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

Remarks by Clinton and Putin in Photo Opportunity

US Newswire
6 Sep 13:19
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0906-118.html

Remarks by Clinton and Putin in Photo Opportunity
To: National Desk
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580

WASHINGTON, September 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the White House:

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT CLINTON AND PRESIDENT PUTIN IN PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
Waldorf-Astoria New York, New York 11:25 A.M. EDT

Q Have you any expectations?

PRESIDENT PUTIN: Only positive expectations.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I agree with that. This is just part of our ongoing, regular consultation. We're going to have another chance to meet in Asia in a couple of months, and we have a lot of things to talk about. But it's part of our continuing effort to strengthen our relationships and to help our people.

Q (Question asked in Russian.)

PRESIDENT PUTIN: (Answers in Russian.)

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you. Let me just say one thing about ABM issue. We have worked together on nuclear issues very closely for virtually the whole time I've been in office, and actually, for quite a long time before that, before I became President. The decision that I made last week on our missile defense will create an opportunity for President Putin and the next American President to reach a common position. And I hope they can, because I think it's very important for the future that we continue to work together.

When we work together, we can destroy thousands of tons of nuclear materials and lots of nuclear weapons, and work together in the Balkans for peace. I mean, we can get a lot of things done if we work together. So I hope that the decision that I made will enable my successor and President Putin to resolve this issue and to continue working together on all the arms control issues.

Q Mr. President, the deadline set by Israel and the Palestinians is a week from today. Do you have any reason to believe that there might be something worked out by this time, or would you like the parties to discard the deadline?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I haven't met with them yet, but I think that -- I think we can work through that if there's a sense of progress. And one of the things I hope I have a chance to talk to President Putin about -- but I think the main thing they have to decide is whether there is going to be an agreement within what is the real calendar, which is the calendar that is ticking in the Middle East against the political realities in Israel, as well as for the Palestinians. There's a limit to how long they have, and it's not very much longer.

END 11:30 A.M. EDT

---

Missile Defense Deferral Makes Asia a Safer Place

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
By TOM PLATE
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000906/t000083869.html

Give the outgoing president a hand for a domestically risky and internationally astute decision to delay, at least for the rest of his term, a mammoth national missile defense system that neither the United States nor the world needs. In Asia, a sprawling, politically and ethnically diverse region, many will have good reason to assess this as one of Bill Clinton's finest moments as a world leader.

Clinton did not bow to obvious election-year pressure to keep the Democratic defense posture tougher-than-nails with a costly new missile defense system, which would have more effectively shielded Al Gore from George W. Bush's political flak than Peoria from missiles.

Asia knew what was at stake. A presidential decision to go forward with the unproven missile shield system--which would have cost anywhere from $60 billion to $100 billion and taken years to build--would have triggered a new round of costly and destabilizing arms buildups.

China, rather than forgo its perceived nuclear leverage over Taiwan, would have upped the ante and added to its relatively puny arsenal of about two dozen nuclear missiles, especially if it appeared that the protective shadow of the large U.S. system would take in Taiwan.

In response, India, fearing China's domination, would have ordered new missile production. And, as quick as you can say Kashmir, Pakistan would have followed. Given such an Asian hothouse of nuclear one-upmanship, how could the Japanese, already showing signs of unease with a long postwar posture of pacifism, have remained quiescent? One thing is certain: Had Clinton gone the other way and authorized construction, Asia wouldn't have sat on its hands.

On the Korean peninsula, the impact of a presidential "go" would have been traumatic. A new regional arms race in Asia would have derailed the momentum of South Korea's peace initiative with heavily armed North Korea, which, if not kept in check, would probably have the wherewithal to launch a few nuclear-tipped missiles by 2005. North Korean ally China, along with Russia, had complained bitterly about a U.S. missile shield. From the South Korean perspective, then, a U.S.-supplied national missile defense system, even if it could be made to work, was looking like more trouble than it was worth.

There is no assurance that Bush, or even Gore, will prove as wise on the missile-defense issue. Yet what the next president owes the world is not another missile buildup but a reaffirmation of the spirit of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. The key to international stability is the maintenance of limits, not the nuking of them. The ABM pact, signed by the equally hard-headed Richard M. Nixon and Leonid I. Brezhnev, sealed each side's defensive arsenal at a level guaranteeing a mutually fearsome nuclear deterrence. The proposed U.S. program would have violated the ABM treaty. That's why Moscow was howling.

The reaction in Asia to Clinton's turnaround also reflects an appreciation that, for once, an American president faced with a major foreign-policy decision seemed to be listening to someone other than domestic lobbies.

There's of course a risk that Clinton's decision will offer Bush political advantage. Bush, despite the fact that he urged Clinton to defer a decision on NMD to his successor, immediately branded Clinton and Gore as weak on defense for doing exactly that. Leaving Gore to make the case that fewer missiles may actually mean more global safety will strike savvy Asians as a difficult challenge. Indeed, it is now hard to envision Gore surviving this campaign without hearing charges of a new "missile gap." The charge will be fraudulent, just as it was in 1960, when John F. Kennedy hurled a similar allegation at then-Vice President Nixon. There was no missile gap then; there is no missile gap now. There are only good missile decisions and bad ones.

Clinton did his job as president and world leader and made a very good call. Gore should proudly run on that, and Bush, if elected, should sustain it.

-

Tom Plate Is a Times Contributing Editor and a Ucla Professor. E-mail: Tplate@ucla.org

---

Britain tells Spain damaged sub poses no risk

Planet Ark
SPAIN: September 6, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8067

MADRID - The British government yesterday assured Spain that a damaged nuclear submarine moored in Gibraltar on Spain's southern coast poses no threat to public safety, Spain's foreign minister said.

The HMS Tireless broke down in the Mediterranean in May and was towed to the British colony of Gibraltar after developing a leak in the cooling system of its nuclear reactor. The reactor was shut down, and it has been awaiting repairs ever since.

Environmentalists have demanded the sub be taken away for repairs, saying 300,000 people in the area faced a cancer risk.

"The British authorities just today have reiterated that there is no risk to the population," Foreign Minister Josep Pique told a senate committee.

"There is no reasonable alternative to repairs in Gibraltar," he added.

Britain's Ministry of Defence wants to repair the submarine in Gibraltar, a tiny colony of some 30,000 people that is home to the "Rock of Gibraltar" and a deepwater port for NATO submarines.

Responding to demonstrations and growing public concern, the Gibraltarian government has asked a panel of experts to consider a safety report before agreeing to repairs. The panel's response was due in the coming days.

The Tireless is a Trafalgar class submarine capable of firing Tomahawk missiles.

----

Putin, Clinton Still Divided

Associated Press
September 06, 2000 Filed at 6:44 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Clinton-Putin.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- With both sides refusing to budge, President Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin remained at odds Wednesday about an American program to build an anti-missile defense system. Raising the stakes, the United States said it would not discuss deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals until Moscow agrees to negotiations on strategic defense.

Beginning a three-day marathon of diplomacy, Clinton met with Putin on the sidelines of the United Nations' Millennium Summit, a gathering of about 160 presidents, kings and prime ministers.

In what he said was his farewell U.N. address, Clinton urged world leaders to intensify their support for peacekeeping efforts. He said that bloodshed in Sierra Leone and East Timor demonstrated the need for more effective peacekeeping. ``In both cases,'' Clinton said, ``the U.N. did not have the tools to finish the job.''

Meanwhile, national security adviser Sandy Berger, during a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov, turned over unspecified information on what the United States knew about the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk, a State Department official said.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said the Russians had asked for the information.

Meeting for the third time in three months, now in a 35h-floor hotel suite in midtown Manhattan, Clinton and Putin registered stubborn differences about anti-missile defense systems.

Clinton last week decided not to authorize deployment of a missile shield, deferring the decision to his successor. Russia adamantly opposes such a system, saying it would wreck arms-control agreements and trigger a new nuclear arms race. China opposes it, too.

Clinton said his decision to put off deployment of a missile shield created the opportunity for Putin and the next American president ``to reach a common position. And I hope they can,'' Clinton added, ``because I think it's very important for the future that we continue to work together.

``When we work together,'' said Clinton, ``we can destroy thousands of tons of nuclear materials and lots of nuclear weapons, and work together in the Balkans for peace.''

Putin, in his own address to the United Nations, signaled that Russia would continue to press the United States to abandon its missile defense ambitions.

Putin urged world leaders to come to Moscow for a conferences to ban the militarization of space. He described the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as a foundation of the entire nuclear arms control system.

Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush favors building a robust missile defense system, seeking Russia's agreement to amend the ABM treaty but proceeding if necessary without such agreement. Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore favors developing technology for a limited missile defense while seeking Russia's agreement to amend the ABM.

The United States said it was prepared to open talks on deeper arms reductions -- but only if they proceed ``in parallel with meaningful and productive discussions on strategic defenses. And ... we're not there yet with the Russians,'' said Strobe Talbott, deputy secretary of state.

He said Russia needs to recognize that amendments will be necessary in the ABM ``probably sooner rather than later.''

Talbott said that starting formal negotiations on arms cuts -- a START III agreement -- ``is going to have to wait until Russia is prepared to join us in formal negotiations on strategic defense.''

Seeking areas of compromise, Clinton and Putin signed a statement on strategic stability cooperation. It commits both countries to finishing an accord on pre-notification of launches of ballistic missiles. Talbott said the statement ``puts more flesh on the bones'' of accords signed by Clinton and Putin in June in Moscow and in July in Japan.

Clinton and Putin also discussed prospects for democracy in the Balkans, peacekeeping in Kosovo, U.S. objections to the transfer of Russian missile and nuclear weaponry technology to Iran, and Iraq's defiance of U.N. weapons inspection demands.

Clinton also raised the case of Edmund Pope, an American businessman jailed by Russian authorities since April 3 on espionage charges. Talbott said that Putin ``certainly understands the importance that President Clinton attaches to that.''

-------- france

Another DU plane crash: C-130 Lockheed

From: "Marco Saba" <marcosaba@xoommail.com>

After the C-130 that burst in Kukes (Albania) last June 1999, this one is the first C-130 burst in 2000, I think. LAKA Foundation has the design for the C-130 counterweights, but never released a copy of them to us, as they promised. If you go to the link, you see a firefighter *without* NBC gas mask.

--

Two Dead in France Plane Crash

Wednesday September 6 6:51 AM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000906/wl/france_crash_1.html

GRENOBLE (AP) - A cargo plane with three Americans aboard crashed Wednesday while it was dumping water over a forest fire in southeastern France, killing two people, officials said.

Two surviving crew members were seriously injured when the Hercules C130 crashed into a hill near the small town of Burzet as it was releasing water over the flames. The plane was owned by a private company and rented by local authorities.

The crew consisted of three Americans and a Frenchman living in the United States. It was unclear which crew members were killed, and authorities said they would not identify them until their families had been notified. Rescuers raced to the scene, which was difficult to reach because of the craggy terrain.

The overnight fire destroyed about 100 acres of forest but was under control by Wednesday morning. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

----

French nuclear safety body questions fire vigilance

Planet Ark
September 6, 2000 Reuters
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8060

PARIS - French nuclear power plants are not vigilante enough against fire hazards, the country's nuclear safety authority (DSIN) said yesterday.

"Those who run nuclear installations have to worry about prevention, they have to prevent fires. There is a lack of fire awareness," Andre-Claude Lacoste, head of the DSIN, told a news conference.

Statistics showed a fire started every two years at nuclear installations in France, sometimes causing a risk of disseminating radioactive substances, he said.

DSIN recommendations prompted the state-owned electricity firm EDF in 1998 to start a review of fire procedures on 54 reactors, which will be completed in 2006 at a cost of 2.8 billion francs ($382.7 million).

France's most serious incident occurred in 1981, when fire affected a nuclear waste storage room at the nuclear reprocessing plant in La Hague.

----

Greenpeace urges climate talks to reject nuclear

September 6, 2000
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=8059

PARIS - Environmental group Greenpeace yesterday urged experts at international talks on climate change to reject nuclear power as a solution to global warming.

"France and Britain are leading the lobby for nuclear to be included in the list of 'acceptable technologies' that can be used for 'clean development' projects. We want it to ruled out," Greenpeace France director Bruno Rebelle told Reuters.

Representatives of 180 countries are meeting in the central French city of Lyon this week and next to thrash out how an international agreement to curb the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming will be made to work in practice.

The negotiations, between experts from the countries which signed the Kyoto Protocol (treaty) in 1997, are a crucial preparation for ministerial-level world talks on climate change in the Dutch city of the Hague in November.

The Kyoto Protocol commits industrialised countries to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide to around 5.2 percent below the 1990 level by 2008-2012.

After three years of negotiations, the Kyoto signatories have still not agreed if there should be sanctions for countries which fail to meet their reductions targets.

Nor have they agreed how systems for buying the right to pollute - either by purchasing emissions credits from states which more than meet their reductions targets or by funding projects for curbing emissions in other countries - will work.

Environmental groups want recourse to these so-called flexible mechanisms kept to a minimum, so that governments take genuine action at home to cut greenhouse gas emissions from oil, gas and coal consumption, transport and heavy industry.

They also want the Kyoto rules explicitly to prevent countries earning emissions credits by building nuclear power stations abroad. "Otherwise they could use the Protocol as an excuse to revive the ailing nuclear industry," Greenpeace France energy specialist Helene Gassin said.

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin - whose country obtains 80 percent of its electricity from atomic energy - is due to attend the talks on September 11.

-------- india / pakistan

Emphasizing Pakistan

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-200096212732.htm

Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi is trying to underscore the importance of her country's relationship with the United States as Washington prepares for a high-profile visit by the prime minister of India, Pakistan's regional rival.

"In our bilateral relationship, we need to evolve common approaches to the broad goals that the two countries share: promoting peace and security in South Asia; averting a nuclear and conventional arms race in the region; and fostering peace and stability in Afghanistan," she said in a recent speech.

Miss Lodhi also criticized India's control over part of the disputed Kashmir region and called on India to demonstrate its commitment to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan exploded nuclear devices two years ago, raising fears of another confrontation between the two countries that have fought three wars against each other.

Miss Lodhi, addressing Pakistani-Americans on a visit to Atlanta last month, said, "It must be realized that violence in Kashmir will end only once India agrees to desist from its brutal repression of the Kashmiri people. A Kashmir solution, as the U.S. itself proclaims, must be in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people."

She praised Pakistani-Americans for their "positive contribution to American society" and called them a "vital resource" for Pakistan.

"Your success is our success," she said.

Miss Lodhi called on Pakistani-Americans to "contribute to Pakistan's national renewal, foster understanding and harmony . . . and promote and strengthen U.S.-Pakistani relations."

"Our national goals are clear, namely, economic revival, national renewal, institutional rebuilding and political stability," she said.

Pakistan has been struggling to recover from a military coup last year that deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and installed Gen. Pervez Musharraf as "chief executive."

Sharif, widely accused of corruption, was convicted in April of hijacking and terrorism, stemming from accusations that he tried to prevent a commercial airliner carrying Gen. Musharraf from landing in Pakistan on the day of the Oct. 12 coup.

President Clinton devoted only a day trip to Pakistan on his five-day visit to India in March. The reciprocal visit to Washington next week by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will showcase the depth of the new relations between India and the United States.

Mr. Vajpayee will meet with Mr. Clinton and address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 14.

Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf are in New York this week for the U.N. Millennium Summit, but the Pakistani leader will not visit Washington.

-------- japan

Peace organizations protest Russian subcritical nuclear tests

Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 17:06:26 +0900
From: Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>

TOKYO SEP 6 JPS -- Russia's three subcritical nuclear tests conducted in late August and early September at the Novaya Zemlya test site have aroused anger in Japan and in particular the atomic bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On September 5, the Japan Council Against A & H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) lodged a protest with the Russian Embassy in Tokyo.

The Gensuikyo letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin stated: "Conducting repeated subcritical nuclear tests is a defiance to the humanity's aspiration for peace and a nuclear weapon-free world. What is more, at the NPT Review Conference held this past spring, Russia, together with other nuclear weapons states, accepted and agreed to 'an unequivocal undertaking' to accomplish 'the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.' At the U. N. Millennium Summit soon to be commenced and the Millennium Assembly to follow, all governments of the world, especially nuclear weapons states, are strongly urged to implement this undertaking."

Meeting an embassy secretary, Hiroshi Takakusagi, Japan Gensuikyo secretary general said, "These nuclear tests were held at a time when the U.N. General Assembly is about to discuss the U.N. role in the 21st century. They only reveal the arrogance of nuclear weapons possessing countries."

In Hiroshima, more than atomic bomb survivors held a sit-in on September 5 in protest against the Russian nuclear tests in front of the A-bomb cenotaph in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Akiyoshi Katayama of the Hiroshima Gensuikyo criticized the Japanese government for being unable to protest the visiting Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He said that increasing public opinion in favor of the abolition of nuclear weapons cannot be pushed back with nuclear weapons.

Nagasaki Gensuikyo on the same day organized a signature collecting campaign in Nagasaki City's Peace Park in protest against Russia's subcritical tests to call for a halt to the development of nuclear weapons and an international treaty banning such weapons. (end item)

--

U.S. forces hold NLP in defiance of residents' call for quiet nights

TOKYO SEP 6 JPS -- Completely ignoring residents' call for quiet nights, the U.S. Forces have started large-scale night landing practices in wide areas covering seven cities in Kanagawa Prefecture as scheduled.

Akahata reported on September 6 that on September 5, signaling the start of the first round of the practice, first F/A 18 attack fighters from the U.S.aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk made a daytime take-off from the U.S. Atsugi Naval Air Station, leaving deafening sonic booms.

Later in the day, NLP started at 7 p.m. and after 8 p.m. two E-2C early warning aircraft and an F/A-18 fighter repeated touch-and-go practices.

The Japanese Communist Party Kanagawa Prefectural Committee on September 4 made representations with the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Facilities Administration Agency to stop the U.S. Forces' NLP.

The first round of NLPs at the Atsugi Naval Air Station will continue until September 8, followed by a second round from September 18 to 22, and depending on the weather condition at Iwojima it should be extended to September 24, according to the U.S. Forces.

Some 30 people from local peace organizations and trade unions staged a protest and kept monitoring the practice preceding in the U.S. base in Yamato City. JCP Dietmembers visited the site late in the evening.

Similar practices took place in the Misawa Air Base on the same day. (end item)

----

Putin, Mori to press for peace pact despite Kurils

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
By Scott Stoddard
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200096223725.htm

TOKYO - The leaders of Russia and Japan pledged yesterday to press on toward a peace treaty, despite failing to resolve a territorial dispute that has blocked a pact for more than five decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori ended two days of talks without progress over claims to four islands off northern Japan that Russia seized at the end of World War II.

"It was all they could do to agree to continue peace treaty talks, giving us a glimpse of how far apart they are in their views," the national Yomiuri newspaper said yesterday.

Despite hopes for signing a peace treaty during this trip, Mr. Putin backed off, saying: "The important thing is not setting up a deadline, but that both countries have good faith."

Mr. Mori said: "We confirmed that we will continue negotiations for a peace treaty by resolving the issue of sovereignty over the four islands, based on all the negotiations in the past."

The islands - known as the Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan - have stood in the way of a peace treaty that would formally end more than 50 years of hostility.

Moscow has not accepted Tokyo's suggestion of putting the islands under Japanese sovereignty while letting Russia continue to administer them.

Tokyo stands firm against Moscow's earlier suggestion that they formally end their hostilities without resolving the island dispute.

Pride and emotion are entwined in the territorial dispute.

Russia is unwilling to relinquish its control over the islands because Russian leaders are loathe to lose another piece of the former Soviet Union. Also, the islands are surrounded by rich fishing grounds.

Tokyo still smarts from the forced evacuation of 10,000 Japanese from the islands in 1945 when Russian soldiers took the islands.

While Mr. Mori and Mr. Putin held talks Monday, right-wing extremists circled the meeting site in black sound trucks, blaring martial music and demanding the return of the islands.

With little progress in the dispute over the islands, the two leaders turned their attention to improving relations by cooperating in regional security and economic matters.

Mr. Putin emphasized that he wanted Tokyo and Moscow to tighten their strategic relationship and ensure stability in northeast Asia. He also invited Mr. Mori to visit Russia, but no date was set.

The two sides signed agreements including a program on developing trade and economic relations, joint efforts to aid the economic development of the Kurils, cooperation in energy, Japanese assistance in dismantling Russian nuclear arsenals and strengthening cooperation between the two nations' border guards.

"I hope in the near future we will keenly feel that both countries are vital to the other," Mr. Putin said at a joint news conference before leaving yesterday for New York to attend the U.N. Millennium Summit.

-------- russia

Russian navy still has that nuclear punch

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 6, 2000
WorldNetDaily.com
From: Stephen Kobasa <skobasa@pop.snet.net>

Russia has increasingly relied upon its navy. For most of the past decade, the primary role of the Russian navy was to protect the "home waters" where its strategic missile submarines can operate. In recent years Russia has returned to the blue water deployment strategy, moving submarines far from the Russian coastline.

According to senior U.S. intelligence analysts the Russian navy is operating in a manner very much like that of the Soviet fleet during the Cold War. Acting upon the orders of President Putin, Oscar II class submarines now patrol the coast of America.

In September 1997, an Oscar II guided missile submarine cruised about 100 miles off Oregon and Washington. The Russian submarine reportedly came within striking distance of three U.S. aircraft carriers. The Pacific fleet Oscar II submarine then returned to its base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii in November 1997.

The ill-fated Kursk herself recently made a high-profile voyage to the Mediterranean in September 1999. The submarine was due to return to the Mediterranean later this year as part of a planned Russian nuclear task group deployment to the Middle East.

At the same time the Kursk was patrolling the Mediterranean, another Pacific Fleet Oscar II submarine cruised the western seaboard of the United States, this time within missile range of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The Kursk was one of eight operational Oscar II class cruise missile submarines. Oscar II submarines are not considered "strategic" missile carriers and are therefore not covered under arms treaty limitations with the United States. It is the "cruise missile" classification of the Oscar submarine that allows the warship to avoid diplomatic treaty provisions while still serving two combat roles, sea denial and city strike.

Officially, the primary role of Oscar II submarines is striking out at U.S. carrier forces. In addition, Oscar II submarines are capable of destroying American cities from sea. Oscar II class submarines are equipped with the SS-N-19 "Shipwreck" cruise missile armed with a single H-bomb equal to one half million tons of TNT. Each Oscar II can carry 24 Shipwreck missiles stored in banks of 12.

There is no question that some Russian warships such as the Oscar II submarine are to be considered very potent nuclear strike platforms. There is also no question that Russian naval strength has seriously declined over the past decade.

The Russian navy has decommissioned nearly 200 nuclear submarines in the last 10 years. Operational units are suffering from severe manpower, funding and parts shortages. Russia reportedly has only 20 first class attack submarines in operating condition.

In response, the new Russian navy is frantically trying to upgrade its nuclear attack submarine fleet with the Akula II and Severodvinsk classes replacing older Victor I and II class attack submarines. The increased pace of construction on the Akula II submarines is in contrast to the surface fleet, which has lost nearly one thousand vessels since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia has opted to retain all of the type 1144 Ushakov, ex-Kirov class, nuclear battle cruisers in service but has commissioned no major surface warships in the last five years.

The loss of the Kursk is a major economic blow to the Russian navy. The Oscar II nuclear submarine was one of the most expensive warships built by Russia. The salvage efforts alone are expected to exceed $100 million. Yet, the Kursk is not the only problem facing the troubled service. The Russian navy has suffered four other major incidents with nuclear submarines since 1968.

* The K-129 sank in 20,000 feet of water near Hawaii in 1968 with three nuclear warheads. The Glomar Explorer did not recover one nuclear warhead in 1974.

* In 1972 the K-8 sank in 13,000 feet of water off Spain with two nuclear reactors and 12 nuclear warheads on board.

* In 1986, the K-219 sank in 18,000 feet of water near Bermuda with one nuclear reactor and 50 nuclear warheads on board.

* In 1989, the Komsomolets sank in 5,300 feet of water off the North Cape of Norway with one reactor and two nuclear torpedoes on board. Over 80 percent of Norwegian fish for export are caught in the same waters where the Komsomolets sank.

Current plans call for an additional 125 Russian nuclear submarines and their reactors to be dismantled by 2010. At the Russian Pacific naval base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii, over 20 former nuclear submarines are in such bad shape that they cannot be moved. None of the submarines are sea-worthy and therefore cannot be towed to the scrapping yards.

To make matters worse, the Naval port of Vladivostok is contaminated with both heavy metal and radioactive waste, including cadmium, cobalt, arsenic and mercury. Until 1993, this waste was simply being dumped into the Sea of Japan.

The problem-plagued Russian navy must be first viewed in proportion to its clout inside Moscow. The Russian navy is not the senior service and does not have the political power of the Russian Army. The navy has been unable to help Russia's most pressing security concerns such as the war in Chechnya. As a result, it has been hard-pressed to fight for resources.

The Russian nuclear missile fleet is also contracting. The strategic missile submarines force has shrunk to around 25 submarines. While it may be getting smaller, Russia's nuclear navy is taking on a larger role in the strategic mission, maintaining the 25 submarines with over 400 nuclear tipped missiles able to strike the United States and Western Europe at a moment's notice.

The Russian navy can rightfully claim to be the world's most powerful after the U.S. Navy. Despite the loss of the Kursk, and the radioactive legacy left by the Soviet Union, the Russian navy still retains its sting.

Charles Smith is a national security and defense reporter for WorldNetDaily.

----

Putin Calls for Ban on Militarization of Space

New York Times September 06, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Summit-Putin.html
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21927-2000Sep6.html
http://www.space.com/news/spaceagencies/putin_space_000906_wg.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000906/23/un-summit-putin

UNITED NATIONS -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called upon world leaders to come to Moscow for a conference to ban the militarization of space -- a challenge to any American plan to build an anti-missile defense system.

Addressing the Millennium Summit at the United Nations, Putin described the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as a ``foundation'' of the entire nuclear arms control system.

``Particularly alarming are the plans for the militarization of space,'' Putin said.

Noting that the next year will see the 40th anniversary of Russia sending the first man into space, Putin said that Moscow will be the ``most proper place for such a conference.''

He did not mention the United States in his address. But his statement came as the latest signal that Russia would continue pushing the United States to fully abandon its plans to deploy defenses against missile threats from rogue nations, such as North Korea.

Putin has welcomed President Clinton's announcement that he would leave the final decision on whether to deploy the missile system to the next administration.

In his speech Wednesday, Putin also proposed to bar the use of enriched uranium and pure plutonium in the world atomic energy production. ``Incineration of plutonium and other radioactive elements creates prerequisites for the final solution of the radioactive residues problem,'' Putin said.

Putin is on his first trip to the United States as Russian president. Plunging into international diplomacy, Putin planned a series of bilateral meetings that would involve Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Indonesia's Abdurrahman Wahid and many others during the three-day conference.

---

Official says all sailors died immediately

USA Today
09/07/00- Updated 01:27 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

MOSCOW - A deputy prime minister said Wednesday that there had never been any contact with the 118 Russian sailors aboard the Kursk nuclear submarine after it sank Aug. 12, and they were probably all killed instantly. Navy officials had said several times that they heard tapping from inside the submarine the first few days after it went down during exercises in the Barents Sea, indicating some crew members were alive. But Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Wednesday, ''Almost certainly, once it was on the sea floor, no one was left alive.'' The reports of tapping ''turned out to be mistaken ... because of a mistaken analysis,'' he said in remarks aired on Russia's television networks.

---

False Russian Data Risked Divers, Norwegian Says

Washington Post
Wednesday, September 6, 2000; Page A16
By Sharon LaFraniere Washington Post Foreign Service
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-09/06/077l-090600-idx.html

MOSCOW Sept. 5-A Norwegian vice admiral involved in the effort to rescue 118 crewmen abroad the sunken Russian submarine Kursk has alleged that Russian authorities imperiled his team of deep-sea divers by giving them false and incomplete information.

Einar Skorgen, who headed the Norwegian rescue team, describes the problems in the latest issue of the weekly magazine Itogi, which is co-owned by the Russian media conglomerate Media-Most and Newsweek magazine. "Total information chaos reigned," Skorgen said. "They unleashed so much spurious and distorted information on us that it threatened the safety of our divers."

The Itogi article appeared as Moscow fire officials were criticizing the government's response to a fire 10 days ago in a landmark Moscow television tower that killed three people and knocked out TV service to millions of viewers in and around the capital. Once the flames broke out near the top of the Ostankino tower, officials said, firefighters waited three hours for an order from President Vladimir Putin to turn off its electricity--a standard firefighting measure. "If we had cut off the power earlier, we would probably have been able to localize the fire," Moscow Fire Chief Leonid Korotchik said.

Experts said the twin disasters highlight not only how poorly Russia is prepared for emergencies, but how likely calamities are to occur following a decade of shortcuts on repairs, lack of maintenance and failure to invest in the country's infrastructure.

Andrei Belousov, head of the Center of Macroeconomics Analysis in Moscow, said the country needs $50 billion to $70 billion simply to renovate its power stations to avoid power shortages. "The time has come," he said. "The infrastructure is worn out."

In the Itogi article, Skorgen contested Russia's claim that strong underwater currents and damage to an escape hatch on the nuclear-powered submarine's rear deck hindered rescue efforts. "An absolute lie," he said. "I made the Russians admit this."

A Norwegian deep-sea diver also disputed the description Russian officials gave of underwater conditions that confronted rescue teams. "As regards to underwater currents and poor visibility, these were not much different than what we were used to in the North Sea," the diver said.

At one point, Skorgen said, he was so frustrated that he threatened to call off the operation. But he said he was able to work out the communications problems with Vyacheslav Popov, the commander of Russia's Northern Fleet. When they did dive, the Norwegians were able to open the submarine's hatch in just six hours after more than a week of failed efforts by the Russian navy.

Any delay that might have resulted because of Russian reluctance to share information probably cost no lives, because hopes that any crewmen had survived aboard the submarine had faded before the Norwegian team arrived. Still, the Norwegian complaint adds to the impression that Russians tried to cover up their own bungled rescue efforts with misleading information.

The sub and TV tower disasters heightened the sense among Russians that life in their country is increasingly risky. When the submarine sank in Arctic waters, Russia had no trained deep-sea divers on hand to try to save the crew; instead, the navy relied on a rescue submersible that was unable to lock on to the Kursk's escape hatch.

A short circuit in overworked electrical wires is believed to have caused the fire at the 33-year-old Ostankino tower, a symbol of Soviet technological prowess and a popular tourist spot. Korotchik, the fire chief, said Friday that the circuits were hugely overloaded; other officials estimated the tower was working at 30 percent beyond its capacity.

The back-to-back calamities followed a long string of disasters this year that range from repeated ruptures in aged pipelines to building collapses. In a particularly dramatic accident two months ago, a worn-out crane used to load cargo on submarines dropped a ballistic missile on a pier at a naval base near the far eastern city of Vladivostok. The chemicals that spilled from the weapon mixed with the air to form a red toxic cloud that caused panic in two nearby villages.

Russia's Emergency Ministry attributes two-thirds of all accidents to poor quality or nonexistent repairs, according to the latest issue of the weekly magazine Argumenty i Facty. State statistics show 31 percent of machines and equipment of big and medium-size enterprises are worn out. Capital assets are being replaced at a slower rate now than in 1995, according to Goscomstat, the government's statistics agency.

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http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/9/7/2.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary (New York, New York)

For Immediate Release September 6, 2000

FACT SHEET
U.S. - RUSSIAN STRATEGIC STABILITY COOPERATION INITIATIVE

Implementation Plan

-- Discussions of issues related to the threat of proliferation of missiles and missile technologies

The U.S. will brief Russia on the update of the National Intelligence Estimate of the ballistic missile threat that has just been completed, and Russia will provide its latest assessment.

-- Cooperation in the area of Theater Missile Defense

The United States and Russia agreed to conduct a U.S.-Russian planning and simulation exercise in February, 2001 at Colorado Springs, Colorado and a U.S.-Russian field training exercise at Fort Bliss, Texas by late 2001 or early 2002. Planning meetings for the 2001 exercise will continue in Moscow in September and November-December at the Joint National Test Facility in Colorado Springs. Joint TMD exercise expert talks will also discuss the possibility of reciprocal invitation of observers to actual firings of TMD systems.

