to promote renewable energy in Europe must not be allowed to create artificial distortions under deregulation, warns the continent's electricity association. A number of issues could hinder electricity companies and there must be a "level playing field" and avoidance of excessive environmental protection. Measures to promote renewable energy should be harmonized with deregulation to avoid or eliminate artificial distortions, and market-based instruments such as tradeable green certificates could create competitive cost-pressures among renewables. Excessive assistance could hamper development of renewables unless market forces facilitate a sustainable development of the technology.

- An Israeli research institute has proposed a novel design for a solar still that can produce fresh water from saline or brackish water. Output would be 40 percent higher than conventional desalination systems, and solar heat in the system would be used more than once by recovering heat from condensation, similar to multi-effect desalination. Unlike conventional designs where moist air in the solar still is almost stagnant, the design proposed by the Technion team circulates air which absorbs the humidity in a part of the still exposed to the sun. The system allows humidity to condense while preheating feed water.

- A U.S. wind energy company has opened its first production factory in Spain, and will pursue other opportunities in that country to promote wind energy. The factory has capacity of 720 MW a year of turbines, and it will make Castilla-La Mancha a leading region in wind energy production. The turbines will serve markets in Spain, southern Europe and Mediterranean countries. It will develop potential local wind projects and has received approval from the Autonomous Government to study the use of wind energy in 21 areas.

- The government of Western Australia has decided not to proceed with a A$125 million project to build a 48 MW tidal hydro plant in the northwest region. An advisory committee found that facilities powered by natural gas would be better than a tidal power project at Derby, questioned the reliability of supply under the tidal option, and said tidal power could compete with gas only if there were substantial state and federal government subsidies. The project would have used tides to spin multiple 8 MW turbines that would generate electricity for the remote towns and mines.

- An award in Australia has been presented to the first vessel in the world that is totally powered by only the sun and the wind. The Solar Sailor won the Innovation & Best New Marine Product, and developers claim the technology will "revolutionize" travel on water. The vessel has mounted wings that harness the sun and wind, and can be adjusted to adapt to the prevailing weather conditions at any given time. It is in operation on Sydney Harbour and will be chartered during the Olympic Games.

- The City of Chicago and 47 local government bodies will team together to purchase solar energy, in a move that is designed to save taxpayers millions of dollars and contribute to a cleaner environment. They will combine purchasing power and buy in bulk from a single provider to achieve economies of scale and reduce operating costs substantially. The group has issued a request-for-services to licensed power providers in Illinois, noting that the agencies need 400 MW of electricity, of which the city of Chicago accounts for half, the Chicago Transit Authority needs 100 MW and the 46 other agencies use the remainder. A supplier must lower costs for each member of the group and generate at least 20 percent from renewable sources, and that 80 MW would be the largest purchase in the U.S. by a non-utility customer.

- Energy companies in Australia will implement a new way to trade the rights for electricity that is generated from renewable energy facilities. The Green Electricity Market Project will be an internet-based exchange that allows members to trade green power generation, and claims to deliver the world's first industry governed green e-marketplace by early next year. It will allow members to track their generation under the mandatory target of providing 9,500 GWh of renewable energy as of January, and to build an efficient market for renewable energy certificates.

- The largest US-owned manufacturer of solar products will accelerate its capacity expansion plans. AstroPower has trebled its manufacturing capacity over the past three years, but is still constrained. Its plan was to increase capacity to 25 MW by the end of 2000, but it has already gone to 30 MW and will aim for 35 MW by year end, and accelerate plans for 2001, too.

- Solar PV panels have been installed on a carport to generate electricity while it provides shade. The 288 PV modules were installed in California, where the 22 kW system is integrated into a 120-foot carport.

- The largest solar electricity facility in the San Francisco Bay area will be commissioned this month. The 100 kW solar PV system on the roof of PowerLight's 18,000 ft2 PV manufacturing facility was co-funded by the CEC and the DOE through the PVMaT program of NREL. The plant will produce up to 15 MW of solar panels a year for the global market. The electricity generated on the roof will be sold for green power customers.

- The largest solar PV project in the U.S. Northwest has been commissioned. The 25 kW project in Ashland is the first renewable energy project funded by BEF with a grant of $62,500, which leveraged $300,000 in additional investment by local agencies. The system will generate electricity for the police station, while surplus energy will be sold back to the local grid for purchase in a green power program. BEF has already made a second award for a PV system in the San Juan Islands.

- A company that makes energy-efficient traffic signals is willing to provide its units to every U.S. city for free. The LED traffic signals consume less power than conventional incandescent turn signals, with one analysis showing a conventional signal using 135 watts, while the LED requires 9. The annual savings for a standard intersection with four turn arrow signals would be $441, based on electricity at 10 c/kWh. The company has offered to provide free traffic signals to every city in exchange for the money saved on energy costs over the next five years. In addition to savings in electricity costs, maintenance costs are also lower with LED lights.

- The San Diego utility wants to spend $16 million over the next two years to fund energy-efficiency programs. An additional $4.3 million will be allocated exclusively to low-income assistance programs, while the rest will go to incentives for removal and recycling of refrigerators; air-conditioners; inefficient pool pumps; and incentives for small businesses.

- U.S. electric utilities have agreed to promote investment in generation and transmission facilities, as well as in energy efficiency programs. The participants agreed on six principles to help ensure reliable service, including an open marketplace to maintain reliable electric service and promote investment in generation and transmission facilities, as well as energy efficiency programs, as well as adequate amounts of generation and transmission capacity and demand-side efforts such as load management and energy efficiency.

- The U.S. hydroelectricity industry could raise power reserves by 16 percent without building a single new dam, claims the industry's lobby group. New hydro development could raise reserves by 2009 and help avoid future capacity shortfalls if energy policy were significantly changed, says NHA. Changing the hydro licensing process and creating incentives for producers would provide a significant improvement in most regions and increase generating capacity by 19.6 GW.

- Consumers in California have another option to purchase electricity that is generated by renewable energy sources. CRS has certified EcoSave under the Green-e Program, which provides 100 percent renewable energy content to residential and business customers in the state.

- Industrialized countries have been encouraged to invest in renewable power projects in Central America. CABEI invited the E7 group of power companies to invest in renewable energy facilities in the region, according to media reports.

- A non-profit group in the U.S. has produced an on-line resource guide to help companies and government agencies implement green purchasing programs. In addition to energy, the PPRC guide describes the benefits of green purchasing, and offers an annotated compendium of resources for numerous products. It says the public sector is turning to green purchasing as a way to build markets for environmentally preferred products, and to set an example by "walking the talk." The U.S. government spends $10 to $20 billion each year on energy related products, says FEMP. State and local governments spend $260 billion per year on durables.

- A new manufacturing facility is under construction in Connecticut to allow production of more fuel cell power plants. The facility will meet demand for its DFC units, with annual manufacturing capacity increasing to 50 MW next year, and reaching 400 MW by 2004.

- World oil production will not peak for at least another 20 years, according to DOE. Many analysts predicted that the peak could come as early as 2004, but EIA used 12 scenarios of total world oil resources to determine possible peak production years between 2021 to 2112. The peak could be delayed by discovery of new conventional resources, or it could occur earlier with accelerated production rates and global oil demand varies.

- Forecasts Support Solar Vehicle's Cross-Canada Tour (Article on the cross-country tour of a PV car)

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WIND ENERGY PREDICTED TO INCREASE IN NEXT 18 MONTHS

August 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug2000/2000L-08-04-09.html

The total generating capacity of wind power plants in the U.S. will increase by 30 to 50 percent by the end of next year, says the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). A number of key market forces are generating strong interest in wind including major increases in the price of natural gas over the past year, said AWEA executive director Randall Swisher. Gas is the cheapest fossil fuel, but prices have doubled since early 1999 due to the expanding U.S. economy and greater demand for gas to be used as a fuel to generate electricity. Supplies are tight, and the higher prices are beginning to trickle down to individual and industrial consumers.

These Zond wind turbines at the Buffalo Ridge, Minnesota wind farm have black blades to shed the frost and ice in winter (Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy National Renewable Energy Lab)

In addition, electricity shortages and price spikes have been reported in several regions as a result of unusually warm weather, the economic boom in the U.S. and a lack of new capacity in recent years. Not only is the construction lead time for wind plants much shorter than for conventional generation plants, but wind plants that are installed before the end of next year qualify for a federal tax incentive to encourage production of electricity from the wind. The cost of utility scale wind energy has dropped by more than 80 percent during the past two decades, allowing new wind farms to generate electricity at $0.04/kWh, a price that is competitive with many conventional energy technologies. "Wind energy is continuing to grow rapidly worldwide, and market conditions are ripe for expansion here as well," said Swisher.

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Morocco Stakes Energy Future on Wind Power

August 4, 2000 (ENS)
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/aug2000/2000L-08-04-11.html

Morocco has set a November 1 deadline for bids to build two wind farms on the west coast of Africa.

Nine consortiums including companies from the United States, France and Spain are in the running for the contract worth $200 million. The state owned Office National de l'Electricite (ONE) said yesterday that it expects to choose the winning bid by the end of the year.

The 200 megawatt (MW) wind farms will be built in Tangiers and Tarfaya, located at the northern and the southern tips of the country. (Map courtesy U.S. Energy Information Administration)

While wind power has traditionally been seen as a small scale energy alternative with non-grid applications, Morocco is basing a significant portion of its energy policy on wind.

Currently, the country imports 90 percent of its energy, with oil used to generate 80 percent of electricity and hydropower used for 14 percent.

Morocco has embarked on an ambitious program to develop solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.

The wind plants are part of a series of windfarms that will diversify Morocco's dependance on thermal power plants.

The 200 megawatt (MW) wind farms will be built in Tangiers and Tarfaya, located at the northern and the southern tips of the country.

Morocco, a country the size of Oregon and home to 28 million people, has seen demand for electricity grow annually by seven percent in the 1990s.

Currently, about half of Morocco's households have electricity, but in rural areas where half the country's population lives, the electrification rate is only about 10 percent. In cities, it is about 90 percent.

To fill the gap, the Moroccan government launched the Global Rural Electrification Program in 1996. About $1.4 billion will be invested in the program, which aims to bring electricity to 90 percent of rural areas by 2010.

Enron Wind Corp. has designed and constructed wind power facilities around the world for two decades. (Photo courtesy Enron Wind Corporation)

The Tangiers windfarm near the Strait of Gibraltar would have a capacity of 140 MW, while the Tarfaya facility would be 60 MW. Tarfaya is next to Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony whose ownership is in dispute between Morocco and the Polisario liberation group.

Among the competing consortia are AES Corporation, Enron Wind Corporation and Alstom of the U.S, and ENDESA of Spain.

A 50 MW wind farm at Koudia el Beida is expected to be operational this year. Built by a consortium comprising Electricite de France, Banque Paribas and consulting engineers, Germa, the 84 windmills situated on an uninhabited ridge represent Africa's and the Arab world's first major wind farm, according to ONE.

The Koudia el Beida wind farm, built at a cost of US$60 million, will supply two percent of Morocco's annual electricity needs. To produce the same output, fossil fuel power plants would release 230,000 tons of carbon dioxide, a notorious greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

-------- environment

Healthy living may cause leukaemia

By David Derbyshire, Medical Correspondent,
UK Telegraph, ISSUE 1897
Friday 4 August 2000
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000118613908976&rtmo=fqasla3s&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/8/4/nleuk04.html

IMPROVED standards of living may be to blame for the rise of leukaemia cases in young children, cancer researchers said yesterday.

They found that toddlers were 70 per cent more likely to develop a common type of the disease than they were 20 years ago. Although the reasons for the increase among children aged one to four are unknown, scientists behind the study suggested a link with changing lifestyles.

Exposure to common infections is thought to prime the immune system in youngsters, helping to ward off a range of diseases, including some types of leukaemia. Better sanitation and less exposure to disease over the past 20 years may have weakened children's immune systems, making them more vulnerable. In developing countries leukaemia is far less common than in western nations.

The results, published in the medical journal The Lancet, came from a study of 435 children, led by Dr Richard McNally of the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital. He said: "Experts have believed for some time that exposure to common infections have been linked to acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. But for the first time we have shown that the big increase in cases of this type of leukaemia is only happening in one- to four-year-olds.

"We believe that it could be because youngsters' immune systems are becoming less good at warding off infections. That could be because higher living standards mean children are not exposed to so much infection."

----

An American Gamble On a Chinese Shangri-La

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 4, 2000 ; A20
http://washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A37833-2000Aug4

YUBENG, China -- A Marine artillery captain in Vietnam, a former federal prosecutor in Baltimore and a veteran of decades of environmental skirmishes in the United States, Ed Norton is fighting the battle of his life a long way from home.

Norton, 58, an environmentalist once called a "Rottweiler in granny glasses" for his clashes with the Reagan White House, moved to China last year to lead a multimillion-dollar bid by the Nature Conservancy to help create a string of national parks and wilderness areas in one of the most stunning patches of the world. His trek into this tiny Tibetan valley in southwestern China, at the base of the 22,113-foot Mount Kawagebo in the Himalayan foothills, was part of the project, which is the most ambitious U.S. attempt ever to help preserve the environment in China before it degenerates beyond repair.

"Look at this," Norton said, pointing through a natural archway formed by two giant cedars toward a Buddhist prayer wheel creaking beside a small rivulet. "It's on the edge here, and it could go either way."

Norton's task is to work with Chinese counterparts to bring environmental protection to the abundant resources at the farthest frontier of China, where every little town seems to be proclaiming itself a new Shangri-La. It is a high-risk gamble taken by the Nature Conservancy, a U.S. nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving wilderness, in a country that often neglects its wild spaces, air quality and rivers and is struggling to figure out what to do with the natural resources that remain. China has enormous ecological problems; in a few years it could overtake the United States as the world's biggest polluter.

The area at issue occupies a sweep of southwestern China as big as West Virginia. More than 3 million people--and 11 ethnic groups from Tibetan Buddhists and Catholics to the Mosuo--inhabit its mountaintop villages and riverside hamlets. Scores of migratory birds, including the black necked crane, 700 flowering plants; the endangered snow leopard; the snub-nosed monkey and the red panda make their homes in this region.

