-------- 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 implem