-- Early warning information

By the end of this fall, the United States and Russia expect to begin preparation of the Moscow site for the Joint Data Exchange Center JDEC) and begin renovation of the building that will house the center, as well as begin drafting concept of operations and standard operating procedures documents. The United States and Russia intend to commence operations at the JDEC in June of 2001, with full operations to begin in September 2001. Regular meetings of working groups under the Joint Commission will take place in coming months.

The United States and Russia have agreed to set as an objective the completion of a bilateral agreement on a pre-launch notification system for launches of ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles by the APEC summit in November, while also reaching agreement on how the system will be opened up to the voluntary participation of all interested countries. They will meet to intensify negotiations in September.

-- Missile Non-Proliferation measures

The United States and Russia will work to reach consensus among MTCR partners at the October 9-13 Plenary, as well as with other countries, on plans for a global missile non-proliferation approach.

-- Confidence and transparency-building measures

Experts will meet this fall to review and approve additional warhead safety and security issues for expanded cooperation related to the CTBT. Experts will meet before the end of this year to consider expanded cooperation in the area of computations, experiments and materials. Experts in CTBT monitoring and verification will be scheduled to meet in late 2000 or early 2001 to consider expanded cooperation in this area.

-------- switzerland

Swiss Physicists Face Decision in Race for Atomic Particle

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/science/06PART.html

Suspicions that they are seeing sketchy evidence for a long-sought particle has put physicists in Geneva in a quandary over whether to proceed with building a $4 billion particle accelerator or to continue experiments with the current equipment.

Like their rivals at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, the Geneva physicists, at the laboratory known as CERN, for its French acronym, have been searching for a particle called the Higgs boson, which theoretical physicists believe may be the source of all mass in the universe - in effect, the reason matter has weight.

But the accelerator in Geneva that is producing the data is scheduled to be shut on Oct. 1, so that the new machine can be constructed in the same underground tunnel. The new machine, which is to have a $500,000 contribution from the United States, would almost certainly be powerful enough to see the Higgs, assuming that it exists, by 2005 or 2006.

The trouble for the Geneva scientists is that an upgraded machine at Fermi may be powerful enough to make the discovery first, after beginning operation next spring. CERN physicists, who generally favor an extension for their existing equipment, met yesterday to present data from their particle detectors.

"Of course, we are all thrilled," said Dr. Tiziano Camporesi, spokesman for the group that is working on one of the four large particle detectors at the accelerator. "We have been on this machine for more than 10 years now, and clearly this is the first time we have seen something which might give a hint of a discovery" of the Higgs.

Next week, an advisory panel at CERN will make a recommendation to the director general of the lab, Prof. Luciano Maiani, on continuing the experiments for up to several months longer. Dr. Roger Cashmore, the research director of the accelerator and a member of the panel, said that despite the physicists' enthusiasm it was still not clear what the recommendation would be.

"We have to balance whether we can turn an excitement into a bona fide reliable physics signal against big delays to the next big project inside CERN," Dr. Cashmore said.

For decades, particle physicists have worked out a complex theory, the Standard Model, which accounts for the masses of all the known particles. It also seems to explain three of the four known forces by which particles in the universe interact, or exert forces, on one another.

Those three are the strong nuclear force, which holds together atomic nuclei; the weak nuclear force, which causes radioactive decay; and the electromagnetic force, whose effects are familiar from magnets and electrically charged rods but which also operates at the subatomic level. The force of gravity, described by Einstein's theory of relativity, has not been successfully incorporated into the Standard Model.

For the model to predict the particle masses, it requires the existence of one particle unlike any other - the Higgs boson. By filling space with a molasseslike field of energy, the Higgs serves as a sort of wellspring of mass for other particles. But when those particles are smashed together violently enough in particle accelerators, the Higgs should appear as a particle itself.

The precise mass of the Higgs is uncertain. The heavier it is, the more powerful the accelerator that will be required to create it in those collisions. Most of the excitement at CERN has flowed from signals indicating that three Higgs bosons may have been captured in one of the big particle detectors at an energy of 115 billion electron volts. The mass of a hydrogen atom, expressed in those units, is 1 billion electron volts. But the signals could simply be statistical flukes, and more data could confirm the signal or wipe it out.

If the Higgs is too heavy to be seen by the existing accelerator, called LEP, the Fermi lab's upgraded machine will have a shot at it. "Globally, everybody would like the Higgs boson to be found tomorrow," said Dr. Chris Quigg, a Fermilab theorist. "On the other hand, some of my colleagues can't quite keep themselves from hoping that it's really there, but LEP can't quite confirm it."

If the Higgs does not turn up at the Fermi lab, the $4 billion CERN machine may be able to find it starting in 2005. But that date seems a long way off for CERN physicists who see a possible discovery at hand.

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

Chapter 1: Worker risks weren't a priority

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 06:26 PM ET
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/008.htm

CLEVELAND - In January 1948, Bernard Wolf came here to assure workers at Harshaw Chemical Co. that the uranium they secretly processed for the government's nuclear weapons program posed no threat to their health.

In fact, Wolf, a medical director with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, had evidence of serious dangers. His staff had done classified studies at Harshaw's restricted "Area C" plant and found that concentrations of radioactive uranium dust in the air reached 200 times the safety limits of the day.

Having alerted Harshaw to the problems, Wolf wanted workers' urine checked for signs of kidney damage. But company officials worried that the tests might alarm employees, so they asked that he come out first to allay any fears among the men.

"It is easy to understand that extensive sample-taking of this character may cause (workers) to wonder about their health," Wolf's boss wrote to Harshaw executives just after the doctor's trip. "It was for this reason that Dr. Wolf (visited) to explain to them that all of our records indicated that no unusual hazard existed."

Actually, the severe hazards already documented at Harshaw were getting worse.

By late 1948, medical officials in the nuclear weapons program were reporting that nearly all of the 100 workers at Area C were overexposed to radioactive dust, with a third of them breathing 140 to 374 times the safety limit. Wolf, who is now deceased, raised concerns that the exposures could cause cancers, kidney problems and other illnesses that might not show up for decades.

"Workers (at Harshaw) will have to be followed medically very carefully in the future to detect the earliest signs of any damage," Wolf's staff reported.

But after Harshaw's work for the nuclear weapons program ended in the mid-1950s, no one returned to check the workers' health or tell them of their risks.

Here and elsewhere, thousands of workers were left in the dark about the often severe hazards they faced while working for private companies that were hired secretly in the 1940s and '50s to process radioactive and toxic material for nuclear weapons. Fifty years later, many of the survivors have increased chances of cancer, as well as kidney, lung and other diseases as a result of their work. But there's been almost no effort to learn whether such illnesses have occurred or contributed to any deaths.

Now, with Congress and the Clinton administration trying to account for illnesses among nuclear weapons workers, people who labored at commercial facilities employed by the arms program in its early years may be missed again. Congress is expected to vote in coming weeks on legislation to provide special compensation to men and women with health problems linked to nuclear weapons jobs, but that legislation promises mainly to cover those who were employed at government-owned sites that ultimately assumed most weapons-production operations.

"The people at these (private) places have essentially been forgotten," says Michael Sprinker of the International Chemical Workers Union, which represented people at some companies.

"They paid a huge price for fighting the Cold War," he adds. "It would have been one thing if they'd made the choice: 'OK, I'll take the risk because this is important for the country or because it's a good job that can support my family.' But they didn't make that choice. They were told this stuff wouldn't hurt them. The government has to take some responsibility."

As USA TODAY reported Wednesday, hundreds of companies quietly shifted their plants, mills and shops to nuclear weapons work under classified contracts and subcontracts with the weapons program in its early years. Many of the sites did only limited work, but dozens handled large volumes of material, sometimes for a decade or more before the government finally had its own weapons-making facilities ready to take over in the mid-1950s.

The newspaper conducted scores of interviews and studied 100,000 pages of records on the operations, many of them recently declassified and never before made public. Findings:

For decades, the government suppressed classified reports on dozens of contracting sites where workers faced extreme levels of radiation and airborne toxins from beryllium, fluorides and other dangerous chemicals. One 1949 survey of hazards at seven firms processing uranium in St. Louis and Cleveland and at facilities outside Pittsburgh and Buffalo found high radioactive dust levels at every one. Of 648 workers at those sites, the partially declassified survey noted, 40% had average exposures at least five times the safety limit; 10% were at least 125 times the limit.

Federal officials and executives at contracting companies often misled workers about their risks because of fears that they would seek hazard pay, sue for damages or demand safer conditions. The weapons program repeatedly killed plans to give workers details on their radiation exposures. "It is necessary to consider whether (such a policy) would serve merely to alarm employees unnecessarily, invite baseless claims, and complicate collective bargaining," noted a 1956 memo circulated to top program officials.

Recommendations for reducing workplace dangers often were shelved because the government thought they might interfere with production and the contractors didn't want to spend the money. In a 1949 report, medical officials in the weapons program urged that hazards be cut "despite existing operational pressures." But noting the need "to keep costs to a minimum," they suggested that an incremental approach "seems more logical than assuring safe results by over-designing" protections.

The lack of medical follow-up on people who did nuclear weapons work at private facilities makes it impossible to say how many of the 10,000 or so people those facilities employed over the years may have gotten sick.

But experts hired by USA TODAY to review some of the old health studies estimate that workers in the most hazardous jobs have substantially higher risks for cancer and other illnesses.

"Most all the guys are dead now. Cancer, kidneys, lung problems, you see a lot of that," says John Smith, 87, a Harshaw retiree who worked on the uranium-processing operation. "I feel lucky to be alive, but I'm worried. It makes you bitter, them knowing about the risks and not telling. If I'd known, I would have quit."

Wednesday, USA TODAY revealed the untold story of the role played by private companies in the Cold War. This is the story of what happened to the workers.

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Chapter 1 Secret program left toxic legacy

USA Today
09/05/00- Updated 08:04 PM ET
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/001.htm

The U.S. government secretly hired hundreds of private companies during the 1940s and '50s to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material, leaving a legacy of poisoned workers and contaminated communities that lingers to this day.

From mom-and-pop machine shops to big-name chemical firms, private manufacturing facilities across the nation were quietly converted to the risky business of handling tons of uranium, thorium, polonium, beryllium and other radioactive and toxic substances. Few of the contractors were prepared for the hazards of their government-sponsored missions.

Thousands of workers were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, often hundreds of times stronger than the limits of the time. Dozens of communities were contaminated, their air, ground and water fouled by toxic and radioactive waste.

The risks were kept hidden. In some cases, they have remained so.

A USA TODAY investigation finds that the government's reliance on a vast network of private plants, mills and shops to build America's early nuclear arsenal had grave health and environmental consequences. Federal officials knew of severe hazards to the companies' employees and surrounding neighborhoods, but reports detailing the problems were classified and locked away.

The full story of the secret contracting effort has never been told. Many of the companies that were involved have been forgotten, the impact of their operations unexamined for half a century. Yet their history carries profound implications for the thousands of people they employed, as well as for the thousands who lived - and still live - near the factories.

At a time when the nation is reassessing the worker ills and ecological damage wrought by large, government-owned nuclear weapons plants, the record of the private companies that did the work before those facilities were built has had little scrutiny.

Most of the contracting sites were in the industrial belt: through New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, around the Great Lakes and down the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. They were in big cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis. And they were in smaller communities, such as Lockport, N.Y., Carnegie, Pa., and Joliet, Ill.

Some did only minor amounts of work for the weapons program, but dozens of private facilities handled large quantities of radioactive and toxic material. "These places just fell off the map," says Dan Guttman, former director of the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, which was set up in 1994 to investigate revelations that government-funded scientists exposed unknowing subjects to dangerous isotopes in secret Cold War studies.

"People were put at considerable risk. It appears (the government) knew full well that (safety) standards were being violated, but there's been no effort to maintain contact with these people (and) look at the effects," says Guttman, a lawyer and weapons program watchdog who has returned to private practice since the committee finished its work in 1995. "There's no legitimate reason for this neglect."

USA TODAY reviewed 100,000 pages of government records, many recently declassified and never before subject to public review, to assess the scope and impact of nuclear weapons work done at private facilities in the 1940s and '50s. Reporters visited former contracting sites and archives in 10 states and interviewed scores of former employees, people living near the sites and government officials.

Key findings: Beginning with the development of the first atomic bombs during World War II, the government secretly hired more than 200 private companies to process and produce material used in nuclear weapons production. At least a third of them handled hundreds, thousands or even millions of pounds of radioactive and toxic material, often without the equipment or knowledge to protect the health and safety of workers or nearby communities.

The contracting wound down in the mid-1950s as government facilities were built to take over most weapons-building operations - a move spurred partly by hazards at contracting sites.

The government documented health risks at many of the private facilities doing weapons work, producing classified reports that detailed radiation exposure rates hundreds of times above its safety standards.

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, hired by USA TODAY to provide an expert review of old radiation data on three contracting operations, estimates that workers in the riskiest jobs had a 40% chance of dying from cancer - an increase of 200% over the general population - as well as higher odds for respiratory and kidney ills. But there's no telling how many, if any, workers have gotten sick or died from their exposures; they've gotten virtually no medical study.

Dozens of companies doing weapons work contaminated the air, soil and water with toxic and radioactive waste. Secret studies done at the time documented some operations that pumped hundreds of pounds of uranium dust into the air each month and others that dumped thousands of pounds of solid and liquid wastes.

Both the government and executives at the companies it hired for weapons work hid the health and environmental problems.

Federal officials misled workers, insisting their jobs were safe despite having evidence to the contrary. Surviving employees still have not been told of their risks, though screening and early treatment could boost their odds for surviving some illnesses they might face as a result of their work.

Likewise, communities were left unaware of toxic and radioactive waste spilling from behind the innocuous facades of businesses. The secrecy that shrouded the weapons program's contracting still masks residual contamination at some sites; other sites have never been checked for problems.

"It was a different time, the Cold War was on," says Arthur Piccot, 81, who monitored health and safety at some contracting sites in the late '40s and early '50s for the weapons program.

Producing weapons "was the priority, period," he says. "People didn't (fully) understand the risks."

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Research ignores private nuclear contractors

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 06:15 PM ET
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/012.htm

Academics and federal scientists have done dozens of studies on illnesses and deaths among workers employed at federal weapons plants.

But there's been virtually no research on people who had often-similar jobs at commercial facilities that the government secretly hired to do weapons work in the years before the government plants were built.

Some of the studies of federal workers found significant increases in the rates of cancer, kidney disease and pulmonary problems linked to radioactive and toxic exposures.

But USA TODAY found only two health studies that focused directly on workers at private contracting sites and one that touched on them tangentially.

A rundown:

A study of workers at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, begun after a 1987 series in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch detailed the company's role in early nuclear weapons production, concluded in 1998 that workers had a 10% higher death rate from all types of cancer than the general population.

The rate for lymphatic, esophageal and rectal cancers, however, was 40% above the norm. The study also found a 218% higher rate of kidney illnesses among Mallinckrodt workers.

A 1987 study of workers at Linde Air Products in Tonawanda, N.Y., one of the weapons program's big uranium refining operations in the '40s, found that workers died of cancer at a rate 18% higher than the general population.

The study, done in response to legal pressure from the union representing Linde employees, also found that workers in the uranium operation suffered respiratory illnesses at rates up to 200% above the U.S. average.

A study of workers at the government's Mound polonium plant near Dayton, Ohio, noted that workers at Monsanto's Dayton contracting operation in the years before the federal plant was built suffered significant increases in death rates from lung, rectal and other cancers. The study also found that death rates from respiratory diseases were notably higher than the national average.

In 1983, researchers hired by the government to do the Linde study proposed that they also look at workers employed at other private contracting sites, including Harshaw in Cleveland and ElectroMet in Niagara Falls, N.Y. But the proposal was rejected because it would be difficult - and expensive - to track all the workers.

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Hearings sought on toxic exposure

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 11:13 PM ET
By Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/013.htm

Two key senators said Wednesday that they will examine the federal government's role in exposing thousands of workers to dangerous levels of radiation during the 1940s and '50s.

Responding to a USA TODAY report that detailed the government's secret use of private companies to build America's early nuclear arsenal, the top Republican and Democrat on a Senate panel dealing with workers' safety said they will seek hearings.

The report, which continues Thursday and Friday, found that thousands of workers intentionally were left in the dark about their exposure to radiation and hazardous substances. Dozens of communities also were contaminated with toxic and radioactive waste.

"These facts sound an alarm beyond any doubt, and it is appropriate for our subcommittee to take a look at it," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of a Senate appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over labor and health issues. "The whole question of radioactivity is a very big one because it really can spread beyond those communities."

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the ranking Democrat on the panel, and Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, will call on the government Thursday to disclose the history of the sites, re-examine surrounding areas and redress the damage done to workers and communities.

"The federal government must lift the veil of secrecy," Harkin said.

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Beryllium workers' plight gets attention

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 06:49 PM ET
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/011.htm

One group of companies employed by the nuclear weapons program has received a lot of attention for the risks imposed on workers: beryllium manufacturers.

Beginning in the 1940s, the government hired firms at about 30 private sites to produce or fabricate materials from the non-radioactive chemical compound, which causes a unique, sometimes fatal lung disease. When the Clinton administration began offering the government's first acknowledgments that weapons production jobs made some people sick, commercial firms that handled beryllium were singled out for attention.

Beryllium workers remain one of the few cases in which the government has given specific recognition to health risks faced by employees at private sites engaged in work for the weapons program. Legislation being considered in Congress that would compensate weapons workers for certain occupational illnesses makes specific provision for people at beryllium sites: The Energy Department would get 90 days to develop a complete list of companies the government hired to handle the material, and employees at those sites would automatically be covered by the bill.

Conversely, employees at other private companies hired to process and produce radioactive and toxic material for the weapons program get no promise of compensation for work-related ills. The legislation would allow future administrations to "certify" that such sites were involved in weapons work, which would make employees from those places eligible, but there's no deadline, or requirement, for doing so.

"There's no reason why these other people (employed by companies that did weapons work) should be treated differently," says Richard Miller of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union.

There's been substantial press coverage of illnesses among beryllium workers, led by a groundbreaking series published last year by The Blade, of Toledo, Ohio. Also, chronic beryllium disease, the illness caused by exposure, can only be contracted from direct contact with the element, so there's no denying that workers' illnesses are linked to occupational hazards.

USA TODAY turned up documents dating to the mid-1940s in which officials in the weapons program acknowledged that beryllium work was making people sick. By the late '40s, workers already were turning up with related respiratory problems - as were neighbors of the beryllium plants, which often pumped toxic dust into the air.

In May 1948, medical officials with the Atomic Energy Commission, which ran the weapons program, reported that "health hazards in the beryllium plants of AEC contractors" were severe enough to consider "a complete shutdown of beryllium operations while a thorough solution to the health problem is sought."

The idea was dismissed.

Records from that era show that some of the worst beryllium exposures occurred at Brush Beryllium plants in Cleveland, Loraine and Luckey, Ohio. But there were dozens of other beryllium contractors doing weapons work at private sites in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington.

Many had serious problems, often driven by the government's keen hunger for beryllium, an extremely strong, lightweight material used in metal alloys for a variety of weapons-making materials.

In August 1951, for example, AEC health officials reported that workers' already high beryllium exposures at the Brush plant in Luckey were rising steadily. "The probable reason ... is that greater production rates have been attained."

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'We'll continue to be aggressive'

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 11:30 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/007.htm

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who took office in August 1998, was briefed on USA TODAY's investigation of the health and environmental record of private companies hired in the 1940s and '50s to produce and process radioactive and toxic material for the government's nuclear weapons program.

Here are some of his responses during a telephone interview Tuesday with USA TODAY reporter Peter Eisler:

Q: It seems that a lot of these old contracting sites have been forgotten over the decades since they wrapped up their work. Is that so?

A: Some of these private sites have fallen off the map. And it's important that in the not-too-distant future the government look at their potential hazards and find ways to be responsible to the communities and the workers.

Q: What sort of steps do you think are necessary to address the health and environmental legacies of these places?

A: Over the years, both the government and the contractors were not candid with workers and the public about potential contamination as well as cleanup. We need to find ways to reconstruct and preserve the history of some of these sites. If we find historic sites that need to be cleaned up, I believe the government is obligated to do just that. (And) it is time we pay (workers) if they are sick because of their work.

Q: This administration has been the first to acknowledge that the nuclear weapons program caused a lot of illnesses among workers. Now there's legislation to provide compensation to some of those people. Do you think employees at the private sites should be included?

A: We'll continue to be aggressive, whether at federal or private sites.

Q: What about the environmental damage at some of these places?

A: Cleaning up the environmental legacy of the Cold War is a massive task. We have the largest cleanup program in the world, with a budget of over $6 billion a year, to focus on some truly urgent problems. But that doesn't mean we should forget about the past. It will take some time (to address problems at private sites), but we have a responsibility to clean them up.

Q: The government never has released any sort of comprehensive list of all the private sites. Would you consider compiling a public registry?

A: I would be receptive to such an idea. We've already started to develop databases that can be shared with the public. I believe it's important that we be open with the public and our workers, and we should do a full accounting.

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Secret project carried hidden dangers

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 02:33 PM ET

In the 1940s and '50s, the U.S. government secretly hired scores of private companies to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material. But the companies were not prepared for the hazards of handling nuclear material. Workers were not informed of the risks. Thousands were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Government reports were classified and buried. The result is a legacy of poisoned workers and communities that lingers to this day. The full story of the secret nuclear contracting has never been told, until now.

Today Thursday Friday Toxic legacy At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government secretly hired hundreds of private companies to work on America's nuclear weapons program - and never told the workers or communities of the dangers they might face from radiation and other hazards. The workers Many of the surviving workers now have higher risks for cancer and other ailments, but there has been almost no effort to learn whether such problems have occurred. That oversight might cost those who have gotten sick a chance for compensation. The environment Radioactive and toxic contamination at many of the contracting sites lingered for years, sometimes with serious health risks. Some still are not cleaned up, ignored by federal programs meant to address pollution from nuclear weapons production. Full story

http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/001.htm

Only beryllium workers slated for compensation Few efforts made to study occupational illnesses Military bases used in hazardous processing Food and crops, transport workers exposed

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Type of radiation doesn't matter: 'The devil is in the dose'

USA Today
09/06/00
By Steve Sternberg USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000906/2615865s.htm

For three years, Grace Fryer of Orange, N.J., worked for the U.S. Radium Co. Each day, she mixed glue, water and radium powder and applied the glimmering, glow-in-the-dark paint to the numbers on watch faces. When the narrow tips of the horsehair brushes became misshapen, she reshaped them with her lips, as her supervisors had advised.

''I think I pointed mine with my lips about six times to every watch dial,'' she told the Orange Daily Courier in 1928..

In 1922, two years after Fryer left the factory to take a job as a bank teller, her teeth began falling out and she developed a painful abscess in her jaw. She and four other women filed a much-publicized lawsuit against their employer. Eventually, the women won a settlement of $10,000 each, plus a $600-a-year annuity and medical expenses. Soon after, they died.

At that time, little was known about how nuclear radiation affects human health. The case, perhaps the first involving occupational exposure to lethal doses of radiation, marked the birth of a new science, the study of the health effects of radioactive isotopes.

The field would grow along with the nation's nuclear weapons industry -- abetted, authorities say, by scientists determined to deepen their understanding of radiation and its risks by exposing thousands of people to radioactive substances. Cancer patients, pregnant women, orphans and military personnel were exposed. So were thousands of workers in government laboratories and weapons-production plants, and thousands more in the private manufacturing facilities detailed in this USA TODAY series.

The best information on the risks of these exposures has emerged from intensive research involving survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. As many as 200,000 people were killed immediately or died in the aftermath of the explosions. Scientists also have linked 428 of 4,863 cancer cases in atomic bomb survivors from 1950 to 1990 to genetic damage from the bomb blasts.

Cancer occurs because radiation disables genetic controls on cell growth and replication, says Owen Hoffman of the environmental consulting firm SENES Oak Ridge in Tennessee. Whether the radiation comes from uranium, polonium, thorium or radium doesn't matter; what matters is the amount of radioactive energy deposited in tissue, Hoffman says. ''The devil is in the dose,'' he says.

Researchers think of radiation dosages as the amount of energy absorbed per unit of body mass, usually expressed in scientific units as joules per kilogram, says Keith Eckerman, a dosimetry expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Some isotopes are more likely than others to affect human health following exposure because they emit more radiation.

Scientists measure the amount of radioactive energy deposited in tissue using a unit called a ''gray.'' One gray is enough to cause radiation sickness, which is marked by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever and the sloughing off of damaged tissue in the gut. Radiation sickness can kill in hours, days or weeks; death is brought on by infection or uncontrolled bleeding. However, people do become ill at much lower doses. ''The consensus is that there is no dose at which there is absolutely no risk,'' Hoffman says.

A single dose of about 0.15 gray to the genitals can cause temporary sterility in men, and 0.25 gray delivered to a fetus at day 28 of gestation can cause birth defects and other developmental problems. Experts say studies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have shown that a dose greater than 0.2 gray is enough to significantly increase the number of cancers that emerge in a population.

Researchers have found that:

* Uranium and various uranium compounds, used as fuel for plutonium-production reactors or as the explosive in atomic bombs, can affect the body in different ways, depending on how they are processed. If a uranium compound isn't soluble, it is likely to be inhaled as dust and collect in the lungs, where it eventually causes cancer. If the uranium compound is soluble, it is deposited in bone, where it can cause leukemia by damaging the blood-forming marrow. Uranium, and such compounds as uranium hexafluoride and uranium tetrafluoride, also can act as a chemical toxin, killing off cells in the liver and kidney.

Although about 80% of uranium is excreted from the body in the first day, the remainder can stay in the body for years.

* Polonium, a radioactive decay product of radon that is used to trigger chain reactions in nuclear weapons, behaves differently than uranium. Although polonium exposure is likely to occur by inhaling dust particles in the air, polonium doesn't settle in the lungs, as uranium does. It filters into the blood and is carried throughout the body.

''Polonium's hazards may well be higher than uranium because a larger dose of energy would be retained in the body longer,'' Eckerman says. Because it travels throughout the body, polonium has been linked to more soft-tissue cancers than bone cancers. Typical sites: the liver, spleen and kidney.

* Thorium, used in nuclear reactors that produce enriched uranium and plutonium, concentrates in the lungs and in focal points in bone. ''It can localize in the skeleton, irradiating critical blood-forming tissues,'' Eckerman says. The short-term danger is radiation sickness; the long-term dangers are lung cancer, leukemia, lymphoma and bone cancer.

* Radium, a common byproduct of uranium refining, gives off radon gas. Radon gas is highly carcinogenic: Most radioactive substances will increase the risk of cancer in a population by one case per 1,000 people, but radon increases the lifetime risk of lung cancer to one in 100. Experts note that 30% of lung cancers among non-smokers in the general population are thought to result from radon exposure.

If there is good news, it is that radium is readily distributed throughout bone, diluting the amount of energy absorbed through the entire skeleton. But radium can cause bone cancer, as it did in many of Grace Fryer's co-workers in the watch-face factory.

* Beryllium is non-radioactive but extremely hazardous. Stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum, Beryllium is useful in bomb-making and aerospace. (''There's even a bicycle made of beryllium alloy,'' says Babette Marrone, an expert on chronic beryllium disease at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.) Beryllium disease most commonly strikes machinists who work with the metal. It collects in the lungs.

In some people, beryllium deposition is harmless; others have a genetic susceptibility that makes beryllium exposure life-threatening. In those cases, immune cells in the lungs encase beryllium particles in nodules of scar tissue, which impair breathing.

How severe the illness is depends on the individual's sensitivity to beryllium. Effects can emerge 10 to 40 years after exposure, with an average latency of about 12 years. People who are highly sensitive to beryllium can deteriorate in a matter of months, suffocating because their lungs no longer function; others might experience mild illness or not get sick at all.

---

Nuclear Nightmare? Report: Early Nuke Efforts Left Thousands Sick

ABC News
09/006/00
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/nuclear_report000906.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - The U.S. government secretly hired hundreds of private companies during the 1940s and 1950s to process huge amounts of nuclear weapons material leaving a legacy of poisoned workers and contaminated communities that lingers to this day, USA Today reported today.

Federal officials knew of severe hazards to the companies' employees and surrounding neighborhoods, but reports detailing the problems were classified and locked away, it said.

From small machine shops to big-name chemical firms, private manufacturing facilities across the nation were quietly converted to the risky business of handling tons of uranium, thorium, polonium, beryllium and other radioactive and toxic substances to build America's early nuclear arsenal, the paper said.

Not Prepared for Material

Few of the companies were prepared for the hazards of handling nuclear material and thousands of workers were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, often hundreds of times stronger than the limits of the time. Dozens of communities were contaminated, air, ground and water fouled by toxic and radioactive waste, USA Today said.

Most of the contracting sites were in the industrial belt: through New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, around the Great Lakes and down the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. They were in big cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis. And they were in smaller communities, such as Lockport, N.Y., Carnegie, Pa., and Joliet, Ill.

"These places just fell off the map," the paper quoted Dan Guttman, former director of the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, as saying.

'Considerable Risk'

The commission was set up in 1994 to investigate revelations that government-funded scientists exposed unknowing subjects to dangerous isotopes in secret Cold War studies.

"People were put at considerable risk. It appears (the government) knew full well that (safety) standards were being violated, but there's been no effort to maintain contact with these people (and) look at the effects," Guttman, a lawyer and weapons program watchdog, told the paper.

USA Today said it reviewed 100,000 pages of government records, many recently declassified and never before subject to public review, to assess the scope and impact of nuclear weapons work done at private facilities in the 1940s and '50s.

Reporters visited former contracting sites and archives in 10 states and interviewed scores of former employees, people living near the sites and government officials, it said.

The government documented health risks at many of the private facilities doing weapons work, producing classified reports that detailed radiation exposure rates hundreds of times above its safety standards.

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research estimates workers in the riskiest jobs had a 40 percent chance of dying from cancer, an increase of 200 percent over the general population. They also had higher odds for respiratory and kidney ills, according to USA Today. But there has been virtually no medical study of these people.

Federal officials even misled workers, insisting their jobs were safe despite having evidence to the contrary. Surviving employees still have not been told of their risks, though screening and early treatment could boost their odds for surviving some illnesses they might face in the future, the newspaper added.

---

Report: Nuclear Workers Exposed

Associated Press
Swptember 6, 2000 Filed at 8:12 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Workers.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Energy Department officials said Wednesday there is a need to better catalog the use of civilian industrial sites in the production of America's nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

Officials, however, did cite documents showing that the use of private companies in the weapons program had been acknowledged and been the subject of government reviews as early as the 1970s.

A report Wednesday in USA Today said that voluminous government records filed away for decades document how the government relied on hundreds of private companies during the 1940s and 1950s to handle dangerous materials used to make nuclear weapons, exposing thousands of workers to potential health risks.

While some of the most dramatic cases involving private companies had been reported, USA Today said it has documented for the first time the scope of the programs.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in a statement that the department ``has been candid and honest with our current and former workers'' about health risks posed by past work on weapons programs. He said this ``was especially the case'' last year when he personally apologized to Cold War workers put at risk as part of their defense work at certain government nuclear weapons production facilities.

Richardson wants to create a central, computerized database of all facilities -- including private plants and businesses -- that were involved in weapons work.

Officials said it was acknowledged as early as the 1970s that these sites should be evaluated to determine the risks posed to workers and the environment, and that some of these sites have been part of the department's weapons complex cleanup program. One report in 1980 summarized the scope of the review involving 74 sites, according to the department.

In a series of three stories beginning Wednesday, USA Today reported on material gleaned from a review of 100,000 pages of government records, many of which it said were only recently declassified.

Reporters found the government relied on a vast network of private plants, mills and shops to build the early U.S. nuclear arsenal, with grave health and environmental consequences for thousands of workers and dozens of communities.

Among the major findings:

--The government hired about 300 private companies during World War II to process and produce material used in nuclear weapons production, with at least a third of them handling large amounts of radioactive and toxic material even if they did not have the proper equipment or knowledge to protect workers.

--The government regularly documented worker health risks at many private facilities, producing highly classified reports that detailed radiation exposure rates hundreds of times above safety standards.

--Dozens of private companies contaminated the surrounding air, soil and water with toxic and radioactive waste.

--Both the government and private executives at the companies hid the health and environmental problems.