The land here in northwestern Yunnan, where the Indian subcontinent hits continental Asia, crinkles like a car in a head-on collision, compacting four of the great rivers of Asia--the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangtze--to within 60 miles of each other. Some of the gorges cutting through this region plummet two miles into roaring whitewater. Walkers can be trudging through high desert one hour and among conifers the next.

"This truly is stunning country," Norton said. Behind him, bells jangled around the shoulders of longhaired yaks.

Norton's closest ally is his wife, Ann McBride, a self-described "genetic optimist" with a Louisiana lilt in her voice that has resisted decades in Washington. McBride joined the liberal nongovernmental organization Common Cause during an unsuccessful bid in the 1970s to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. She left last year, after four years as its president. Here, McBride has provided key strategic input in ways big and small.

One of the couple's goals has been to turn their home in Yunnan's capital, Kunming, into a forum where people can freely exchange ideas about the environment. To do that, McBride reasoned, they needed a round table, "so everybody could look in everybody else's eyes."

"Well, you'd think China, the land of round tables, would have a round table for sale," she said. "Wrong." It took months to find one.

McBride is also using a technique called "photo voice" to elicit villagers' views on the project and their hopes for the future. Under the program, villagers get a camera and are told to take pictures of the things they value. This is a subtle way of trying to get input from the affected people into the project plan. China, run by a government that often pays little heed to what its citizens think, is not used to this type of participation.

"Look, we are large, pale people," said McBride. "We are different from the vast majority of people around us. We came from a place where we knew how to do everything. We worked in D.C. for decades and suddenly we're in a place where we don't know how anything works. Basically, everything is new."

Just a few years ago, environmentalism was a dirty word in China. Chinese would argue that it was a plot to stop them from developing their land and their economy. Then massive floods in 1998 brought home a lesson to many Chinese that their devil-may-care economic juggernaut of the last 20 years, the unrestricted felling of trees, the drying of lakes, the polluting of rivers and the air, had costs.

Now everyone talks about sustainable development. But few practice it. Chinese think nothing of hiking to the top of a mountain and leaving it littered with the remains of their lunch. Streams are for washing cars. And on a deeper level, China's society still lacks the tools for sustained environmentalism.

"We have got to change the way we develop," said Ouyang Jian, the official in the Yunnan provincial government in charge of the project. "But it will not be easy."

Norton is part of a continuum of foreigners who have journeyed to China to proselytize. Only this time the gospel is not the Bible or capitalism, it is the environment. While Norton takes pains to be sensitive to his Chinese hosts, Chinese remain wary.

History, however, may be on his side. Seventy-five years ago, Joseph Rock, another American, worked and lived in the region, writing articles for National Geographic such as "Through the Great River Trenches of Asia" and "Weird Ceremonies Performed by an Aboriginal Tribe in the Heart of Yunnan Province, China." Rock is remembered in these parts as a friend. "Ed Norton is a second Joseph Rock," one Chinese ethnologist said.

Norton and McBride moved to China in May 1999. Over the past year, they have had their share of excitement and a crash course on living with the Chinese. Norton, the father of actor Edward Norton, has shown flashes of drama as well as hints of the tough prosecutor he once was.

A few weeks after they moved into their apartment in Kunming, Norton and McBride journeyed north to a Tibetan region. On the program that afternoon was a horse race. McBride urged Norton, an able equestrian, to join in, arguing that as the leader of the Nature Conservancy project in Yunnan, he should do it for "face."

"I was third and coming on strong, I dug my heels into the horse and slipped off the saddle," Norton recalled. The result was a dislocated left shoulder.

"Not exactly the Asian concept of face," quipped McBride--"face down in the mud."

Then there is the donation of $6,000 worth of goods from Patagonia, the California-based outdoor gear retailer. Chinese customs officials demanded a huge payoff in taxes. Norton demurred, and the imports were blocked. "The entire customs department will be outfitted in fleece!" predicted McBride.

In Beijing, there has been some sniping at the project. One Western environmentalist said the project is too gigantic and ultimately will fail because it is trying to deal with too many bureaucracies competing at once.

Chinese, too, have expressed disbelief that the project is going anywhere. "There is no law in this country about national parks so how can TNC say they want to make a national park?" said one Chinese government official. "Do they want to write legislation for us as well? Sometimes foreigners want to help us in areas that can't be helped."

From one vantage point, the project started at a good time. Because of erosion caused by clear-cutting and bad environmental policies, massive floods ravaged China in the summer of 1998. That year, the government instituted a ban on commercial logging. Yunnan made almost $1 billion a year from that timber. Most of the forests are in the project area.

These days, the search is on for ways to replace the lost income. Eco-tourism has become a new buzzword in the mountains and rivers of the project area. But simultaneously, there is a desperation for cash--so much so that any idea, no matter how loopy, is often entertained, as long as it promises money.

In Yubeng, for example, local authorities have plans to run a road toward the village and then send 600 to 800 people a day on horseback into the pristine valley, home to about 125 Tibetans and 25 houses.

Plans are also afoot to dam the main stems of all the rivers, even though electricity prices are crashing in China, and its current headline-stealer, the $35-billion Three Gorges Dam, is wracked by corruption and incompetence. China has just begun building a massive dam on the Mekong River south of the project area. When it is finished it will be 958 feet high, one of the tallest in the world. The British mining firm Billiton is negotiating for a large lead and zinc mine near the project area. The air and water pollution and soil erosion it generates could bedevil the region for years.

Another challenge is helping the Chinese figure out how, in their headlong rush toward their concept of modernity, they can preserve the area's treasures.

One of the stunning man-made beauties in the region is the old town of Lijiang, with cobblestone streets, crenelated houses and airy courtyards. But Lijiang, noted Zhao Jiawen, head of the Yunnan Minorities Institute, was preserved by accident.

"When new China was formed," he said, "there was no money to destroy and rebuild houses. So we built a new city next to the old one. Now we realize that the preservation of ancient cultures has a value in and of itself."

How to govern access to the massive peak of Kawagebo raises another question. No one has ever scaled the glacier, and local Tibetans oppose any attempt to do so because it is considered sacred. In 1991, a team of 17 Japanese and Chinese climbers died in an avalanche after abandoning an attempt to reach the summit. While the men were on the mountain, Tibetan monks prayed the climb would fail.

This kind of issue cuts to the heart of the kind of experience the Chinese want relative to nature. Near the summit of the 18,360-foot Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, next to the cheesy gondola stands, there is a small go-cart-like track for snowmobiles that go around and around all day. The Chinese developer got a government award for his project, which was called a model for tourism development.

Norton wonders if that's the right way.

"Why do you have a place like Yellowstone?" he asked. "Why do you have a place like Jade Dragon Snow Mountain? What kind of experience do you want people to have? A high-speed ride around a short circle? Why have a national park? The Chinese may come up with different answers, but those are the questions."

-------- police

Cops Accuse Convention Protesters

By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-Convention-Protests.html

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Police on Friday accused the leaders of several prominent protest training groups of orchestrating property damage and violence during the just-ended Republican National Convention and in other cities around the country.

A leader of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Ruckus Society, who is being held on $1 million bail, is among up to six prominent activists arrested this week during sometimes violent demonstrations around the city.

``There's a cadre, if you will, of criminal conspirators who are about the business of planning conspiracies to go in and cause mayhem and cause property damage and cause violence in major cities in America that have large conventions or large numbers of people coming in for one reason or another,'' Police Commissioner John Timoney said Friday.

As proof, police presented evidence and photographs of items he said were intended to hurt officers during the convention. Among the items displayed were gasoline-soaked rags tied to chains that police said were similar to the ones used by protesters in Seattle to light on fire and fling over a large crowd.

``The events of this week did not happen in a vacuum. We do have precedents in Seattle and in Washington,'' Timoney said.

Activists dismissed the accusations.

``There's no way for one organization or one individual to be accountable for the actions of everyone else,'' said Celia Alario, one of dozens of people with the Ruckus Society who helped train demonstrators before the Philadelphia convention.

In addition to the Ruckus Society, police have singled out the leaders of Philadelphia ACT UP, the nation's largest chapter of the national AIDS advocacy group, and of Philadelphia Direct Action Group, an affiliate of the Asheville, N.C.-based Direct Action Network.

The accusations are surprising because these groups have been acclaimed for inspiring non-violent activism that has resulted in large, mostly peaceful demonstrations over the past year.

However, the two largest demonstrations -- in Seattle last fall, and Washington, D.C., in April -- were marred by hundreds of arrests and property damage. Philadelphia ACT UP, Ruckus and the Direct Action Network also were involved in training and organizing in Seattle and Washington.

``We thought these are not bad people. They're not going to engage in anything violent. But their actions belie their words,'' Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell said.

Police did not name the activist leaders singled out as the lead organizers. However, police confirmed that the leaders are facing the most serious charges and have been assigned the highest bails.

John Sellers, 33, a leader of the Ruckus Society, was being held on $1 million bail for misdemeanors including conspiracy, reckless endangerment and related charges.

Terrence McGuckin, a leader of Philadelphia ACT UP, also was being held on $500,000 bail for numerous misdemeanors. Defense lawyer Lawrence Krasner said Kate Sorensen, 34, a leader of the Philadelphia Direct Action Group, was in custody and expected to face charges similar to those against Sellers and McGuckin.

Two men accused of felony assault on an officer, including 20-year-old Darby Landy who is charged with hitting the commissioner with a bicycle, were each charged with felony assault on an officer and being held on $500,000 and $450,000 bail.

Police said 390 people have been arrested since Saturday, including 39 charged with felonies. More than 300 people were arrested Tuesday during sometimes-violent brawls with police and several traffic-blocking demonstrations.

Krasner, who represents 10 jailed activists, said many of the protesters were held on unreasonably high bail to keep them in jail until the convention ended Thursday night.

``It's an unconscionable, ridiculous bail and completely off the map from the norm,'' Krasner said. ``This is a desperate effort to systematically punish these people without a trial, to lock them up, keep them off the streets.''

-------- spying

COINTELPRO one definition

Friday August 04 @02:09PM
From: Charles Knause cknause@sprintmail.com

WHAT WAS COINTELPRO? "COINTELPRO" was the FBI's secret program to undermine the popular upsurge which swept the country during the 1960s. Though the name stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies. The FBI set out to eliminate "radical" political opposition inside the US. When traditional modes of repression (exposure, blatant harassment, and prosecution for political crimes) failed to counter the growing insurgency, and even helped to fuel it, the Bureau took the law into its own hands and secretly used fraud and force to sabotage constitutionally- protected political activity. Its methods ranged far beyond surveillance, and amounted to a domestic version of the covert action for which the CIA has become infamous throughout the world.

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT IT? COINTELPRO was discovered in March, 1971, when secret files were removed from an FBI office and released to news media. Freedom of Information requests, lawsuits, and former agents' public confessions deepened the exposure until a major scandal loomed. To control the damage and re-establish government legitimacy in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress and the courts compelled the FBI to reveal part of what it had done and to promise it would not do it again.

HOW DID IT WORK? The FBI secretly instructed its field offices to propose schemes to "misdirect, discredit, disrupt and otherwise neutralize "specific individuals and groups. Close coordination with local police and prosecutors was encouraged. Final authority rested with top FBI officials in Washington, who demanded assurance that "there is no possibility of embarrassment to the Bureau." More than 2000 individual actions were officially approved. The documents reveal three types of methods:

1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main function was to discredit and disrupt. Various means to this end are analyzed below.

2. Other forms of deception: The FBI and police also waged psychological warfare from the outside--through bogus publications, forged correspondence, anonymous letters and telephone calls, and similar forms of deceit.

3. Harassment, intimidation and violence: Eviction, job loss, break-ins, vandalism, grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups, and physical violence were threatened, instigated or directly employed, in an effort to frighten activists and disrupt their movements. Government agents either concealed their involvement or fabricated a legal pretext. In the case of the Black and Native American movements, these assaults--including outright political assassinations--were so extensive and vicious that they amounted to terrorism on the part of the government.

WHO WERE THE MAIN TARGETS? The most intense operations were directed against the Black movement, particularly the Black Panther Party. This resulted from FBI and police racism, the Black community's lack of material resources for fighting back, and the tendency of the media--and whites in general--to ignore or tolerate attacks on Black groups. It also reflected government and corporate fear of the Black movement because of its militance, its broad domestic base and international support, and its historic role in galvanizing the entire Sixties' upsurge. Many other activists who organized against US intervention abroad or for racial, gender or class justice at home also came under covert attack. The targets were in no way limited to those who used physical force or took up arms. Martin Luther King, David Dellinger, Phillip Berrigan and other leading pacifists were high on the list, as were projects directly protected by the Bill of Rights, such as alternative newspapers.

The Black Panthers came under attack at a time when their work featured free food and health care and community control of schools and police, and when they carried guns only for deterrent and symbolic purposes. It was the terrorism of the FBI and police that eventually provoked the Panthers to retaliate with the armed actions that later were cited to justify their repression.

Ultimately the FBI disclosed six official counterintelligence programs: Communist Party-USA (1956-71); "Groups Seeking Independence for Puerto Rico" (1960-71); Socialist Workers Party (1961-71); "White Hate Groups" (1964-71); "Black Nationalist Hate Groups" (1967-71); and "New Left" (1968- 71).The latter operations hit anti-war, student, and feminist groups. The "Black Nationalist" caption actually encompassed Martin Luther King and most of the civil rights and Black Power movements. The "white hate" program functioned mainly as a cover for covert aid to the KKK and similar right-wing vigilantes, who were given funds and information, so long as they confined their attacks to COINTELPRO targets. FBI documents also reveal covert action against Native American, Chicano, Phillipine, Arab- American, and other activists, apparently without formal Counterintelligence programs.

WHAT EFFECT DID IT HAVE? COINTELPRO's impact is difficult to fully assess since we do not know the entire scope of what was done (especially against such pivotal targets as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, SNCC and SDS),and we have no generally accepted analysis of the Sixties. It is clear,however, that:

-COINTELPRO distorted the public's view of radical groups in a way that helped to isolate them and to legitimize open political repression.

-It reinforced and exacerbated the weaknesses of these groups, making it very difficult for the inexperienced activists of the Sixties to learn from their mistakes and build solid, durable organizations.

-Its violent assaults and covert manipulation eventually helped to push some of the most committed and experienced groups to withdraw from grass-roots organizing and to substitute armed actions which isolated them and deprived the movement of much of its leadership.

-COINTELPRO often convinced its victims to blame themselves and each other for the problems it created, leaving a legacy of cynicism and despair that persists today.

-By operating covertly, the FBI and police were able to severely weaken domestic political opposition without shaking the conviction of most US people that they live in a democracy, with free speech and the rule of law.

[Source: Brian Glick-author of War at Home, South End Press]

-------- terrorism

Italian General Alleges CIA Link to Bombings

By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-italy-a.html

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian secret service general said Friday the CIA gave its tacit approval to a series of bombings in Italy in the 1970s to sow instability and keep communists from taking power.

``We cannot say that the CIA had an active and direct role in the bombings, but it is true that they knew the targets and culprits,'' General Gianadelio Maletti told la Repubblica newspaper in an interview from Johannesburg, where the former spy is in self-imposed exile.

Maletti said the military secret service division he led in the 1970s found out explosives were being sent from Germany to the neo-fascist paramilitary group Ordine Nuovo (New Order).

Three Ordine Nuovo members were charged with the bombing of Milan's Piazza Fontana in 1969, which killed 16 people.

The whistleblower said the explosives' discovery had been reported to his superiors but nothing happened.

``We made the discovery and pointed out that the explosives used in Piazza Fontana came from one of those cargoes (of explosives from Germany),'' he told the paper in the interview conducted in a Johannesburg park.

Maletti did not explain why the explosives came from Germany or who sent them. But he did say West Germany hosted a powerful CIA base at the time.

Italian secret services and the CIA were alleged to have colluded in the 1970s in a strategy to keep Italy's increasingly popular Communist Party at bay and the conservative Christian Democrats in power by sowing terror and instability in Italy.

LUDICROUS, SAYS CIA

In Washington, the allegations made by Maletti drew a terse response from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

``The allegation that the CIA was involved in bombings in Italy is ludicrous,'' a CIA spokesman said.

The Piazza Fontana bombing, now into its eighth trial, is one of the many unsolved crimes that plagued Italy during the height of bloody urban guerrilla activity from the late 1960s to early 1980s. Italy's Nobel laureate Dario Fo based his play ''The Accidental Death of an Anarchist'' on the outrage.

Maletti, wanted on various charges in Italy, including allowing neo-fascist suspects to flee the country, spoke out following the 20th anniversary Wednesday of the Bologna railway station blast, which killed 85 people.

Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said in Bologna he felt ''humiliated'' by the state's complicity with the crimes committed in those years and by its failure to punish those responsible.

Giovanni Pellegrino, chairman of a parliamentary commission looking into the unsolved attacks of those years, called for state archives to be opened.

He said the comments by Amato in Bologna and the Maletti interview required a political response to get to the truth.

``There should now be an order (from Amato) for the archives of the carabinieri (military police) and the Guardia di Finanza (tax police) to be opened,'' Pellegrino told a news conference.

``There are some documents which have not yet been made available to the commission and there are some officials who have not told all they know,'' he added.

-------- activists

Protesters Whine About Jail Life

UPI
Friday, August 4, 2000
http://www.NewsMax.com/articles/?a=2000/8/3/150647

PHILADELPHIA - Protesters during the Republican National Convention who were released from jail Thursday said more than 100 of those still detained have started a hunger strike. They said their jailed colleagues remained in good spirits, even though they complain that police have denied them access to attorneys, curtailed bathroom privileges and resorted to using pepper spray.

Meanwhile, a Philadelphia police official said many of the jailed protesters refused to cooperate, struggled during fingerprinting, threw excrement at officers and forced jailers to carry them to court hearings.

"There's been widespread removal of clothing by both sexes,'' said Deputy Police Commissioner Robert Mitchell, who commands the Philadelphia Police Department's special operations division.

Mitchell said protesters could face additional charges if they damage or destroy cells, but probably would not be charged for throwing feces.

"For the most part we're just going to have to take it,'' Mitchell said.

Larry Krasner, a "civil rights" lawyer working with the protesters, said he has received reports of some of those arrested remaining in handcuffs for long periods. He said he was told police have put pepper spray on gloves and rubbed them on protesters' faces to force them to go to the arraignments.

"I think it's rather clear they want to make the taxpayers pay for the Republicans' footwork. I think there are a number of solid civil rights violations here,'' Krasner said.

One man, who refused to give his name, said the detainees are demanding to be treated as a bloc and want charges reduced or dropped.

Louis Thomas of Maryland said he could not participate in the jail solidarity because he had his wallet with identification when he was arrested. Many of the protesters in jail have refused to give their names. Thomas was arrested in the warehouse where protesters were making puppets and police say they found "Sleeping Dragons,'' chain-and-pipe contraptions used to link protesters.

"We are very strong in prison,'' said Thomas, who was charged with obstructing traffic despite being arrested inside the warehouse.

"I think they want to keep people locked up until George Bush leaves town,'' Krasner said. "It's obvious someone doesn't want to see marchers and signs on the cover of Newsweek magazine.''

A visibly shaken Kristin Bricker, 17, of Wilmington, Del., who was arrested Tuesday afternoon and released Wednesday night, said the detainees were told they did not have the right to talk to a lawyer or make a phone call. She was charged with blocking the highway, pleaded not guilty, and all charges were dropped.

George Ripley of Washington, D.C., said: "The solidarity in [the jail] is very strong. We own that jail. We are having a great time in there.''

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with ENVIRONMENTAL PATRIOT, Ripley addressed a crowd of protesters sitting in a park across from police headquarters. Protesters have vowed to maintain their vigil until all their jailed colleagues are released. Police provided the protesters with water and portable toilets and did not intervene.

"We are very proud of what we did,'' Ripley said.

The Rev. Al Sharpton marched from an anti-death penalty protest Thursday to the park and told the gathering, "This is an outright disgrace, and it shows what we will be facing if George W. Bush is to become president of the United States."

"People have the right to stand up to [Bush's] racist killing policies," Sharpton said, referring to the number of executions that have taken place in Texas since Bush has been governor of the state.

The protesters chanted: "We won't cease until all are released. We won't stop until [all] the charges are dropped."

Earlier Thursday, Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney said 369 protesters had been arrested.

Fifteen police officers have been injured. One suffered a serious concussion, but has since been released from the hospital.

Timoney said no major demonstrations were planned for Thursday, but added, "we're not letting our guard down until the gavel sounds."

Deputy Commissioner Thomas Nestle said the Philadelphia police were passing on to the FBI information about a laundry lists of targets for destruction found in the possession of some protesters.

----

Philadelphia Serious About Prosecuting Protesters

Yahoo News
Friday August 4 8:56 PM ET
By David Morgan
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000804/pl/campaign_protests_dc_22.html

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Apparently the last thing protesters can expect from Philadelphia is a ``Get out of jail free'' card.

Unlike Seattle and Washington, where charges against most demonstrators were dropped after recent protests, the City of Brotherly Love rejects the model of a game in which penalties can be averted.

City officials made clear Friday that they intended to prosecute all 390 people arrested during rowdy protests aimed at disrupting this week's Republican National Convention.

Suspects have been charged with 35 felonies, 325 misdemeanors and 30 summary offenses. One well-known activist behind bars was John Sellers, head of the Ruckus Society, based in Berkeley, California. He was being held on $1 million bond for alleged misdemeanors, including conspiracy.

Civil rights attorneys complained that city authorities were setting bail exorbitantly high to detain protesters after the convention's end Thursday night.

Protesters also accused jailers of torture and police of using McCarthyite tactics.

``I consider this a civil rights catastrophe of the first order,'' said Ron McGuire, a civil rights attorney representing jailed protesters. ``This is a systematic political effort to undermine and destroy the momentum of a growing movement for social and environmental change.''

SERIOUS CHARGES COMING?

The charges that most protesters face are second-degree misdemeanors, punishable by up to two years in prison. But the Philadelphia district attorney's office said more serious ones could be added as early as this weekend.

``We take this very, very seriously and fully intend to prosecute,'' Mayor John Street told a news conference.

``It would be terrible public policy for us to have people come here, join in what appears to be a very well-thought-out plan to shut down the city of Philadelphia and disrupt the convention, and then at the end of the day we say, 'All is forgiven.'''

Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney has called on federal authorities to investigate leading activists, whom he blames for wreaking havoc not only at the Republican convention but during meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle last year and the World Bank in Washington in April.

A similar coalition has been planning to demonstrate later this month in Los Angeles during the Democratic National Convention.

``We're happy to review whatever intelligence the Philadelphia Police Department has to make a judgement with the Department of Justice in Washington on whether federal laws have been violated,'' U.S. Attorney Michael Stiles said.

Nearly 300 arrests were made in Philadelphia on Tuesday, when about 4,000 protesters tried to shut down the convention by blocking several key downtown intersections.

Injuries And Vandalism

Demonstrations were marked by sporadic violence, in which 15 police officers were injured and nearly 30 city vehicles vandalized. Marauding bands also tipped trash containers into streets, scrawled graffiti on downtown buildings and smashed windows.

Since then, police have taken another 100 people into custody, including those suspected of being protest leaders.

``The events of this week did not happen in a vacuum,'' Timoney said. ``The people arrested on the second day were people who were engaged in criminal activity. I'm not going to lay out the legal basis for that. All that will come out in court.''

On Friday, police produced material captured in a raid on a West Philadelphia warehouse, including a giant slingshot and metal wire that officers allege was strung across intersections as an apparent trap for police on bicycles, horses and motorcycles.

Police also released a July 21 videotape purported to show two people hurling ice-filled balloons from the top of a downtown building used to store protest puppets and signs. One of the balloons smashed the window of a police cruiser. City safety inspectors closed the building a day later.

The material included plastic pipes, chicken wire and duct tape used to make devices called ``sleeping dragons,'' which demonstrators use to chain themselves together for blockades.

Police said that if they had not raided the warehouse and confiscated the material, the protest lines that blocked traffic for several hours Tuesday might have lasted days.

----

Activists Seek End To Iraq Sanctions

By Cheryl Wittenauer
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Aug. 5, 2000; 12:56 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000805/aponline005616_000.htm

NEW YORK (AP)- The Rev. Bob Bossie spent a good part of his life in peace work - protesting nuclear arms and U.S. military involvement in Central America in the 1980s, and later the Persian Gulf War and sanctions in Iraq.

The Roman Catholic priest from Chicago had been part of a daring international peace team that camped on the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border in late 1990 in a symbolic attempt to prevent the Gulf War. He later worked, again unsuccessfully, to end economic sanctions that the United Nations imposed on Iraq on Aug. 6, 1990.

"But after a couple years, I hung up my hat, because most of what we did seemed so ineffectual," he said. "There were a few stalwarts like Sister Anne Montgomery and (former U.S. Attorney General) Ramsey Clark who continued the call for us to do something."

In late 1995, a call came from Chuck Quilty, a 58-year-old former chemical engineer from Rock Island, Ill., who quit his job at a weapons plant 30 years earlier as an act of conscience.

He wanted Bossie and a handful of friends to find a way to end the sanctions, a policy that was aimed at ousting Saddam Hussein but which activists note has managed only to strangle Iraq's economy and kill an untold number of its citizens.

"We decided we had to confront the sanctions by violating them," Quilty said.

A meeting in peace activist Kathy Kelly's Chicago apartment was the catalyst for the anti-sanctions group, Voices in the Wilderness - "voices for children in a wilderness of compassion" - and the spur for a movement to end the sanctions.

Today, the movement consists of dozens of groups assembling this weekend in Washington for a National Mobilization to End the Sanctions Against Iraq. Sponsors range from three of the nation's oldest peace groups - Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pax Christi USA and the American Friends Service Committee - to the American Muslim Council.

The anti-sanctions movement includes Gulf War veterans, and spans most faiths and ages - from college students and 20-somethings to gray-haired veterans of the 1960s antiwar movement.

They hold street rallies, prayer vigils and fasts, run letter-writing campaigns and issue pleas for change. In recent months, opponents have shown up at speeches by Vice President Al Gore, Secretary of State Madeline Albright and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to ask them directly about the morality of the sanctions policy.

In January 1996, members of Voices in the Wilderness told the Justice Department they were going to deliver a symbolic offering of medicines to Iraq in defiance of the sanctions, and at the risk of $1 million in fines and 12 years in jail for each violation.

Since that first trip, Voices has led more than 30 delegations of U.S. citizens to Iraq to see the effects of the sanctions. Their tours include visits to pediatric wards of dying children and inoperative water treatment plants. Bad water has created an epidemic of dysentery and infectious diseases, resulting in thousands of child deaths.

UNICEF says the number of infant and child deaths in Iraq has doubled in the decade since the sanctions began.

Kelly, 47, calls the sanctions "the most urgent moral crisis of our time."

"It's as though we're saying we're holding 7,000 of your children this month unless you topple your leader, and if you don't believe us, look at the statistics,' "she told a Kansas City, Mo., audience on a recent Midwest speaking tour. "There's an incredible child sacrifice, and yet this vital piece of information is not getting out."

Strict trade sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait are being kept in place, primarily by the United States and Britain, until U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq is allowed unlimited oil sales under a U. N.-approved program. Proceeds, however, go to a U.N. fund to be used only to buy food, medicine and other essential goods and modernize Iraq's oil facilities.

U.S. officials at the United Nations "don't foresee changing the sanctions regime at any point in the near future," said Mary Ellen Glynn, spokeswoman for U. N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. "It's within (Saddam) Hussein's capacity to feed his people through the oil-for-food program."

Not even the movement's most optimistic adherents believe the sanctions will end soon, but there are a few cracks in the policy.

Critics include former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now says Iraq is essentially disarmed, and two former U.N. humanitarian coordinators, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck.

Last month, the Ann Arbor, Mich., city council passed a resolution calling for sanctions to be lifted. Kelly and Halliday have been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"This major disaster is happening because of political decisions in London and Washington," said Doug Hostetter, international secretary of Fellowship of Reconciliation, which plans soon to deliver water chlorinators to Iraq with or without the U.S. government's blessing.

"We as American citizens have a major obligation to stop it. We are moral citizens first. To those who blame Saddam, I say we're not responsible for the things Saddam does. We are responsible if the actions of our government keep Iraqi children from food and clean water."