-------- new mexico

Sealed Decision Is Inadvertently Made Public in Lab Secrets Case

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/national/06LAB.html

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 5 - Lawyers for the former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee filed a brief today with the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver urging that it reject as disingenuous government arguments against granting bail to Dr. Lee, because prosecutors had shaped many of the terms of his proposed home detention.

In an earlier motion, prosecutors had said the conditions for granting bail were inadequate, since they still would not prevent him from using his wife to spirit nuclear secrets to a hostile power. Under those conditions she would be allowed to come and go, with permission, from their house.

In its motion today, the defense argued that since the government itself had proposed some of the more stringent terms of Dr. Lee's home detention, like the placement of video cameras in his garden, it could not now say those terms were inadequate.

The trial judge handling the case, James A. Parker of Federal District Court in Albuquerque, issued an order on Aug. 24, saying he had decided that Dr. Lee, who is charged with illegally downloading a large number of nuclear weapons secrets while at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, should be released to a strict form of home detention on $1 million bail. Judge Parker's order reversed his ruling of last December, when he agreed with the government that Dr. Lee posed such a threat to national security that he had to be jailed until his trial, scheduled for November.

But in a confusing twist, the judge raised questions about whether his written decision granting bail had been improperly made public. Last Thursday, Judge Parker wrote a new 17-page opinion, stating why he had changed his mind, and it was filed with the court that day. But it was placed under seal so government officials could determine if it contained classified information.

Over the weekend the new opinion became public when it was included with a motion filed by the United States attorney in Albuquerque seeking an appeal of the bail decision. Once prosecutors filed their appeal, they handed the order to defense attorneys and said it was now public, and it was distributed.

In describing his order's becoming public, Judge Parker said today that he did not believe anyone intended to violate his order but added that he was concerned because his written opinion had slipped out in a way that seemed contrary to his aim of distributing his orders more straightforwardly.

"I don't think there were bad intentions on anyone's part," he said. But, he added, "I honestly don't know the status of it now."

Classifiers at the Department of Energy apparently reviewed the document, deleted a few details and gave it to the United States attorney on Friday.

The United States attorney then attached the opinion, which pokes numerous holes in the government's case, to its emergency appeal.

Dr. Lee remains in prison pending the appeal.

The judge's decision has still not been posted on the federal court's official Web site or released at the courthouse. Patricia Chavez, the spokeswoman for the United States attorney, said the office would have no comment.

The opinion is important in part because it casts deep doubts about many of the government's assertions about Dr. Lee's supposed deceptiveness and the value of the secrets he is accused of downloading, issues at the heart of the prosecution's case.

"The totality of the information of which I now have knowledge presents a tableau different from that described by the government last December," the judge wrote. "Instead of being confined, as it was then, to an umbral area of pitch- black darkness, the relevant information has shifted to a penumbral region that is a somewhat mottled shade of gray."

Originally, government witnesses had testified that Dr. Lee had downloaded the "crown jewels" of the United States' weapons program, but in his order Judge Parker said that new information presented at the latest bail hearing demonstrated that the information "no longer is so clearly deserving of that label." He pointedly quoted a defense expert who called the government's assertions "unbridled exaggeration."

The judge said he was still concerned about some of Dr. Lee's actions, particularly a meeting in a Beijing hotel room in 1988 with two senior Chinese nuclear weapons scientists that was not fully disclosed to the government for more than a decade.

But Judge Parker said he now either had dismissed many of the government's other claims about Dr. Lee's alleged deceptions or had grave doubts about them. For instance, he said, he had been most influenced by an F.B.I. agent's testimony in December that Dr. Lee had lied to a colleague to gain access to a computer he needed to download the secret data. That agent, Robert Messemer, admitted in court several weeks ago that Dr. Lee had not lied.

Judge Parker also noted that Mr. Messemer had testified earlier that he anticipated that there would be a sharp increase in efforts by enemy agents to find seven missing computer tapes on which Dr. Lee had placed much of data he improperly downloaded. In the latest hearing, Mr. Messemer conceded that no such activity had materialized.

The judge also wrote that he had changed his mind about granting bail because of the government's new charge that Dr. Lee had committed the acts not because he was spying but in an effort to help him get a job at some foreign scientific institutes, most in countries like Australia, Singapore and Switzerland.

"Enhancing one's résumé," Judge Parker wrote, "is less sinister than the treacherous motive the government, at least by implication, ascribed to Dr. Lee at the end of last year."

He also wrote that Dr. Lee had not only done little to conceal his downloading, and also knew full well that there were monitoring systems that would detect what he was doing. At one point when he was trying to erase some files, however, Dr. Lee called an open help line at the laboratory to seek assistance.

"This suggests that Dr. Lee's actions may not have been as surreptitious, clandestine, and secretive as the government originally indicated," Judge Parker wrote.

And in a long footnote, he expressed anger that the government "seems to have procrastinated in removing unduly onerous conditions of confinement" that he had asked be eased at the beginning of this year.

Judge Parker described some of the conditions as "demeaning."

He noted, however, that, more than eight months later, the conditions have been improved, and he assured the government that his dismay over the slow response had not colored his decision to free Dr. Lee on bail.

-------- virginia

Report: Va. Nuclear Workers Exposed

The Associated Press
09-06-00
From: Ndunlks@aol.com

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - Government records filed away for decades document how the U.S. government used hundreds of private companies during the 1940s and 1950s to handle dangerous materials used to make nuclear weapons, exposing thousands of workers to potential health risks, USA Today reported.

A White House panel - the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments - was set up in 1994 to investigate health risks from various secret Cold War studies and other government inquiries have focused on risks to workers - public and private - who handled nuclear material.

While some of the most dramatic cases involving private companies have been written about previously, USA Today said it has documented for the first time the scope of the programs.

In a series of three stories beginning in Wednesday's editions, the paper reports on material gleaned from a review of 100,000 pages of government records, many of which it said were only recently declassified.

Reporters visited archives and former contracting sites in 10 states and interviewed scores of former employees, neighbors and government officials.

They found the government relied on a vast network of private plants, mills and shops to build the early U.S. nuclear arsenal, with grave health and environmental consequences for thousands of workers and dozens of communities.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told the paper he was ``receptive'' to the idea of developing a government database for all of the sites that can be shared with the public and said the administration will ``continue to be aggressive, whether at federal or private sites,'' in efforts to obtain compensation for workers harmed in the various nuclear programs.

Among the major findings of the USA Today review:

The government hired about 300 private companies during World War II to process and produce material used in nuclear weapons production, with at least a third of them handling large amounts of radioactive and toxic material even if they did not have the proper equipment or knowledge to protect workers.

The government regularly documented worker health risks at many private facilities, producing highly classified reports that detailed radiation exposure rates hundreds of times above safety standards.

Dozens of private companies contaminated the surrounding air, soil and water with toxic and radioactive waste.

Both the government and private executives at the companies hid the health and environmental problems.

-------- washington

HANFORD FIREFIGHTERS NOT ALWAYS "LIGHT ON THE LAND"

Lycos.com
AmeriScan: September 8, 2000
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-08-09.html

RICHLAND, Washington, September 8, 2000 (ENS) - A review team commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) says the agency's policy of avoiding unnecessary ecological damage from firefighting tactics did not delay fire suppression efforts at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, but that fire management plans and training should be improved. The fire that burned almost 164,000 acres of federal, state and private land this summer was "fought aggressively from the start, with no delay in suppression tactics due to a written policy of using a 'light hand on the land' in the area now known as the Hanford Reach National Monument," the national interagency fire review team has concluded.

Firefighters with local fire districts are uncertain about the meaning of the "light hand on the land" policy and appear to believe that it restricts the use of certain firefighting tactics, the reviewers found. Some of the firefighters did not meet qualifications established by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, the reviewers learned. But the fire quickly took precedence over protecting the land, the reviewers found. The Incident Commander, "used his discretion to send the crews directly onto the Arid Lands Ecology area in an attempt to cut off the fire before it could spread. There was no delay in suppression tactics," the team reported. The conclusion is among the draft findings and recommendations of a nine member team asked by USFWS to review the fire. The team's report was expected to be finalized by late August but has been delayed until all team members have had a chance to review it. Many of the team members are now fighting fires across the West.

-------- us nuc politics

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary New York, New York)

For Immediate Release
September 6, 2000 12:50 P.M. EDT

READOUT TO THE TRAVEL POOL BY DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE STROBE TALBOTT AND JIM TIMBIE, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND ARMS CONTROL Outside Waldorf-Astoria, New York, New York

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/9/6/12.text.1

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: ... Opening discussion about the Kursk tragedy. President Clinton expressed his regret and his sympathies to the families, of course. And President Putin talked a bit about the episode itself and what it revealed and how he had coped with it. There was some further discussion on that.

The Balkans. Two issues in particular. The prospects for democracy there; and, of course, there is some reason for hope and also some reason for concern. The reason for hope being that there will be elections, but there are strong reasons to doubt whether those elections will be free and fair.

Also, some discussion of Kosovo; a sharing of assessment and a decision that Secretary Albright and Foreign Minister Ivanov, who will be having a working dinner tonight, including with their Balkan experts, will return to a number of very specific issues which Russia and the United States will work on together.

Nonproliferation. The issue which has come up in virtually every presidential meeting and for that matter vice presidential meeting for the last number of years, which is stopping the illicit transfer of Russian technology, both on nuclear weaponry and also on ballistic missile technology, to Iran.

President Clinton reiterated something he's talked before with President Putin about, and that is the extent to which this issue, which is not SALT, is an obstacle to our ability to cooperate together in other areas. And President Putin, on his side, assured President Clinton that he and his government are working very hard on this, and they agreed on a number of further contacts, which are basically a continuation of ones that have already been going on.

Iraq and Saddam Hussein's defiance of the inspection regime, they spent some time on. There was some discussion about U.N. scale of assessments, and the importance of getting a resolution on that. And then, towards the end, President Clinton raised, as he had before, first in the Moscow meeting in early June, the case of Edmund Pope and the importance that he attaches to that.

Q What was that last part?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Edmund Pope -- the Pope case. I think I would just say that President Putin certainly understands the importance that President Clinton attaches to that. I might just add that at the outset, I don't know how many of you were there for the pool sprays, but you asked -- did you aske a question about NMD? I can't remember --

Q No, I did Mideast.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Okay, you did Mideast. NMD, START, did not figure very much in this discussion, it was handled more by reference. And what I mean by that is that a number of President Putin's colleagues are here and have been working with several of us; Secretary Albright, Sandy Berger, myself. And the work that has been done was kind of captured in the document that was signed at the end of the session. President Clinton did speak on the record about NMD, and that was, I think, the fullest statement that was made during the course of the meeting on NMD.

Q Did he give any assurances on Montenegro? Did he say anything to Putin about sending a message to Milosevic not to go after Montenegro, there would be kind of consequences if that were to happen?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Well, President Clinton certainly expressed his views on that, and I think rather than my characterizing the Russian response -- and I'm sure you will find Russian sources who would be delighted to talk to you during the course of the afternoon -- I would just say that that's an important and urgent enough issue that they spent some time on it themselves and they did remand it to the foreign ministers.

I met with Secretary Albright immediately after this meeting to give her a full brief on what had been discussed there, and they're going to talk about it tonight over dinner.

Q Is there a chance for sort of jump-starting of arms reduction in the remainder of the Clinton presidency based on the NMD decision, or is everything really going to be plowed up down the road?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: It's not only just the position of the United States, it's a position that the Russians have recognized back when they were the Soviets -- that there is a logical and inescapable connection between strategic offense and strategic defense. We are prepared -- we, the United States -- are prepared to proceed vigorously with START III, including deeper reductions in strategic weaponry, but that will have to be in parallel with meaningful and productive discussions on strategic defenses.

And, as you know, we're not there yet with the Russians. What President Clinton said -- and I would prefer here that you go back to the words he gave you on the record earlier -- is that he feels that the decision that he made last week establishes a basis for his successor, whoever that is, and President Putin to keep working on this tough issue.

Now, the President also feels that the document that was signed today, which is the third in a series, is part of that basis as well. And if you want later on today, we can --

Q What is that -- the document basically --

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: What the document does is, it puts more flesh on the bones of the documents that were signed at the beginning of June in Moscow and in Okinawa, with regard to areas for us to cooperate on strategic stability, which means kind of reinforcing the nuclear peace, if I can put it that way, and also cooperation on dealing with new threats.

Just to give you a couple --

Q Dealing with what?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: New threats. I mean, basically, President Clinton is very committed to the ABM Treaty of 1972, as you all know. But the world has changed a lot in 28 years, including in good ways, which is to say the reduction of the superpower arsenals, but it's also changed in some bad ways -- the proliferation of ballistic missiles to states that will not anticipate it as being nuclear weapon states back when the original ABM Treaty was signed.

Now, among the specifics in this document today -- and I know you're all rushed, and we can get you expert briefings later on -- are the following: The two sides have committed themselves for the first time to finishing an agreement on pre-notification of launches of ballistic missiles. They also have agreed on a number of quite specific steps for implementing, putting in place a shared early warning facility next year. The document sort of spells out who will go where when, to talk to whom; but as I say, we can probably give you -- is there a fact sheet?

Q What is this called, and where was it signed?

Q Is it like a joint communique?

MR. TIMBIE: Yes, it's a Joint Statement on Strategic Stability Cooperation --

Q Is that out already?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: It's a Joint Statement on Strategic Stability Cooperation Initiative.

Q And where was it signed?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: It was signed by the two Presidents at the --

Q There's no handy acronym?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Well, if there is, we should have probably checked that.

Q It's the JSSSCS.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: That's not bad. Whew, thank goodness. (Laughter.) It was signed by the two Presidents at the end of their meeting. They brought in a table, Secretary Albright, Foreign Minister Ivanov, a number of other officials joined, and there was a formal signing ceremony.

Q You said something about it being a third of a kind; what were the other two?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: There was a Joint Statement on Strategic Stability signed at the Moscow Summit in early June, and a Joint Statement on --

MR. TIMBIE: -- Strategic Stability Cooperation.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: In Okinawa.

Q Are there any more to come?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: There's Brunei; we'll see.

Q More words though. Every time, it gets longer.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: That's actually not literally true. I think the first document was longer than the second. This is an iterative process. We have taken the position all along with the Russians that there was a lot that we could do cooperatively, particularly if they would join us in recognizing that it is going to be necessary, probably sooner rather than later, to make amendments to the ABM Treaty. But we don't want to have the whole process paralyzed. Where we can find areas to work together and agree, we want to move ahead in those areas.

Your question was about START III. Actually, starting formal negotiations on START III is going to have to wait until Russia is prepared to join us in formal negotiations on strategic defense. But there are these other areas where we can do a lot together.

Q Were there any more key bullet points? You were sort of in the middle of discussing the thing, and you got to I think Item number 2.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Yes, come on in here. Jim can be either ON BACKGROUND or -- I haven't even told you his name, so just a guy named Jim. Do you want to just tick off any of the other specifics?

MR. TIMBIE: Hi, I'm Jim Timbie. I worked on creating this thing. There will be -- joint threat assessments, sort of joint assessments of the missile threat to both countries. There will be cooperation on theater missile defense where there will be joint exercises so that if the U.S. and Russian TMD systems have to operate together someday, they'll know how to communicate with each other, work together and so forth.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: There have only been a couple of joint exercises.

MR. TIMBIE: There have been two, and there will be more. And there will also be a discussion of bringing other countries into the theater missile defense cooperation.

Q Did the Mideast come up at all?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: It came not in the sense of the Middle East peace process. Again, it's a little bit like the NMD-START issue. It didn't come up not because it isn't important, it didn't come up because it is being dealt with so intensively in everything else that's going on here, including between Secretary Albright and Foreign Minister Ivanov.

There was discussion of the broader area, which is to say Iran and Iraq.

Q In Iraq, Tariq Aziz is here making a real push to end the sanctions. He seems to have kind of support from the Russians for lifting the sanctions. Did they talk about that?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: President Clinton made a very strong push against the notion that Saddam Hussein should be rewarded in any fashion for his continuing pursuit of WMD capacity. President Clinton knows this issue very well, he used facts and figures, including on the amount of money that Saddam Hussein has put into his defense establishment as a result of oil revenues.

Q Was there anything sort of tongue-in-cheek or otherwise regarding NMD with Putin sort of congratulating Clinton for a wise decision, given that it's so much what the Russians wanted, which is to --

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: The answer is no, okay?

MR. TIMBIE: We're serious on that.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Tongue-in-cheek satisfaction of that kind would not be in order, because I think -- I know that President Putin understands that the NMD issue is not off the table, it's not solved. There is going to have to be over time a change in the way that, not just the United States, but other countries, too, pursue active defense -- by which I mean antimissile defense.

The ratio of active defense to what might be called pure deterrence is going to have to change because of the way in which the world has changed. And I think what has happened in the last week is that there is a clarification that this is an issue that will need to be resolved between President Putin and the next American president. President Putin understands that. I would say he took this just as seriously as it deserved.

Q Did President Putin give any answer to the Pope when Clinton talked about Pope? Did he say anything?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I'd rather not say anything more on Pope, except that the President did raise it again very clearly, and they did have an exchange on the subject.

Q Did he tell Putin that there would be any kind of repercussions if --

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I'm not going any further on that.

Q Strobe, are you in a position to say anything more about President Clinton today calling for reforms in the peacekeeping -- U.N. peacekeeping mission? What does he want to do with that?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I think the only aspect of that, that he addressed with President Putin, and therefore the only one that I want to comment on here, is on the scale of assessments questions.

Q Strobe --

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: He made a -- by the way, Ambassador Holbrooke joined in the prebrief -- that is, when Secretary Albright and Sandy Berger and a couple of the rest of us talked to President Clinton before the meeting -- Ambassador Holbrooke was there, and the issue did come up in the small meeting between the two Presidents.

Q So what did he say about the scale of assessments again? I'm sorry.

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: You know what the American position and we can certainly flesh it out for you. He made the case for that -- and he made the case also in the context of Russia's role, which is to say Russia is a founding member; then, of course, in the capacity of the Soviet Union, is a founding member of the United Nations, and Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council.

Q On NMD, was it evident --

Q -- pick up like its own scale of assessments, is that what you're saying?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Yes.

Q On NMD, was it evident that the President's decision last week took some of the tension or pressure off the meeting?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Yes.

Q It was?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Yes.

Q -- their relationship? Was their relationship any different?

DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: No. They've now seen each other -- since Mr. Putin's been President, I believe three times. About three times. They have a very comfortable and, at the same time, I would say, sort of no-nonsense, businesslike relationship.

END 1:08 P.M. EDT

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

Twelve-State Ad Blitz Planned to Shut Down Star Wars

US NewsWires
6 Sep 16:47
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0906-133.html

Following President's Decision, Twelve-State Ad Blitz Planned to Shut Down Star Wars To: National Desk Contact: Van Gosse of Peace Action, 202-862-9740 ext. 3002

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today, Peace Action launches a nationwide television advertising campaign urging Members of Congress and congressional candidates to follow President Clinton's lead, and firmly oppose the Star Wars missile system. The ads, running in key Senate and House races, urge pro-Star Wars candidates to "come down to earth...stop wasting our money." (See list below for where ads air.)

The distinctive ads highlight the report from top scientists that Star Wars can't differentiate between a mylar balloon and a nuclear warhead. Each ad opens with balloons with happy faces floating through a blue sky, while a narrator says, "This is a mylar balloon. It is not a nuclear warhead. Trouble is, the Star Wars Missile System the Pentagon is pushing can't tell the difference."

"For the moment at least, President Clinton appears to have seen the light of day, and will not deploy Star Wars while he's in office. That puts the burden squarely on Congress, and especially its Republican majority, to show common-sense leadership. The American people have had it with this boondoggle," said Van Gosse, director of the Peace Voter Fund. "We've picked the tightest races in the country, including the Senate contests in New York, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Washington State, to drive the point home. We're focusing attention on those incumbents and challengers who strongly support Star Wars, to alert the public to their stands."

Peace Action plans to build on a current of local opposition by reminding voters that National Missile Defense can't tell a mylar balloon from a nuclear warhead, that 50 Nobel Laureates wrote the President opposing it, and that it has already cost over $60 billion. "We want candidates from all parties to start responding to public opinion-nobody wants a new arms race. So Peace Action must be the independent voice of reason, reaching voters directly," continued Gosse.

Peace Action's ads are airing during primetime CNN shows like Crossfire, Larry King, and Inside Politics. "Recent polls by ABC News and The New York Times show that the more voters know about Star Wars, the less they like it," Gosse said, "and we intend to drive up its negatives sharply."

Along with the ads, Peace Action is coordinating Rallies for New Priorities Sept. 6 through 11 with allied organizations, including labor unions, NAACP chapters and seniors' groups. (See attached list of local rallies.) These nonpartisan rallies will urge congressional candidates to sign Peace Action's Pledge for New Priorities, committing the candidate to oppose further funding for nuclear weapons or Star Wars and instead reinvest those revenues in education and healthcare.

"Nonpartisan issue advertising can make the difference in close races," said Gosse. "We are giving the voters unique information that they are not receiving elsewhere. There's real concern over the proliferation of nuclear weapons and attacks on arms control. We will surface voters' concern so candidates and Congress will be forced to pay attention. We did it before when we initiated the Nuclear Freeze Campaign in Ronald Reagan's first term, and we can do it again with Star Wars."

--

Peace Action, formerly Sane/Freeze, is the nation's largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with 70,000 members nationwide. For more information about Peace Action, check out http://www.peace-action.org.

-----

Media Markets for Peace Action "Mylar" Television Ads (with candidates named in specific ads)

Long Island, Albany, Syracuse, Brooklyn/Manhattan, New York (Rick Lazio, running for open Senate seat)

Lansing/East Lansing/Ann Arbor, Michigan (Sen. Spencer Abraham, running for re-election)

Kansas City, Missouri (Sen. John Ashcroft, running for re-election)

Bucks County and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Sen. Rick Santorum, running for re-election)

CD 7 (Plainfield/Union/Westfield), New Jersey (Bob Franks, running for open Senate seat)

Seattle, Washington (Sen. Slade Gorton, running for re-election) (airing after primary)

Portland, Maine (Sen. Olympia Snowe, running for re-election)

CD 27 (Glendale, Pasadena), California (Rep. Jim Rogan, running for re-election)

CD 12 (Princeton, Freehold), New Jersey (Dick Zimmer, challenging Rep. Rush Holt)

CD 10 (North Shore), Illinois (Republican challenger Mark Kirk running for open seat)

CD 2 (Concord, Durham), New Hampshire (Rep. Charlie Bass, running for re-election

CD 8 (Montgomery County), Maryland (Rep. Connie Morella, running for re-election)

CD 2 (Raleigh), North Carolina (Rep. Bob Etheridge and challenger Doug Haynes)

-----

Rallies for New Priorities

Albany, New York Upper Hudson Peace Action -- Pat Beetle, 518-477-4004 Thursday, Sept. 7 at 5 p.m., Albany High School, 700 Washington Avenue

Syracuse, New York Peace Action of Central New York -- Mary Giegengack-Jureller, 315-446-8039 Friday, Sept. 8, at 12 p.m., Federal Building in downtown Syracuse

Lansing, Michigan Peace Action of Michigan -- Brad van Guilder, 248-548-3920 Thursday, Sept. 7, at 12 p.m., Michigan State Capitol

Kansas City, Missouri PeaceWorks -- Pat Kenoyer, 816-931-5076 Saturday, Sept. 9, at 10 a.m., Mill Creek Park (north of J.C. Nichols Fountain)

Plainfield, New Jersey New Jersey Peace Action -- Madelyn Hoffman, 973-744-3263 Saturday, Sept. 9, at 12, First Unitarian Society in Plainfield (724 Park Avenue)

Pasadena, California California Peace Action -- Neil Prince, 310-657-4303 Saturday, Sept. 9 (time and location to be announced)

Princeton, New Jersey Coalition for Peace Action -- Stan Johnson, 609-924-5022 Saturday, Sept. 9, at 12 p.m., Palmer Square, Princeton

Portland, Maine Peace Action of Maine -- Scott Miller, 207-772-0680 Monday, Sept. 11, at 10 a.m., Portland City Hall

Northbrook, Illinois Illinois Peace Action -- Dave DeRosa, 773-960-4331 cell on-site or 312-939-3316 office Saturday, Sept. 9, at 2 p.m., Northbrook Village Green, 1810 Walters Road

Concord, New Hampshire New Hampshire Peace Action -- Sean Donahue, 603-228-0559 Wednesday, Sept. 6, at 10:30 a.m., Legislative Office Building (press conference)

---

Wise Decision on Missile Defense

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000906/t000083864.html

President Clinton has acted responsibly in leaving to his successor the decision on when or whether to deploy a missile defense system intended to protect America's 50 states against a small-scale attack. As the president noted, the technology to assure that an antimissile system would be effective remains unproven and the diplomatic problems that deployment would raise remain unresolved.

U.S. officials had set 2005 as the year for deploying the first phase of a national missile defense system--known as NMD--a date based on a worst-case intelligence estimate of North Korea's progress in missile development. But so far as can be seen, Pyongyang's long-range missile program hasn't advanced significantly. American security won't be diminished by delaying a decision on deploying NMD.

Initial tests of the system haven't been encouraging, in part because of the precision demanded. What's required is that a rocket-launched interceptor, called a kill vehicle, directly strike an incoming warhead. It is the impact alone, not any explosives on the kill vehicle, that does the job, so coming close doesn't count. It's also crucial that the kill vehicle's sensors differentiate between a real warhead and decoys. Russia and China both know all about decoys, information they could pass on to North Korea, Iraq, Iran or other states that might someday pose a missile threat to the United States.

An ability to tell what's a decoy has yet to be shown by NMD. Philip E. Coyle III, the Pentagon's top testing official, recently told aides that tests involving decoy targets aren't planned before September 2002. His report, obtained by Bloomberg News, said a system should be shown to be "effective under realistic combat conditions, against realistic threats and countermeasures" before it's deployed. That, and not political considerations, should be a key determinant of when or whether to proceed with NMD.

President Clinton's successor must also weigh the international consequences of proceeding with NMD. Russia and China say the system would be destabilizing and bring on a new arms race. Conservative proponents of NMD wave aside these concerns, though the prospect of a costly revival of arms competition deserves far more than casual dismissal. No less serious is the opposition to NMD voiced by all of Washington's European allies, including those who would have to provide sites for special ground-based radar and communications systems. NMD is not, in short, a go-it-alone project.

Clinton did the right thing in deferring a decision on building an antimissile system. His successor will do the right thing if he insists on proof that the system will work before considering deployment at a projected cost of $60 billion. That means realistic tests under real-world conditions, something the Pentagon is still a long way from providing.

--- Pioneer Planet

Delay in missile defense deployment offers an opening to apply reason

Wednesday, September 6, 2000
GENEVA OVERHOLSER Syndicated columnist
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/4/opinion/docs/008453.htm

Bless Pete if reason doesn't sometimes prevail in this crazy world. And so it has -- at least for the moment -- on one of the strangest issues of all, the quest for a national missile defense. President Clinton has declined to authorize deployment, leaving the matter to his successor.

This Son of Star Wars, the current version of the long-cherished dream of defending ourselves from missiles, already has cost us a mint. It has failed most of its tests. It has unsettled our allies. It bids fair to set the nuclear arms race spinning off on a whole new round. Yet, against all these odds, it has been virtually unstoppable.

Now, logic seems to have intruded where it has not been welcomed for years.

The robust political health enjoyed by NMD, as the insiders call it, may itself seem illogical, in view of its many downsides. But in fact it's easy to explain. Politicians generally enjoy talking about defending the homeland -- leaving aside the bothersome question of no one's knowing how to defend it in this manner. As for the treasure expended with little to show (more than $120 billion since the idea was conceived 40 years ago), that's hardly a negative: The failed effort is quite successful for congressional districts where the defense contractors operate.

Star Wars enjoyed its original surge in popularity under Ronald Reagan, who may really have believed we could shoot down incoming missiles and make ourselves invulnerable. But, gradually, reality pierced the dream, and President George Bush allowed NMD to float into the background. Clinton had almost extinguished it when politics -- looking weak on defense was something he could ill afford toward the end of his first term -- inspired him to defy dull fact and breathe new life into the illusion.

But what Clinton resurrected was an enfeebled, albeit still exorbitant, version. It's too much for opponents of missile defense, way too little for proponents. Yet it's just right to shake the foundations of the international security system, which relies on the Russians and the Americans remaining vulnerable to each other's nuclear weapons.

This security arrangement is anchored by the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which codifies the notion that our mutual security depends on neither side pursuing a national missile defense. This means that with every step, NMD bumbles at the edge of violating the treaty. Thus we have been half-observing the treaty while half-pursuing this lemon, offending virtually everyone involved, and making a hash of it all.

Now Clinton has acknowledged the technological uncertainties and diplomatic difficulties, and declined to authorize deployment.

This is far from the end for NMD. Clinton's announcement stresses its good prospects and assures us that development and testing will go on. Rather, the dream's future rests with one of the two men seeking the presidency. And both George W. Bush and Al Gore say they'll continue the pursuit of NMD, each in his own way.

But there's room to hope that some welcome change could come from either man.

Bush scolds Clinton for insufficient bullishness on missile defense and vows that he, by contrast, will pursue the dickens out of it. Yet Bush also has made clear he envisions something very different from merely hobbling along in an outdated version of the old security system. Bush pledges dramatic reductions in nuclear arms, and says he'd proceed unilaterally if need be. This liberating step might well move us all toward a more promising new world order.

Gore pledges a measured pursuit of missile defense. This raises the dreary prospect that he may maintain the same halfway-toward-everything hobble that is now so unsatisfactory. But, politics willing and the technology continuing to fail, it's also possible that Gore, applying his substantial knowledge in national security issues, might lead us away from our damaging delusion and at last put an end to NMD.

Missile defense is not going to be a decision-maker for the voters. The people who are passionate about it must simply wait to see what happens when one of the candidates takes over.

In the meantime, it's enough to savor this rare moment when sweet reason has prevailed.

---

America Needs a Missile Defense Now

NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000
Col. Stanislav Lunev
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/5/225754

By early September President Clinton was to decide whether to keep the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) on a fast track for 2005, but leave it for his successor to decide on starting initial deployment, according to a recent statement by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

He was wrong. Clinton took the easy way out, leaving the decision for his successor.

Moreover, political developments associated with the NMD indicate that American politicians are either too busy with routine business or have no intention of creating this system. First of all, such a system could protect American troops and U.S. allies from an accidental missile attack, as well as from a hostile missile strike.

The threat of missile attacks from so-called "rogue states" such as North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and other countries could be real in the near future. There is always the permanent threat of an accidental missile launch from some traditional members of the world's "missile club" who have very strong anti-American sentiments.

Of course, it will be a very difficult decision to create NMD, because U.S. options in this area are seriously limited by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Then there is very strong opposition from Russia, China and other countries, including some of America's NATO allies. But America needs this system now, or as soon as possible, because of the real threat of a nuclear missile strike.

Of course, a decision on this very important issue will be made by whoever replaces President Clinton in the White House at the beginning of next year. And now, while the presidential campaign is being waged, it would be interesting to compare the positions of the two major candidates on this problem.

GORE:

Vice President Al Gore favors Clinton's approach of a limited ground-based missile defense that is based on current technologies and could be in place by 2005, when the administration projects that North Korea could have the capability to launch a long-range missile. Gore also prefers negotiating with Russia on the ABM treaty changes that would allow missile defenses.

In an interview on May 25, Gore said that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of breaking out of the treaty if he thought that was essential for the U.S. National Security. Gore also favors further cuts in the Russian and America nuclear arsenals, but only through negotiations with Moscow. Experts believe that the price of this system could be around $60 billion.

BUSH

Texas Governor George W. Bush in his May 23 address on missile defenses said he would explore deploying a comprehensive system that could include sea and space-based defenses as well as ground-based interceptors.

"America must build effective missile defenses based on the best available options at the earliest possible date," Bush said.

"Our missile defense must be designed to protect all 50 states and our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas from missile attacks by rogue nations or accidental launches." He added that he is willing to break the ABM treaty if necessary to build a missile defense shield. He emphasizes that he would reduce U.S. nuclear weapons stockpiles below the levels mandated by the 1993 START-2 treaty, even if he had to act unilaterally.

He has not put a price tag on such an NMD, but experts believe it could cost three times the $60 billion needed for the Clinton-Gore plan.

Our readers can decide for themselves which plan is the most preferable for the U.S. Americans deserve to be protected from missile strikes as soon as possible and independently from the political games of their politicians.

Concerning the main obstacles to the NMD, it must be noted that the 1972 ABM treaty is already a historic relic. The U.S. signed this treaty with the former Soviet Union, a country has not existed for almost a decade. Moreover, the U.S. is the only party which follows the ABM treaty's provisions, because neither the former USSR nor present-day Russia abide by any of the treaty's obligations.

We know that Russia already has its own anti-missile defense system which was built in violation of the 1972 ABM treaty. Having its own system operational, the Russian government is strongly opposed to the U.S. creating its own NMD, and prefers to keep America without protection from a missile strike.

In its propaganda campaign against American NMD, Russian politicians insist that the 1972 ABM treaty is a "cornerstone of strategic stability". They also very actively support opposition to this system in the West from some traditional American friends and allies.

For example, the political views of leaders of some NATO countries, who believe that the NMD would leave European allies vulnerable to missile attack, lead to a new arms race and send a negative signal that Washington is backing away from an era of global arms control.

As NewsMax.Com reported, after his summit with President Clinton last June Russia's President Putin proposed some sort of cooperation with European countries against emerging missile threats, or a so-called all-Europe anti-missile defense.

It is almost three months since Putin made his proposal public, but up until now Russian politicians have provided very few details, and Putin's proposal looks more like a political game than real plan.

But proposing the idea of all-Europe anti-missile defense Putin is trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. and it's European NATO allies. This is a long-time dream of both former Soviet and current Russian leaders. Additionally with this scheme Putin is trying to block the NMD program, prevent any changes in the 1972 ABM treaty, establish some kind of special Russian-European cooperation without the U.S., and to sell Russian missiles-interceptors to Europe.

Practically Putin's plan proposes the creation of a so-called "boost-phase" defense, which apparently involves deploying short-range interceptors as close as possible to the missile sites of countries that might be considered as threats. In other words, these interceptors would have to be deployed near such countries as North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and others, all of which are traditionally Russia's best friends, economic and trading partners, and customers of Russian weapons.

From a military view a "boost-phase" defense looks more like an attempt to save Russian and Chinese missiles from an American strike, than to protect the European continent. Now its very clear that this defense, proposed by Putin, would not even protect against an accidental or unauthorized launch of a Russian or Chinese missile, which is extremely important for any program of missile defense.

The only way to get Moscow to negotiate is to withdraw from the ABM treaty and begin deploying NMD. There is no doubt that American politicians, if they are really worried about the national security, should reject foreign criticism and do what is best for America, and defend the U.S., American troops world-wide, along with its friends and allies. The sooner the better.

See more columns by Col. Lunev.
http://www.newsmax.com/pundits/Lunev.shtml

---

Disarmament Group's Ads Attack Candidates Favoring Missile Defense System

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/politics/06STAR.html

TRENTON, Sept. 5 - President Clinton may have deferred the question of whether to build a national missile defense system to his successor, but opponents of such a system are not satisfied. In television advertisements that are to begin running on Wednesday, the nation's largest pro-disarmament group is attacking candidates in 13 competitive House and Senate races who favor a missile shield.

The four-day ad campaign is the centerpiece of efforts by the group, Peace Action, formerly known as SANE/Freeze, to recover a measure of the political influence it held during the arms race of the early 1980's but quickly lost with the end of the cold war.

The ads are being paid for by the Peace Voter Fund, an entity organized by Peace Action under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code so it could raise money without having to disclose its contributors. It was set up last year with $250,000 in seed money from a handful of wealthy benefactors whom officials of the group refuse to name.

The ads criticize the positions of the Republican candidates in the 12th Congressional District in New Jersey and in the United States Senate races in New Jersey and New York.

In New Jersey, Richard A. Zimmer, a Republican who was a congressman in the 12th District from 1991 until 1996, is challenging the freshman incumbent, Rush D. Holt, a Democrat.. Mr. Zimmer favors missile-defense programs, while Mr. Holt, a physicist, is a member of Peace Action's New Jersey affiliate and opposes the programs.

In the state's Senate contest, the ad is aimed at Representative Robert D. Franks, who is giving up his seat to run for the Senate. He voted in the House this year to deploy a missile defense as soon as it was technically feasible.

Another version of the ad names Representative Rick A. Lazio, the Republican candidate for Senate in New York and will run on cable stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Nassau and Suffolk counties, Albany and Syracuse.

The commercials, which will run on CNN during prime time through Saturday, zero in on what critics say is a crucial shortcoming in antimissile technology. They show a balloon with a smiling face floating skyward as a female announcer intones, "This is a Mylar balloon. It is not a nuclear warhead. Trouble is, the Star Wars missile system the Pentagon is pushing can't tell the difference. In fact, top scientists say the Star Wars technology is fatally flawed and easily fooled. Fifty Nobel Prize winners warn it will start a new arms race."

The announcer urges viewers to call the specific candidate mentioned and tell him or her "to come down to Earth, to stop wasting our money on Star Wars and invest that money instead in our children's schools and our parents' health care."

Frank J. Gaffney Jr., a leading proponent of a national missile defense who heads the Center for Security Policy in Washington, called the ads misleading but said he welcomed "anything that can be done to help bring the issue of America's vulnerability to missile attack to the attention of the American people."

Van Gosse, an official with Peace Action, said the group had nearly 200,000 paid members at its peak in the late 1980's. With about 70,000 members now, it seeks to regain the level of influence that it held in 1984, when Walter F. Mondale endorsed a nuclear freeze during his presidential run.

"We're not in this to defeat or elect anybody," Mr. Gosse said. "We're in this to make all of them pay attention to us, to understand that this is a constituency that is capable of being politically active. Can you imagine any political force being taken seriously today if it didn't run ads?"

Nationally, the ads are mostly aimed at Republicans, including Senators Spencer Abraham of Michigan, John Ashcroft of Missouri, Slade Gorton of Washington, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Representatives Charlie Bass of New Hampshire, Connie Morella of Maryland and Jim Rogan of California.

---

World War III? Now?

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By GEOFFREY E. FORDEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/opinion/06FORD.html

CAMBRIDGE Mass. -- Now that decisions on deploying a missile defense system will be put off until at least early next year, it's time to deal with a less sweeping but more immediate life-and-death issue: the crumbling of satellites that can prevent accidental launches of Russia's nuclear weapons.

For a picture of what these satellites are intended to do, consider a famous near-disaster on the American side in 1979. A training tape simulating a massive Soviet nuclear attack was accidentally run on the computers of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Everyone thought it was real, and crews prepared to launch American missiles in retaliation. What stopped them were our early-warning satellites, which showed there were no Soviet missiles in the air.

On at least two other occasions, once each in the United States and Russia, space-based sensors played the same lifesaving role after other systems sent mistaken warnings.

Russia and the United States still have thousands of missiles ready to launch at each other on a few minutes' notice. American leaders still have satellite warning systems to prevent accidental launches when other systems give false warnings. But most of Russia's early-warning satellites have stopped functioning or wandered out of their assigned orbits.

In 1995, when the Russian system was still in good repair, some Russian military people misinterpreted a NASA research rocket as an attack designed to blind their radars to incoming American missiles. Fortunately, their satellite warning system, still providing 24-hour space-based surveillance of American missile fields, showed them they were wrong.

Satellites and sensing devices are expensive and technically complex, and they need regular maintenance and replacement. Russian factories that produced the parts have closed, and scientists who know how to work with the systems have been forced to seek other jobs. Clearly, it's in the American interest to step in.

The United States should immediately spend about $160 million to get five Russian early-warning satellites - ready to go but languishing on the ground - into space. Next, we should make a firm commitment to financing joint research with Russia into new, less costly satellite missile sensors that Russia could more easily afford. The Clinton administration has tied its backing to demands for Russian concessions on missile defense.

Getting Russian satellites functioning would be far more effective than a joint early-warning center in Moscow that was also proposed by the Clinton administration. At this center, American and Russian military personnel would sit side by side, looking at computer screens displaying the data from their own early-warning systems but free to look over each other's shoulders. If Russia suspected the United States was launching a missile attack, would its leaders really believe American computer screens that did not show it?

Regardless of whether a missile defense is eventually approved, the relatively inexpensive safety systems needed to prevent a mistaken attack from Russia's still powerful missile force cannot be allowed to fail.

Geoffrey Forden is senior fellow at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former national security analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.

---

Missile Decision: Don't Rest Easy

New York Times
September 06, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/opinion/L06MIS.html

To the Editor:

President Clinton's decision to put off deployment of a national missile defense system (front page, Sept. 2) is good news for arms control advocates. After all, the only thing a missile defense system is likely to destroy is the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of nuclear nonproliferation since President Nixon was in the White House.

Perhaps now the focus can turn to the real arms threat: the thousands of American and Russian nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert.

In a time of crisis or perceived attack, decision makers on both sides have just minutes to decide whether to launch a nuclear strike. The security of the United States and the world rests with deteriorating Russian nuclear command and early warning systems.

The recent Russian submarine tragedy reminds us that we are just an accident away from nuclear war, but the message has yet to reach our leaders.

IRA SHORR Silver Spring, Md., Sept. 2, 2000

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

THE AMERICAS

New York Times
September 06, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06BRIE.html

ARGENTINA, CHILE: JOINT MANEUVERS The Argentine and Chilean navies, long suspicious rivals that almost went to war in 1978, conducted joint maneuvers in Argentine waters for the first time. After Chilean commanders aboard the Chilean frigate Condell were allowed to watch the Argentine Navy conduct antisubmarine maneuvers as well as precision artillery exercises, they and their Argentine colleagues pledged to build trust and friendship in the future. Clifford Krauss

-------- china

Falun followers die in China detention -Hong Kong group

Excite News
September 6, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000906/08/rights-china

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Three members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have died after ill treatment during detention in China where the movement is banned, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said Wednesday.

At least 30 Falun Gong followers had died of ill treatment in custody since July last year, the Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said in a statement.

One of the latest victims was Liu Yufeng, a 64-year-old retiree in the eastern Shandong province, the group said.

He was detained when taking part in a mass Falun Gong exercise. The detention center notified his family to take him back four days later, when Liu was already unconscious with three broken ribs and other injuries. Liu died on July 23.

In northwestern Gansu province, police detained 52-year-old worker Li Faming on Aug. 10 when Li was suspected of distributing Falun Gong propaganda leaflets.

Police then took Li back to his home for a search, during which they beat up Li who was then seen falling from a window of his apartment, the group said. Li died shortly after being taken to a hospital.

Police declared that Li committed suicide to escape punishment for his crimes, the human rights group said.

In northeastern Heilongjiang province, 29-year-old Zhang Tieyan was detained on April 21.

She was kept in a cramped, poorly ventilated and hot detention center, where she fainted many times. She died after fainting on Aug. 11, the Hong Kong group said.

----

China Says Taiwan Tilting Toward Separatism

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
By Paul Eckert
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/wl/china_taiwan_dc_1.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said Tuesday Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian was showing a ``very dangerous'' drift toward separatism for the island Beijing claims as a province.

Zhang Mingqing, spokesman of the cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office, said China saw recent remarks by Chen as moving away from acceptance of the ``one China'' terms Beijing has set as a precondition for better relations and talks.

``Viewing his first 100 days, we think he is not moving toward accepting the one China principle and is instead moving in the direction of Taiwan separatism,'' Zhang told a news conference without mentioning Chen by name.

He said the Taiwan president's recent remarks that reunification was not Taiwan's sole option were ``very dangerous and cannot but incite alarm among all Chinese people, including Taiwan compatriots.''

Taiwan's government spokeswoman, Chung Chin, said relations with China were not as tense as Zhang portrayed, Taiwan's state-funded Central News Agency reported.

``The situation is definitely not as disappointing as the Taiwan affairs office says it is,'' said Chung, director-general of the Government Information office. Chung added that she believed both sides would have an opportunity to resume talks in a calm atmosphere.

Beijing has shunned Chen and his pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) because he has been unwilling to embrace unequivocally Beijing's ``one China'' policy that there is only one China in the world, of which the island is an inseparable part.

``We will not have any contact with the DPP until it revises its pro-independence platform,'' the Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman said.

China was willing to ``begin contacts and talks immediately'' if Taiwan renounced the demand for parity with China as a state and reaffirmed its acceptance of a 1992 formula in which both sides agreed to uphold the one-China principle.

Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has threatened to invade if the island declared independence or dragged its feet on reunification.

Democracy Not An Issue

The spokesman did not address a call issued Saturday by Taiwan's top envoy for relations with China, in which he renewed an invitation to his Chinese counterpart to visit the island.

Koo Chen-fu, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, a semi-official body which deals with China, urged Wang Daohan, who heads China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, to visit Taiwan to end a stalemate in ties.

Zhang spoke derisively of Chen's statements about the need for Taipei's democratically elected government to respect the will of Taiwan's 23 million people in setting China policy.

``The cross-Strait dispute is a struggle between reunification and independence and absolutely not, as some say, a fight over freedom and democracy or over differing social systems,'' he said.

China maintains that Taiwan's political and social system can be preserved under ``one country, two systems'' formula Beijing used in absorbing the former British colony of Hong Kong in 1997.

But many Taiwanese argue that a mechanism by which a colony was handed from one ruler to another cannot apply to an island which has been a de facto sovereign state since 1949.

Zhang was also dismissive when asked about the 25-member ''supra-party'' task force Chen established last month to build a consensus on China policy on the politically polarized island.

``We don't understand just what kind of organization this supra-party group is, so we are not willing to comment,'' he said.

Tuesday in Beijing, Bai Hsiu-hsiung, vice mayor of Taipei and the most senior official to visit the mainland since the island's new government took power in May, cooled his heels awaiting a possible meeting with authorities.

Bai, touring China in a private capacity on a social welfare fact-finding mission, was being held at arms length by the Chinese and Beijing city governments because they don't recognize Taipei as a capital, sources involved with the visit said.

Taipei media have said Bai might meet Wang Daohan during the Shanghai leg of his trip.

Chen's comments over thew weekend mark a departure from the previous Nationalist government, which ruled Taiwan for 55 years until Chen's election and considered reunification the sole option.

But by leaving open the possibility of eventual reunification, Chen also risked alienating his most ardent supporters, who demand nothing short of statehood.

Taiwan is largely polarized between supporters of independence and those who back reunification with China.

---

Three Chinese sect members die

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 02:57 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

BEIJING - Two members of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement died from mistreatment in jail and a third plunged to his death while being interrogated by police, a rights group said Wednesday. The deaths bring to 30 the number of Falun Gong members who have died in custody or as a result of police mistreatment since China banned the group in July 1999, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. While the government has mostly refused comment on individual cases, it denies abusing Falun Gong members.

---

Chinese shown sensitive data on joint war fighting

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-200096222348.htm

Senior Chinese military officials were shown sensitive data on how the U.S. military trains its forces for joint war fighting and other operations, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.

The documents are raising questions among critics in the Clinton administration and in Congress about whether the Pentagon is skirting a law passed last year limiting contacts with the Chinese military on sensitive topics, including joint war fighting.

Briefing slides outlining the sensitive data were presented during an hourlong presentation to a delegation of Chinese military officials from the Academy of Military Science at a training center that is part of the U.S. Joint Forces Command in southern Virginia.

The sensitive, unclassified information was explained by Army Maj. Gen. William S. Wallace, the head of the Joint Warfighting Center and director of the command's joint training on Aug. 24.

The briefing outlined the structure of the command and its approach and activities in support of joint military training - how to integrate various military services and components into a single fighting force.

According to the documents, the dual requirements for joint training are to "preserve and advance joint operational and warfighting skills with [Unified Endeavor] exercises," and to support commanders in conducting joint training.

Several defense officials said privately that the joint war-fighting briefing appears to circumvent congressionally mandated limitations on military exchanges with the Chinese military.

Sen. Robert C. Smith, New Hampshire Republican, and Rep. Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, have said the visit to the Norfolk-based command and similar activities involving a group of Chinese colonels at Harvard University violate congressional restrictions on information sharing.

Mr. Smith said the programs are "a clear violation of the intent of Congress" in limiting such contacts. "I regret deeply that our soldiers are being forced to submit to the Clinton pro-Beijing agenda," he said.

Mr. DeLay has said the visit to the Joint Forces Command and Pentagon support for a group of visiting Chinese colonels showed the administration's "reckless disregard" for U.S. national security.

The congressmen said they are considering new legislation to close loopholes that appear to have been exploited by the administration in helping the Chinese learn about U.S. military capabilities.

China has not reciprocated with visits or briefings in China for U.S. military officers, according to Pentagon officials.

The Chinese are the only Asian military to be given the briefing, Pentagon officials said. Taiwan has been denied access to the information, and military officials from Japan, South Korean and other Asian nations have not been briefed at the Joint Force Command.

"This is partly a Chinese initiative," one official said. "They singled out this briefing as the most important part of their visit."

James Lilly, a former U.S. ambassador to China, said the exchange program with the Chinese military "has been remarkable for its lack of reciprocity."

"That's the way it has been all the way through, and we've been outmaneuvered," said Mr. Lilly, now with the American Enterprise Institute.

Al Santoli, a China defense specialist and aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said the joint war-fighting information contained in the briefing slides could help the Chinese military develop joint war-fighting capabilities. It is an area of intense interest to the Chinese, who could use the information to improve their capability for future military action against Taiwan, he said.

The Academy of Military Science delegation, including three generals, began its visit Aug. 18 and ended Friday with a trip to the U.S. Pacific Command headquarters in Honolulu.

A section of the fiscal 2000 defense authorization bill that President Clinton signed into law in October states that the secretary of defense "may not authorize any military-to-military exchanges or contact . . . with representatives of the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China if that exchange or contact would create a national security risk due to inappropriate exposure" to military information.

The law lists 12 topics the Pentagon is barred from discussing with the Chinese, including "joint warfighting experiments and other activities related to a transformation in warfare."

The law also bans any discussion with the Chinese military on "advanced combined arms and joint combat operations" - the specialty of the Joint Forces Command.

Gen. Wallace could not be reached for comment on the briefing, and a spokesman for the Joint Forces Command had no immediate comment.

---

Chinese religious rights 'deteriorated'

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
By David Jones THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200096223543.htm

NEW YORK - Respect for religious freedom in China "deteriorated markedly" during the last half of 1999 with the brutal suppression of minority faiths such as Falun Gong, the Clinton administration said yesterday.

Members of such groups were subject to "harassment, extortion, prolonged detention, physical abuse and incarceration," according to a new report on religious freedom around the world, which comes just days before President Clinton is scheduled to meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin on the sidelines of the U.N. Millennium Summit.

The administration report also cites "totalitarian or authoritarian" attempts to control religious belief in Afghanistan, Burma, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam, several of whose leaders will be in New York this week.

U.S. allies were not spared in the document, the State Department's second annual report on the subject since ordered by Congress. France, Germany, India and Israel all came in for criticism.

"Most non-Jewish citizens [of Israel] are Arab Muslims, and they are subject to various forms of discrimination. The government does not provide Israeli Arabs with the same quality of education, housing, employment opportunities and social services as Jews," the report said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is another of the foreign leaders Mr. Clinton is expected to meet in New York.

Robert Sieple, head of a 10-member team that prepared the report, said at a news conference where it was released by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright that he expected its contents would figure in Mr. Clinton's talks with various leaders this week.

"This is part of the foreign policy of the United States," he said. "If there is a reason to bring it up, it will be brought up. We are responsible for some of the talking points."

The law requires the administration to report on religious freedom around the world every September, but Mr. Sieple said it was no coincidence that this year's report was released in New York on the eve of the Millennium Summit.

"We wanted the secretary of state to do it while everyone was in New York," he said. "This is something that we want people to know about, to hear about."

The commission will deliver to Congress tomorrow a separate report listing countries of special concern that could face action ranging from a diplomatic protest to the blocking of international assistance. Five such countries were listed in last year's report: China, Burma, Iran, Iraq and Sudan.

In its section on China, the report said the Beijing government's "respect for religious freedom deteriorated markedly [in the last six months of 1999], especially for the Falun Gong and Tibetan Buddhists." The repression and abuses "continued during the first six months of 2000," it said.

Membership in many faiths grew rapidly and government supervision of religious activity was minimal in some regions, the report added. But "government officials in other regions imposed tight regulations, closed houses of worship and actively persecuted members of some unregistered religious groups."

At the press conference, Mr. Sieple cited the case of a 60-year-old woman who died while in custody for her participation in Falun Gong, a religious sect that practices yogalike exercises and follows a charismatic leader.

When the woman's daughter picked up the body, it was covered with bruises and had dried blood in the ears, Mr. Sieple said. "We have received credible reports that she was forced to run in her bare feet in the snow until she dropped," he added.

Several hundred Falun Gong practitioners are in New York this week to protest the treatment of their sect by Chinese authorities.

"We hope [Mr. Clinton] will ask Jiang to change his policy when they meet," said Feng Yuuan, 29, a spokeswoman for the group.

In its comments on other countries, the report said Cuba continued to "engage in active efforts to monitor and control religious institutions, including the surveillance, infiltration and harassment of clergy and church members."

Mr. Sieple commented: "We had expectations from the pope's visit to Cuba a year ago that things would improve. None of that has really happened."

-------- colombia

Colombia's cocaine supply on the rise

USA Today
09/07/00- Updated 01:27 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

WASHINGTON - Coca production in Colombia continues to ''skyrocket,'' and no significant reductions are expected until 2002, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House drug control office, said anecdotal evidence suggests there will be an increase this year over the 520-metric ton estimate for 1999. Colombia is by far the world's largest supplier of cocaine, derived from coca. The U.S. has allotted $1.3 billion for counternarcotics efforts in the South American nation.

-------- cuba

Clinton urged to lift U.S. trade embargo

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 11:19 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed06.htm

HAVANA (AP) - A leading U.S. church group on Wednesday urged President Clinton to lift the American trade embargo against Cuba before he leaves office rather than hand the matter to his successor.

''It is the right moment to lift the embargo,'' the Rev. Robert Edgar, secretary general of the U.S. National Council of Churches told a news conference in Havana.

If Clinton does nothing, ''years could pass'' before the sanctions end, he said. Clinton leaves office in less than five months.

Edgar and seven other council representatives arrived on the island on Aug. 2 for a visit that winds up on Thursday. The council is made up of 35 denominations.

The council played a key role in the saga of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy who was at the center of a protracted custody battle between relatives on both sides of the Florida Straits.

Council members supported Elian's relatives in Cuba in their fight to have the child repatriated. The boy's Miami relatives fought unsuccessfully to keep the boy with them in the United States after his mother and 10 others perished at sea.

During their visit, the American church leaders visited Elian's hometown in Cardenas, about a two-hour's drive east of Havana. They donated erasers, pencils and other classroom supplies to Elian's school and visited with the child's father, Juan Gonzalez.

''We had the opportunity to see Elian Gonzalez seated in his classroom, doing his work,'' Edgar said. Out of respect for the boy's privacy, council members decided not to ask to speak with him.

-------- drug war

Hundreds of pounds of heroin seized

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 02:57 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

TORONTO - Canadian police said Tuesday they made one of the largest drug seizures in the nation's history, confiscating 343 pounds of heroin, some packed into fake duck eggs. Ten ethnic Chinese in Toronto and Vancouver were arrested on drug smuggling and possession charges after police and border patrol agents intercepted two separate shipments, according to police officials. The first shipment was seized Thursday in Toronto and contained 125 pounds of heroin along with 37 pounds of ecstasy pills. In Vancouver, 218 pounds of heroin was found Saturday. Authorities said the heroin came from Southeast Asia's ''Golden Triangle'' and was prepared in China, then sent on ships from Hong Kong.

---

THE GREEN PARTY

New York Times
September 06, 2000
Campaign Briefing By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/politics/06CAMP.html

SUPPORT FOR HEMP Ralph Nader on Tuesday joined people who want to grow and market industrial hemp in criticizing federal agencies for making it difficult to grow the crop. Mr. Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate, also spoke out against a recent raid on a South Dakota Indian reservation in which federal agents seized at least 2,000 plants the owner said were industrial-grade hemp.

Hemp cannot be grown commercially in the United States because it is in the same family as marijuana, although Mr. Nader pointed out that the levels of hallucinogenic THC are far lower in hemp than in marijuana. "It is analogous to consuming poppy seed bagels or nonalcoholic beer," he said. "Although these foods both have a small psychoactive component, people do not abuse them." Mr. Nader said the Drug Enforcement Administration was proposing rules requiring that a product containing any THC be listed in the same category as heroin and LSD. (AP)

-------- germany

German Police Raid Far-Right Music Distributors

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
By Eberhard Loeblich
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/wl/germany_racism_dc_11.html

MAGDEBURG, Germany (Reuters) - German police said on Tuesday they had confiscated more than 7,500 compact discs of neo-Nazi music, some bearing photos of Adolf Hitler on their covers, along with far-right paraphernalia in a pre-dawn raid.

Authorities in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said it was the biggest sweep against the far-right this year. A total of 11 sites were raided in the early hours of August 30.

``A lot of young people have internalized this music and often commit hate crimes against foreigners after hearing this,'' said Manfred Puechel, interior minister of the state west of Berlin. ``The music inspires them and is extremely dangerous.''

Germany has been shaken in recent months by a spate of far-right violence against foreigners and minorities. Three neo-Nazis were convicted last week of murdering a 39-year-old Mozambican man in Dessau in June because he was black.

A mysterious bomb attack in Duesseldorf in July wounded 10 immigrants, including six Jews, from Eastern Europe.

The German army, which has been struggling to stamp out racism in its ranks, said earlier it was investigating a senior non-commissioned officer suspected of making racist remarks.

Bild newspaper said a 25-year-old staff sergeant was accused of sending defamatory messages and neo-Nazi slogans to a recruit with Turkish roots. Bild said the sergeant had sent racist electronic messages to the cellular telephone of the soldier.

One message read: ``When Ali is swinging from the oak tree, when Mehmet staggers through the gas chamber, when the swastika is once again used to tar our streets, that's when Germany will be worth living in again.''

Music Glorifies Hatred Of Foreigners

One of the CDs seized by police featured a neo-Nazi band called ``Zillertaler Turk Hunters'' and had pictures of hanged blacks and Turks on its cover. Another CD described how it felt to kill blacks.

``You've got 30 seconds to run for your life nigger,'' the group sang, before a blast from a machine gun is heard. ``Oh that feels good, that feels good, to kill a nigger.''

Police said they also confiscated some 30,000 CD covers, computers with customer addresses, videos and posters showing swastikas. They said the material clearly violated the country's strict laws prohibiting the incitement of racial hatred.

Police said they had now disrupted the operations of two distributors of far-right rock music, but there were still about 50 to 70 others operating in Germany.

``Based on our preliminary investigation much of the material is in violation of the law,'' the head of the state's crime office, Guenther Flossmann, told a news conference in Magdeburg.

Police did not announce their findings from the raid that took place last week until Tuesday because of their continuing investigation. A 30-year-old suspect was detained, but he was released on bail of 25,000 marks.

-------- india/pakistan

Blast kills five, injures 33 in Pakistan

USA Today
09/07/00- Updated 01:27 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

LAHORE, Pakistan - A bomb ripped through a crowded market in the eastern Pakistani border city of Lahore on Thursday, killing five people and critically injuring at least 33 others. Police say the bomb was homemade and weighed more than 4 pounds. It damaged several shops, shattered glass and caused a stampede. No arrests have been made in the incident, the fourth in the city this year.

More dead, injured in Kashmir violence

JAMMU, India - Two Indian soldiers and four Pakistani militants were killed Thursday in a three-hour battle in disputed Himalayan territory. Additionally, Indian troops fired artillery shells across the border north of the Pakistani capital of Kashmir, killing three others and injuring 14. An Indian Army spokesman said militants fired upon Indian troops and the men died in an exchange of gunfire. India accuses Pakistan of arming and funding an 11-year separatist campaign in Jammu-Kashmir that has claimed more than 25,000 lives. Pakistan's military ruler called for Indian peace at the U.N. Millennium Summit.

-------- iran

Reformers in Iran shake fundamentalist society

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
By Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200096223226.htm

TEHRAN - An armed man rushes out of the guardhouse at the former U.S. Embassy to warn away a foreign photographer - a reminder that beneath this capital city's bustle and greenery, a violent power struggle is taking place.

All week long, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, hotel clerks, villagers, academics and factory workers had greeted the same visitor with smiles, saying he was welcome and they hoped for an end to Iran's isolation from America.

But although Iranians overwhelmingly voted for reforms in February, and polls indicate 80 percent back reformist President Mohammed Khatami for re-election next year, a powerful, anti-American religious establishment is determined its views will prevail.

"I promise you that within this year, all power will go to Khatami; 20 million young Iranians are behind him," said shopkeeper Islam Shah in a town south of Tehran.

"The reformers promised us that if we supported them, they will make changes. We want a powerful, independent country like in Europe. We want to preserve our religious values but we want to have a free press."

A Western diplomat was less hopeful.

"Things have slowed down in terms of reform, but the majority are adamant they'll continue," he said in a shady enclave north of the crowded center of this city of 12 million people.

"Two years ago, they were killing intellectuals. Now, the conservatives are trying to stop reform newspapers through legal methods. While still not pleasant, it's a definite improvement."

The latest clash between hard-liners and reformers took place Aug. 24 in Khoramabad. A spokesman for the student Office to Consolidate Unity said "basij" volunteer enforcers and Revolutionary Guards controlled by the supreme religious leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent 60 students to hospitals with injuries.

The militants succeeded in preventing liberal cleric Mohsen Kadivar, recently released after 18 months in jail, and philosopher Abdolkarim Sorush from addressing the students.

People frequently show their fear and contempt for the mullahs. "Hezbollah," they whisper to a visitor, looking over their shoulders to see if anyone is listening.

But eight years ago, couples might be arrested simply for having coffee together if they were unmarried, and now they hold hands in public in liberal areas of north Tehran or while out walking between the tea shops on the arid, mountain trails above the city.

'Bottom-up freedom'

"We're getting our freedom from the feet upwards," laughed one woman. She pointed to a passer-by who, covering her hair with a kerchief and wearing a coat in approved Islamic style, had left her feet bare in open-toe sandals, showing painted nails.

In a step back from the Islamic Revolution law requiring all women and girls to wear black head and body coverings, government officials this year urged parents to dress primary school girls in brightly colored head scarfs.

Iranians say they are angry over reports of corruption by senior clerics - whose children marry into the wealthy merchant families that run the economy - and they dislike the brutality that backers of the religious establishment unleash on those who challenge its authority to interpret Islam and force compliance with their views.

As a result, support is unraveling for strict interpretation of Islamic laws such as banning alcohol and rules forbidding Western music, foreign media and public shows of affection.

One mullah told a reporter that he removed his turban and the clerical robe covering his suit in order to get a taxi. If he wore clerical garb he either failed to get a ride or was insulted by the driver and other passengers in the communal taxis.

"Do not defile the beauty of these mountains with corrupt music," says a blatantly ignored sign painted on a mud wall leading up to the mountain trails north of Tehran where dozens of young people carried boomboxes blasting music on a recent weekend.

Dancing in the hills

Strolling musicians played native fiddles and drums while people danced, a scene that would have provoked beatings by religious police two or three years ago.

Twenty-one years after Iranians swept the U.S.-installed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from power, the Islamic Republic that emerged from that power struggle faces major failures:

• The economy is a shambles with young people, even those with university degrees, unable to find jobs paying a dollar a day. Islamic hard-liners and their merchant allies dominate markets and choke competition through powerful foundations known as bonyads that run vast industrial and agricultural empires but pay no taxes.

• Iran failed to spark a worldwide Islamic revolution despite pouring millions into Islamist movements from the Middle East to Europe. Instead, Saudi Arabia's Wahabi brand of Sunni Islam fundamentalism dominates radical Islamic movements, while Iran's Shi'ite sect remains an often despised, heretical variant.

• Iran's support for Islamic revolution has not only provoked hostility in the West but also strained relations with Turkey, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinians.

• Hostility to birth control has led to a near doubling of Iran's population in 20 years to 60 million -one-third of whom are in school, many with no prospect of jobs when they finish. Birth control is now encouraged.