----

Phila. Protest Bail Is $1 Million

By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-CVN-Protests.html


PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A judge has set a $1 million bail for a protest leader who police said instigated property damage during sometimes-violent demonstrations surrounding the Republican National Convention this week.

Bail was set at $500,000 for another activist leader. Police have arrested and singled out as many as six leaders of activist groups, many of them instrumental in disruptions at last fall's World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle.

John Sellers, 33, a leader of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Ruckus Society, has been charged with numerous misdemeanors, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice and disorderly conduct, attorney Larry Krasner said. Sellers was arrested Wednesday after police identified him for what they said were actions Tuesday evening.

``He sets the groundwork. He sets the stage,'' Assistant District Attorney Cindy Martelli said during his bail hearing Thursday. ``He facilitates the more radical elements to accomplish their objective of violence and mayhem.''

Also arrested on misdemeanor charges was Terrence McGuckin, who was being held on $500,000 bail, the district attorney's office said.

Krasner said Kate Sorensen, 34, a leader of the Philadelphia Direct Action Group and Philadelphia ACT UP, and Paul Davis, also a leader of ACT UP, were arrested and were expected to face charges similar to Sellers'.

The attorney said he is representing about 10 protesters arrested this week.

``This is a movement where every single individual and every single person of conscience is a leader,'' said Ruckus trainer Celia Alario, 32, of San Francisco. ``There's no one leader. And it's an insult to the others who came to Philadelphia to think there are people who control this movement.'' Alario was in Philadelphia but was not arrested.

While Tuesday was a wild day for street demonstrations in Philadelphia, with some 300 protesters arrested in sometimes violent brawls with police, the intensity of the protests diminished significantly the remainder of the week.

Sellers, Sorensen and Davis remained in jail but dozens of other protesters charged with misdemeanors were released Friday. It was unclear whether the 19 activists charged with felony assaults on officers remained in jail. Police said 371 people have been arrested since Saturday; more than 200 people had been arraigned by Friday morning.

Protesters arrested during civil disobedience often are released on summary charges or have bail set at less than $20,000, Krasner said.

``It's an unconscionable, ridiculous bail and completely off the map from the norm,'' Krasner said. ``This is a desperate effort to systematically punish these people without a trial, to lock them up, keep them off the streets.''

In a news briefing Thursday, police Commissioner John F. Timoney spoke of ``some arrests effected in the Center City area that included some of the so-called leaders.'' He declined to provide details but insisted that no pre-emptive arrests had been made ``just to take the leaders out.''

Despite the arrests, critics of the Philadelphia police force conceded they did a good job handling protests surrounding the Republican convention.

``We didn't have the worst of what happened in Seattle,'' said Stefan Presser, legal director of the local American Civil Liberties Union. ``We didn't have mace. We didn't have tear gas. We didn't have people swept up who had nothing to do with the demonstrators.''

It's quite a change for the often criticized force, which was embarrassed just last month when several officers were caught on videotape kicking and beating suspect Thomas Jones.

``I'm certainly not proud of them, but they were more subdued than I expected compared to the reputation of Philadelphia,'' protester Bernadette Moreno, 18, of Pittsburgh, said Thursday.

That's high praise from a protester for a force with a history of brutality, corruption and racism dating back to the mid-1970s.

``It was obvious they knew what they were doing. That's a big change for Philadelphia,'' said Temple University professor James Fyfe, a former New York City police officer. ``In a way the Jones situation had a good effect because the cops were very concerned of the criticism.''

Philadelphia NAACP President J. Whyatt Mondesire agreed that police officers seem to have taken a lesson from the videotaped beating.

``As incredible as it sounds, the beating of Thomas Jones probably saved these kids a couple of beatings, a couple of lumps,'' said Mondesire, one of the most vocal critics of police for the Jones' beating.

Presser accused police of partially inciting Tuesday night's violence by raiding a warehouse that protesters had used as a staging area. About 70 people were arrested at the site, which organizers said was used for making signs and puppets.

Timoney dismissed Presser's accusation and defended the warehouse arrests.

``I've been assured we have probable cause to make those arrests,'' he said.

Also Thursday, the Rev. Al Sharpton led a march of about 50 protesters in front of the Philadelphia district attorney's Office, criticizing the Jones beating. Sharpton, a civil rights activist, said the officers who hit and kicked Jones should be arrested.

---------

Protests fizzle out

Washington Times
August 4, 2000
By Stephen Dinan
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-20008319425.htm

PHILADELPHIA -- The protests at the Republican National Convention this week sputtered to an end, with 1960s-era activists calling them an embarrassment to the name of demonstrations.

Action wound down yesterday with tired activists protesting outside of one of the jails where their comrades were being held, while organizers were left trying to claim some successes and police were viewed as heroes.

"In the '60s, we wouldn't let these guys on our picket line," said David Horowitz, the 1960s-leftist leader turned conservative cultural critic, who has been in Philadelphia this week.

Protesters have lost momentum since they captured front-page headlines last fall, when 40,000 of them shut down the round of World Trade Organization talks in Seattle. They even underperformed compared to April when 10,000 of them annoyed, but failed to disrupt, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in the District.

And, maybe more damaging, activists fell far short of promises they made to news media throughout the spring, promising to eclipse Seattle's disruptions here in Philadelphia.

Judged by sheer disruption, protest leaders scored meager success on Tuesday, clogging up downtown roads during the afternoon rush hour and getting almost 300 demonstrators arrested.

Judged by their stated goal of getting their "message" heard, it's unlikely anyone will remember this year's Republican National Convention for its protests the way Seattle will be remembered for the WTO riots.

And judged by the standards of past protests, they failed.

"There's no traction," Mr. Horowitz said. "When I was out there, there were a couple of construction workers out there laughing at them and cheering on the cops."

But protest organizers said it's not that simple.

"The final word has yet to be written," said Julie Davids, a spokeswoman for the R2K Network umbrella group organizing the protests.

"The high point is the incredible diversity of messages that has happened here. So I think there have been 10,000 highpoints," Miss Davids said.

If those "messages" didn't reach the rest of the world, Miss Davids suggested, the blame lies with police tactics that broke up the protests.

"People should be aware of the extend to which there was a surgical strike against people violating no law," she said.

It's clear police here had the protesters' number.

Just like D.C. police Chief Charles H. Ramsey did in April, Philadelphia Police Commissioner John F. Timoney and his commanders this week walked between the police and the protesters, keeping things calm.

With a search warrant and a few traffic stops, they confiscated some of the protesters' equipment. By arresting almost 500 protesters -- many of whom were activist leaders -- police broke the spirit of the demonstrators.

Michelle Solomon at the R2K legal office said they are trying to document "massive brutality" by police toward arrested protesters in jail.

As of late yesterday afternoon most protesters hadn't given their names to police, so police hadn't released them.

City leaders heaped praise on the police yesterday as protesters called off the final two days of planned action.

Marshall Wittman said the protesters violated the cardinal rule of protesting.

"You never want to have the police become a bigger hero than they are," said Mr. Wittman, now Congressional affairs director for the Heritage Foundation, but who said he was a "teenaged Trotskyite" in Waco, Texas, in the 1960s. "Timoney has become a folk hero."

Mr. Wittman said that during the 1960s the protests had a focus -- the war in Vietnam. Globalization, he said, is a much tougher target.

And foes of globalization were but one of the voices. Other protesters included abortion and homosexual rights activists, gun-control advocates, proponents of universal health care, black militants and anarchists.

Mr. Horowitz called them "ideologically completely incoherent."

Last weekend, after getting their first up-close look at the protesters gathering for the week, some Philadelphia police officers predicted that dissonance would overwhelm the protesters.

Even when protesters did unify behind one slogan, it often didn't make any sense.

"Who likes the boom -- the economic boom?" Mr. Horowitz recalled one chant, then laughed, "No punch-line!"

Los Angeles police have been in Seattle, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, observing the way those cities handled protesters.

And even though the protests seem to be getting weaker, Sgt. John Pasquariello, an LAPD spokesman, said they're taking no chances.

"We're preparing for the worst-case scenario," he said -- meaning the original estimate of 50,000 protesters, even though Philadelphia fell far short of that, coming in generously at 10,000.

Sgt. Pasquariello said they haven't seen anything new from the protesters, and are sticking to their already-developed game plan.
-------

OneList subscribers:

1. What if this cargo had been nuke waste?
From: Winston Weeks <wweeks@mail.aros.net>

2. CHENEY CORRECTION
From: "Frida Berrigan" <BerrigaF@newschool.edu>

3. Re: Outer Space Treaty, Weaponization, Nuclearization of Space Campaign?
From: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com


5. FW: National Mobilization to End the Sanctions on Iraq
From: "Viviane Lerner" <vlerner@interpac.net>

-------

What if this cargo had been nuke waste?

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 09:01:02 -0600
From: Winston Weeks <wweeks@mail.aros.net>

August 03, 2000
By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com> and
Diana Sahagun <diana@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2000/aug/03/510589418.html

200 would die of cancer; 9,000 would require treatment

As thick plumes of black smoke were spewing into the air after Wednesday's gasoline tanker truck accident, the words "nuclear waste" and "nightmare" crept into some high-level conversations.

While this time the accident on U.S. 95 was limited to gasoline, the fears of Las Vegas residents regarding highway shipments of high-level nuclear waste were very much on the minds of government officials.

This is because in April a state-funded computer analysis calculated what would happen if a gasoline tanker caught fire after slamming into a truck hauling high-level nuclear waste.

The computer, programmed with all of the specifications for trucks that may someday haul nuclear waste through Southern Nevada, showed that radiation would escape and that there would be at least 200 deaths from cancer and 9,000 people treated for a variety of medical complaints resulting from the leak.

About 1:45 p.m. Wednesday, tandem tankers loaded with gasoline burst into flames between the Flamingo Road and Tropicana Avenue exits on southbound U.S. 95. One person was seriously injured in the accident caused by another truck's blown tire.

But it didn't take long for the ultimate nightmare to take shape in people's imaginations as they thought about what it might mean for the Las Vegas Valley if Yucca Mountain -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- is approved by Congress as the nation's repository for high-level nuclear waste.

The Las Vegas Beltway, U.S. 95 and Interstate 15 would be likely routes for trucks hauling the waste to Yucca over a 30-year period.

Some Clark County officials watching Wednesday's 90-minute blaze from their office windows said they were thinking, "This is the nightmare."

What they feared most, what constituted the nightmare in their minds, was a projection a few years into the future, and a scenario in which a truck hauling a canister filled with nuclear fuel rods was next to the tandem tanker truck after it caught fire.

Fred Dilger, a planner for the Clark County Nuclear Waste Division, was one of those watching the smoke.

"Wednesday's accident is the nightmare accident for us," Dilger said.

In Carson City, attending a nuclear waste technical review board meeting, Bob Loux also could think of no word more fitting than nightmare.

Loux, when told of the accident and asked about the valley's potential as a transportation route to Yucca Mountain, said, "It is our worst nightmare,"

Loux is the director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. This agency provides independent oversight of the Department of Energy's studies on Yucca Mountain. Congress will evaluate the DOE's studies as well as any rebuttals offered by Nevada before making a decision on whether to open Yucca Mountain in 2010 at the earliest.

Dilger was pointed in predicting what will someday happen if Las Vegas Valley roads become a transportation route for high-level nuclear waste. A nightmare is simply inevitable, he said.

The computer analysis was completed in April by Nevada transportation consultant Robert Halstead. In addition to the cancer deaths and other medical emergencies, the analysis concluded the immediate cost of such an accident to be $1 billion.

Informed of Wednesday's accident when the Sun called him at his home in Wisconsin, Halstead said, "It is unfortunately a realistic scenario because of the traffic and the weather patterns."

In the computer analysis, a nuclear waste truck northbound on Interstate 15 slams into an overpass column at 60 mph at the Blue Diamond turnoff. Seconds after the crash, a gasoline tanker crashes into the wreckage and bursts into flames.

The analysis also has two dozen cars and three tractor-trailers colliding in a chain reaction south of the Blue Diamond turnoff. Unlike in Wednesday's real accident, emergency vehicles in the computer model cannot reach the accident, and the fire burns out of control for more than two hours.

In a real nuclear emergency, the model shows, there would be massive panic and confusion, delaying emergency vehicles. Also, response to the scene would be delayed because officials would first have to set up a perimeter to monitor the extent of the radiation.

Both truck drivers and a nuclear waste escort die in the computer-generated accident. The computer projected about 200 people would eventually die from exposure to the leaking radiation and more than 9,000 people would receive medical attention.

"And I toned down the scenario when other experts said it was too gory," Halstead said.

The Department of Energy also created a computer model, this one projecting what might happen if a truck hauling nuclear waste drove off the road and crashed. In this less spectacular accident, the DOE calculated that five people would eventually die of cancer and 1,000 people would be exposed to a non-lethal level of radiation.

Residents near the accident scene Wednesday expressed concern that they would have to be evacuated. Dilger said if radioactive waste had been involved, the residents would have had a lot more to worry about.

"There would be health concerns, there would be straight radiation concerns," Dilger said. "Chances are, they would get a measurable but not necessarily lethal dose.

"They should be worried about that."

----------

Correction in Dick Cheney Profile,
Plus More on GOP Links With Weapons Makers

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000 12:45:08 -0400
To: Friends and Colleagues of the Arms Trade Resource Center
From: Frida Berrigan, Michelle Ciarrocca, and Bill Hartung

===

In our recent commentary, "Moderate or Militant: Will the Real Dick Cheney Please Stand Up?" [http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/commentary/cheney.html] we stated that Halliburton was 73rd on the Pentagon's top 100 contractors in FY 1998. In fact, Halliburton ranked 42nd on the DoD Top 100 in that year.

For more on Cheney's corporate ties, see the excellent new investigative report from the Center for Public Integrity's Public-I. The report exposes Republican Veep Candidate Cheney as a corporate welfare king while at the helm of oil giant Halliburton. "Under the guidance of Richard Cheney, a get-the-government-out-of-my-face conservative, Halliburton Company over the past five years has emerged as a corporate welfare hog. benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans." Access the article at http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm

Trent Lott's "Lott Hop" and Tom DeLay's golf tournament during the Republican National Convention did not escape public scrutiny. Two fabulous articles on how corporate interests are financing these shin digs as a way to curry favor and maintain access to Members of Congress appeared in both the Washington Post and the Legal Times (the Public-I - www.public-i.org has these and other articles about the convention posted).