• While talking about the rights of minorities, the government has barred Sunni Muslims from building mosques, blocked Jews and Christians from government jobs and prosecuted 10 Jews from Shiraz this year for spying for Israel - provoking an exodus of minorities.

Revolution yielded gains

Still, Iran has had some success under the mullahs.

Women's education was strongly supported and half the university seats go to them. They fill the offices and shops, drive cars and even taxis and maintain a sense of equality with men that is perhaps greater than in neighboring Arab countries or Pakistan.

And though sparse Western media coverage of Iran suggests a land of intrigues, where mullahs hide bombs under their cloaks, the reality is far from that. A visitor finds a relatively well-functioning, clean country of businesslike people that resembles Israel more closely than it does the Arab or South Asian lands to its immediate east and west.

Even Iranian movie makers, protected from competition from Western studios and turning from politics to universal human drama, now win international acclaim for films like "The Color of Paradise."

Crime, prostitution and greed, though suppressed, continue under the mullahs. Addiction to opium and heroin flooding from Central Asia has become an epidemic in recent years, but the banning of alcohol, nightclubs and Western-style social life did keep people close to their families.

"I believe that most people, even if they do not vote for us, still believe in the Islamic Revolution," said Hassan Ghafoorifard, former vice president of Iran and now a member of the Senior Council for the Cultural Revolution.

Economic woes recognized

Since the clerics came to power in 1979, illiteracy fell from 75 percent to less than 25 percent, infant mortality fell from 117 per thousand to under 30 per thousand, and university enrollment rose from 150,000 to 1.3 million, of which 54 percent are women, said Mr. Ghafoorifard.

But he concedes he was stunned to lose his parliament seat in February to a reformist.

"Our polls showed we would get 60 percent of the vote in Tehran, and we didn't get a single one of the 30 seats in the city," he said with a rueful smile.

"Those who voted did not vote for us," said Mr. Ghafoorifard, "but that does not mean they are for Western culture." He blamed the defeat on economic and social problems "we couldn't solve."

But Mr. Ghafoorifard, who holds a doctorate in engineering from the University of Kansas, rejected the American model of separating politics and religion.

"Under no condition," he said, would the government accept making the female head covering optional.

If head covering were optional, most Iranian women might continue to follow tradition, but many men and women say they don't like mullah's enforcing what they can or cannot do.

'Fed up with mullahs'

"We have had enough of them -we are fed up with the mullahs," said one peasant women in a village south of Tehran - a refrain echoed by many other Iranians.

"Religion is losing its power and influence in society. The Majlis [parliament] was mainly clerics before, and now there are only a few there," said Davoud Bavand, professor of political science at the University of Supreme National Defense.

But although the majority of Iranians voted for government reform in February, they remain checkmated by hard-line clerics and their supporters.

Broadcast media are controlled by the hard-liners, as is the judiciary, which has closed down almost all the reformist publications since March, when the outgoing Majlis passed laws making it easier to stifle the press.

The resulting tension is growing dangerous. One Western diplomat said that it could lead to an upheaval as powerful as the one that overthrew the shah.

He said many in the army and Revolutionary Guards voted for reform candidates in February elections, and that there is concern among clerical political leaders about whose side they would support in case of a conflict.

Struggle bursts into open

The struggle between reformers and hard-liners burst into the open Aug. 6 when a press freedom law was blocked by the the Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme religious leader.

When some reformist parliamentarians questioned his intervention to block debate, militant mobs took to the street in front of parliament.

"We see the hidden hand of America, our most important enemy," said one student religious militant the day after the press bill was shelved.

Several said U.S. and British spy agencies funded the reformist press.

Such accusations are bound to frighten reformists, journalists or free-thinkers in a country where the religious establishment summons up mobs to enforce its views and arrests the victims of their brutal attacks while the attackers go free.

Iran has become the world's largest prison for journalists, Reporters Without Borders said Aug. 16 in Paris, citing the dozens arrested since March.

A man sitting on a milk crate in north Tehran last month was reading one of the reform papers, Behar, or Spring. "This is the only place you can read the truth," he said.

The next day Behar was closed by the courts for airing an interview that displeased hard-liners.

-------- myanmar

Suu Kyi Locked in As Myanmar Military Cracks Down

Yahoo News
Monday September 4
By Aung Hla Tun
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000904/ts/myanmar_suukyi_dc_2.html

YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was kept locked in her Yangon residence Monday as Myanmar's military government mounted a crackdown against its opponents despite world outrage.

Diplomats said the gate to Suu Kyi's residence had been padlocked since she was forcibly returned in the early hours of Saturday after a nine-day stand-off with the authorities in her car outside Yangon.

Embassy officials and members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) who tried to visit her were turned away. Diplomats said her telephone, and those of other senior NLD officials, seemed to have been cut.

``Her gate is padlocked. Not even staff or her personal driver are being allowed in there at the moment,'' said a Western diplomat in Yangon.

At the NLD headquarters in Yangon, around a dozen policemen stood guard in front of the building Monday and dozens more were deployed in the area. They did not appear to be armed, but police with riot gear and shields were visible behind the scenes.

Yangon was calm Monday, residents said, with many people unaware of the events of the weekend.

The government denied Suu Kyi and senior colleagues were under house arrest, but said they had been asked to ``stay at their respective residences'' while it investigated reports that some NLD members had been involved in ``terrorist activity.''

A government statement said there were reports that some NLD members had conspired to bring bombs into Myanmar with the help of God's Army, a rag-tag guerrilla group led by two cheroot-smoking teenage twins revered as having godlike powers.

The NLD won 1990 elections by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern.

International Condemnation

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he felt ``deep concern'' over events in Myanmar.

``Reports concerning further infringement of the freedom of movement and the freedom of political expression are particularly disturbing,'' Annan said in a statement.

The United States, Britain and Australia have all condemned the crackdown by the Myanmar military.

``The United States is outraged and strongly condemns the Burmese authorities' treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party members and the violations of their fundamental human rights,'' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said.

The crackdown in Myanmar followed a nine-day roadside confrontation with authorities after Suu Kyi was stopped by police while trying to leave Yangon on August 24.

It was the first time Suu Kyi had tried to leave Yangon since another roadside confrontation in 1998 that lasted 13 days until deteriorating health and dehydration forced her to return home.

The protest embarrassed Myanmar and raised doubts over a planned meeting of European Union and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers in Laos in December.

The government stepped up its verbal attacks on the NLD as the stand-off dragged on, and took a new tack with its accusations that the party was involved with God's Army.

God's Army, which groups radical ethnic Karen fighters and Myanmar student activists, was blamed for taking hundreds of hostages at a Thai hospital in January.

The hospital siege ended with all 10 guerrillas involved in the attack being shot dead by Thai commandos. God's Army is believed to have around 200 fighters at most.

With additional reporting by Andrew Marshall in Bangkok

---

Myanmar Accuses West of Instigating

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000905/wl/myanmar_suu_kyi_29.html

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar went on the offensive Tuesday against its critics over the latest crackdown on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying foreigners are meddling in its affairs and instigating unrest.

A statement from the iron-fisted military government accused Britain's ambassador, John Jenkins, of overstepping ``universal diplomatic norms'' by trying Monday to get to the house of Tin Oo, the deputy chairman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.

Tin Oo, Suu Kyi and seven other NLD party leaders have been kept indoors under virtual house arrest since Friday night. No visitors have been allowed and the gates of their homes have been padlocked from the outside.

In separate comments published Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, Myanmar's chief of military intelligence, accused ``two Western countries'' of instigating unrest in the country. He was apparently referring to the United States and Britain, which have blasted the treatment of Suu Kyi and others.

``They are creating unrest in the country by agitating a handful of disruptive and subversionist groups who will follow their dictates,'' Khin Nyunt, the No. 3 man in the ruling hierarchy, said in a speech Monday. It was reported by all the state-run newspapers, including the Kyemon daily and the New Light of Myanmar.

Tuesday's government statement said a plainclothes security officer blocked Jenkins' path to ``prevent the diplomat from forcing his way'' into Tin Oo's house.

``It is difficult to understand why a foreign ambassador was so adamant to intrude into the internal affairs of an independent and sovereign nation,'' it said.

The statements indicated a hardening of the government's stand in the face of international condemnation of its political tug-of-war with Suu Kyi, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. The government said the restrictions on the NLD are an issue between it and a local political party, adding: ``The people who are involved are purely Myanmar citizens and not British.''

The military rulers' latest confrontation with the NLD began on Aug. 24 when security forces blocked Suu Kyi, Tin Oo and 12 youth workers as they tried to drive out to the countryside for political work.

Refusing to return to Yangon, Suu Kyi and her followers camped out in the open near their vehicles for nine days before being forcibly returned to Yangon on Friday night. Since then, the NLD leaders have been forced to stay inside their homes. The government says the leaders are not under house arrest, but have merely been ``requested'' to stay indoors during a police investigation into the party's alleged terrorism links.

On Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win met with a group of foreign diplomats to justify the restrictions. Britain and the United States were not invited.

Khin Maung Win claimed that NLD youths had conspired with rebel groups to try to smuggle five remote-controlled bombs into the capital for terrorist activities in August and September. U.S. charge d'affaires Priscilla Clapp, contacted from Bangkok, Thailand, dismissed the claim as a ``malicious fabrication.''

Suu Kyi has led Myanmar's pro-democracy movement since 1988, keeping up her struggle despite six years of house arrest that ended in 1995. The NLD won national elections in 1990 but the military government has refused to hand it power.

---

Myanmar Slams West After Crackdown on Suu Kyi

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5 11:10 AM ET 2:45 AM ET Sep 6
By Aung Hla Tun
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/wl/myanmar_leadall_dc_28.html

YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) - Myanmar's ruling military hit out at its Western critics on Tuesday, accusing them of interfering in its internal affairs as it kept opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi locked up inside her home and cut off from the world.

Myanmar told Britain it may allow diplomatic access to Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi within two weeks.

Suu Kyi and other senior members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) have been padlocked inside their residences for four days after the military forcibly ended a nine-day roadside protest in the early hours of Saturday.

Diplomats who tried to visit them were turned away.

In a clear reference to the United States and Britain, state-run newspapers on Tuesday quoted Myanmar's powerful head of military intelligence, Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, as saying ``two big western countries'' were meddling in Myanmar's affairs.

``Two big western countries are applying various means to interfere in and dominate the internal affairs of Myanmar and destroy her relations with the international community,'' the papers quoted Khin Nyunt as telling a meeting.

``They are trying to drag the Myanmar people into poverty and hardships and to cause unrest in the nation,'' he said.

The United States and Britain have both strongly condemned Myanmar's ruling generals for their treatment of Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders, and have demanded the lifting of restrictions placed on their movements.

Myanmar In Crisis

John Battle, a junior British Foreign Office minister, summoned Myanmar's London ambassador Kyaw Win on Monday to protest at the crackdown and demand information about Suu Kyi.

``I got an interesting response,'' Battle said on Tuesday.

``I said 'Is there a crisis?' He said 'Yes'. I then said, 'When then can we have diplomatic access to Aung San Suu Kyi?' And he said, 'Shortly, perhaps in the next two weeks.'''

Battle told BBC radio it was the first time the Yangon authorities had admitted Myanmar was in crisis, an admission he attributed to the effect of international diplomatic pressure.

Myanmar's government has reserved its strongest criticism for Britain, releasing a statement on Tuesday denying reports that British ambassador John Jenkins was manhandled at the weekend as he tried to visit leading NLD members.

``It is difficult to understand why a foreign ambassador was so adamant to intrude into the internal affairs of an independent and sovereign nation,'' it said. ``Obviously, the British diplomat has overstepped the universal diplomatic norms.''

Suu Kyi, her driver, and 14 NLD members spent nine days in their cars on the side of a road just outside Yangon after they were halted by security forces on their way to a party meeting outside the capital on August 24.

It was the first time Suu Kyi had tried to leave Yangon since another roadside protest in August 1998, which ended after 13 days when deteriorating health forced her to return home.

A large contingent of armed police took the NLD members back to Yangon on Saturday and they have been kept locked up in their homes since then, cut off from the outside world with no telephones and access to diplomats refused.

The Myanmar government has denied Suu Kyi and senior colleagues are under house arrest, but has said they have been asked to stay at home while it investigates reports that some NLD members had been involved in ``terrorist activity.''

The Yangon authorities have not yet confirmed the exact whereabouts of Suu Kyi and her colleagues.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has expressed ''grave concern'' for the safety of Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders, saying the military government should reveal where they are.

``If they are being confined to their homes, we strongly urge the Myanmar government to allow them freedom of movement,'' it said in a statement sent to Reuters on Tuesday.

---

World Briefing

New York Times
September 06, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06BRIE.html

MYANMAR: WEST ACCUSED The government accused some Western nations and their diplomats of trying to stir up trouble in their defense of the pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined to her home this week. Apparently alluding to the United States and Britain, a top official said, "They are creating unrest in the country by agitating a handful of disruptive and subversionist groups who will follow their dictates." Seth Mydans (NYT)

---

Burmese junta hits Britain on interference

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://208.246.212.80/world/worldscene-200096213830.htm

RANGOON, Burma - Burma's ruling military hit out at its Western critics yesterday, accusing them of interfering in its internal affairs as it kept opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi locked up inside her home and cut off from the world.

Burma told Britain it may allow diplomatic access to Mrs. Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, within two weeks.

Mrs. Suu Kyi and other senior members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) have been padlocked inside their residences for four days after the military forcibly ended a nine-day roadside protest in the early hours of Saturday.

Diplomats who tried to visit them were turned away.

-------- russia

Russians Stepping Up Security in Chechnya Before Anniversary

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06CHEC.html

NAZRAN, Russia, Sept. 5 (Agence France-Presse) - Security was stepped up in Chechnya today, two days before the anniversary of the region's self-declared independence, and rebels said six Russians had died in the capital, Grozny.

Only military and emergency vehicles escaped a travel ban in effect until Friday, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Col. Boris Luzin, told the RIA-Novosti news agency.

The measures were ordered in preparation for the anniversary of the storming of the local Soviet Parliament in 1991 by separatist rebels. The action set off a chain of events that culminated in the 21-month conflict with Moscow that ended in 1996 with Grozny's de facto independence.

"The security of Interior Ministry troops and important buildings has been increased," Colonel Luzin said, adding that the military feared that Chechen guerrillas would send suicide attacks against federal troops. At least 33 service members died in July when suicide bombers drove trucks packed with explosives into Russian bases in Chechnya. Army chiefs faulted Interior Ministry troops, saying they had ignored orders to beef up security.

Despite Russians' assertions that they had snuffed out significant rebel resistance, Chechen guerrillas said today that they had killed six federal soldiers in Grozny. A spokesman for President Aslan Maskhadov said fighters led by a warlord, Khamzat Labazanov, had killed the soldiers in clashes in the Staropromyslovsky district. The state-run RTR television reported fighting in the district after a military truck struck a mine, and Russian headquarters in the Khankala district said a police officer died in an explosion.

The Russian commandant, Gen. Ivan Babichev, was quoted as saying, "The situation in the city is stable and totally under control."

-------- space

NASA Deploys NFR Intrusion Detection Software

Yahoo News
Wednesday September 6, 4:20 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000906/md_network.html

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 6, 2000--Network Flight Recorder(r) (NFR)(Bloomberg Ticker: 9022Z EQUITY), a technology leader in intrusion detection and network monitoring, today announced that NASA is expanding its use of NFR Software which will result in an agency wide deployment of intrusion detection at each of NASA's ten Centers and Headquarters facility.

John Ray, Manager of NASA's Principal Center for Information Technology Security, said, ``We decided to add the NFR Intrusion Detection product to our security tool kit since it provides us with the flexibility to respond to emerging exploits as well as monitoring for known network exploits. Our experience with the product convinced us that NFR would meet the demanding needs of our Centers and enhance our overall security posture.''

Jack Reis, NFR Chief Executive Officer, stated, ``I am naturally very pleased that NASA has selected NFR to protect their networks against abuse and unwelcome intrusions. NASA and other large government agencies need the power and scalability NFR offers to properly secure their networks. NASA's assessment and selection process serves to validate our technology strategy.''

NFR is a leading developer of intrusion detection, network traffic, and network analysis tools. The flexibility of the NFR software provides effective local and distributed misuse detection solutions for small, medium, and large environments.

NFR's highly customizable technology is deployed at thousands of sites worldwide, including Fortune 500 firms, financial institutions, government, military and intelligence agencies.

The Company offers its products through a worldwide network of resellers and solution providers. NFR news and company information can be found on The Bloomberg under the ticker symbol: 9022Z EQUITY and on the World Wide Web at http://www.nfr.net.

Network Flight Recorder, NFR and the striped NFR logo are registered trademarks of Network Flight Recorder, Inc.

Other products, services, and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact:
Network Flight Recorder Barnaby Page, 240/632-9000 240/632-0200 fax sales@nfr.net

---

NASA Starts Countdown for Shuttle Launch

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/science/space-shuttle.html

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Sept 5 - NASA began its three-day countdown on Tuesday toward launch of the space-shuttle Atlantis on an assembly and supply run to the International Space Station, a $60 billion science outpost that is under construction.

Highlights of the 11-day voyage will include a space walk in which an American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut scamper along the outside of the 11-story station as it is docked with the orbiting Atlantis.

Inside the station, the crew of seven, along with viewers on Earth, will get their first look inside the Zvezda service module since the Russian Space Agency launched it into space in July. Zvezda will be the early headquarters aboard the sprawling construction site once the first long-duration crew, dubbed Expedition One, heads for space in October.

The space station is being built by a 17-nation consortium led by the United States and Russia, the most experienced space-faring nations.

Completion is targeted for 2005, and by that time the station should sprawl 365 feet (108 metres) at its widest point, host six laboratories and house a crew of seven in pressurized space roughly equivalent to two modest suburban homes.

Atlantis is scheduled for liftoff about 8:45 a.m. EDT (1245 GMT) on Friday, with weather forecasters saying there is a 60 percent chance of clear skies and winds acceptable for a launch.

The space shuttle crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Centre on Monday night from their training centre in Houston aboard T-38 training jets.

``We're ready to go,'' Commander Terrence Wilcutt, a U.S. Marine Corps colonel and veteran of three previous shuttle flights, two of them to the Russian Mir space station. ``We've been training about seven months and I don't think we've left any stone unturned,'' he told reporters waiting on the ground.

This mission is similar to other recent flights in that Atlantis will deliver tonnes of supplies to the station as astronauts assemble and wire various appliances and on-board systems. On this trip the station gets a toilet.

Atlantis last flew about four months ago, making this a very quick turnaround for shuttle operations as the programme tries to catch up on past delays.

The launch window, often an hour or more long, will be between two and four minutes on Friday. Tightening the window is a way to conserve fuel, and NASA wants to add a 12th day to the mission, if possible, giving the crew time to get ahead of schedule in station assembly.

Space station construction has been held up more than a year as the cash-strapped Russians struggled to get Zvezda off the ground. NASA is counting on this launch to uncork an ambitious schedule of 15 U.S. and Russian flights over the next year.

``There's an awful lot of launches coming up in the next year. We're all looking forward to getting this off on the right foot,'' Atlantis mission specialist Edward Lu said during the crew-arrival ceremony.

In addition to Wilcutt and Lu, the Atlantis crew includes three other Americans -- pilot Scott Altman and mission specialists Richard Mastracchio and Daniel Burbank -- and two Russians, Yuri Malenchenko and Boris Morukov.

---

More Studies Planned for Mars Project

New York Times
September 06, 2000
Bulletin Board
By ABBY GOODNOUGH, KAREN W. ARENSON and MICHAEL POLLAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/nyregion/06BULL.html

When NASA decided earlier this year to cancel its next landing on Mars, scheduled for 2001, STEVEN SQUYRES was a man with some very expensive instruments designed to explore Mars and no way of getting them there. But Dr. Squyres, a Cornell University astronomy professor who was responsible for designing the scientific payload for the Mars mission, got some better news in August when NASA decided to schedule not one but two Mars launchings in 2003. Once the 2001 launch was called off, he knew that it would take at least two years before another could be scheduled. Opportunities to launch to Mars come only every 26 months, when the planets are correctly lined up.

While Dr. Squyres waits, he will oversee the construction of a second set of instruments to study the planet's climate and search for water (past or present). He will also draw about a dozen undergraduates into the Mars project.

---

USA Today
09/06/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Washington

Kirkland - NASA may help a private rocket company get off the ground. It recently gave Kistler Aerospace a $264,000 contract to study the feasibility of using a reusable manned rocket to supply the International Space Station.

-------- u.n.

UN withdraws from West Timor

BBC News
Wednesday, 6 September, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_913000/913426.stm

Pro-Jakarta militias are blamed for hundreds of deaths The United Nations refugee agency says it is evacuating all its relief staff from West Timor after pro-Indonesian militia went on the rampage killing three of its international staff.

The move was announced by Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, speaking on the sidelines of the UN Millennium Summit in New York.

Hundreds of machete-wielding militiamen rioted in the border town of Atambua, burning down the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other buildings. A number of UN vehicles were also set on fire.

Four helicopters from the UN peacekeeping force in East Timor rushed to the town and airlifted all the remaining relief workers there to the East Timorese capital, Dili.

The three international staff killed have been confirmed by the UNHCR in Geneva as Ethiopian Samson Aregahegn, Carlos Caseras of the United States and Bosnian Pero Simundza. Their bodies have been recovered and taken to Dili.

"These were peaceful, unarmed humanitarians who gave their lives trying help those who had lost everything in conflict," Sadako Ogata the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement

There have been conflicting reports over the exact number of casualties. UN officials in Geneva have confirmed to the BBC that three of its staff members are dead.

Beaten to death

According to accounts given by UN workers evacuated to Dili, the UNHCR says the attack began at around noon local time.

The agency's chief spokesman in Geneva, Ron Redmond, told BBC News Online that the violence began shortly after the funeral procession for a militia leader, killed in the nearby town of Betun on Tuesday night, passed by the office.

A large crowd then gathered outside the office located close to an army and police headquarters.

"At no time did the Indonesian military move to intervene in the attack," Mr Redmond said.

He added that staff had received no warning that an attack was about to take place, as was being reported in the Indonesian media.

As relief workers rushed to escape the mob over a fence at the rear of the UN compound, the three staff who died trapped in the radio room trying to contact colleagues in Dili.

They were then hacked to death with machetes by militiamen who then poured gasoline over them and burned their bodies - one of them after being dragged out into the street.

Mr Redmond said many of those who survived were hidden by local staff in their homes around Atambua - they were then driven through the town to meet the evacuation helicopters.

He added that one female aid worker had been trapped and stoned by a mob at hotel in the town, although she escaped with injuries.

Annan's tribute

The latest violence coincided with the opening of the UN Millennium Summit in New York, where world leaders are discussing the UN's peacekeeping operations.

Opening the summit Secretary General Kofi Annan departed from his prepared inaugural statement to inform the 150 kings and presidents of the killings and ask for a minute's silence in tribute.

"This tragedy underlines once again the dangers faced by unarmed humanitarian workers serving the United Nations in conflict or post-conflict situations," he said.

Atambua is one of the main refugee centres for East Timorese who fled the violence which erupted after the vote.

More than 600 people died and more than 200,000 fled into West Timor when pro-Jakarta militias rampaged through East Timor, with the alleged connivance of Indonesian officers.

Last month, the UNHCR suspended its entire aid programme in West Timor after two of its staff were badly beaten and one man was almost killed by militia members in the refugee camps.

The agency resumed operations after receiving guarantees of protection from the Indonesian government.

---

Clinton Calls for U.N. Army

NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000, 12:34 p.m. EST
Austin Ruse
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/6/112634

President Bill Clinton told world leaders gathered today in New York that the United Nations needs a rapid deployment force of well-trained and well-equipped soldiers capable of projecting "credible force" into trouble spots.

Clinton was the first head of state to speak at the largest gathering of world leaders in history, attending the U.N. Millennium Summit.

Clinton spoke almost exclusively on the "making and keeping of peace."

"There are assembled here more people with the power to create peace than have ever gathered together in one place in the history of the world. Can we seize this moment?"

He said that most wars now occur within borders and are caused principally by "ethnic and religious" differences.

He said national sovereignty and territorial integrity should take a back seat to keeping the peace.

"Whether it is diplomacy, sanctions, or collective force, we must find ways to protect people as well as borders. There are times when the international community must take a side - not merely stand between the sides."

Clinton's call for a U.N. rapid deployment force - effectively a standing army at the disposal of the United Nations - will certainly fuel efforts by Democrats in Congress to deploy 6,000 American soldiers for permanent U.N. service.

His proposal will also give political conservatives increasing fear the U.N. will become an independent political force with its own military arm.

Clinton criticized the U.S. Congress for holding up payment of U.S. U.N. dues. "All nations, including my own, must meet our obligations to the U.N. Those who believe we can either do without the U.N., or impose our will upon it, have not learned from history and do not understand the future."

Clinton spoke to a packed U.N. General Assembly Hall with overflow jammed into conference rooms in the U.N. basement.

In the Hall were all the major leaders of the world, including French President Jacques Chirac, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Cuban president Fidel Castro, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israel's Ehud Barak, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, and the Princes of Monaco, Morocco and Saudi Arabia were also present.

In his remarks, Vladimir Putin called for a U.N. conference to be convened in Moscow for the prevention of weapons in space; a proposal aimed directly at the proposed U.S. intercontinental missile shield.

All leaders are expected to address the conference, which will continue through Friday.

---

http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/2000/9/7/3.text.1

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary (New York, New York)

For Immediate Release September 6, 2000
U.S. Support for the United Nations: Engagement, Innovation and Renewal

At the start of a new Century and a new Millennium, the UN remains a critical instrument for the advancement of important U.S. foreign policy objectives.

U.S. Engagement with the United Nations. The United States is the largest supporter of the UN, which is involved in critical issues relating to peace and security, humanitarian assistance, development and health. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, the United States will have contributed about $500 million to UN peacekeeping, some $565 million to UN and development-related agencies and about $1 billion to UN humanitarian agencies. The United States also contributes military observers or police officers to seven UN missions, and U.S. troops work in cooperation with UN operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.

The Clinton Administration worked closely with the U.S. Congress to secure enactment of UN arrears legislation in November 1999, which appropriates $926 million to pay U.S. arrears to the United Nations in three tranches. The Clinton Administration is working with the UN members to enact the institutional reforms that will permit the full payment of this appropriation.

U.S. Support for Innovation at the UN. The United States has promoted innovation efforts designed to equip the UN to meet the challenges of the new Century. These include:

-- Peacekeeping. The Clinton Administration supports the major recommendations of the Secretary General's blue-ribbon panel on peacekeeping reform, such as improved UN planning capacity, better training and equipment for UN troops operating in uncertain environments and greater efforts to develop the building blocks for political transitions -- judicial institutions, electoral systems, economic development -- so that the end of war can be turned into lasting peace. The Clinton Administration has been working hard to promote such enhancements through initiatives to train peacekeepers from African countries, to the provision worldwide of more than 800 civilian police (the largest contingent in the UN)-- who are critical to ensuring community-level protection of civilians in post-conflict environments -- to short-term transitional aid and longer term development assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development.

-- Accountability. The United States is the largest contributor to the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and has strongly supported establishment of special courts for Cambodia and Sierra Leone.

-- Human Dimension of Security Issues. The United States has successfully pressed the UN Security Council and other UN institutions to recognize more effectively the human dimension of security issues. The U.S. focus on HIV/AIDS and the exploitation of women and children has cast a light on a previously ignored dimension of human suffering, and the United States is leading international efforts to enhance funding and support to fight infectious diseases.

U.S. Support for Renewal of the UN. The United States has led efforts to improve the institutional capacity of the UN to do its job. The United States strongly supported the establishment of an Office of Internal Oversight at the UN, which has worked to promote greater efficiency. Through such efforts, the organization has cut its budget by about $100 million over six years and reduced its staff by about 1,000 over the past four years. There is more to be done, and the Clinton Administration is seeking additional institutional reforms through improvements in human resource management, budgeting by objective and other means.

The United States also strongly supports efforts to reform UN assessments and put the UN's finances on a more secure footing, as the currentassessment regime is largely outdated and does not reflect the current capacity or responsibilities of UN members. The United States has gained support among many UN Members for such reform, designed to better equip the UN to meet the challenges of the new Century.

----

The United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Act of 2000

NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/6/125806

106th CONGRESS
2d Session

H. R. 4453 To encourage the establishment of a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 15, 2000 Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. PORTER, and Mrs. MORELLA) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

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

A BILL To encourage the establishment of a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force Act of 2000'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds the following:

(1) United States Presidential Decision Directive 71 calls for a stronger United States response to maintaining order in societies recovering from conflict. It aims to improve coordination of United States efforts and to enhance the ability of other countries, the United Nations, and regional organizations to plan, mount, and sustain operations in support of the rule of law.

(2) In a press briefing on February 24, 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated the following: `The recent slowness in deploying desperately needed civilian police to Kosovo provides only the latest evidence that present international capabilities are not adequate. And the ongoing deployment of CIVPOL teams to East Timor and Sierra Leone show that the need will not soon diminish. In response, we must recognize that old models of peacekeeping don't always meet current challenges. Peace operations today often require skills that are neither strictly military nor strictly police but, rather, a combination of the two. The international community needs to identify and train units that are able to control crowds, deter vigilante actions, prevent looting and disarm civilian agitators while, at the same time, winning the trust of the communities in which they are deployed.'

(3) In his April 2000 report, `We the Peoples, The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century', United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan states that only member nations of the United Nations can fix the `structural weakness of United Nations peace operations . . . Our system for launching operations has sometimes been compared to a volunteer fire department, but that description is too generous. Every time there is a fire, we must first find fire engines and the funds to run them before we can start dousing any flames. The present system relies almost entirely on last minute, ad hoc arrangements that guarantee delay, with respect to the provision of civilian personnel even more so than military. Although we have understandings for military standby arrangements with Member States, the availability of the designated forces is unpredictable and very few are in a state of high readiness. Resource constraints preclude us even from being able to deploy a mission headquarters rapidly.'

(4) The December 1999 United Nations `Report on the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda' indicates that in April 1994, the United Nations Security Council failed to deploy 5,500 United Nations peacekeepers to Rwanda within two weeks of the initial violence, thereby allowing the conflict to escalate. The 6-month estimated cost of the deployment would have been $115,000,000. Instead, the genocide consumed 800,000 lives along with $2,000,000,000 in humanitarian aid.

(5) In Srebrenica, Bosnia, on July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb troops forced the retreat of Dutch United Nations peacekeepers who were part of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) from a `safe haven', resulting in the massacre of 7,000 Bosnian civilians and expulsion of 40,000 Bosnian civilians.

(6) The United Nations peacekeeping budget estimate for the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina from July 1, 1997, to June 30, 1998, was $165,600,000, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-sponsored intervention in the Serbian province of Kosovo cost $37,000,000 per day.

(7) In July 1999, 4,700 civilian police officers were requested to be deployed to the Serbian province of Kosovo but, as of April 17, 2000, the United Nations has deployed only 2,901 of the requested police officers, resulting in the breakdown of law and order and the escalation of unrest in Kosovo.

(8) In May 2000, Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone, in violation of the ceasefire and peace accords, captured and held prisoner approximately 500 United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeepers. The weapons, equipment, and vehicles of the peacekeepers were also seized. The UNAMSIL force had been deployed too slowly and was undertrained and understaffed, consisting of only 8,700 peacekeepers of the 11,000 peacekeepers requested by the United Nations Security Council.

(9) On February 24, 2000, the United Nations Security Council approved a United States-sponsored proposal to send 5,537 troops on an observer mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (to be known as the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC)), a Republic 1/3 the size of the United States, to monitor the implementation of the Lusaka accords. However, it will take at least three months to deploy the required forces. On April 25, 2000, South African Foreign Minister Dlamini-Zuma urged rapid deployment of the troops and stated `[i]f deployment is very slow [the accords] can fall apart . . . The troops should have been deployed a long time ago.'

(10) The United States has the power in the United Nations Security Council to veto decisions that are not within the national interests of the United States.

SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNITED NATIONS RAPID DEPLOYMENT POLICE AND SECURITY FORCE.