The first one, "Party Favors for the GOP: Industries with Business on the Hill Come Out to Play - and Pay - at Convention," by Sam Loewenberg, appeared July 31st in Legal Times. The article comments on the many companies - including Lockheed Martin, Philip Morris, Fannie Mae, and AT&T - that have been bankrolling the parties for not only Trent Lott and Tom DeLay but also Billy Tauzin [R-LA], Don Nickles [R-OK], and Michael Oxley [R-OH]. Go to http://www5.law.com/dc-shl/display.cfm?id=3588

The second article, "On the Outside Looking In as Tom DeLay Whips Up Some Fundraisers" by Dana Milbank, appeared August 2nd in the Washington Post. The article begins, "There are 15,000 reporters here for the Republican National Convention. Tom DeLay's goal is to avoid them all. ... He unapologetically packs cocktail parties and golf outings with cigar-smoking lobbyists, whose money provides perks to Republican congressmen and keeps them in power. 'That's what politics is about,' he says." To read more go to: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19950-2000Aug1.html

Frida Berrigan Research Associate, World Policy Institute 65 Fifth Ave., Suite 413 New York, NY 10003 ph 212.229.5808 x112 fax 212.229.5579

---------

Outer Space Treaty, Weaponization, Nuclearization of Space Campaign?

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 17:41:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com

Dear John, Karl,Bruce & Friends, Any thoughts re a Sign On letter/ Faxing Campaign to go after the US plan to abrogate the 1967 Outer Space Teaty & address the fact that NMD is the tip of the iceberg? That weaponization & nuclearization of space is the heart of this matter & the corporate profits they hope to "protect" at the expense of virtualy everyone on earth? http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace

My feeling is that the masses,governments and NGOs need to know that what the HEART of this really entails as arrogantly and publiclly spelled out by the US Space Command at their URL above. And then openly oppose it. Such a Sign-On letter & subsequent fax campign would greatly help in my view.

-Bill Smirnow

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

At 10.00 this morning, (Sydney time) the Australian Labor Party passed a resolution opposing NMD at its national Conference in Hobart.

Text of the resolution has not yet appeared on the ALP website, nor was I able to get a hard copy, so the following release is based on having had the resolution read twice over a mobile phone.

I have already posted an interview with our Prime Minister on talkback radio in which he deals with NMD, and the contrast couldn't be more stark.

I'll post the text of the resolution as soon as its available.

AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA 3/8/2000 LABOR PARTY RESOLUTION ON MISSILE DEFENCE

The Australian Peace Committee and the Friends of the Earth have welcomed a resolution on National Missile Defence passed this morning by the ALP National Conference.

The Conference this morning passed a motion in which it called on the US government not to deploy a National Missile Defence (NMD) system and in which it said a Labor Government would 'review' arrangements involving use of the Joint facilities for NMD purposes. The motion noted that France, Germany, Canada, and other countries had made statements opposing the deployment of NMD, and noted that Russia had expressed strong opposition to re-writing the ABM treaty, which the NMD system will violate. The ABM treaty has been called the 'cornerstone of strategic stability' by everyone from the US secretary-general to the New Agenda group of nations, representing the overwhelming majority of the worlds governments.

The ALP's motion shows there is no bipartisan support for Australian involvement in NMD. The Howard government in contrast, has said it 'understands' the US desire to deploy the NMD system.

According to Irene Gale of the Australian Peace Committee and John Hallam of FOE, "It is a pity that the government has not adopted the approach of the ALP, which is also the approach of the governments of Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, the EU as a whole and even of NATO, that the ABM treaty should not be violated, and that the deployment of a system such as this is likely not only to fail technically, but may set back efforts to eliminate nuclear arsenals - efforts to which the nuclear weapon states are legally obligated - by decades."

"National Missile Defence, (or 'Star Wars'), is an idea that Australia should have nothing to do with. We should be giving the US the same message as Canada, France, Germany, Sweden and even the UK as well as the EU have been giving - That we oppose NMD and will do nothing to further it. Australias Joint Facilities should not be permitted to be used for this purpose. Our governments failure to say 'no' is completely reprehensible." Contact: John Hallam 02-9517-3903 02-9810-2598 Irene Gale AM 08-8364-2291

----------

Environmental Management: There Is A Better Way
By ALVIN L. ALM and JAMES R. MAHONEY

(Editor's Note: This article was written just prior to Al Alm's untimely passing last month.)

The nation's environmental management system needs fundamental change.

The current system, which relies heavily on command-and-control regulations and specified end-of-pipe technology standards, cannot efficiently address today's environmental challenges.

This is not surprising. If we continued to rely on 1970's techniques for manufacturing and communication, the U.S. would now be hopelessly non-competitive in world markets. Similarly, it is unrealistic to expect that the environmental regulatory system established three decades ago would be efficient today.

The current system made sense 30 years ago, when the United States faced the major challenge of cleaning up heavily polluted air, water and soil after decades of neglect. Detailed technology standards were developed and mandated for motor vehicles and industries. Because conditions were so stark, the federal program made a fast and visible impact.

However, today's pollution problems often result from many diverse sources, and current control requirements are not well matched to the remaining cleanup priorities. For example, water quality in many parts of the nation is adversely impacted by sources not addressed by current regulations, such as urban runoff, farms, feedlots and timber operations.

Similarly, many sources not controlled by the current system continue to degrade air pollution levels, which remain unacceptable in several regions.

The current system needs structural changes to improve efficiency and to address today's unresolved environmental problems. Current regulatory costs are high-over $100 billion annually-and rising. The command-and-control focus of the current system substitutes centralized decisions for market competition in achieving environmental goals-a sure prescription for increasingly unproductive costs.

Moreover, the current system cannot effectively address several of the highest priority unresolved problems, including ground level ozone pollution in the Northeast, nutrient loading of streams and lakes from land runoff and practical controls for the multiplicity of greenhouse gases.

The change of administration provides a unique opportunity. Working with Congress and the various environmental constituencies, the new administration taking office in January 2001 will have a unique opportunity to lead a re-evaluation and improvement of the national environmental management system.

In particular, the relationship between the Environmental Protection Agency, the states, communities and the private sector should be re-defined to eliminate overlapping regulatory reviews and other unnecessary bureaucracy, and to encourage private sector initiatives to meet environmental goals more efficiently.

Many of the planning and management tools industry commonly employs to achieve overall productivity improvements can be used to optimize environmental compliance-but only with structural changes in the command-and-control regulatory system.

Proposed regulatory system changes will require careful evaluation, as well as pilot-scale experimentation in many cases, to minimize unintended outcomes. While practical implementation steps should proceed cautiously, the governing vision should be broad, embracing changes in technology, culture, organization and accountability. Two major areas should receive the highest priority.

The regulatory philosophy should be dramatically changed. The current technology-based system undermines opportunities to achieve least-cost reductions in total emissions for designated pollutants by controlling all sources at the end of the pipe.

For example, a joint study by EPA and Amoco Inc. (now BP Plc) determined that reducing benzene emissions was five times more costly by using EPA's prescriptive standards as compared to choosing the least-cost alternative. Overall performance standards, rather than end-of-pipe technology standards, will encourage continuing development of better solutions and result in large cost savings.

Self-monitoring by regulated companies and simplified reporting of environmental data can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of compliance monitoring, and can free up government and industry resources to address priority unresolved issues. In the future, third-party reviewers may be best suited to perform routine environmental compliance monitoring.

The tools for achieving environmental objectives should be expanded. Historically, command-and-control regulations have been the predominant tool for achieving environmental compliance. However, other approaches are more effective in the right circumstances.

For example, the sulfur dioxide emissions trading system, which was not operational until the early 1990's, is considered the most successful regulatory mechanism to date for achieving environmental benefits. Compliance is virtually assured, costs are substantially lower and the entire system is transparent to stakeholders and governments. Trading systems can also be applied to other air pollution problems and to certain nutrient water contaminants.

In the long run, information may become the most important environmental management tool. Information generated from California's Proposition 65 (requiring public notification of toxic exposures) and EPA's Toxic Release Inventory program (TRI) has resulted in substantial voluntary reductions by industry. When the TRI data was first released, a number of CEOs took corrective action, some because of the public relations effect and at least one because a large volume of chemicals was being wasted.

These recommendations are necessarily incomplete, but they illustrate the direction that regulatory restructuring can take. We will not achieve acceptable environmental quality without dramatic change to the current system, and the upcoming transition to a new administration provides a rare opportunity for constructive action. If we do not begin now to seize the opportunity, we may perpetuate an overly costly and ineffectual system for many years in the future.

Alvin Alm was president of Chambers Associates Inc., a Washington-based public policy consulting firm. Previously, he served as deputy administrator of the EPA and assistant secretary of Energy for environmental management. James Mahoney is senior consultant at Chambers and former director of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program and former environmental advisor to the Business Roundtable.

Kathy Crandall kathycrandall@earthlink.net

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

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 17:39:01 +0100
From: "Viviane Lerner" <vlerner@interpac.net>

National Mobilization to End the Sanctions on Iraq
Press Release.

National Mobilization to End the Sanctions on Iraq
1101 Penn. Ave. SE, #204,
Washington, DC 20003 Tel.(202) 543-3649 u Fax (202) 543-1062

"West Wing" President Martin Sheen to be Arrested at White House in Protest of Sanctions against Iraq

For Immediate Release On-Site Contact: (202) 258-4958

Actor Martin Sheen and hundreds of activists will risk arrest in protest of the sanctions imposed on Iraq outside the White House at 9:00AM, Monday August 7th. Sheen, who stars as the US President in NBC's hit drama "the West Wing", will be joined by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, Rev. James Lawson, a Methodist minister and civil rights activist, and Rev. John Dear, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). They will lead a direct action, calling on the American people to break the US/UN imposed sanctions that kill 5,000 children a month in Iraq.

The activists will gather at Lafayette Park at 9:00 am, Monday August 7th, and will proceed to the Treasury Department, the institution which prosecutes violators of the sanctions. There the activists will display the names of over 1,000 people who have either broken sanctions by traveling to Iraq or by signing onto the "Campaign of Conscience," a program that violates the sanctions by delivering money and supplies to the Iraqi people. People who have broken the sanctions will turn themselves into the Department of Treasury for arrest. By violating the sanctions, they risk civil fines of up to $275,000 per violation, criminal penalties of up to $1 million and/or 12 years in prison. Others will proceed to the White House where Martin Sheen will lead protesters in challenging the Clinton administration's policy on Iraq, a policy of bombing and sanctions that has decimated the people of Iraq over the last 10 years. Protesters will carry loaves of bread as they are arrested as a symbol of the measures the US has taken in keeping vital food and medicine away from the people of Iraq.

The direct action will follow a weekend of education and action demanding the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. On Sunday, thousands will march from the Lincoln Memorial to Lafayette Park to draw attention to the effect of sanctions on Iraq. According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), sanctions have caused over 500,000 deaths among children under 5 in Iraq since they were imposed on August 6, 1990.

The events of this weekend were called for by the National Mobilization to End the Sanctions Against Iraq, a coalition of over 90 religious and peace organizations.

What: Direct Action to Protest Economic Sanctions Against Iraq
When & Where: Monday, August 7, 9 am, Lafayette Park / Treasury Annex / White House

Break the Sanctions!
See www.endthewar.org for more background information on the sanctions and the August 5-7 events.


============

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1. Platts Friday, August 04, 2000
From: "Paul Maser" <pmaser@govmail.state.nv.us>

2. Flouride Fact Sheet
From: magnu96196@aol.com

3. 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons
From: magnu96196@aol.com

4. Pollution legacy lives on in Kuwait
From: magnu96196@aol.com

5. Clues to massive leukaemia rise
From: magnu96196@aol.com

6. 'Beat cancer by targeting viruses'
From: magnu96196@aol.com

7. Sampling of K-25 water to begin Monday
From: magnu96196@aol.com

8. Richardson's self-serving decision
From: magnu96196@aol.com

9. Richardson recycling decision supported
From: magnu96196@aol.com

10. Re: Group tours local sites of historical significance
From: "Paula Elofson-Gardine, Exec. Dir." <pelofson1@home.com>

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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 06:58:46 -0700
From: "Paul Maser" <pmaser@govmail.state.nv.us>

Platts Friday, August 04, 2000
Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)

Unions protest plans to close Cadarache MOX plant Unions at Cogema's Cadarache MOX plant protested the pressures on the company to close the 40-metric-ton/year mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant. The French Green party called Aug. 1 on Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to "intervene to rapidly close" the plant, which the Greens said is located "on a seismic fault." Cogema issued a statement the same day saying it would propose measures in September to remedy the seismic-resistance issue, including eventual closure of the plant. Regulatory agency DSIN has asked Cogema to close it "shortly after 2000," but Cogema first wants a license to expand production at the nearby Melox MOX plant. The association of unions representing the Cadarache plant's 300 employees today protested against what it called Cogema management's "selloff" of the plant. The unions said that if the seismic fault is really a danger, all the installations at the Cadarache center should close, not just the MOX plant. It's one of the older (1962) facilities on the site.

Washington (Nuclear News Flashes) August 3, 2000 NRC Commissioner Diaz rejects stockpiling potassium iodide tablets NRC Commissioner Nils Diaz has voted to reject a staff recommendation to pursue the inclusion of potassium iodide (KI) in the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile. The full commission has not yet finished voting on this issu e, Secy 00-37. In comments on his vote, which were released earlier this week, Diaz noted that contrary to staff representations, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) continues to object to including KI in any n ational or regional stockpiles. Diaz quoted a June 22 letter from FEMA Director James Lee Witt saying that "combining KI supplies with the Pharmaceutical Stockpiles would pose significant logistical concerns." Diaz said t hat "Director Witt's position could not be clearer; there is no support for regional stockpiling of KI."

London (Platts) French authorities study radioactivity at Blayais nuke A local public information authority in Blayais, France, has commissioned a study by independent atomic research group, CRIIRAD into potential radioactivity in the region from the local nuclear power plant, Electricite de France said Thursday. The study will look in particular at the effects of flooding in the region last December after storms hit the southern half of France. The Blayais power plant will offer human resources and material s necessary for the investigation. The results will be made known early in 2001, EdF said. Blayais has four 900MW units, producing around 26TWh/year, equivalent to one and a half times the requirements of the Aquitaine re gion and 5% of national power production.

Washington (Nuclear News Flashes) August 2, 2000 Closing of Oyster Creek sale delayed The planned Aug. 7 close of Oyster Creek's sale has been delayed while company officials with GPU Nuclear and AmerGen Energy Co., the would-be new owner, finish last-minute negotiations. GPU spokeswoman Suzanne D'Ambrosio declined to say what was holding up the sale. She said no new closing date had been scheduled. She also confirmed a report that many of the 70 employees who were leaving as part of AmerGen's downsizing effort were asked to stay on until the deal closes.

Washington (Nuclear News Flashes) August 2, 2000 USEC increasing output at Portsmouth plant USEC Inc. is increasing output this month at its Portsmouth, Ohio gaseous diffusion plant in response to requests from several customers for delivery of fuel earlier than USEC anticipated. The company said May 30 that it would reduce its power needs during August to 599 megawatts. USEC now plans to operate the plant at 899 MW during August, a USEC spokesman said. As a result of the increased production, USEC will not be able to "monetize, " or sell back to the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., as much of the power as it had anticipated.

Commentary & Analysis from Platts

Some Ukraine nuclear workers taking jobs in Iran Kiev (Nucleonics Week) Aug. 3 Scores of workers from Ukraine's nuclear industry are leaving the country for work, including an estimated 200 who have gone to the Bushehr nu clear power plant in Iran. Some Ukrainian experts say closure of the Chernobyl nuclear plant will lead to a further drain of skilled manpower to the Bushehr project. They say the losses can be stopped only if the West pay s more attention to the potential for domestic employment problems after Chernobyl's planned shutdown Dec. 15. The situation is ironic in that two years ago, Ukraine bowed to U.S. pressure and renounced participation of s tate-owned turbogenerator manufacturer Turboatom in the Russian-led project to build two VVER-1000 units at Bushehr, where Siemens abandoned construction of two PWRs in the late 1970s. Ukraine, in contrast to Russia, agre ed with the U.S. that having nuclear technology and materials in Iran does not promote stability in the region. For more on this story, see the Aug. 3 issue of Nucleonics Week, page 5. The U.S. and Russia still have not come to closure on the Iran issue, and this is damaging prospects that the U.S. will make available an additional $100-million to Russia next year as part of a "long-term nonproliferation initiative" that the U.S. DOE announced earlier this year to support a moratorium on Russia's reprocessing of spent fuel from civilian reactors. DOE said that implementation of the initiative is contingent on Russia's curtailing its nuclear cooperation with Iran. The U.S. can apparently live with Russia's construction of one reactor at Bushehr, but no more. U.S. and Russian officials had hoped to resolve the issue by the time of the G-8 Okinawa Summit last month, but that did not happen, a U.S. official said, although there are continuing discussions.

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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:32:56 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Source: http://www.earthlife.org.za/factsheets/fs-flouride.htm

Flouride Fact Sheet
What is Fluoride ?

Fluorine is a highly reactive element which likes to bond with other elements. These combinations are often salts and the fluorine part is called flouride. Hence flourine added to water has commonly become known as flouride. Fluoride occurs naturally in the water in certain areas of the world and people in these areas exhibit mottling of the teeth (dental fluorosis). This often occurs in volcanic environments eg. Naples in Italy, Pilansberg in South Africa.

The fluoride naturally found in water is calcium fluoride (CaF2 ) as fluorine has a strong affinity to calcium. When water is artificially fluoridated sodium fluoride (NaF), sodium silicofluoride or hydrofluosilic acid is added. Because calcium bonds relatively strongly with the fluoride ion, the fluoride ions are much less available than in the artificially-produced fluoride. The artificial compounds are more toxic because they are more soluble in water and the fluoride dissociates from the compound. In the body this fluoride becomes the "most exclusive bone seeking element, owing to its affinity for calcium phosphate". Studies have shown that the lethal dose of NaF is approximately 50 times smaller than that of CaF2 (naturally-occurring fluoride).1

How much fluoride is too much ? The optimum amount of fluoride is said to be around 1 ppm (parts per million). ppm equals mg per litre ie. at 1ppm one would drink 1 mg of fluoride in 1 litre of water. In South Africa 0.5 - 0.8 ppm is being recommended for our water. This variation takes local conditions, which affect the amount of water one drinks, into account.

Fluoride can, however, be taken in through a number of sources. Cooldrinks and other processed foods made in fluoridated areas contain high amounts. Plants take up fluoride concentrating more in their outer parts with leafy plants containing the most. Tea can contain 160 - 660 ppm averaging at 1 mg per 6 cups. Insecticides sprayed on crops also contain fluoride as can tranquilisers (up to 1 mg per day if taken habitually). Other products containing fluoride which may inadvertantly be swallowed are toothpaste (1000 ppm), mouthwash (4000 ppm) and gel treatments (13000 ppm - half a teaspoon will poison a child)

Bearing in mind that people are individuals with differing sensitivities to substances and differing patterns of consumption it is difficult to recommend a safe level of fluoride for an entire population.

Does fluoride prevent tooth decay ? Pro- fluoridators say that it does. The evidence supporting this must be closely examined - often studies have an insufficient sample size, look at age groups where decidous teeth are being replaced by permanent teeth, have no control areas or compare neighbourhoods where other factors influencing decay like nutrition, wealth, oral hygiene etc. differ greatly.

A few studies of the many which show that fluoride does not prevent decay are listed below :

A study has been done of the dental records of 39 207 schoolchildren aged 5 - 17 in 84 areas of the USA. These areas were divided according to not fluoridated, partially fluoridated ( less than 17 years or some of the time ) and fluoridated. No statistical difference was found in decay rates of permanent teeth or percentages of decay free children between the areas. The only group of children which showed a difference were 5 year olds who had less decay in decidous teeth in fluoridated areas. However, by age 6 this advantage disappears leading to the conclusion that fluoridation causes a delay in tooth eruption.2

R Ziegelbecker has made two studies by taking a random sample of all available data on caries (decay ) prevalence. He selected 48 000 12-14 year children from 136 communities in seven countries. No correlation was found between caries or dental health and fluoride concentration.3 Further studies have shown that not only does fluoride not improve dental health but it may cause decay.

A study of 400 000 Indian schoolchildren from 1973 -1993 showed that the higher the fluoride concentration in the water, the more caries ocurred.4

A similar study of 22 000 Japanese schoolchildren showed that above 0.4 ppm the decay increased significantly. When the concentration was below 0.2 ppm it also increased . This was thought to be caused by a lack of calcium in the water when fluoride was below 0.2 ppm.5

A study of 26000 Tuscon elementary school children was performed by Cornelius Steelink, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Chemistry, University of Arizona. He compared tooth decay with the fluoride in the water. He found that the more fluoride a child drank, the more cavities ocurred. On further investigation it was also found that decay related to low family income, bad diet and oral hygiene and lack of access to dental facilities.6

The decline in DMFT (decayed, missing, filled teeth ) of 12 year old children in the USA declined by 25% from 1974 - 1988. The USA is partially fluoridated. Unfluoridated countries the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland had a decline of 36%, 40%, and 47% respectively in 12 year olds for the same period.7 Some european countries that do not fluoridate their water recorded a greater decline in tooth decay than America where water is mostly fluoridated What effect does fluoride have on the body ? Dental fluorosis : A defect in the formation of tooth enamel in children which results in mottled teeth. This is not reversible and remains for life. It is believed that when decay does set in these teeth are difficult to fill. Dental fluorosis can occur from 0.4 ppm.

Skeletal fluorosis : Early symptoms are back stiffness, pains in the bones and joints, sensations of burning, pricking, and tingling in the limbs, muscle weakness, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders, and reduced appetite. X-rays show abnormal calcium deposits in bone and ligaments. Osteoporosis develops in long bones and bony outgrowths may occur. Eventually the victim may be crippled and the vertebrae fuse together.8

Fractures : Researchers at the University of Bordeaux in France studied 3578 people of 65 years or older living in South Western France. They reported that the risk of hip fracture was significantly higher when water fluoride was greater than 0.11 ppm.9

Immune deficiency : Dr. Sheila Gibson from the University of Glasgow, showed that fluoride, at levels comparable to those found in the blood of people living in fluoridated areas, decreased the migration rate of human white blood cells (leukotaxis). [Also inhibits phagocytosis - another defence mechanism ] This adversely affects the immune system. Dr. Gibson found that only a six-hour exposure of white blood cells to as little as 0.1 parts per million fluoride inhibits the white blood cell migration rate by 21 percent. One part per million inhibits the white blood cell migration rate by 85 per cent and 2 ppm has a conclusive 0 percent relative migration rate. This indicates that a continued use of fluoride in the drinking water could result in the total destruction of the immune response.10

Cancer : Cancer researchers have found a 17% rise in 16 yrs of cancers in towns in the USA which are fluoridated in comparison with those which are not. A rise in a rare bone cancer, osteosarcoma, was recorded in men under 20 in fluoridated areas. This was confirmed in studies on rats in 1989 by the US National Toxicology Program.11

General side effects : George L. Waldbott, founder and chief of allergy clinics in four Detroit hospitals, reported treating at least 500 patients who he concluded reacted negatively to fluoridated water. The symptoms included muscular weakness, chronic fatigue, excessive thirst, headaches, skin rashes, joint pains, digestive upsets, tingling in the extremities, and loss of mental acuity. Waldbott used double-blind tests to determine whether fluoride was the cause of symptoms in many of his cases. In each of these patients, the symptoms disappeared when the fluoride was taken away without the patient's knowledge and reappeared when it was given again.12

Other ailments include :13

Destruction of about 60 enzymes including cytochrome C and cholinesterase which handle oxygen. Genetic change in sperm and other cells. Downs Syndrome increase of 250% with 70% developing cataracts Infant mortality, spontaneous abortions and miscarriages increase Infant birth defects increase Goitre How does fluoride effect the environment ?

Most processes which take raw materials from the earth's crust and subject them to high temperatures liberate fluorides. Fluorine compounds are involved in the production of aluminium, steel, uranium, beryllium, bricks, cement, pottery, enamel, plastics etc. The aluminium industry produces the highly poisonous by-product fluo-spar from aluminium slag. Hydrogen fluoride and elemental fluorine are also used in the nuclear industry in uranium production. For many of these industries fluorides present the biggest waste disposal problem. This begs the question who will be making profit by selling fluoride to our municipalities which would otherwise be very costly to dispose of ?14

Industries ( mostly steel and aluminium plants ) emmitting fluoride air pollution have been blamed for destroying crops and laming cattle, corrosion of steel bridges and killer smogs . In Donora, Pennsylvania from October 27-31, 1948 a fluoride rich smog from the town's zinc mill killed 20 people, numbers of livestock and pets and caused a further 6000 people to become ill.15

Phosphate fertiliser factories have also caused fluoride damage to animal and plant life in their vicinity. The application of phosphate fertilisers to soil dramatically increases fluorides in the soil which results in uptake by crops we later eat and contamination of drinking water through run off. In the district of Aichi in Japan people were taking in as much as 11mg of fluoride a day from foods they were eating.

What these examples indicate is that we are already exposed to high levels of fluoride. By fluoridating our water we will increase the load, dispersing fluoride further through the environment where it accumulates and finds its way back into our food products. Albert Schatz calculated that fluoride toothpastes alone were adding 116 000 pounds of fluoride to the environment in the 1970's.

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Message: 3
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:52:10 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons

Source: http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/50.HTM

The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons - Except where noted all figures are in constant 1996 dollars -

1. Cost of the Manhattan Project (through August 1945): $20,000,000,000

SOURCES: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Volume 1, 1939/1946 (Oak Ridge, Tennessee: U.S. AEC Technical Information Center, 1972), pp. 723-724; Condensed AEC Annual Financial Report, FY 1953 (in Fifteenth Semiannual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission, January 1954, p. 73)

2. Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

3. Estimated construction costs for more than 1,000 ICBM launch pads and silos, and support facilities, from 1957-1964: nearly $14,000,000,000

Maj. C.D. Hargreaves, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office (CEBMCO), "Introduction to the CEBMCO Historical Report and History of the Command Section, Pre-CEBMCO Thru December 1962," p. 8; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office, "U.S. Air Force ICBM Construction Program," undated chart (circa 1965)

4. Total number of nuclear bombers built, 1945-present: 4,680

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

5. Peak number of nuclear warheads and bombs in the stockpile/year: 32,193/1966

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

6. Total number and types of nuclear warheads and bombs built, 1945-1990: more than 70,000/65 types

U.S. Department of Energy; Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

7. Number currently in the stockpile (1997): 12,500 (8,750 active, 2,500 hedge/contingency stockpile, 1,250 awaiting disassembly)

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

8. Number of nuclear warheads requested by the Army in 1956 and 1957: 151,000

History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 Through September 1977, Prepared by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), February 1978, p. 50 (formerly Top Secret)

9. Projected U.S. nuclear warheads and bombs after completion of the START II reductions in 2003: 5,000

U.S. Department of Defense; Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

10. Additional warheads the military wants to hold in inactive reserve to "hedge" against future threats: 2,500

U..S. Department of Defense; Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

11. Largest and smallest nuclear bombs ever deployed: B17/B24 (~42,000 lbs., 10-15 megatons); W54 (51 lbs., .01 kilotons, .02 kilotons-1 kiloton)

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

12. Peak number of operating domestic uranium mines (1955): 925

Nineteenth Semiannual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission, January 1956, p. 31

13. Fissile material produced: 104 metric tons of plutonium and 994 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium

U.S. Department of Energy

14. Amount of plutonium still in weapons: 43 metric tons

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

15. Number of thermometers which could be filled with mercury used to produce lithium-6 at the Oak Ridge Reservation: 11 billion

U.S. Department of Energy

16. Number of dismantled plutonium "pits" stored at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas: 12,067 (as of May 6, 1999)

U.S. Department of Energy

17. States with the largest number of nuclear weapons: New Mexico (2,450), Georgia (2,000), Washington (1,685), Nevada (1,350), and North Dakota (1,140)

William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and Joshua Handler, Taking Stock: Worldwide Nuclear Deployments 1998 (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, March 1998)

18. Total known land area occupied by U.S. nuclear weapons bases and facilities: 15,654 square miles

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

19. Total land area of the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey: 15,357 square miles

Rand McNally Road Atlas and Travel Guide, 1992

20. Legal fees paid by the Department of Energy to fight lawsuits from workers and private citizens concerning nuclear weapons production and testing activities, from October 1990 through March 1995: $97,000,000

U.S. Department of Energy

21. Money paid by the State Department to Japan following fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test: $15,300,000

Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947 -1974, University of California Press, 1994, p. 158

22. Money and non-monetary compensation paid by the the United States to Marshallese Islanders since 1956 to redress damages from nuclear testing: at least $759,000,000

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

23. Money paid to U.S. citizens under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990, as of January 13, 1998: approximately $225,000,000 (6,336 claims approved; 3,156 denied)

U.S. Department of Justice, Torts Branch, Civil Division

24. Total cost of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program, 1946-1961: $7,000,000,000

"Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program," Report of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, September 1959, pp. 11-12

25 Total number of nuclear-powered aircraft and airplane hangers built: 0 and 1

Ibid; "American Portrait: ANP," WFAA-TV (Dallas), 1993. Between July 1955 and March 1957, a specially modified B-36 bomber made 47 flights with a three megawatt air-cooled operational test reactor (the reactor, however, did not power the plane).