(a) ESTABLISHMENT- The President shall direct the United States representative to the United Nations to use the voice, vote, and influence of the United States to urge the United Nations--

(1) to establish a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force that is rapidly deployable, under the authority of the United Nations Security Council, and trained to standardized objectives;

(2) to recruit personnel to serve in this Force; and

(3) to provide equitable and reliable funding for the United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force.

(b) MISSION STATEMENT- The United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force should have a mission statement that provides for the following:

(1) The United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force will engage in operations when--

(A) the United Nations Security Council determines that an imminent threat to the peace requires a preventive deployment of forces and the Security Council deems it as an appropriate response;

(B) the United Nations Security Council determines ongoing gross violations of human rights or breaches of the peace require rapid intervention by the international community and the Security Council deems it as an appropriate response;

(C) peace has been restored to a region but the rule of law has not yet been reestablished and when national civilian police or United Nations member nations personnel are not available and the Security Council deems it as an appropriate response; or

(D) the United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force can utilize its personnel to help train the military and civilian police of member nations of the United Nations to better participate in international peace operations.

(2) The United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force will consist of not more than 6000 personnel who are--

(A) placed under the authority of the United Nations Security Council;

(B) under the direction of the Secretary General of the United Nations;

(C) deployed only by United Nations Security Council resolution;

(D) volunteers from United Nations member nations employed directly by the United Nations;

(E) trained as a single unit, appropriately equipped, expressly for international peace operations including civilian policing; and

(F) rapidly deployable.

(3) The United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force will be organized as a sub-department within the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations or under the control of the United Nations's Military Staff Committee and will contain personnel trained as military staff officers and civilian police officers to be deployed immediately to a potential conflict area.

(4) The deployment of the United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force will be limited to a maximum of 6 months, at which time the Police and Security Force would be replaced by personnel supplied by United Nations member nations.

(5) The basing and infrastructure service of the United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force will be leased from existing member nations' institutions.

SEC. 5. REPORT ON UNITED NATIONS RAPID DEPLOYMENT POLICE AND SECURITY FORCE.

Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the President shall prepare and transmit to the Congress a report on the progress of negotiations with the United Nations and its member nations regarding the creation of a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force described in section 3.

SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) The term `international peace operations' means--

(A) any such operation carried out under chapter VI or chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations; and

(B) any such United Nations operation that includes civilian policing.

(2) The term `rapidly deployable' refers to the capacity to deploy military or civilian personnel to a region undergoing conflict within 15 days of the enactment of a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing a deployment.

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The Un-American United Nations (Millennium Version)

NewsMax.com
September 6, 2000
Steve Farrell
http://www.newsmax.com/commentmax/articles/Steve_Farrell.shtml

Like many of you, growing up under the tutelage of the public school system and the big three television networks in the 1960's and 1970's, I recall the zealous and reverential treatment afforded the world's eighth wonder: the United Nations.

Its ideals, they said, were homespun American ideals. Its immediate mission: to perpetuate the same across the globe. Its ultimate objective: to bring an end to poverty, prejudice, conflict and war. Indeed, some envisioned and vigorously proclaimed future life under the United Nations as the last and highest stage of evolutionary man (1).

In textbook and pamphlet, newspaper and film clip this dream was perpetuated, and many of us longing for peace and security in the aftermath of two consecutive world wars were swept away with the imagery and emotion of this coming millennial Zion. It would be glorious.

So glorious that warning bells should have broadcast throughout the land a solemn, "beware!" prior to any casting of votes for or against the UN Charter. But the bells were muffled, the Charter fast-tracked through the US Senate, and today we suffer under our great mistake.

Indeed, this very day, September 6, 2000, with 159 heads of state gathering on U.S. soil for a World Millennium Summit, our mistake looms ever larger. The goal of this summit: nothing less than to bring America's leaders to their knees, to vow strict loyalty, this day and forever, not to our Constitution, to which they are solemnly bound, but to the only true loyalty, the UN Charter, or what Koffi Annan calls the "global soul."

We should be alarmed. Compelling evidence, accumulated over the years by a few dedicated citizens and watchdog organizations, (2) reveals this difficult truth: The UN's idealism is less than ideal; its similarity and loyalty to the US system, a facade; its promise for peace and liberty more a formula for war and tyranny; it's leaders and founders, dedicated socialists and communists.

The UN was never intended to be our friend. Yet, in the year 2000, we have a President, a State Department and two presidential candidates collectively converted, not to the down-to-earth protection of US sovereignty and liberty under the Constitution, as per their oath of office, but to some pie-in-the-sky vision of a borderless, socially-conscious world under the United Nations. At such a crossroad, re-exposing the uncomfortable truth about the UN cannot be overdone.

The UN is no friend to American ideals

A. The UN's Founders were known Communists

If it's true that the personality, purpose and accomplishments of an organization are highly affected by its leadership, then membership in the United Nations spelled trouble from the start. Of the 17 individuals identified by the US State Department as having helped shape US policy leading to the creation of the United Nations, all but one were later identified as secret members of the Communist Party USA (3).

Joining them at the UN's founding conference were 43 members of the ultra influential, ultra pro-socialist, globalist think-tank the Council On Foreign Relations, (6 of the 43 CFR members having the additional distinction of membership in the Communist Party USA) (4). And, importantly, the UN's first Secretary General and orchestrator of the San Francisco conference was the man later convicted as a Soviet agent - Alger Hiss (5).

Not a good start.

Following in the footsteps of that unhallowed class of '46, the ideological makeup of the UN's leadership has been constant. In its 54 year history all eight Secretary Generals of the UN have been either dedicated socialists or communists (6), all 15 of the UN Under-Secretary-Generals for Political and Security Council Affairs (the UN's military boss) have been communists (all but one from the Soviet Union/Russian Federation) (7), and two thirds of the membership in the General Assembly, the Security Council, and in the World Court have always been representatives of socialist and communist nations.

Further, the collection of US employees at the UN have not fared well either. Besides the scandal of having American communists Alger Hiss and company as the creators of the UN, a 1952 official Senate investigation into the then 6 year old United Nations revealed, "extensive evidence indicating that there is today in the UN among the American employees there, the greatest concentration of Communists that this committee has ever encountered (8)." And these were high officials.

Twenty years later, the "anti-American, anti-freedom" flavor of the UN continued unabated, which prompted former UN enthusiast, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater to call for US withdrawal from the UN, and the re-stationing of its headquarters to a place "more in keeping with the philosophy of the majority of its voting members, somewhere like Peking or Moscow (9)."

Things were no different by the 1980's. Republican President Ronald Reagan expressed the same sentiments as Goldwater, adding that the UN was the host of the greatest concentration of spies in the world and thus he vowed to withdraw the US from the UN. (He did boot UNESCO out of the US)

Which leads to the next reason the UN deserves our full measure of scorn. With a line-up of communists, socialists, and spies founding and still running the show at the UN; it seems a bit hard to believe that the political framework created by such notorious figures would be consistent with the American Constitution? Isn't it? And there is plenty of proof..

B. The UN's Charter is the antithesis of the US Constitution.

Its Bill of Rights (10) creates radical new rights to include:

The socialist right to "adequate" housing, a "living" wage, rest and leisure, medical care, social services, employment security, sick pay, disability pay, old age security pay, and widow's pay.

The family threatening right for children to possess "freedom of thought, conscience, and religion [which has led to children suing their parents in the United States]," and the right to privacy (i.e. the right for a child to seek an abortion without parental consent.)

The sovereignty destroying right for humans to immigrate and receive welfare services in whatever nation they choose.

The brainwashing right for "students" to learn the "principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations."

And the statist right for the UN to eradicate any and all "rights and freedoms... exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations (11)," A Soviet Constitution style proviso, to accompany all of these and more Soviet style rights (12).

Its Promotion of Democratic Institutions is a pretense.

Not one UN delegate or official is democratically elected by the people.

The 185 national delegates to the General Assembly don't possess real representative power anyway. They may only "consider . . . discuss . . . advise . . . or make suggestions to the Security Council (13)." An arrangement similar to the meaningless representation the American Colonies suffered under the British Parliament.

However, the 15 member nations of the Security Council (5 permanent members and ten rotating) do have substantial power and are unchecked in this power by election or constitutional constraint. Which leads to the next point (14).

Its Separation of Powers is an illusion.

The UN appears to have three separate branches of government with the General Assembly and the Security Council being symbolic of our House and Senate; the Secretary General symbolic of our President; and the World Court symbolic of our Supreme Court.

But, as already demonstrated, the General Assembly has only advisory powers, the Secretary General is but the chief administrative officer of the UN, who, like the General Assembly, may only "bring to the attention of the Security Council" matters he deems important (15), while the World Court is subject to the Security Council's absolute veto upon any of its decisions.

Furthermore, the Security Council may, if it so chooses, judge any legal matter it sees fit, only being advised to "take into consideration that legal disputes should as a general rule be referred to the International Court of Justice (16)."

Thus all powers legislative, executive, and judicial reside in the Security Council, with the five permanent members being the real power center since the non- permanent members serve but two years (17) and lack absolute veto power (18).

Stunningly, in the serious matter of sanctions or war, once initiated, the General Assembly is even stripped of its petty right to consult with the Security Council, unless the Council "requests" their input (19).

Additionally, regional military and economic alliances, such as NATO, the EU, ASIAN, and NAFTA, are all, by their own treaty law, and the UN Charter which authorized their existence, subject to the rule of the UN Security Council, to whom they must report all actions "under contemplation;" to whom they must seek the approval for any sanctions they intend to impose; and to whom they must bow in obeisance when the Security Council deems it necessary to delegate out enforcement actions (20).

Thus regional arrangements are part of the UN web, and subject to the centralized control of the few men who make up the permanent membership of the Security Council.

Monstesque taught, and the founders concurred and improved on the principle, that the concentration of all power legislative, executive, and judicial in one office is the very definition of tyranny (21). So what then is the Security Council but a budding five- headed world tyrant?

Its National Sovereignty Protection clause was and is a ploy.

Article 2, Verse 7 which forbids the UN from intervening "in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state" was inserted as an afterthought to calm the fears of conservatives in the US Senate 50 years ago. The clause offers no such security.

Every other clause, every other sentence, every other word in the UN Charter calls for international oversight over every possible affair on the planet. Even the sovereignty clause has a mile wide escape hatch which reads "this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII."

Chapter VII, Articles 39 through 42 include the Security Council's power to "determine the existence of any threat to. . .international peace and security," and then to take whatever actions "as may be necessary" such as "interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communications," and or, "action by air, sea, or land forces." Chapter VII, Article 50 even gives the Security Council the power to wage war or impose sanctions on non-member nations. If that isn't the power to intervene in internal matters, what is?

Evidence enough, says former Top Communist Party member, Joseph Z. Kornfeder, that it's clearly recognizable that "the UN "blueprint" is a communist one (22)."

The UN has not protected sovereignty, nor promoted freedom

A. The UN's history confirms the above claim.

The UN is the enemy of national sovereignty. A few examples:

The Word Trade Organization (another regional arrangement under the UN Charter), for instance, usurps the right of nations to establish their own foreign commerce policy via 40,000 pages of regulations, scores of regulatory agencies, and its use of sanctions against violators, proving itself the enemy, not the friend of free trade.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (also part of the UN Circle) routinely blackmail client nations to alter internal policies via structural loans (23). Typically, they demand the establishment of planned economies; the nationalization of utilities, major industries, and banking; the creation of export dependent economies; and the implementation of national birth control policies. In a nutshell, in the name of fiscal responsibility, they subtly push socialist based economic, social, and political philosophies which stifle economic independence, and foster greater dependence on the UN, its banks, and the international community.

The UN's military uses brute force to decide the fate of wars between sovereign nations and or internal warring factions as it did in the Belgium Congo, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti.

Presently, the UN is engaged in 14 "peacekeeping" operations (wars) enlisting troops from 77 nations (world wars), and has waged war 62 times in its brief 56 years of existence. Some peace organization! More quietly, it has murdered hundreds of thousands through trade embargoes, a half million children in Iraq alone (24), robbing innocent civilians of the necessities of life, all because the UN denies the sovereign right of nations, like Iraq, to maintain a modern national defense system.

Not surprisingly, the UN opposes the building by the United States of a 21st Century missile defense system to protect our sovereignty - even while the UN ignores continued Russian and Chinese targeting of major US cities, continued Russian and Chinese missile modernization programs, and continued Russian and Chinese First-Strike Doctrines.

And as for respecting Sovereignty, and human rights, consider this, one of the major goals of the Millennial Summit is a call for the establishment of a permanent standing UN Army on US soil (which Clinton appallingly supports) who will go to war at the whim of the UN, so that the UN may never again have to submit to the "cumbersome" process of gaining approval of the sovereign nations and their peoples who must fight, die, and pay for these wars.

The UN's war on sovereignty continues

UNESCO and the World Health Organization have wormed their way into member governments promoting sex education, homosexuality as normal and healthy, abortion, the right of a child to "privacy," population control, and scientific breeding (25).

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), first led by passionate socialist and New-Ager Maurice Strong, has set fear-driven environmental standards which are currently being implemented in the United States and many other "free" nations. Targeted is the US, who is the "guilty" party that must pay the world's environmental bill. Aligned with that charge are calls for the worldwide redistribution of wealth and technology. And because environmental threats are in this fanatical view, "the number 1 international security concern," national sovereignty has been identified by UNEP as a barrier that must be breached (26).

Truth is, there are so many regulatory agencies listed on the UN's homepage, branching off in so many different directions with sub-agencies, and sub-agencies of sub-agencies, that are designed to interfere with the sovereignty of nations, that one could spend a week of research trying to come up with an honest head count.

However, as part of the year 2000 Summit kickoff, the UN has several more major sovereignty destroying proposals aimed straight at the United States. 1.The elimination of the absolute veto power of the United States, which means that two communist states, Russia and China, and one socialist leaning member of the EU, England, or more especially France, by majority vote can outgun the United States in the Security Council and impose laws upon us over our protest. 2. An enlargement of the powers of the World Court, who by Judicial Review could do more damage in one year to our Constitution then the Supreme Court ever did in decades. 3. An expanded role for the UN in the regulation of international commerce and as an overseer to individual corporations. 4. A new and dangerous power to tax the world, and thus, indefinitely fund the growth of world government. 5. Blatant confessions by the UN's Chief Anan that the continued protection of national sovereignty is obsolete and dangerous.

The UN aids Communists and attacks non-Communists and Capitalists

In the 1950's the UN undermined freedom's victory in Korea by accepting rules of engagement and passing on secrets to Russia and China which made victory impossible for South Korea and the United States (27). They then chose silence and inaction while Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary crushing freedom fighters who fought these tanks with sticks and stones.

In the 1960's the UN invaded Katanga (in the Belgium Congo) and foiled that provinces quest for independence from communist murderer and torturer Patrice Lamumba (28); and likewise declared tiny Rhodesia "a threat to international peace," enabling pro-Communist terrorist Robert Mugabe to seize power. Both the result of an official UN "anti-colonialist" (29) policy which in the name of democracy spread communism throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas from the 1950's clear up into the 1980's. Showing their pro-Communist partisanship, Russia, China, and Cuba's influence on all of these revolutions was perennially and officially denied by the UN, who dubbed all communist revolutions as "spontaneous." uprisings of the poor and politically ostracized.

In the 1970's, the UN admitted mass murderer Red China, despite the Charter rule to admit "peace-loving nations (30)" only. They added insult to injury by granting China the power and prestige of permanent Security Council status, while simultaneously kicking out free Taiwan. They winked while Security Council member the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, but then suppressed IMF loans to Nicaragua and Iran at key moments in their battle against communist backed revolutions in their nations, citing "human rights" violations (31).

In the 1980's the UN organized an international boycott against South Africa which favored the Soviet, PLO, and Cuban backed African National Congress, which in turn toppled the South African government (the key UN anti-colonial victory in Africa), leading to an immediate turn toward socialism (his first act was to socialize medicine), foreign aid, reverse discrimination, and a nullification of a promised coalition government. Amazingly, the UN pushed for and enforced the boycott even though Mandela upon release from prison publicly declared his loyalty to and the ANC's alliance with the South African Communist Party (32).

In the 1990's the UN disarmed anti-Communist forces in Nicaragua; imposed economic sanctions on Iraq for invading old Soviet friend Kuwait, hypocritically sent annual foodstuffs to communist North Korea, imposed a coalition government on Muslims with Communists in Bosnia, opposed US sanctions against Cuba, indicted President Pinochet for his suppression and imprisonment of communists in Chile, and continues to support the right of Russia and China to suppress liberty in Chechnya and Taiwan.

The UN is a Fraud, and Yet It Continues Unabated

Soviet Dictator Vladimir Lenin in his work Imperialism and World Economy predicted a day of capitalistic imperialism wherein a "new social order" would be introduced which under the leadership of "a single world trust," would "swallow up all enterprises and all states without exception."

Under this system, capitalism would move toward a mixture of private capital and social production (That form of socialism called fascism, or state monopoly capitalism). But before this melting of "economic, political, [and] national" systems finished its job of "world union," he predicted, "imperialism will inevitably explode, [and] capitalism will turn into its opposite [communism] (33)."

A dire prophecy, and one which should focus our attention on the real, more subtle communist threat in the world today - the United Nations.

Earl Browder, general secretary of the Communist Party USA admitted in his book Victory and After, that "the American Communists worked energetically and tirelessly to lay the foundations for the United Nations which we were sure would come into existence," and that, "the United Nations is the instrument for victory [the victory of communism] (34)."

But let us hope he was dreaming, and that millions of Americans will wake up to the fact that they were lied to by their state run schools, by UN generated pamphlets, and by the 'big three' networks. Sensible and freedom loving Americans should realize that we can do better in our goals to achieve peace and liberty than provide moral support, cash, and housing for such a sham for liberty and peace as the United Nations.

Footnotes:

1. See Humanist Manifesto I and II

2. Howard Phillip's Conservative Caucus, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, Pat Buchanan's American Cause, but most especially Robert Welch's John Birch Society (which has fought the UN for 40 years)

3. Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1839-1845, US State Department; Interlocking Subversion in Government Departments, US Senate Internal Security Subcommittee report, July 30, 1953.

4. Jasper, William F. Global Tyranny Step By Step: The United Nations and the Emerging World Order (Appleton, WI: Western Islands 1992) pp. 47-48.

5. Ibid., pp. 47-48.

6. Ibid., pp. 67-71.

7. Ibid., pp. 16-17.

8. Activities of US Citizens Employed by the UN, hearings before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 1952, pp. 407-408.

9. US Senator Barry Goldwater, Congressional Record, October 26, 1971, p. S16764.

10. See The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, The UN Conference on the Child. See also, the assortment of resolutions and addendum's found at the UN's Webpages which have been added over the years.

11. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 29, Verse 3. Note: Verse 2 also utilizes the tactic of the old Soviet and "new" Russian Constitution when it states: "in the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law." And of course the law then rules against rights, which rights are inalienable in the US system.

12. Griffin, G. Edward. The Fearful Master: A Second Look at the United Nations (Boston, MA, Western Islands, 1964) pp. 126-127.

13. UN Charter, Articles 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, and 18.

14. Ibid., Articles 23-54, 83-84, 93-94.

15. Ibid., Article 99.

16. Ibid., Article 36, Verse 3.

17. Ibid., Article 23.

18. The absolute veto, unlike the veto power of US Presidents cannot be subject to an override vote. It is, as it says, absolute, and thus a dictatorial power.

19. UN Charter, Article 12, Verse 1.

20. Ibid., Article 52, Verse 3, Article 53, Verse 1, and Article 54.

21. Madison, James, Federalist Papers, Article 47.

22. Griffin, p. 120.

23. Structural loans require loan recipients to comply with political terms in order to get the cash.

24. BBC, Iraq Reports Attacks Outside No-fly Zones, August 17, 1999. UNESCO is the source the BBC quoted as per the half million figure.

25. Jasper, Chapters 8 and 9.

26. Ibid., Chapter 7.

27. See this authors article: The No Win Wars of Internationalism: Korea at http://www.usiap.org/viewpoints/natoseries/nato5.html

28. Griffin, pp. 3-64

29. UN Charter, Article 3. The UN has ignored this provision, preferring "universality."

30. This policy, based on UN Article 1, Verse 2's, respect for "self determination of peoples" has translated into the UN promotion of socialist revolutions where any minority or group of minorities can be identified and convinced that he or she is not fairly represented or treated. Self determination is not, however, looked upon by the UN as the right of free majorities, or laisee faire believing minorities.

31. Somoza, Anastasio; and Cox, Jack. Nicaragua Betrayed (Western Islands, Boston MA, 1980) pp. 398-399.

32. McAlvaney, Don. Revolution and Betrayal: The Accelerating Onslought Against South Africa (Appleton, WI, American Opinion Book Services) Video, see http://jbs.org/aobs/store/page102.htmln Visit www.mg.co.za/mg/news/mandela/pictures5.html - a pro Mandela site. And his 1990 salute to South African communist party, found at the official Mandela site www.mandela80.iafrica.com/home.htm. It reads "I salute the South African Communist Party for its sterling contribution to the struggle for democracy. You have survived 40 years of unrelenting persecution. The memory of great communists like Moses Kotane, Yusuf Dadoo, Bram Fischer and Moses Mabhida will be cherished for generations to come. I salute General Secretary Joe Slovo - one of our finest patriots. We are heartened by the fact that the alliance between ourselves [the ANC] and the Party [South African Communist Party] remains as strong as it always was."

33. As quoted by William Z. Foster, founder of the Communist Party USA in a reprint of his 1932 work, Toward a Soviet America. The book was reprinted under the direction of the Committee on Un-American Activities (Balboa Island, CA, Elgin Publications, 1961) pp. 172, 269-270. 34. Browder, Earl. Victory - And After (New York: International Publishers, 1942) pp. 110, 160, 169

Please send e-mail your comments and/or media requests to Steve at Steve Farrell.

mailto:Cyours76@yahoo.com

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Reform U.N. Now or Pay the Price Later

Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
By J. BRIAN ATWOOD
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20000906/t000083871.html

When images of suffering people, particularly children, cross television screens, Americans are moved to action, contributing money, goods and time. They also want to know what their government is doing to help.

We have seen this phenomenon in recent years in response to the survivors of the Rwandan genocide, the hurricanes that hit the Caribbean and Central America and the refugees from Bosnia and Kosovo. In each case, American public opinion drove the U.S. government's response and, in each case, the U.S. military was a primary instrument for relief.

You could call this phenomenon "situational humanitarianism." Americans don't tend to lie awake at night worrying about the quieter tragedies plaguing the developing world. However, the visible crises evoke sufficient intensity as to be felt at the political level. When government fails to perform well, there is a price to pay.

This is one good reason Americans ought to care about the report of the Secretary-General's Panel on U.N. Peace Operations released last month. This report, highly critical of the United Nations' capacity to conduct peacekeeping and peace-building activities, recommends far-reaching reforms that will ultimately benefit the victims of conflict and provide a more viable alternative to using U.S. military power for humanitarian relief peacekeeping or enforcement in conflict situations.

Since the end of the Cold War, a debate has raged in our country over the proper use of the U.S. military. Ironically, those who wish to spend more on personnel and weapons also want to restrict the use of the military to more traditional combat roles, of which there are, thankfully, precious few in the modern world. The Clinton administration has been criticized for using the military for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations even when the public seemed supportive.

This debate has already produced a rough consensus: that American troops should not be sent into conflict areas that are perceived as marginal to U.S. security interests. Thus, U.S. troops will not participate in places like Sierra Leone, Congo or the Ethiopia-Eritrea border region. These are jobs for the United Nations.

In these situations, U.S. diplomats play important roles in brokering peace agreements to halt, at least temporarily, hostilities that have produced the images that inevitably cause Americans to ask why their government hasn't done more. Then U.N. peacekeepers, often with inadequate forces and equipment, are sent into the breach. Soon they are shot at, kidnapped and forced to retreat by opposition forces that never intended to implement the peace agreements they signed. When that happens, not only does the world's chosen instrument of peace, the U.N., suffer a severe loss of credibility, the humanitarian crisis reemerges and Americans again demand to know why their government cannot put a stop to the suffering.

For just a few dollars and a modicum of political will, this cycle of peace breakthrough, inadequate U.N. implementation and the recurrence of violence could be ended. The Panel on U.N. Peace Operations has provided a blueprint that would provide better information, analysis, planning and, subsequently, clearer U.N. mandates supported by peacekeeping contingents large enough to deter or defeat the "lingering forces of war." The panel's recommendations will be considered this week at the U.N. Millennium Summit. International leaders will be told by Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the cost of doing nothing will far surpass the cost of making the recommended changes. There is abundant evidence to demonstrate this, Sierra Leone being the most recent case in point.

For the United States, the country with the world's most effective military force and the country with arguably the most intense, albeit situational, humanitarianism, the stakes will be high indeed. The Clinton administration strongly supports the panel's report, but the jury is still out on whether the larger body politic wants to reform the U.N. system--and at what price. If U.N. peace operations are not fixed now, Americans will pay the costs of the agency's future failures, not only in tax dollars but in the awful awareness that future victims must either be saved by the U.S. military, or not saved at all.

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J. Brian Atwood Was the Only American Serving on the Panel on U.n. Peace Operations. he Is President of Boston-based Citizens International and a Former Administrator of the U.s. Agency for International Development

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Irate N.Korean U.N. Summit Delegation Flies Home

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
By Paul Eckert
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/ts/korea_un_dc_2.html

BEIJING (Reuters) - An enraged North Korean delegation flew home to Pyongyang on Wednesday, having decided not to attend the U.N. Millennium Summit in New York after what it said were insulting searches by U.S. airline staff in Germany.

The irate turnaround, which came as Pyongyang was showing serious signs of emerging from decades of international isolation, meant there would be no meeting between North Korean designated head of state Kim Yong-nam and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

The North Koreans took umbrage at what they called ``rude and provocative body searches in Frankfurt and flew to Beijing, where a special plane was flown in from Pyongyang to pick them up.

Heavy Beijing airport security kept reporters well away from the North Koreans as they arrived on a scheduled Lufthansa flight, were taken to a VIP lounge in a motorcade and then to the Air Koryo plane.

The Russian-built Tupolev T154 took off for Pyongyang about 70 minutes after the Lufthansa plane touched down.

U.S. Regret

The United States expressed regret at the incident and said airline staff had observed Federal Aviation Authority ``enhanced security procedures'' for nationals of countries that Washington brands state sponsors of terrorism.

``It's certainly an unfortunate incident that we regret,'' White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters in Washington.

A State Department official stressed the search was carried out by airline staff, not U.S. government personnel.

But North Korea said the incident would hurt relations with Washington which have shown signs of improvement since South Korea's Kim Dae-Jung's hugely significant Pyongyang summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on June 6.

``The U.S. will come to know what a dear price it will have to pay for having hurt out people's dignity,'' said the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon told a news conference in Frankfurt the American Airlines security search was part of a ``plot'' masterminded by the U.S. government.

Pyongyang's ambassador to the United Nations, Li Hyong Chol, said the incident ``intensified our vigilance and hatred toward the United States'' and was a setback for reconciliation on the Korean peninsula.

He accused the Americans of behaving like ``hooligans who have no regard at all to international law and practices.''

U.N., Japan Disappointed

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was disappointed the North Koreans would not be at a summit to be attended by more than 150 heads of state, but that he hoped North and South Korea would continue to build on efforts at normalisation.

Japan also expressed disappointment over North Korea's decision to skip the U.N. summit which Tokyo said foiled plans for a top-level meeting between Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Kim Yong-nam.

Choe said the South Koreans were not to blame and suggested it would not harm progress made on improving relations with Seoul.

``I think there will be a chance for a meeting (in the future). The chance is lost this time,'' he said of top level talks begun at the June summit after almost 50 years of hostility.

But he railed at the American security officials.

``U.S. air security officials... opened suitcases and handbags of each member of the presidential entourage, forced them to take off clothes and shoes and thoroughly searched even the sensitive parts of the body.''

``This incident cannot be construed otherwise than an intentional and premeditated plot made in advance according to the manuscript of the U.S. administration,'' he said.

Lockhart said: ``There was no strip searching. There was a general search -- patting down and, you know, looking through bags. There was no strip-search as far as I have been able to ascertain.''

American Airlines expressed regret at the inconvenience caused to the diplomats, but said its staff were only doing their jobs.

``As a U.S. carrier we are obliged under Federal Aviation Administration regulations to carry out stringent security procedures for all passengers traveling on our international flights,'' the airline said in a statement.

It said the actions involved a ``pat down and removal of only an outer garment, such as a suit jacket, and their shoes.''

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Japan Disappointed Over Scrapped N.Korean Meeting

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/wl/korea_un_dc_5.html

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan said on Wednesday it was disappointed that North Korea's decision to skip the U.N. Millennium Summit -- after an alleged strip search of its delegates -- had foiled plans for a top-level bilateral meeting.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori was to have met Kim Yong-nam, chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, on the sidelines of the U.N. summit on Thursday in what would have been the highest level of contact between the historic foes.

Pyongyang angrily pulled out of the U.N. leaders' gathering on Tuesday because of what it called a ``rude and provocative'' body search by U.S. airline security staff of its delegates at Germany's Frankfurt airport.

Speculation had percolated over the possible Japan-North Korean talks after Japanese and North Korean negotiators failed late last month to resolve differences thwarting efforts to establish diplomatic ties between the two historic foes.

``It is true that we were adjusting our schedule to hold talks on the 7th,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa told a news conference. ``We are very disappointed.''

Mori told reporters traveling with him en route to New York that he was eager to continue talks with Pyongyang, adding that there were various potential channels including meetings between the two nations' foreign ministers and top ruling party leaders.

``It's important that we take every opportunity to exchange views with the North Korean side, and convey our views,'' Mori told reporters on the plane.

Nakagawa declined to comment on whether Mori would go to Pyongyang to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

``I cannot say at this point in time,'' he said.

Flying Home

Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's designated head of state, decided to fly home via Beijing rather than travel on to New York, also dashing hopes he might meet South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to follow up a historic June summit between the two Koreas.

Accounts of what happened at the airport diverged.

North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said on Tuesday in Frankfurt that U.S. air security officials had conducted a strip search of the delegates as well as inspecting their luggage.

But White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said there had been no such strip search ``as far as I have been able to ascertain.''

The United States expressed regret at the incident and said airline staff had observed Federal Aviation Authority ``enhanced security procedures'' for nationals that Washington brands state sponsors of terrorism.

Japan and North Korea last month held a second round of talks aimed at establishing diplomatic ties, but made no progress on differences that have been a source of tension for decades.

The stickiest hurdles are Pyongyang's call for an apology and compensation for Japan's 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula and the issue of Japanese nationals whom Tokyo believes were abducted by North Korean agents.

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U.S. Blasts China, Others for Persecution

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
By Jonathan Wright
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/ts/rights_religion_dc_2.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States, invoking U.N. declarations and its own tradition of religious freedom, on Tuesday blasted China, Sudan, Afghanistan and others for persecuting people for their religious faith and practices.

In its second report on how free people are to practice their beliefs in 194 states, the State Department also rebuked some allies, including Saudi Arabia, Germany and France.

Beijing's crackdown on Falun Gong spiritual practitioners provoked some of the harshest criticism in the report, mandated by Congress under a 1998 law which gave the U.S. government a variety of punishment options, including sanctions.

Last year the U.S. government chose not to impose additional sanctions on countries it designated as being of particular concern for their religious intolerance -- China, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar and Sudan.

This year U.S. officials say they do not expect any significant change in that list, a revised version of which special ambassador Robert Seiple will present to congressional committees on Thursday.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, presenting the report to the media in New York, said much of the report made ``grim reading''. ``The sad truth is that religious intolerance remains far too common in far too many places,'' she added.

She said Americans had always believed that religious freedom strengthened nations and enriched their peoples -- a belief that has since become ``a shared aspiration and obligation of the entire international community''.

The report said the Chinese government's respect for religious freedom had deteriorated during the past year as the authorities imposed new restrictions, closed houses of worship and actively persecuted members of some unregistered groups.

Covered In Bruises

``It was a tough year last year in China,'' said Seiple, the U.S. ambassador at large for religious freedom.

``We saw the beginning of the attacks on Falun Gong. We saw the legislation ... that essentially identified 14 groups, including Falun Gong -- that gave enormous power to local and state officials to crack down,'' he added.