26. Number of secret Presidential Emergency Facilities built for use during and after a nuclear war: more than 75

Bill Gulley with Mary Ellen Reese, Breaking Cover, Simon and Schuster, 1980, pp. 34- 36

27. Currency stored until 1988 by the Federal Reserve at its Mount Pony facility for use after a nuclear war: more than $2,000,000,000

Edward Zuckerman, The Day After World War III, The Viking Press, 1984, pp. 287-88

28. Amount of silver in tons once used at the Oak Ridge, TN, Y-12 Plant for electrical magnet coils: 14,700

Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Bomb, U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1985, pp. 66-7

29. Total number of U.S. nuclear weapons tests, 1945-1992: 1,030 (1,125 nuclear devices detonated)

U.S. Department of Energy

30. First and last test: July 16, 1945 ("Trinity") and September 23, 1992 ("Divider")

U.S. Department of Energy

31. Estimated amount spent between October 1, 1992 and October 1, 1995 on nuclear testing activities: $1,200,000,000 (0 tests)

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

32. Cost of 1946 Operation Crossroads weapons tests ("Able" and "Baker") at Bikini Atoll: $1,300,000,000

Weisgall, Operation Crossroads, pp. 294, 371

33. Largest U.S. explosion/date: 15 Megatons/March 1, 1954 ("Bravo")

U.S. Department of Energy

34. Number of islands in Enewetak atoll vaporized by the November 1, 1952 "Mike" H-bomb test: 1

Chuck Hansen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, Orion Books, 1988, pp. 58-59, 95

35. Number of nuclear tests in the Pacific: 106

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

36. Number of U.S. nuclear tests in Nevada: 911

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

37. Number of nuclear weapons tests in Alaska, Colorado [1 and 2], Mississippi and New Mexico [1, 2 and 3]: 10

Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project

38. Operational naval nuclear propulsion reactors vs. operational commercial power reactors: 129 vs. 108

Adm. Bruce DeMars, Deputy Assistant Director for Naval Reactors, U.S. Navy; Nuclear Regulatory Commission

39. Current number of attack (SSN) and ballistic missile (SSBN) submarines: 80 SSNs and 18 SSBNs

Adm. Bruce DeMars, Deputy Assistant Director for Naval Reactors, U.S. Navy

40. Number of high level radioactive waste tanks in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina: 239

U.S. Department of Energy

41. Volume in cubic meters of radioactive waste resulting from weapons activities: 104,000,000

U.S. Department of Energy; Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

42. Number of designated targets for U.S. weapons in the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) in 1976, 1986, and 1995: 25,000 (1976), 16,000 (1986) and 2,500 (1995)

Bruce Blair, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

43. Cost of January 17, 1966 nuclear weapons accident over Palomares, Spain (including two lost planes, an extended search and recovery effort, waste disposal in the U.S. and settlement claims): $182,000,000

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy Interoffice Memorandum, February 15, 1968; Center for Defense Information

44. Number of U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered: 11

U.S. Department of Defense; Center for Defense Information; Greenpeace; "Lost Bombs," Atwood-Keeney Productions, Inc., 1997

45. Number of Department of Energy federal employees (in 1996): 18,608

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Worker and Community Transition

46. Number of Department of Energy contractor employees (in 1996): 109,242

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Worker and Community Transition

47. Minimum number of classified pages estimated to be in the Department of Energy's possession: 280 million

A Review of the Department of Energy Classification Policy and Practice, Committee on Declassification of Information for the Department of Energy Environmental Remediation and Related Programs, National Research Council, 1995, pp. 7-8, 68.

48. Ballistic missile defense spending in 1965 vs.1995: $2,200,000,000 vs. $2,600,000,000

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

49. Average cost per warhead to the U.S. to help Kazakhstan dismantle 104 SS-18 ICBMs carrying more than 1,000 warheads: $70,000

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project; Arms Control Association

50. Estimated 1998 spending on all U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs: $35,100,000,000

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project

--

The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project Stephen I. Schwartz, Director The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036-2188 Telephone (202) 797-6030 - Facsimile (202) 797-6003 E-mail: sschwartz@bullatomsci.org

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Message: 4
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:42:04 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Pollution legacy lives on in Kuwait

4 August, 2000
By BBC News Online's Andrew North in Kuwait
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_865000/865247.s tm

Gathering Station 14: Permanent reminder of damage

The oil fires may have been put out and most of the oil spills cleaned up, but Kuwait is still counting the environmental and health costs of Iraq's occupation and the subsequent Gulf War.

Scientists say parts of the desert are still heavily polluted with oil. Off the coast, oil covers large patches of the seabed. Kuwait's coral reefs have yet to recover.

The environmental catastrophe that happened to Kuwait is unique

Dr Badria al Awadi Doctors have reported a significant increase in patients with heart diseases and cancers - and they say pollution from the war is the most likely cause.

Iraqi troops deliberately spilled oil into the Persian Gulf in 1991, in an effort to foil any attempt by US-led forces to launch a marine assault on the emirate. As they retreated in February 1991, they set fire to hundreds of oil wells, coating the country with thick black smoke.

"The environmental catastrophe that happened to Kuwait is unique," said Dr Badria al-Awadi, a lawyer and the Kuwait representative for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "Even though the air is clean now, still we don't know the full impact of this kind of pollution."

Ruptured tanks and debris remain, a decade on

Dr al-Awadi, who is also involved in Kuwait's claim for compensation from the United Nations for the environmental damage, said health statistics since 1991 were alarming. "A lot of diseases which we never had before, now we are having," she said.

The incidence of cancer is a particular worry which "is much higher than it was before the invasion". Dr al-Awadi is also concerned about growing numbers of people with breathing problems and allergies.

She said she could not say for sure whether oil pollution has caused all these health problems, but work by Kuwaiti research institutes suggests it is highly likely.

Scientists are also looking into the possibility that some of the cancers have been caused by residues from depleted uranium (DU) munitions used by US forces in 1991. Dr al-Awadi says: "The claims that we have taken to the UN have touched on that."

The Iraqi Government has blamed a fourfold increase in leukaemia among Iraqi children since 1991 on DU ammunition fired by American troops.

Contaminated earth

Kuwait is not just concerned about the long-term health impacts.

Dr Mohammed al-Sarawi, chairman of Kuwait's Environment Public Authority, says the country's desert is still badly polluted.

Some 320 oil lakes were created across the desert

"We have about 20 million cubic metres of contaminated soil," he said, which has played havoc with the fragile desert vegetation in these areas.

Dr al-Sarawi says the marine environment - particularly its coral reefs - has still not recovered from the estimated eight million gallons of oil the Iraqis pumped into the Gulf from Kuwait's oil terminals.

However, Kuwait can also point to several successes in cleaning up after the war. The burning oil wells were put out within six months of Kuwait's liberation.

The total cost of firefighting and then repairing the wells has been put at $12bn, however.

Apocalyptic scenes

Less publicised, but a greater challenge was the task of cleaning up around 320 "oil lakes" in the desert.

Many of the oil wells detonated by Iraqi soldiers did not catch fire, but simply spewed their contents across the desert, creating these lakes. The Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation says these lakes covered an estimated 50 square kilometres and amounted to around 60 million barrels of oil.

A handful of oil lakes remain in the Burgan oil field

By 1995, the Kuwaiti authorities had only managed to clear around half the lakes. But today, just a handful remain.

The magic weapon, says Dr al-Sarawi, was a special type of bacteria "which degrades the oil". The oily sludge it produces has been used as compost by some Kuwaiti farmers.

BBC News Online saw two of the remaining oil lakes in the Burgan oil field, to the south of Kuwait City.

With a destroyed Iraqi tank nearby, it is an apocalyptic scene and brings back memories of February 1991.

Even before you approach the lakes, you smell the oil, baking in temperatures of more than 50C.

Just a few kilometres away in the Ahmadi field is the shattered remains of Gathering Station 14, the collection point for the output of several oil wells.

Ruptured tanks and mangled pipes are scattered across a large area and it serves as a permanent reminder of one of the world¿s worst ever environmental disasters.

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Message: 5
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 14:18:24 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Clues to massive leukaemia rise
Infections picked up in childhood could trigger disease

4 August, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_864000/864583.stm

A "mystery infection" could partly explain why so many UK youngsters are falling prey to a common form of leukaemia. Researchers writing in the medical journal The Lancet have found that toddlers are 70% more likely to develop acute lymphoblastic leukaemia than they were 20 years ago.

The experts have worked out that many of the extra cases are a sub-group of the disease called "pre-cursor B-cell".

This adds weight to theories that exposure to some sort of childhood infection could be a culprit, as other evidence has linked infections to this variant.

The finding has led to suggestions that modern lifestyles have somehow lessened children's ability to deal with common infections.

However, all the researchers involved are keen to stress that their finding falls a long way short of proof for this theory.

Dr Richard McNally of the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital said: "For the first time, we have shown that the big increase in cases of this particular sub-type of leukaemia is only happening in one to four-year olds.

"We believe it could be because youngsters' immune systems are becoming less good at warding off these infections.

"And that could be because higher living standards mean children are not exposed to so much infection earlier on in life and so their immunity is weaker."

Less common elsewhere

Data from other countries supports this theory - rates of lymphoid leukaemias like these are far less common in less developed countries.

For example, boys under four years old in Bombay have only a third of the chance of developing the illness.

Leukaemia - a cancer which affects blood cells is the commonest cancer in children, with approximately 450 cases diagnosed in children under 15 every year.

There are four distinct types depending on the way the disease progresses and the type of blood cell involved, and many sub-types besides.

The normal treatment involves chemotherapy, although a bone marrow transplant may be required in some cases.

Another researcher, Professor Tim Eden, from the University of Manchester, said that it was likely that genetic changes in blood cells that happen in the womb could predispose a child to the illness, which could then be triggered by the infection.

"Don't know why"

"As yet we have no idea what the infection or infections are but it seems likely that they will be common ones."

The director general of the Cancer Research Campaign, Professor Gordon McVie, said: "This is an important piece of research because experts have known for a long time that acute lymphoblastic leukaemia has gone up but didn't know why.

"The suggestion that increased living standards may have increased people's susceptibility to a mystery infection or infections is also extremely interesting."

======

Comments:

UK is the most recent home to mad cow diseases, seeming from refeeding ground up bone meals that concentrate bone seeking toxins.

UK is also home to lots of tea drinkers that have excess fluorides. Home to lots of coal smoke with excess fluorides. And home to fluoridated water supplies. Not to mention all the fluoride they put in baby formula these days.

How could UK kids keep from having impaced immune systems is more the question.

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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 14:21:10 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

'Beat cancer by targeting viruses'
Cancer efforts 'should concentrate on infections'

3 February, 2000
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_629000/629933.stm

Cancer rates could fall drastically if efforts to tackle the disease are centred on associated infections, according to experts. Targeting viruses, bacteria and parasites responsible for triggering cancers could reduce the number of cases by as much as 20%, the World Summit Against Cancer was told.

Dr Harold zur Hausen, of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, said tackling viruses was particularly important.

Liver cancer is strongly associated with Hepatitis B and human papillomavirus (HPV) is present in up to 99% of cervical cancer cases.

Brain tumours and childhood leukaemia may also involve viruses.

Dr zur Hausen said: "Global vaccination against Hepatitis B and HPV could theoretically prevent 15% of cancers in females and 10% in males."

'Extremely promising'

Vaccines using particles of HPV virus were being tested in human clinical trials and looked "extremely promising", he said.

Tests are available for HPV, which could be used either in addition to the current smear test used to detect cervical cancer, or on their own. But the test is not currently available on the NHS.

Other scientists are testing vaccines which could prevent the infection.

The conference in Paris also heard that lung cancer is now the leading cause of deaths from any cancer in the world and that this is mostly due to smoking.

Professor Virginia Ernster, of the University of California in San Francisco, who has campaigned against tobacco in the US, said lung cancer was now responsible for one-in-three cancer deaths in men in the US.

She added: "Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the world, and the single most important thing we can do to reduce the cancer burden world-wide would be to dramatically reduce the prevalence of tobacco smoking."

She warned of a potential "epidemic" of tobacco related diseases in the Western world.

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Message: 7
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 17:19:11 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Sampling of K-25 water to begin Monday

August 4, 2000
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
Source: http://www.oakridger.com/

A comprehensive sampling plan to ensure water quality at the K-25 site has been developed and is being reviewed today by officials.

"We expect the plan to be completed by close of business today," Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations spokesman Steven Wyatt said today. "Sampling is expected to begin on Monday."

The samples will be analyzed by a state-certified laboratory with all test results available in about two weeks after the samples are actually taken. State officials and other organizations interested in observing the sampling or in taking split samples will have an opportunity to do so, according to Wyatt.

DOE's plan for the K-25 site is a result of employee concerns raised during a public meeting Monday night at the American Museum of Science and Energy that focused on a sick-worker study. One employee cited cross-connecting lines for sanitary, fire and cooling waters and steam and storm drains as a possible way employees could be exposed to hazardous materials.

Participating in formulating the plan were representatives from Oak Ridge Operations; Bechtel Jacobs; the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers union; the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation; the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee and its water plant contractor OMI; and the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee.

Also involved were employees who raised concerns about the safety of the drinking water at the site, also called the East Tennessee Technology Park.

The K-25 site formerly produced enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons and/or reactors. Currently, officials say there are around 1,750 employees at the site working on environmental cleanup and reuse of the site's assets.

K-25 is supplied with water from a water treatment plant and distribution system that is operated under the surveillance of TDEC. Annual and other periodic inspections are performed to ensure that operations are in compliance with state and federal regulations for a potable water supply system.

ETTP employees and tenants can report this information to their supervisors or anonymously through the employee hot line at 241-0931.

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

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 17:23:38 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Richardson's self-serving decision

August 4, 2000
Coffey Time David Coffey
Source: http://www.oakridger.com/

So Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has halted any shipment of recycled metal from Department of Energy sites until "no detectable contamination from departmental activities" can be shown. Let's see if that makes sense.

Of course, he should know that we live in a world of invisible radioactivity. As he walks through a room, he wades through a pool of slow-moving neutrons -- created by ever-present cosmic rays. The neutrons eventually react with the secretary or some part of the room, usually making a radioactive atom. Or they radioactively explode (decay). All this is concealed in invisible silence.

Everything the secretary eats is "contaminated" with natural radioactivity, usually carbon-14 or potassium-40. Especially potent are the high-energy foods with lots of potassium: bananas, peaches, potatoes and raisins.

The secretary's home is "contaminated" with natural radioactivity. His wife is "hot." He is, too. In fact, every two minutes more than 1 million microscopic nuclear explosions (disintegrations) occur in his body (and in mine and yours).

So he wants to eliminate the release of every detectable "contamination." That's nonsense. But let's see if there is a reasonable level for recycled material that would not endanger the public. Let's do what he should have done -- but did not.

Natural levels of radioactivity seem safe and acceptable to all. For example, Denver's altitude brings cosmic radiation levels twice that of Washington, D.C. Everyone accepts it. Bananas and potatoes have twice the activity (per pound) of your body. Kiwi fruit and raisins are even hotter. All are healthy and acceptable.

Now, just how radioactive is the material that the secretary banned from public use? The principal concern is nickel with less than three disintegrations per second for each gram of material.

Compare that to the potassium in the secretary's body at about 30 disintegrations per second for each gram. The secretary's potassium is 10 times hotter than the nickel. Too, if released, at most 1 gram of nickel would ever be exposed to the body, whereas the secretary's body has at least 130 grams of potassium.

That means the secretary's concern is over the possible exposure to less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity he carries with him everywhere. Should he be banned?

Now, let's get to the real reason for the secretary's decision. This is the political season. He wants to be Al Gore's vice presidential running mate. His Hispanic background brings him political advantage that makes him a real, but unlikely, candidate.

His irrational policy decision only makes sense as a political move meant to endear him to the uninformed public. As a political move, it is cunning, crafty and designed to help him claw his way up the political pecking order.

Never mind that his decision, unless reversed, will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Never mind that imported materials will not face the same restriction.

Secretary Richardson's self-serving decision is bad science, bad policy and, if the truth is ever out, even bad politics.

-- David Coffey is an Oak Ridge businessman and a former member of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

======

Comments:

There is considerable controversy about the ban on recycling. It appears possibly a way to pay off some DOE helpers on hiding the HF emissions problems that dominate the health effects from the ORGDP.

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Message: 9
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 17:29:30 EDT
From: magnu96196@aol.com

Richardson recycling decision supported

Source: http://www.oakridger.com/

To The Oak Ridger:

The debate on Secretary Richardson's moratorium on the contaminated metal recycling at K-25 continues. There are many who are said to be angry because of the loss of jobs, further damage to the city's image and property values, and other reasons.

Where was this outcry when the downsizing of Y-12 plummeted the machinists' seniority roll, of which I am a part, from a high of almost 1,200 to today's slightly less than 200? Other crafts were similarily affected.

I do not relish the thought of any more area jobs being lost, but let's keep it in perspective. Oak Ridge once had over 70,000 residents; downsizing has been an issue since the beginning.

At stake here is more than jobs. I believe Secretary Richardson made a prudent move, and even offered a viable alternative. He suggested recycling the contaminated metal within the DOE system, using it in the construction of containers for the more highly contaminated waste.

My concern is not the ability clean up the scrap, but rather the "inconsistencies" that seem to always happen in these endeavours. We already have two contaminated scrapyards in the area, the former DuPont Smith yard in Oak Ridge, and the Witherspoon facility in Knoxville. Both were supposedly accepting "clean" scrap, both became rad and toxic contaminated.

I would hope that BNFL's efforts locally would be of higher caliber than the highly publicized incidents in Japan and Sellafield, England, but can we afford to wait through several years' processing to find out? Personnel contamination in the decontamination process is already reportedly high.

I have written the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Steelworkers' Union and several legislators of my feelings on the recycling. Most have shown agreement and support.

A reply from Zach Wamp's office states recycling based on "sound science," a phrase he has used several times since the announcement of Secretary Richardson's beryllium compensation proposal last summer.

Sound science did not prevent the occurrence of the growing number of beryllium disease cases at Oak Ridge and other DOE sites across the country. Neither did it prevent the radiation, chemical, and other toxic exposures that have made so many workers, and probably residents, ill.

Sound science will never win over greed, incompentence and indifference. Secretary Richardson made the right call.

Glenn Bell 504 Michigan Ave.

=======

Comments:

It would really be nice to get down to zero contamination--but it is impossible to do in the near term of the next 100 years.

It appears some folks were had with follow the leader tactics, and this used to play up problems other than the massive fluoride effects that dominate health issues in OR.

The science checks out on recycling the nickel, as the Pu and Np is removed and leaves traces of Tc-99.

The current steel recycled in the US has been lightly contaminated for decades, as is much of the foreign metals.

What is needed are standards for the volumetric contamination of metals.

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Message: 10
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 21:44:16 -0600
From: "Paula Elofson-Gardine, Exec. Dir." <pelofson1@home.com>

Group tours local sites of historical significance

by Amy L. Lee Oak Ridge staff
August 2, 2000
Source: http://www.oakridger.com/

In the wake of Oak Ridge's efforts to reinvent itself, a parallel movement to develop ways to preserve the city's historical significance also exists.

The Department of Energy and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an independent federal agency that advises the president and Congress on historic preservation matters, has organized a panel to determine if there's a need to preserve historical government Manhattan Project landmarks, determine a strategy to preserve the sites and suggest potential alternative uses for those sites, namely at the Oak Ridge Y-12 and K-25 plants and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as well as others in Hanford, Wash., and Los Alamos, N.M.

The panel met Monday in Oak Ridge and toured three of the eight "Signature Facilities" currently under review -- the Graphite Reactor at ORNL, Y-12 and K-25.

"It's been recognized that the Manhattan Project and the use of the atomic bomb was considered the story of the century, and if we want to tell the story in the future, we will need some physical presence and a number of artifacts to fully tell the story," said Mick Wiest, president of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association.

Wiest, who attended Monday's tour, said, "We are breaking new ground. The Heritage and Preservation Association has focused mainly on sites within the city, but is also looking at what's under federal control behind the fences.

"As time goes on, there will be more and more public access because there's a real interest -- a growing interest -- in World War II and the role Oak Ridge played, as well as what has been done since with research."

The panel will meet with, and receive input from, state and local officials, business and community leaders and other interested stakeholders on a regular basis, as it is charged with providing DOE with recommendations about how the sites may be used to assist DOE in conveying the size and impact of the international significance that culminated in the end of World War II.

According to DOE information, "federal historic preservation law, regulations and policies require all federal agencies to manage historic properties under their jurisdiction or control in a spirit of stewardship for future generations. The primary historic significance of the 'Signature Facilities' at Oak Ridge is in their association with the building if the first atomic bomb."

Panel tours are geared toward gathering information for developing recommendations for DOE on how best to preserve the legacy of the Manhattan Project for future generations.

The tours are designed to provide the panel with understanding of local and statewide facility management, museum and tourism perspectives on the role these facilities now play and what future use plans exist for the facilities.

"We need to look out at the long-term, much as we look at Williamsburg today," said Mayor Jerry Kuhaida. "Two hundred years from now, people are going to be looking back to see what was going on at that time (during World War II)."

Part of determining historical significance is to determine if it is a building, the equipment housed in a building or simply what occurred inside the building that holds historic importance.

According to DOE, the Oak Ridge buildings are "wartime-industrial in character ... built primarily of steel, concrete and wood with little, if any, architectural embellishment. Some ... extraordinarily large. What makes them significant is what took place there. They housed technological and scientific equipment that used processes that were untried and untested on an industrial level. Some of the processes and equipment are still classified. The adjacent city of Oak Ridge was constructed virtually overnight to support the Manhattan Project, and is a National Register-listed historic district comprising hundreds of residential and commercial buildings, most built to a few standard plans developed by the Boston architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill."

The DOE document goes on to state, "The development and use of the atomic bomb during World War II is one of the most historically significant events of the 20th century," with the dropping of the atomic bomb and the surrender of Japan to end World War II.

"For all its historical significance, however, scant attention has been given to preserving and interpreting ... the physical legacy of the 'Manhattan Project,' the top-secret effort that designed, built and tested the first atomic bombs. This physical legacy ... consists of laboratories, industrial facilities and a proving ground located at various sites across the country.

"DOE, the lineal descendent of the Manhattan Project, owns and operates the three most prominent Manhattan Project sites: the Oak Ridge Reservation, the Hanford (B Reactor and Chemical Separation Building or T-Plant) Reservation in Washington and the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico," the document states.

Preservation obstacles include developing uses for the one-of-a-kind buildings and facilities of massive scale; constraints to public visitation resulting from health, safety and national security issues; demands of continued operation; and DOE's ongoing efforts to clean up and dismantle the sites.

"It's important for us to find ways to work with DOE to find historical uses for these sites, such as historical tours," said Joe Valentino, executive director of the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We can't just put our hand out to DOE -- we've got to find a way to partner with them in a private-public partnership. We can say we want to preserve these sites, but we need a strategic plan," he explained.

The Convention and Visitors Bureau is in the midst of launching a survey partly to determine what brings visitors to the city. One of the questions to be answered is, "Would you come here if we offered historical tours?"

"If that question comes back 'yes,' we need to look at how we can put all these together on one tour," Valentino continued. "We already have the train at K-25, and the city has already submitted a grant request for a train museum. So, we've got the foundation being built."

According to the Tennessee Department of Tourism, the state currently enjoys 38 million visitors per year. Optimistically, Valentino theorized if Oak Ridge could capture one million of those visitors and get them to spend $10 each, that would result in $1 million in tax revenue for the city.

"Something that was kind of unique (panel members) asked was, 'How do we make this self-sustaining or profitable,'" Valentino noted. "One thing we need to remember is that (the facilities) can (remain) nonprofit, but pay for itself, too, so it's not a tax burden for the citizens."

Weist noted there's a need to expand options of preservation and said, "There's not enough money to preserve every building. We've got to decide which are good candidates to preserve, and preserve the others through documentation.

"We've been slow in tapping into interpreting our history and getting our message out to the world. There are hundreds of programs and thousands of artifacts, some one-of-a-kind, many of which are going to landfills," he said.

"We're losing bit by bit, day by day what supports our history. Those who live here don't appreciate the significance of the Manhattan Project and Cold War Era and what Oak Ridge did to contribute to that," Wiest said.

"We are becoming aware of the need to preserve our history," Kuhaida asserted. "And, I believe the city is looking favorably on that. Things are coming together at an opportune time, but with (other needs), funding is going away quickly. The problem is where the dollars will come from," Kuhaida said.

---

Oak Ridge sites under review The Department of Energy and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has engaged an expert panel to determine the feasibility of preserving former sites involved in the Manhattan Project.

Included in five "Signature Facilities," which are currently under review, are:

X-10 Graphite Reactor -- Now known as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Graphite Reactor, it was the first National Historic Landmark designated purely for its scientific and technological significance. Originally, the reactor produced plutonium in irradiated uranium fuel rods, was a prototype for the full-scale production reactors at Hanford, Wash., and was a proving ground for reactor technology and radiochemical separation. It provided the plutonium for experiments at Los Alamos, N.M., that were essential in designing the plutonium bomb, but was deactivated and is now an operating museum open to the public.

K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant -- This was the world's largest building (a 40,000-acre facility) at the time of its completion in 1943, still monolithic by today's standards. Its purpose was to enrich uranium for use in the atomic gun bomb by means of the gaseous diffusion method of separating weapons-grade uranium-235 from the more common and heavier U-238 isotope. Most of the original equipment is still housed in the facility but has not been used since 1964, including the Roosevelt Cell. The cell was a color-coded and labeled process cylinder demonstration area prepared to show President Franklin Delano Roosevelt how the gaseous diffusion technology worked. He died before he could visit, but the cell is still preserved in the now renamed East Tennessee Technology Park. The park is targeted for redevelopment in the coming years through government-private industry partnerships for high-tech industrial research and manufacturing.

Y-12 Plant Beta-3 Racetrack -- Beta-3 is the only surviving electromagnetic separation device at the plant, which was used for electromagnetically separating U-235 from U-238. At the time, scientists did not know the best way to separate the uranium isotopes, so they developed two initial processes. Although now dismantled, a third method -- liquid thermal diffusion -- was added in late 1944 near the K-25 site. Situated in its own valley to contain any accident or explosion, Y-12 contains more than 100 industrial buildings dating from World War II, and nine "Alpha" and three "Beta" racetracks were built. The process was found to be less efficient than gaseous diffusion, and the racetracks were dismantled after the war. Only Beta 3, complete with the original 1940s control room technology, continued until last year to produce nuclear isotopes for medical use.