As an example, he cited the case of an unnamed 60-year-old female Falun Gong practitioner who died in custody and whose body was covered in bruises, with dried blood in her ears, eye and nose and all of her teeth broken.

``We have one credible report that says she was made to run outside in the snow with her shoes off until she dropped. I don't know what the right words are to describe that kind of inhumane, brutal treatment of people,'' he added.

Asked to explain Beijing's motives, he said: ``The China government is concerned about things they don't understand, things they can't control and things that have an external influence. They will talk about it in terms of stability but it's basically control.''

On Afghanistan, the report said the fundamentalist Taliban who run most of the country severely restricted religious freedom and persecuted the Shi'ite Muslim minority.

In Sudan, the government treated Islam as a state religion and restricted non-Muslims. Khartoum and its allies conducted indiscriminate bombings and other abuses in a civil war with rebels in the mainly Christian or animist south, it said.

In Iran, Baha'is, Jews, Christians and Sufi Muslims reported imprisonment and other acts of harassment. Conversion from Islam could be punishable by death, the report said.

In Iraq, where the Sunni Arabs minority dominates over the Shi'a Arab majority, the report cited several incidents in 1999 of security forces killing and injuring congregants protesting closures of Shi'a mosques.

Discrimination Against Scientology

Rulers of Myanmar, or Burma as it was known before a military coup and as it is still known by the U.S. government, presided over laws which allowed for restrictions on religious freedom. Authorities repressed efforts by Buddhist clergy to promote human rights and political freedom, it added.

Some of the hundreds of pages of text concentrated on states the U.S. government says do not fulfill a covenant signed by 144 nations acknowledging the right to ``have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice''.

It accused Germany of encouraging discrimination against members of the Church of Scientology, which enjoys tax-free status in the United States.

Some German officials believed Scientology was a money-making scheme rather than a religion and government procedures sometimes screened out its members, it said.

In France, a 1996 law labeling 173 groups as sects included organizations which were ``merely unfamiliar or unpopular,'' some of whose members continued to allege discrimination, it added.

In February, France accused Washington of being too lax on cults and unfairly blaming France for its harsher stance.

One bright spot on the religious freedom spectrum was Azerbaijan, where the U.S. ambassador helped persuade President Haydar Aliyev to improve the status of religious minorities.

The Azeri authorities have rescinded deportation orders against clergy, allowed many religious groups to register for the first time and reinstated some factory workers, it said.

The report did not analyze how religious freedom was respected at home but acknowledged followers of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and indigenous American religions had been persecuted in the past.

``But today, at the dawn of the third millennium, religions are flourishing in the United States, their respective traditions enriching not only their own adherents, but American public policy as well,'' it said.

The report is available on the Internet through the State Department's Web site www.state.gov.

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Congo Says No Deal Until U.N. Acts on Invaders

Yahoo News
Wednesday September 6
By Buchizya Mseteka
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000906/wl/un_congo_dc_1.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Democratic Congo said Wednesday a deal to end war in Africa's third largest nation cannot be enforced until the United Nations compels Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda to withdraw troops from its territory.

Foreign Minister Yerodia Ndombasi told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. Millennium Summit which opened Wednesday that the United Nations had a duty to implement a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on the Congo's three neighbors to withdraw.

President Laurent Kabila stayed away from the summit, rendering any Congo peace initiatives here virtually useless.

``There can be no peace deal in the Congo until the aggressors withdraw their troops. This is in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution,'' Ndombasi said.

``Those calling for the implementation of the Lusaka Peace Accords are dreaming. How can we implement a peace accord that ignores the aggression against our country?'' he asked.

Ndombasi doubles as a senior adviser to Kabila and is the chief ideologue of the Congo's ruling party.

A draft declaration expected to be adopted by the U.N. Security Council Thursday calls on the Congolese government and rebels fighting it to respect and implement the Lusaka Accord signed in the Zambian capital last year.

But Ndombasi said the declaration was misplaced. ``How can anyone ask of us to ignore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country?''

Security Council Authorised Troop Deployment

The Security Council in February authorized a 5,500-strong force, called the U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), to monitor a flagging cease-fire to end the many-sided war in the Congo.

Kabila, supported by troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, is battling rival rebel groups backed by Rwanda and Uganda.

The cease-fire has been repeatedly violated and, apart from about 250 military observers, the U.N. mission has still not been deployed, mainly due to obstacles raised by Kabila.

Kabila has opposed the stationing of U.N. troops in cities controlled by his forces, failed to provide security guarantees for the mission and refused to work with former Botswanan President Ketumile Masire, the organizer of all-party talks on the political destiny of the Congo.

Last month's efforts by African leaders to revive the peace deal failed largely because Kabila failed to yield on the two key issues.

``Masire is no longer an issue. That issue is in the graveyard, it is dead and the sooner people understand that the better. He is free to come to the Congo as a tourist but not a negotiator,'' Ndombasi said sarcastically of the ex-president.

Monday, a senior Congo rebel leader said insurgents were looking to the U.N. Millennium Summit to rescue the collapsing peace deal in the Congo.

Bizima Karaha, a former Congo foreign minister who is now a rebel leader, said the rebels would seek support at the summit to push a defiant Kabila to honor the peace accord to end more than two years of war in the former Zaire.

A cocktail of rebel groups supported by troops from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda control the east and large parts of the north of Congo.

Rwanda's Tutsi-dominated army spearheaded a seven-month bush war that toppled veteran dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and propelled Kabila to power in May 1997.

The same forces pivotal to the success of Kabila's bid to overthrow Mobutu's long-entrenched regime are now ranged against him in an ironic reversal of fortunes.

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Britain's Blair Urges Robust U.N. Peacekeeping

Yahoo New
Wednesday September 6
By Dominic Evans
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000906/wl/un_blair_dc_1.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Wednesday for radical changes to U.N. peacekeeping operations to tackle a new era of brutal and volatile civil wars.

Blair used an address to world leaders attending the U.N. Millennium Summit to press Britain's proposals to create a more robust and better-prepared corps of global peacekeepers.

Blair, who has made the case for more active international intervention in humanitarian crises, said U.N. duties had moved beyond the simple monitoring of post-conflict cease-fire lines.

``The typical case is now fast-moving and volatile,'' he said, citing bloodshed in Africa, East Timor and the Balkans where U.N. forces have been criticized for failing to prevent atrocities.

``We need U.N. forces composed of units appropriate for more robust peacekeeping that can be inserted quickly,'' Blair said.

Calling for a new contract between the United Nations and its often reluctant member states, he said countries must be prepared to commit forces to U.N. operations.

``The U.N. must alter radically its planning, intelligence and analysis, and develop a far more substantial professional military staff,'' he said.

``When the moment comes, a field headquarters must be ready to move, with an operational communications system up and running immediately rather than weeks into the deployment.''

Monday, Britain offered to host a staff training college for U.N. peacekeepers and called for a military inspectorate to be set up to establish minimum standards for peacekeepers.

``Dismal Failure'' In Africa

Blair also said leaders attending the summit -- which was called to address poverty reduction in the 21st century -- should tackle the developed world's ``dismal record of failure in Africa...that shocks and shames our civilization.''

He urged richer nations to establish a partnership with African countries, but offered few concrete proposals to tackle starvation, disease and conflict on the continent.

``We should use this unique summit for a concrete purpose: to start the process of agreeing a way forward for Africa,'' he said.

Blair was accompanied to the U.N. assembly by his wife, Cherie, who had brought their baby Leo, born on May 20, on his first visit to the United States.

Mrs. Blair, known as Cherie Booth, was due to participate in a New York University Law School symposium on human rights law. Discussions are to include the arrest and release in Britain of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, which strained relations between Britain and Chile.

Earlier Wednesday the British premier met Chile's President Ricardo Lagos for talks which he said provided an opportunity ''to put the difficulties of the past few months behind us.'

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Indonesian Militias Kill Four UN Staffers

Yahoo News
Wednesday September 6
By Tomi Soetjipto
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000906/ts/indonesia_timor_dc_8.html

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Pro-Indonesian militiamen killed four U.N. refugee workers in West Timor Wednesday, prompting an immediate rebuke to Jakarta from the leaders of the United Nations and the United States.

The Indonesian military and police, who initially confirmed three deaths, said later that four international U.N. staffers were killed. Three of the four were stabbed by armed gangs who then set their bodies on fire. The victims were identified as being from Puerto Rico, Croatia, Ethiopia and Malaysia.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, opening the Millennium Summit of world leaders in New York, said he had taken up the matter with Indonesia ``at the highest level.'' The session, at his request, then observed a minute of silence in honor of the U.N. staff killed.

President Clinton, departing from his prepared text, told the summit, ``Today I was deeply saddened to learn of the brutal murder of the three U.N. relief workers by the militia in West Timor and I urge the Indonesian authorities to put a stop to these abuses.''

Later, at a meeting with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid that was moved up from its originally scheduled time, Annan ``strongly condemned today's incident and declared the situation unacceptable,'' U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.

Wahid said he ``shared the secretary-general's view and that he feared the incident had coincided with his visit to New York,'' Eckhard said.

The murders occurred when thousands of machete-wielding militiamen stormed the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Atambua, a major refugee center near the border with U.N.-controlled East Timor.

``The mob stabbed them to death inside the headquarters and dragged their bodies to the road and set them on fire,'' a military intelligence officer told Reuters from Atambua.

He said the ``partly burned'' bodies of U.N. workers from Croatia, Ethiopia and Puerto Rico had been taken to the Atambua public hospital.

``Crazy Rampage''

``There were about 5,000 of them going on a rampage. ... We tried to stop them, but they were totally out of control. It was crazy,'' the officer added.

A police spokesman in Jakarta, Col. Saleh Saaf, said later that a fourth U.N. staffer, from Malaysia, had also died.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said she was ``shocked and profoundly saddened'' by the killings.

``These were peaceful, unarmed humanitarians who gave their lives trying to help those who had lost everything in conflict,'' she added in a statement issued through the Geneva headquarters of the UNHCR.

The statement said Ogata, attending the New York summit, was ``deeply disappointed at the failure of Indonesian authorities to make good on their commitment to protect humanitarian staff in West Timor.''

The killings took place despite mounting international pressure on Jakarta to rein in the militias operating in Indonesian West Timor with support from elements of the military and police from safe havens in camps of East Timorese refugees.

A U.N. helicopter has since airlifted 32 injured people from Atambua and was heading for the East Timor capital, Dili. All foreign aid staff in Atambua were being evacuated after the rampage, triggered by the earlier murder of a militiaman.

The official Antara news agency said the murdered militiaman was one of 19 people Indonesia last week formally declared as suspects in an investigation into the pro-Jakarta bloodshed that erupted after East Timor voted overwhelmingly to end more than 23 years of Indonesian rule a year ago.

Wahid, in New York for the Millennium Summit, faced an angry response from other leaders. He insists Jakarta is doing its best to control the gangs.

Wahid said he had ordered two battalions of Indonesian troops to Atambua, one of which was already on its way, U.N. spokesman Eckhard said. Annan welcomed the news of the reinforcement and ``urged that those troops be given robust rules of engagement,'' Eckhard said.

The president assured the secretary-general that would be the case, the U.N. spokesman added.

The United Nations only last week resumed aid work in West Timor after suspending it following brutal attacks on its staff there.

Wild Rioters

A resident in Atambua, about 1,300 miles east of Jakarta, said security forces failed to stop the assault.

``I heard a lot of shooting and I saw 20 trucks carrying militias armed with machetes and homemade rifles,'' he said, adding the mob torched a U.N. car and the contents of the office.

By late afternoon, police and the military said they had brought the situation under control.

More than 120,000 refugees remain in West Timor after the militias forced them from their homes when they razed East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, after last year's U.N.-brokered vote.

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Annan Calls for 'Defining Moment;' Castro Arrives

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
By Evelyn Leopold
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/ts/un_summit_dc_6.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday urged world leaders descending on New York to use the U.N. summit as a springboard for enabling billions of people to escape poverty. But many leaders, such as Cuban President Fidel Castro, had their own agendas.

Castro, who arrived in the United States for the first time in five years, usually has one objective: to convince Americans to recognize Cuba and lift the 30-year-old embargo against his country.

He said little about his agenda on Tuesday but was spotted at China's U.N. mission where Chinese President Jiang Zemin was meeting dignitaries. Uncertain is whether Castro was invited or whether he was attending the gala party President Clinton was holding for the world's presidents, kings and prime ministers.

Beyond U.S.-Cuba politics, the mainstay of his career, Castro was also sure to use a rare trip to what Havana calls the ''heart of imperialism'' to promote his view that radical reform is needed to save the world from doom.

Other heads of state and government arriving for the largest ever gathering of world leaders are also expected to use the summit to push their own policies, many of which are critical of the United States.

North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of sending ''hooligans'' to search its delegation as they switched planes at Frankfurt airport.

Consequently Pyongyang called off the summit trip by its designated head of state, Kim Yong-nam, who had been expected to meet South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. But North Korean officials are expected to denounce Washington at the summit.

The U.N. Millennium Summit, with the ambitious goal of cutting poverty, ignorance and disease in half in the first part of the 21st century, is attracting more than 150 heads of state in the largest gathering of world leaders in history.

``This is a defining moment for the world's leaders and for the United Nations,'' Annan told a news conference.

Specifically, a draft declaration that leaders will approve on Friday, the end of the three-day summit, commits them to halve the number of the world's people who live on less than $1 a day. There are more than a billion such people.

Almost an equal number -- many of them the same ones -- do not have access to clean water. Their number should also be cut in half by 2015, leaders will say. By that year too, a primary school education should be provided to all boys and girls.

``We do have the means we do have the capacity to tackle these issues,'' Annan said. ``The only thing that is lacking is the will.''

Similar goals have been presented at various U.N. conferences without much progress. But Annan insisted that there would be a steady follow up ``to shine light on who is doing what.''

``We have to keep trying and try harder,'' Annan said. ``The fact wars and cruelty have been with us does not mean we should not try. You may think I am a dreamer as some have called me. but without a dream you don't get anything done.''

Annan is also stressing his vision of a benevolent globalization -- working with corporations and grass roots groups rather than criticizing the global financial deals that have made it difficult for governments to control their economies as well as social and environmental benefits.

``We all have to accept that the business world and the private sector have enormous power in today's world,'' he said. ''The are the ones who are creating wealth. They are the ones who have the money, the technology and the management to carry forward quite a lot of the things that we are talking about.''

``They are the ones who run the companies that we claim pollute the world,'' he added. ``If every company was doing what they ought to, I don't think the Global Compact would be needed,'' he said, referring to his initiative to encourage humane policies by corporations.

Security was tight around the United Nations, with New Yorkers caught in gridlock in mid-town Manhattan. New York police department, the largest in the country numbering 42,000, granted permits for 91 demonstrations and arrested some five Iranians over the weekend.

For the Middle East peace talks, the Millennium Summit is seen as crucial. President Clinton was to hold separate talks on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in another attempt to get agreement on a Palestinian state and the future of Jerusalem.

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U.N. Prosecutor Sure Milosevic Will Be Jailed

Yahoo News
Tuesday September 5
By Elisaveta Konstantinova
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000905/wl/yugoslavia_milosevic_dc_2.html

SOFIA, Bulgaria (Reuters) - The chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor for former Yugoslavia said Tuesday she remained confident of jailing Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic and called on NATO to help arrest more war criminals.

``I am ready to go on trial against Milosevic. I have no doubts I can obtain evidence against him...I know that Milosevic will be sentenced for life (because) there is no death sentence,'' Carla del Ponte said in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

Del Ponte, who has no access to Yugoslavia, is on a tour of neighboring countries to enlist support for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in its hunt for dozens of indicted war criminals living across the Balkans.

``As a prosecutor I must admit there are too many fugitives, so we stay in contact with NATO states to convince them of the need to arrest all fugitives,'' she said.

Those indicted by the Hague-based Tribunal include Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader in the 1992-1995 war, and Milosevic for his role in the repression of Kosovo Albanians.

``We cannot have a trial in absentia but I am convinced Milosevic will go on trial,'' she said.

Milosevic is one of the two leading contenders in a presidential election in Yugoslavia scheduled for September 24.

His main rival, opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica, said Monday that, if elected, he would not allow Milosevic to be sent to the U.N. tribunal.

``The Hague indictment against Slobodan Milosevic is as pointless as last year's NATO bombing of Yugoslavia,'' Kostunica said, according to the independent Belgrade radio station B2-92's Web site.

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The World's Meeting Place

New York Times
September 06, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/opinion/06WED2.html

The United Nations Millennium Summit this week brings to New York City the largest gathering ever of world leaders to address the most serious of global afflictions. It is an occasion calling for hope and perseverance, but most New Yorkers cannot get past the ominous numbers: 91 scheduled protests, at least 175 motorcades, 245 dignitaries requiring Secret Service and police protection, and 3 days of President Clinton stopping traffic in Manhattan. It is no wonder many residents welcome the meeting with the same grousing accorded the West Nile virus, the Atlanta Braves or a ride on the No. 4 subway line.

If the United Nations were headquartered in Tulsa or Des Moines, people might line the streets to greet the caravans ferrying foreign leaders with homemade signs wishing them well in their fight against illiteracy, AIDS and poverty. Kids would offer the delegates fresh lemonade, and signs at local high school football stadiums would read "Bobcats for Globalization!" or "Go Kofi!"

But not in New York. Though the city gains cachet and, by its own estimate, more than $3 billion a year in economic activity from housing the U.N., New Yorkers feel no compulsion to be grateful, or to pay a price, for the honor of being designated as the world's capital. More than a few residents think New York adds more to the U.N. than the world organization adds to New York.

But imagine the city without a United Nations. The constant stream of foreign leaders convening in New York, and their permanent representatives there, help to transform the city from mere financial center to world capital. Images of Nikita Khrushchev pounding the desk with his shoe and of countless other world leaders from Fidel Castro to Nelson Mandela addressing the General Assembly are an indelible part of the city's history. In contrast to some cases of town-gown friction, New York's U.N. campus is a fitting mirror of the city's own history as a mixing point of cultures and aspirations. It is as much a monument to New York's heritage as Ellis Island is.

Though New York is the perfect home for the United Nations, it did not have a lock on being chosen. Certainly if the U.N. were created today, it would more likely be based in Geneva or The Hague. Only in the immediate aftermath of World War II could a majority of nations have accepted the notion of the world's diplomatic forum being established in the United States.

Even among American cities, New York was not the initial front-runner for the U.N.'s permanent home. The American foreign-policy elite considered San Francisco, site of the organization's founding convention in 1945, the most desirable candidate, providing a more idyllic setting and a less Euro- centric perspective than New York or Washington. Though the U.N. had made New York its temporary home in the fall of 1946, Boston and Philadelphia were deemed stronger East Coast contenders.

To his credit, New York City's mayor at the time, William O'Dwyer, felt that getting the U.N. to stay for good was "the one great thing that would make New York the center of the world," but he had little to offer in the way of choice real estate or cash.

The solution came from Robert Moses, William Zeckendorf and Nelson Rockefeller. The three New Yorkers worked frantically in the week before the U.N.'s final headquarters decision, in December 1946, to cobble together a deal whereby John D. Rockefeller Jr., Nelson's father, would pay Mr. Zeckendorf $8.5 million for a plot of land on once- blighted Turtle Bay on Midtown Manhattan's East Side and the Rockefellers would then turn it over to the U.N. Mr. Moses, the longtime public servant who headed a blue-ribbon committee to keep the U.N. in New York, was able to secure some other goodies from the city and state. The rest, as they say, is Midtown congestion, and a shining spot in the diplomatic firmament.

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Clinton struggles for Mideast peace at U.N. summit

New York Times
September 06, 2000 Filed at 8:49 p.m. ET
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/un-summit.html

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 6 (Reuters) - The largest gathering of world leaders in history heard U.S. President Bill Clinton make an impassioned plea for Middle East peace on Wednesday and got a chilling reminder of the perils of U.N. missions in crisis spots.

The U.N. Millennium Summit, called to address reducing poverty and keeping global peace in the 21st century, was jolted by the killing of three U.N. staff in West Timor by Indonesian gangs opposed to independence for East Timor.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used the forum to take a swipe at disputed U.S. missile defence plans, offering to host an international conference in Moscow next year on preventing the militarization of outer space.

And veteran Cuban President Fidel Castro delivered a tirade against the injustice of the world economic system and said the principle of sovereignty must not be sacrificed ``to an abusive and unfair order that a hegemonic superpower (uses) to try to decide everything by itself.''

Clinton said after meeting Putin he hoped his decision last week to put off deploying a limited U.S. National Missile Defence system would give Washington and Moscow more time to resolve their dispute on the issue.

The president spent much of the day working feverishly to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which broke down at the Camp David summit in July over the crucial issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem.

He had separate back-to-back private meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to explore whether there was a basis for progress and perhaps for a second summit in the next few weeks.

While the leaders' motorcades caused traffic gridlock in East Manhattan, demonstrations against the summiteers were thin. In the largest on Wednesday, more than 2,500 members of the Falun Gong cult protested peacefully against what they say is China's continued persecution of their spiritual movement.

SHOCK AT DEATHS

A sombre Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported the deaths of the three U.N. refugee workers in West Timor to more than 155 kings, presidents and prime ministers at the start of the summit. They stood for a minute's silence.

Annan and Clinton both called on Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to stamp out such abuses. Wahid expressed sorrow at the deaths and said his government was sending fresh troops to West Timor to quell the rioting.

``This tragedy underlines once again the dangers faced by unarmed humanitarian workers serving the United Nations in conflict or post-conflict situations,'' Annan said. More than 105 remaining U.N. refugee workers are to be evacuated from West Timor by the end of the week.

Clinton told the leaders that time was running out for Israel and the Palestinians to clinch a final peace deal that eluded them at Camp David.

``They have the chance to do it, but like all life's chances, it is fleeting and about to pass. There is not a moment to lose,'' he said, urging all countries to help the two sides take ``the hard risks for peace.''

But his efforts to persuade Arab states to press Arafat to compromise on Jerusalem suffered a rebuff when Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, in a hardline address, insisted on Palestinian sovereignty over the holy places in the city.

Arafat hinted Palestinian leaders would heed international appeals to delay the planned declaration of a state beyond a September 13 deadline to allow more time for an agreement, but his speech contained no sign of new flexibility on Jerusalem.

In a goodwill gesture, Clinton stayed in the chamber and listened intently to an address by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who called for a dialogue among civilisations to help reconcile Islam and Western culture.

The United States and Iran have not had ties since militant students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

PEACEKEEPING REFORMS

With wars raging in Congo, Sierra Leone and Angola, Clinton called for reforms of U.N. peacekeeping machinery to provide better training, equipment and command so international troops can be deployed more quickly and effectively in crises.

Acknowledging the United States' $1.7 billion arrears to U.N. coffers, he said: ``All these things come with a price tag, and all nations, including the United States, must pay it.''

In a swipe at Republican opponents at home, Clinton said those who thought the United States could do without the United Nations or impose its will on the world body ``misread history and misunderstand the future.''

British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged member states to agree to implement peacekeeping reforms within twelve months, saying: ``We need U.N. forces composed of units appropriate for more robust peacekeeping that can be inserted quickly.''

Belgium called for standing U.N. peacekeeping forces to be ready for action in each region of the world -- an idea widely seen as unrealistic because the major powers oppose it.

The intractable war in the Democratic Republic of Congo was dramatised when that country's foreign minister said the United Nations must force Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to withdraw their troops before a peace plan could be implemented.

But Rwandan President Paul Kagame, in an interview with Reuters, defended his army's occupation of areas of eastern Congo as the best safeguard against a repeat of genocide.

Annan laid out the summit's ambitious but fuzzy agenda, urging the leaders to protect their people from misery and develop an agenda to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and disease and forge peace.

He said the leaders had to set priorities and adapt the 55-year-old United Nations to meet people's aspirations in a rapidly changing world.

The leaders are to sign a Millennium declaration on Friday that calls for strengthened peacekeeping structures, sets targets for reducing hunger, disease and illiteracy by 2015 and foresees a benevolent economic globalization.

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Annan Says All Nations Must Cooperate to Solve Problems

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06ANNA.html

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 5 - Secretary General Kofi Annan warned today that the perennial problems of war, disease, poverty and pollution will never be resolved unless all countries cooperate, and he stressed that neither they nor the United Nations can accomplish the tasks unaided.

"I do not believe that the United Nations should be seen as doing everything, or that it should attempt to do everything by itself," Mr. Annan said. "The issues we are dealing with - from the elimination of poverty to the fight against AIDS and the protection of the environment - are issues that require all hands on deck."

He called the gathering a "defining moment for the world's leaders and for the United Nations."

The secretary general spoke at a news conference before a three-day meeting of about 150 heads of state and other leaders here, which its United Nations organizers are calling the largest gathering of political leaders in history.

Mr. Annan first suggested the gathering three years ago, he said, "to harness the symbolic power of the millennium to the real and urgent needs of people everywhere."

He said he had tried to encourage a partnership of governments, international organizations, private businesses and foundations to bring their "collective impact" the bear on the world's ills.

"It is everyone's responsibility," Mr. Annan said. "We will play our catalytic role. We will press. We will advocate the issues. We will use the little money we have to help. But everyone has to do their bit."

The meeting of world leaders here will open on Wednesday and conclude on Friday with a joint declaration, a draft of which began circulating here on Monday.

The draft commits nations that sign it to "spare no effort to free our peoples from the scourge of war," and to promote democracy, expand respect for human rights and ensure access to economic development to every country.

Other resolutions call for ridding the world of poverty, promoting education and ending the spread of AIDS.

"I think these are big issues," Mr. Annan said. "This is also why I am challenging everyone to make a contribution. This is why I am telling the world leaders not only to come here and approve a plan of action, but that I would expect each and every one of them to go back home and begin to do something about it."

When a reporter pointed out that talk of ringing in peace and ending cruelty dated back to biblical times, Mr. Annan said: "The fact that the poor have always been with us does not mean we should not try to improve their lot and their conditions. Yes, you may think I am a dreamer, as some have called me, but without the dream you do not get anything done."

Closer to home, Mr. Annan was asked about prospects for expanding the 15-member Security Council, which many nations are seeking. He said he believed that an expansion was possible, though he doubted it could be achieved this year.

On Monday, Britain proposed increasing the overall size of the council and the number of permanent members. The United States' ambassador to the United Nations, Richard C. Holbrooke, also spoke last spring of expanding its membership even beyond 20 or 21 nations, which the United States had previously considered a maximum. Britain and the United States are now permanent members, with veto power, as are China, France and Russia.

Some Western critics of expansion argue that too many members would weaken the council and make decisions harder. But Mr. Annan said it ought to be possible to expand the council and make it more democratic and representative of the United Nations.

"I reject the idea that the expansion will necessarily lead to a confused, ineffective Security Council, which fudges all issues," he said. "I do not think, if there is a problem of that kind, that it is necessarily one of size."

Mr. Annan also welcomed an offer by Britain to establish a military staff college to train peacekeepers from around the world to serve with United Nations missions, calling the idea "something that I endorse wholeheartedly."

He also said he supported a new report recommending an overhaul of United Nations peacekeeping operations, which have stumbled in Sierra Leone and Congo, among other troubled countries.

"If we are going to conduct peacekeeping operations, we must do so effectively," he said. "Otherwise, we just stand with our arms crossed. But we cannot continue to work as we are doing now."

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North Koreans, Searched at Airport, Skip Visit

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06KORE.html

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 5 -- North Korea accused the United States today of instigating an airport search in Germany of North Korean diplomats, including the country's No. 2 leader.

After the episode, in Frankfurt, the leader, Kim Yong Nam, chief of the Parliament, called off plans to take part in the United Nations meeting and one in New York with the president of South Korea.

The White House spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said the search, including a pat-down of the diplomats and a luggage check, was partially a result of misunderstandings. "It was a combination of unfamiliarity with our procedures and I think some unfamiliarity on the part there with the delegation coming through," he said. "We regret that they got on a plane and headed back home."

The North Korean envoy to the United Nations, Li Hyong Chol, said that 15 North Korean delegates were waiting to board an American Airlines flight when they were approached by American aviation security officials. He said their luggage was checked and they underwent body searches. The airline apologized.

Choe Su Hon, the North Korean vice minister for foreign affairs, blamed the United States for the security measures, which caused the delegation to miss their flight. The North Koreans were offered seats on another flight but refused, said the State Department, which said a cause may have been that the North Koreans had not notified American officials of their travel plans.

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U.N. Gathering and Traffic Manage to Coexist

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/nyregion/06CRUS.html

As foreign dignitaries around for the United Nations summit meeting began to descend on the streets of New York City yesterday, the police issued their post-rush hour traffic diagnosis with a sigh of relief: the run-up to the gathering was, more or less, a success.

"Things were much better than we anticipated," said Inspector James Hegarty, who commands the traffic control division of the New York Police Department. "We did not have any serious major gridlock situations."

But the authorities predict major gridlock today and tomorrow, as the three-day gathering of world leaders begins in earnest. Delegates are expected to clog roadways as they travel in motorcades among their hotels, United Nations headquarters, private meetings and cocktail parties. But yesterday, Inspector Hegarty said, New Yorkers appeared to have heeded the warnings of the police and the mayor, opting for public transportation and, in general, staying off of the roads.

"Less than typical Christmas traffic" is how he summed it up.

About 150 traffic control agents and police officers patrolled the streets of Manhattan yesterday. Even so, there were a few snags, with the most prominent points of congestion occurring near political demonstrations.

A group protesting the Iranian government stopped traffic as it made its way from 43rd Street and Madison Avenue to 47th Street between First and Second Avenues. Although the marchers confined themselves to the sidewalks, traffic was temporarily held up as they walked across streets and avenues, the police said. The police kept the traffic flowing, albeit slowly, by alternating the right of way between drivers and marchers.

Another group protesting Iran caused further disruptions at 5 p.m, when 18 demonstrators dashed into the street at 49th Street and First Avenue, sat down and refused to leave, the police said. When the police arrived, they arrested the 10 men and 8 women, charging each with disorderly conduct. Traffic was backed up for at least half an hour, Inspector Hegarty said, and the police had to back some cars out of the First Avenue tunnel.

Fidel Castro caused backups at several points between noon and 4 p.m., as his motorcade drove to the Cuban mission, on Lexington Avenue and 38th Street, and also paid visits to several other delegations, the police said. Traffic was cleared on Lexington Avenue between 38th and 48th Streets, they said.

Drivers on the West Side also felt the brunt of the world's leaders yesterday, as traffic diverted from closed-off East Side streets gravitated westward. The Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue were backed up, the police said.

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World Leaders Arrive, and a City Sits Up and Notices

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By DEAN E. MURPHY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06NATI.html

The summit meeting of world leaders gets under way today at the United Nations, but most of New York and its thousands of visitors could not wait to open the curtain on what promises to be a world-class sideshow.

Traffic was backed up across the East Side yesterday because of a crush of limousines carrying V.I.P.'s everywhere from the United Nations Plaza Hotel to the Bronx Zoo. (Denis Sassou-Nguesso, president of the Congo Republic, skipped some preconference hobnobbing to tour the Congo Gorilla Forest exhibit.)

Demonstrators, some beating drums, some shouting with bullhorns and some practicing silent meditation, squeezed into Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, the global soapbox for the week. Whether anyone was listening did not seem important.

"There is no peace without Yahweh's 613 laws of peace," a religious group from Texas chanted. The reply from a pro-Taiwan group: "Say no to China." And members of the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong kept the yelling to themselves.

"We just focus inside," one of the meditators said.

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, called the three- day conference a "defining moment for the world's leaders and for the United Nations." To be sure, some of the world's most vexing problems, from poverty to disease, will be debated by presidents, prime ministers, kings and crown princes.

Yesterday, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran delivered a speech at a one-day conference ahead of the summit meeting, in which he noted that his country is one of the world's oldest civilizations and promoted his campaign for a global "dialogue among civilizations."

Discussions also began among four African presidents on Zimbabwe's troubled land reform program. More than 700 other meetings, dealing with issues around the world, are expected to follow.

But yesterday, it was not easy to see the diplomacy past the preconference spectacle, which spilled into virtually every nook and cranny of Manhattan and promised to continue through the week. Even as Mr. Khatami spoke, hundreds of demonstrators marched down 47th Street in opposition to his government, their protest filling one slot in a day of events and counterevents.

"We have seen this in bits and pieces before but never like this all together," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, who released a letter to Madeleine K. Albright, the secretary of state, requesting that the city be reimbursed for the $10 million it is spending for tasks like security and traffic control.

Technicians at the Waldorf-Astoria, home for the week to about 30 leaders including President Clinton, finished installing a telephone network that includes four miles of additional cable, untold pieces of high- tech gadgetry and several rooftop satellite links. Maintenance workers at the United Nations, meanwhile, rushed to shore up a rain-soaked ceiling in a meeting room where breakfast is to be served today to more than 150 guests.

It seemed that every New Yorker had a gripe about the inconvenience.

A German tennis player, Nicolas Kiefer, advanced to the quarterfinals at the United States Open in Queens but only after a sleepless weekend at his hotel, the United Nations Plaza. Mr. Kiefer said he had "a very bad night" on Sunday because there were four security alerts. The Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, one of 18 dignitaries considered high security risks by the police, is among the hotel's guests.

Mr. Kiefer said he had since moved to the Waldorf. "I think tomorrow is the same thing again," he said, after learning that Mr. Clinton is staying there.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has a history of using United Nations gatherings to dress down his least favorite world leaders, attacked President Fidel Castro of Cuba, who is making his first visit to New York in several years.

"I understand and sympathize with the sense of injustice that much of the Cuban community feels with regard to Fidel Castro," Mr. Giuliani said at a Midtown news conference. "He's taken the land of many people, displaced families, killed people."

Mr. Castro will get his chance to turn some heads today when he addresses the summit meeting's opening session.

North Korean leaders did not even make it to New York. They abruptly returned home from Germany after being subjected to security checks at the airport in Frankfurt. Choe Su Hon, the North Korean deputy foreign minister, blamed the United States for the checks, carried out by American Airlines, which apparently caused the delegation to miss its flight. The State Department said the problem may have been a result of the Koreans' not notifying American officials of their travel plans.

In Harlem, the main speaker was a no-show, and the crowd outside a funeral home across the street was bigger than the news media contingent. But the Friends of Zimbabwe pressed ahead with its publicity campaign, one of an array of organizations and people across the city screaming, "Hey, look at me!"

Roger Wareham, a Brooklyn lawyer, unveiled a poster of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church on Malcolm X Boulevard. The Rev. Charles Curtis, pastor of the church, spoke of an international political and media campaign to discredit Mr. Mugabe. And Amadi Ajamu, the group's publicity chief, handed out a press release announcing the Zimbabwean president's appearance tomorrow night at the church, a sort of coming- out party for the African leader.

"The problem is that he is not really well known in the black community," Mr. Wareham said. "People know Fidel," he said of Mr. Castro, "but if they've heard of Mugabe in the mainstream media, they think he is some kind of maniac."

There was a flurry of press releases, some written by hand, sent to news organizations around the city.

The first lady of South Korea, Hee Ho Lee, would like it known that she will help raise money at the Y.M.C.A. in Flushing for H.I.V.-infected children. Kamalesh Sharma, India's ambassador to the United Nations, will be happy to answer questions about a book he edited, "Imagining Tomorrow: Rethinking the Global Challenge." The American Anti-Slavery Group, with the help of the Guardian Angels, will try to make a citizen's arrest on President Omar Hassan al- Bashir of Sudan.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, will be talking about the "state of the world" at a $5,000- per-person conference at the New York Hilton and Towers. The Pakistan Muslim League USA will condemn military rule in Pakistan.

Ruby Anderson did not write a press release, but she is starving for some attention as well. She runs Al's Delicatessen at what has become ground zero during the week, 44th Street between First and Second Avenues. Al's lies behind a barricade.

Customers who asked for Al's by name would have been allowed yesterday to slip past the police line, but none seemed to know this and so what would have been the 1 p.m. sandwich rush became a thin trickle of Secret Service agents, police officers and the occasional regular from the nearby Nigerian Embassy.

After five years in the area, Mrs. Anderson can tell the difference. "I can see if they're Secret Service or State Department or with the detectives or with the policemen," she said. "They all behave different."

At that, three men whisked in, placed orders for sandwiches and headed for a table in the back corner of the room. The one who seemed to be in charge was clearly a figure of note, Mrs. Anderson determined, someone "very down to business."

The customer was Leon Fuerth, Vice President Al Gore's national security adviser, and he polished off a turkey sandwich and a side of cole slaw over a talk with two staff members that one of them described only as "important."

"He didn't care for his bagel from the Delta Shuttle," confided the staff member. With its paucity of customers, Al's was the perfect place to talk foreign policy on the down-low. "It gave us an opportunity to engage in our discussion in a typical New York environment," he said.

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An Army at the Ready

New York Times
September 06, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/opinion/L06ARM.html

To the Editor:

The political debate about American military force readiness (front page, Sept. 4) is really about the readiness of the Army: neither the Air Force nor the Navy sends planes or ships into harm's way unless they have full crews and arsenals. Historically, an Army unit is deployed if needed, whether it is ready or not.

Since no unit is ever 100 percent ready, readiness status should be measured by the time that it will take a unit to become ready.

Some advocate a change in accounting readiness - for example, requiring units to be prepared to fight only one regional conflict instead of two. But by lowering our strategic objectives, we tempt would-be aggressors to take advantage of our inability to fight on two fronts simultaneously.

A better solution would be a strategy that could support a continuing war and deter a wider war, as advocated by President Harry S. Truman at the beginning of the Korean War.

JOE MUCKERMAN Alexandria, Va., Sept. 4, 2000
The writer was director of emergency planning for the Pentagon from 1986 to 1992.

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The New Left Takes on the World

Washington Post
Wednesday, September 6, 2000 ; A19
By Tony Blair, Wim Kok, Goran Persson and Gerhard Schroeder
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18301-2000Sep5.html

The agenda for this week's meeting of the U.N. Millennium Summit is daunting. Development, conflict, drugs, AIDS--all require sustained policy innovation. But we believe there is an emerging consensus on the right framework to build a global order based on equal worth and social fairness. Our challenge is to implement what we already know to be right, as well as to develop new solutions.

Last June in Berlin, 14 heads of government from Europe, the Americas, South Africa and New Zealand signed a unique political document. The Berlin Communique brought together politicians of the center-left to forge a new progressive agenda. Although our four countries are part of many historical networks, we are today also part of a bigger political family--of renewed and modernized progressive politics. Our values endure, but our approach is radically reformed. We all embrace the potential of globalization. In fact our shared political conversation symbolized political globalization. But we are also committed to tackle the clear problems that come in its wake. For us, there are three foundations for global progress.

First, we need to widen the winners' circle in the new economy. This is socially right but also economically important. Sound macroeconomic policy is necessary but not sufficient. We need active government, not doing the job of business but instead empowering our citizens to enter the labor market, develop their skills and set up businesses of their own. Education is the key: In all our countries it is the top priority for investment. And for those of us brought up under the influence of successful postwar welfare policy, it must be supported by continued modernization of welfare states. Welfare policy must be more than a safety net. It should be dedicated as well to active help that promotes work and independence and prevents problems, rather than simply providing a palliative to them.

Second, we need to strengthen civil society. Civil society is a check both against overweening government and untrammeled market power. The underlying values should be clear--a society open and inclusive, but based on responsibilities as well as rights. There are those who will seek to exploit the population movements that are part of globalization to stir up fear and hatred. We are determined to stand against antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. We also recognize that one of the most corrosive influences on the health of a community is crime. That is why we are determined to use all the tools at our disposal, from effective community policing to the latest DNA technology, to tackle crime and its causes.

Third, we are committed to a new international social compact. We recognize that in an increasingly interdependent world the aims of wider prosperity and a strengthening of civil society cannot be pursued within the nation-state alone. It is not only that problems cross national borders; it is that the pursuit of self-interest in one part of the world may be disastrous for another. The key for development is to establish a virtuous circle between laudable aims that too often are pursued in isolation--debt relief, conflict prevention, trade promotion, educational and health investment, environmental enhancement. In relation to debt relief, rich countries have promises to fulfill, while developing countries must show that the poor will benefit. Similarly, we need to find a way through the legitimate debate about how to ensure that free trade supports development and employee rights; and in fields like the environment we should be seeking to bind together the interests of developed and developing countries, and using innovative new mechanisms like emissions-trading schemes to curb pollution.

This is an ambitious agenda--and rightly so. It is based on clear values, and judging by the meeting in Berlin, it has increasing support. This is significant. Ten years ago, at the end of the Cold War, people talked about the end of the left, or even the end of politics. Ten years on, progressive politics has been liberated from old attitudes. In our four countries, it is the left-of-center parties that have brought stability to public finances, tackled social exclusion, pioneered reform as well as investment in public services and are now engaging with the construction of a reformed European social model. The results speak for themselves: falling unemployment, rising investment, improving standards in health and education services.

We are proud of these achievements, but not satisfied. Big challenges are ahead. The protection of our environment, incorporating all that scientific advancement has to offer, looms as a massive responsibility for our generation. And as leaders of four member states of the European Union, we recognize the need for the EU itself to reform and move forward. We are committed to help Europe become the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, through reforms in capital, product and labor markets. European countries are collaborating more closely in new fields like crime, asylum and defense. And a huge challenge for the EU is to embrace new members in central and eastern Europe. This requires institutional change to ensure that the EU lives up to its potential.

In this we are greatly strengthened by the new progressive network that has come into being. Within Europe and beyond we can and must learn from our diverse experience. Nevertheless, we find remarkable similarity in our political debates. And as we meet tonight in New York at the invitation of President Clinton to develop our ideas further, it is important to acknowledge the role he has played in fostering the new progressive dialogue. Few presidents have so effortlessly bridged the Atlantic.

We learn from each other's ideas, and we explain to our voters that they are part of a larger project to ensure that in a changing world, government promotes opportunity and security for all. Some people and countries will always be able to take care of themselves. But we have a wider responsibility. We cannot stop change, but we can shape it for the benefit of the many, not the few.

Tony Blair is prime minister of the United Kingdom; Wim Kok is prime minister of the Netherlands; Goran Persson is prime minister of Sweden; and Gerhard Schroeder is chancellor of Germany.

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Clinton Opens Summit With Eye Toward Mideast Peace

Washington Post
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
By Colum Lynch Special to the Washington Post
http://washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A21705-2000Sep6

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 6 - President Clinton opened the Millennium Summit of world leaders this morning with a call to better equip the United Nations to halt civil wars, eradicate poverty and stop the spread of deadly diseases that know no borders.

Tragic news also underscored Clinton's emphasis on strengthening the U.N.'s ability to engage in peacekeeping operations. In western Timor, three U.N. relief workers were killed by Indonesian gangs opposed to independence for the eastern side of the island.

"Fifty years ago, the U.N. was formed to 'save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.' We are that succeeding generation," Clinton told the gathering of kings, presidents and prime ministers from more than 155 countries. "There are assembled here more people with the power to create peace than have ever gathered together in one place in the history of the world. Can we seize this moment?"

Clinton told the world leaders that they have an opportunity to make a difference in trouble spots from the Middle East to Burma. With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat listening from their seats in the General Assembly hall, Clinton asked that they and their allies support a peace deal.

"To those who have supported the right of Israel to live in security and peace - to those who have championed the Palestinian cause these many years - let me say the time to help both sides take risks for peace is now," said Clinton, who was delivering his final address to the U.N. General Assembly as president. "It will not be easy. But there is not a moment to lose."

In a gesture of warming relations between Washington and Tehran, Iranian President Mohammad Khatemi moved up the time of his address so that Clinton could hear it. Khatemi, who originally had been scheduled to speak in the afternoon, took the podium in the morning and spoke on the perils of globalization while Clinton remained in the General Assembly hall to listen.

"Globalization should not be utilized to open greater markets for a few or to assimilate national cultures into a uniform global one," Khatemi said. "In one corner of the world, human beings have attained acceptable material living conditions. . . . In another corner, far more populous, they are struggling with a multitude of afflictions ranging from poverty, ignorance and exclusion to undemocratic rulers who are often subservient to major powers," he said.

The three-day summit opened on a somber note. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the world leaders to observe a minute of silence to honor the international relief workers murdered in western Timor just hours before the summit formally got underway.

"This tragedy underlines once again the dangers faced by unarmed humanitarian workers serving the United Nations in conflict and post-conflict situations," Annan told the delegates, including Indonesian leader Abdurrahman Wahid. "The safety of U.N. personnel is a matter of vital concern."

At the dawn of the 21st century, Annan added, the world has never witnessed such an explosion of economic progress and scientific achievements, from the development of the computer to the unlocking of the human genetic code. But he noted that much of the world's population lives in extreme poverty, with more than 1 billion people earning less than $1 a day.

"In an age when human beings have learned the code of human life, and can transmit their knowledge in seconds from one continent to another, no mother in the world can understand why her child should be left to die of malnutrition or preventable disease," Annan said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and Jordan's King Abdullah also addressed the gathering.

Putin called on the United Nations to play a greater role in combating international terrorism. He also proposed a U.N. conference in Moscow next spring on the prevention of military activities in outer space – a topic of great interest to Russia as the United States continues development of a national missile defense system - and he called for a ban on production of weapons grade plutonium and uranium.

While several delegations decried the widening economic gap between rich and poor nations, Clinton said the world has never seen greater freedom, prosperity or opportunities than exist today. But he acknowledged that the United States and other countries must do more to halt the spread of poverty and the increase in civil wars that have killed more than 5 million people since the end of the cold war.

"We must find ways to protect people as well as borders," he said. "Let us equip the United Nations to do what we ask."

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Three U.N. refugee workers killed in attack

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 02:53 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nwswed01.htm

DILI, East Timor - Thousands of pro-Indonesian militiamen and their supporters stormed a U.N. office in West Timor on Wednesday, killing an American and two other foreign U.N. staffers who worked to help refugees and burning their bodies. A U.N. force flew into the Indonesian territory to evacuate remaining workers, officials said.

Witnesses said Indonesian security forces, long blamed for Timor's continuing tragedy, stood by and did nothing to prevent the killings and the torching of a U.N. office in the West Timor town of Atambua. In addition to the three dead, several foreign staffers for the U.N. refugee agency escaped and three were injured, one of them seriously, police in Atambua said.

The seriously injured staffer was a Brazilian woman who was hacked by an ax-wielding attacker, officials said. The three dead workers were identified as Samson Aregahegn of Ethiopia, Carlos Caseras of the United States and Pero Simundza of Croatia.

West Timor is controlled by Indonesia, while East Timor voted last year to separate from Indonesia and is now administered by the United Nations. Pro-Indonesian militiamen in the region rampaged after the East Timor independence vote, and clashes between pro-Indonesian groups and U.N. peacekeepers have become more frequent of late.

''These were peaceful, unarmed humanitarians who gave their lives trying help those who had lost everything in conflict,'' U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said in a statement issued in Geneva. ''Words cannot express the sorrow all of us at UNHCR are feeling today, and our hearts go out to the families of the victims.''

All other foreign staff for the agency have been accounted for, UNHCR said.

Four helicopters flew to Atambua and safely evacuated 54 people to East Timor's border town of Balibo, said Norwegian army Col. Brynar Nymo, a peacekeeping spokesman. Nymo said the mercy mission was launched with permission from the Indonesian government.

Embattled Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, in New York for this week's U.N. Millennium Summit, issued a statement expressing his ''deep regrets'' over the deaths. He said he has ordered two battalions of security troops sent to Atambua and an investigation begun.

The unprecedented violence is certain to harm Wahid's standing abroad. He has failed to rein in rogue elements of Indonesia's army blamed for fomenting violence in Timor and other trouble spots in an apparent attempt to derail his push for democratic reform.

At the U.N. summit, Wahid and other world leaders stood in a minute of silence for the victims. President Clinton said he was ''deeply saddened'' to hear of the deaths. ''I urge the Indonesian authorities to put a stop to these abuses,'' he said during a summit-opening speech.

Wednesday's violence began when thousands of armed pro-Indonesian militia members and their supporters stormed UNHCR's Atambua office. Witnesses said militiamen beat the three foreign U.N. workers to death and burned their bodies in the street. They were the first civilian U.N. staff members to be killed in Timor.

''The militiamen beat them to death inside the building. They then dragged the bodies outside, put on them a pile of wood, poured gasoline over them and set them on fire,'' said one witness, who was too frightened to give his name. ''It was scary.''

In his statement, Wahid said the attack was triggered by ''the uncontrollable emotional distress of the people'' over the death of a militiaman, Olivia Mendoza Moruk, in the nearby town of Betun on Tuesday.

Moruk was among 19 men named last week by Indonesia's attorney general as suspects in last year's devastation of East Timor. The men have been summoned to testify next week.

The attack comes amid reports from U.N. officials that growing numbers of armed anti-independence militiamen have been infiltrating U.N.-supervised East Timor, raising fears of attacks. Two peacekeeping soldiers have died in border skirmishes with armed militia infiltrators in East Timor in recent weeks and several have been wounded.

Before Wednesday's attack, the United Nations had recorded 193 deaths of civilian workers since 1992, when the organization began keeping civilian statistics. Since 1948, the United Nations has lost 1,412 military peacekeepers, although the figure jumps to 1,654 when U.N. observers and police are included.

Jake Morland, UNHCR spokesman in West Timor's capital, Kupang, said 90 UNHCR staffers elsewhere in the province were on standby for possible evacuation in case the violence spread.

The U.N. agency has been delivering aid to an estimated 90,000 refugees who have lingered in border camps after fleeing violence in East Timor 12 months ago. It has repeatedly been forced to shut down operations after attacks by militia gangs on its staff and buildings over many months.

About 250,000 East Timorese fled East Timor for dozens of border refugee camps in West Timor a year ago to escape violence by Indonesian troops and their militia allies who opposed a U.N.-supervised vote for East Timor's independence. International peacekeepers landed in East Timor on Sept. 20, 1999. Since then, nearly 170,000 refugees have returned from West Timor.

The Indonesian military stood by during last year's rampage and the violence only ended with the arrival of international troops. The United Nations has accused sections of Indonesia's army of aiding the militias.

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No progress on Mideast meetings at summit

USA Today
9/06/00- Updated 09:22 PM ET
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed03.htm

UNITED NATIONS - President Clinton began a three-day marathon of personal diplomacy Wednesday, traveling through Manhattan's traffic-snarled streets to meet with fellow leaders on topics that ranged from the Middle East peace process to whether Clinton might visit Vietnam before his term ends.

The most highly anticipated meetings of Clinton's trip to the U.N. Millennium Summit - separate sessions with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - ended late Wednesday with no breakthrough, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

"We did not expect today to be a breakthrough day in the process. That is true. But the process has not broken down," Lockhart said. He did indicate, however, that both sides continue to move away from their self-imposed Sept. 13 deadline to settle an outline of a final status agreement.

Arafat, in a speech to the summit's unprecedented array of nearly 160 world leaders, gave no quarter on the issue of Jerusalem.

"We have agreed to share the city, eliminate barriers and borders therein, in contrast to attempts at monopolizing it," he said.

He called the city "the cradle of Christ and the site of Prophet Mohammed's ascension to heaven," making no mention of Jews' attachment to the city for more than 2,000 years.

Barak, in his speech, asked Arafat to join him in making painful concessions for peace.

"We are at the Rubicon, and no one of us can cross it alone," Barak said.

There has been no indication that Barak is prepared to go beyond his offer at July's Camp David summit to give the Palestinians full sovereignty over Jerusalem's outlying Arab districts, autonomy in East Jerusalem and a continuation of administrative power - but not full sovereignty - over Muslim holy sites in the Old City.

Clinton called on U.N. members to encourage Barak and Arafat to make difficult choices. "They need your support now more than ever, to take the hard risks for peace," Clinton said in his early morning address. "They have the chance to do it, but like all life's chances, it is fleeting and about to pass. There is not a moment to lose."

Clinton also met for 90 minutes with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader made clear his continuing opposition to any U.S. missile-defense shield in his summit speech. Putin called for an international conference to be held in Moscow next year that would ban the militarization of space. Last week, Clinton deferred a decision on building a missile shield to his successor.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said Clinton stressed to Putin that as long as Russia is unwilling to enter "meaningful and productive discussions" on strategic defense systems such as a missile shield, the United States will not move forward on negotiating further cuts in nuclear arsenals.

Talbott said Clinton also raised with Putin the case of Edmund Pope, an American businessman being held in a Russian prison on espionage charges. Talbott would not specify what Clinton said to Putin about Pope, who suffers from a rare form of bone cancer, but said, "President Putin certainly understands the importance President Clinton attaches to that."

Clinton also met briefly with Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong, and White House aides said the topic of Clinton's long-rumored plans to visit Vietnam this year did come up. Spokesman Jake Siewert said there would be no announcement of a Clinton trip to Vietnam during this summit.

Clinton's meetings were just part of Wednesday's proceedings, the first day of this gathering of presidents, kings and heads of state, which continues through Friday.

With a city snarled by motorcades, heightened security measures and Manhattan's normal traffic tie-ups as the stage, leaders met in a variety of formal and informal settings. There were also demonstrations. Several thousand Falun Gong supporters demonstrated outside China's U.N. mission to protest Beijing's treatment of the sect.

Clinton unexpectedly lingered at the morning summit session to hear the remarks of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Clinton had no contact with Cuban President Fidel Castro.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the leaders to make the summit more than a gigantic photo opportunity.

Toasting the unprecedented assemblage, Annan said, "As we break a new record, I trust we will not sound to the world like a broken record, stuck in the same groove. I hope this unprecedented assembly of leaders will also set a new record in leadership."

---

Tragedy mars summit opening

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 11:38 PM ET
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed11.htm

UNITED NATIONS - An unprecedented U.N. Millennium Summit of 160 world leaders began Wednesday with the lofty aim of promoting world peace. But the difficulty of reaching that goal was grimly underscored by the brutal killings of three U.N. workers in West Timor, Indonesia.

The tragedy came as President Clinton appealed to his fellow leaders - who are taking part in the largest such gathering in history - to strengthen the role of U.N. peacekeepers in mediating conflicts around the globe.

Clinton also had a whirlwind schedule of personal diplomacy that included separate Middle East peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Those sessions failed to produce a breakthrough, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Wednesday night, but Lockhart did not rule out more discussions Friday.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the special summit with a request for a moment of silence, noting the violence in West Timor. "This tragedy underlines once again the dangers faced by unarmed United Nations workers," he said.

U.N. and U.S. officials said the three workers were savagely beaten to death after a pro-Indonesian mob attacked and burned the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. U.N. forces flew into West Timor on Wednesday to evacuate 54 workers.

The United Nations has been delivering aid to about 90,000 East Timorese refugees who fled violence a year ago by militia members opposed to a U.N.-supervised vote for East Timor's independence.

Clinton's unusually brief seven-minute speech - leaders were asked to limit their remarks to five minutes - called on the world body to continue intervening in conflicts around the globe, but he repeated U.S. concerns that peacekeeping missions must be better defined and staffed.

"We find today fewer wars between nations, but more wars within them," Clinton said, marking the last time as president that he will address the United Nations.

Many U.N. delegates complained that Washington is in no position to make demands on peacekeeping given that it owes more than $1 billion in U.N. dues. Congress also has been unwilling to give Clinton the full $738 million he has requested for peacekeeping in 2001.

Leaders that included Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Cuba's Fidel Castro kept New York streets clogged and security tight. Castro, making his first U.S. trip in five years, embraced old friends such as Namibia's President Sam Nujoma, but he had no contact with Clinton.

---

Clinton opens Millennium Summit

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 10:09 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncstue12.htm

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - An unprecedented gathering of world leaders opened Wednesday to chart the course of the United Nations in the 21st century - particularly its efforts to forge peace. The meeting was clouded by a faraway reminder of the challenges facing the international body: the killings of three U.N. aid workers in West Timor.

President Clinton is expected to touch on the importance of improving U.N. peacekeeping operations, as is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in opening remarks to the U.N. Millennium Summit - largest ever gathering of world leaders.

At the urging of the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the leaders held a minute of silence at the start of the meeting to commemorate the deaths of the three aid workers slain Wednesday after an angry pro-Indonesian mob and militiamen attacked and burned the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Annan announced the attack to the summit, telling leaders it was a ''somber'' reminder of the dangers U.N. staff face every day.

Even before rioters overwhelmed the U.N. refugee agency in the Indonesian-controlled territory, there were no illusions that the three-day summit in New York would in itself change the world and cure it of its ills.

''The problems seem huge,'' Annan said, listing poverty, the AIDS epidemic, wars and environmental degradation. ''But in today's world, given the technology and the resources around, we have the means to tackle them. If we have the will, we can deal with them.''

While Annan is hoping for new commitments to the U.N. goals of ending poverty and wars, some heads of state are expected to use the three days of speeches, discussions and meetings to push their own agendas - including those critical of the United States.

In a taste of what may come, North Korea denounced the United States as a ''rogue state'' Tuesday, claiming the government was responsible for allegedly ordering the search of members of the delegation as they switched planes in Germany. The incident prompted Pyongyang to call off the summit trip by No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam, head of the communist country's parliament, who had been scheduled to meet South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

American Airlines apologized for the search and said no U.S. government agency took part. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the search was partially a result of misunderstandings.

Washington also is expected to come under fire from Cuban President Fidel Castro, who arrived in New York on Tuesday for the first time in five years. He is expected to speak out against American domination of the United Nations in his five minutes on the podium Wednesday afternoon.

The United States also can expect an earful from more friendly countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, both of whom speak after Clinton on Wednesday, are likely to use the gathering to continue rallying international support against U.S. national missile defense plans.

Clinton's announcement last week that he would leave it to the next administration to decide whether and when to deploy such a system will be welcomed by many leaders who have criticized the U.S. plans as a threat to 30 years of arms control treaties.

But analysts have predicted that Jiang will use the summit - and a one-on-one meeting with Clinton - to pressure the United States to cancel the proposal altogether.

Jiang, however, will have his own controversies to deal with as members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement stage continuous demonstrations against the Chinese leader for Beijing's crackdown on the sect - part of the 91 demonstrations planned this week.

About 400 Falun Gong members, some wearing T-shirts that read ''Stop persecuting Falun Gong'' went through their meditation exercises Tuesday outside the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where Jiang was hosting a breakfast meeting with American media executives.

Other protests have been aimed at Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, including a demonstration Tuesday outside Iran's U.N. mission by a coalition of Jewish groups protesting the prison sentences handed down to 10 Iranian Jews convicted of espionage.

Khatami, who has tried to reach out to the Iranian-Jewish community here, presided Tuesday over a pre-summit round-table discussion attended by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and heads of state on forging a ''dialogue among civilizations'' to promote world peace.

Clinton does have meetings planned on the summit sidelines with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to try to relaunch Mideast peace talks. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said Tuesday he saw little chance for a peace agreement to emerge.

When the hoopla of the summit ends, Annan wants the United Nations to monitor how every world leader is implementing the lofty goals in the summit declaration.

The declaration expected to be adopted Friday asks the General Assembly to review ''on a regular basis'' the progress made in implementing its provisions. And it asks Annan to issue periodic reports for consideration by the General Assembly.

Annan went further, saying he wants the United Nations to monitor implementation and indicate who is making progress in achieving the summit goals, and who isn't.

''I am telling the world leaders not only to come here and approve a plan of action, but that I would expect each and every one of them to go back home and begin to do something about it,'' he said.

---

Summit opens with call for peace, end to war

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 12:39 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncswed03.htm

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The largest gathering of world leaders in history opened Wednesday to chart the course of the United Nations in the 21st century - particularly its efforts to forge peace. The meeting was clouded by a faraway reminder of the challenges facing the international body: the killings of three U.N. aid workers in West Timor.

President Clinton said he was deeply saddened to learn of the ''brutal'' slaying of the three workers and told the U.N. Millennium Summit - a gathering of more than 150 world leaders - that the United Nations must be better prepared to confront such hostilities.

''Increasingly, the United Nations has been called into situations where brave people seek reconciliation but where the enemies seek to undermine it,'' Clinton said, citing U.N. peacekeeping operations in East Timor and Sierra Leone.

''But in both cases, the U.N. did not have the tools to finish the job. We must provide those tools, with peacekeepers who can be rapidly deployed with the right training and equipment, missions well-defined and well-led, with the necessary civilian police,'' Clinton said.

He specifically called on the Indonesian authorities ''to put a stop to these abuses.'' Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was in the audience.

At the urging of the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the leaders held a minute of silence at the start of the meeting to commemorate the deaths of the three aid workers slain Wednesday after an angry pro-Indonesian mob and militiamen attacked and burned the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Annan announced the attack to the summit, telling leaders it was a ''somber'' reminder of the dangers U.N. staff face every day.

Even before rioters overwhelmed the U.N. refugee agency in the Indonesian-controlled territory, there were no illusions that the three-day summit in New York would in itself change the world and cure it of its ills.

''The problems seem huge,'' Annan said, listing poverty, the AIDS epidemic, wars and environmental degradation. ''But in today's world, given the technology and the resources around, we have the means to tackle them. If we have the will, we can deal with them.''

While Annan is hoping for new commitments to the U.N. goals of ending poverty and wars, some heads of state are expected to use the three days of speeches, discussions and meetings to push their own agendas - including those critical of the United States.

In a taste of what may come, North Korea denounced the United States as a ''rogue state'' Tuesday, claiming the government was responsible for allegedly ordering the search of members of the delegation as they switched planes in Germany. The incident prompted Pyongyang to call off the summit trip by No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam, who had been scheduled to meet South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

American Airlines apologized for the search and said no U.S. government agency took part. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the search was partially a result of misunderstandings.

Washington also is expected to come under fire from Cuban President Fidel Castro, who arrived in New York on Tuesday for the first time in five years. He is expected to speak out against American domination of the United Nations on Wednesday afternoon.

The United States also can expect an earful from more friendly countries.

In his speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin referred indirectly to U.S. proposals to create a national missile defense system, citing the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which must be amended if Washington is to go ahead with the program.

''The new century of the United Nations must ... go down in history as a period of real disarmament,'' Putin said.

He and Chinese President Jiang Zemin were expected to use the three-day summit to continue rallying international support against the U.S. national missile defense plans.

Clinton's announcement last week that he would leave it to the next administration to decide whether and when to deploy such a system will be welcomed by many leaders who have criticized the U.S. plans as a threat to 30 years of arms control treaties.

But analysts have predicted that Jiang will use the summit - and a one-on-one meeting with Clinton - to pressure the United States to cancel the proposal altogether.

Jiang, however, will have his own controversies to deal with as members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement stage continuous demonstrations against the Chinese leader for Beijing's crackdown on the sect - part of the 91 demonstrations planned this week.

Other protests have been aimed at Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, including a demonstration Tuesday outside Iran's U.N. mission by a coalition of Jewish groups protesting the prison sentences handed down to 10 Iranian Jews convicted of espionage.

Clinton has meetings planned on the summit sidelines with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to try to relaunch Mideast peace talks. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said Tuesday he saw little chance for a peace agreement to emerge.

When the hoopla of the summit ends, Annan wants the United Nations to monitor how every world leader is implementing the lofty goals in the summit declaration.

The declaration expected to be adopted Friday asks the General Assembly to review ''on a regular basis'' the progress made in implementing its provisions. And it asks Annan to issue periodic reports for consideration by the General Assembly.

''I am telling the world leaders not only to come here and approve a plan of action, but that I would expect each and every one of them to go back home and begin to do something about it,'' he said.

---

A dictator drops in

Washington Times
EDITORIAL • September 6, 2000
http://208.246.212.80/op-ed/ed-house-200096194851.htm

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro will be speaking today at the U.N.'s Millennium Summit, which has been touted as the largest gathering of heads of state in history. The event promises to be a contest of egos. In preparation for Fidel's visit, the Cuban government began discussing security arrangements with the U.S. Secret Service and the New York Police Department several days ago.

The security is a good idea. Fidel's four-decade-old habit of committing brutal human rights abuses has surely generated some ill will. Fortunately for Fidel, the human rights community is mostly greeting the dictator's visit with silence.

Fidel should also be very thankful that while in the United States, he won't have to endure the same type of treatment he gives some visitors to his island empire. Elizabeth Riachi, a Cuban-American teacher from Detroit, is only too familiar with that treatment. When she flew to Cuba to bury the ashes of her deceased common law husband, she and her three U.S.-born children were immediately detained, her U.S. passport was seized and she was declared a Cuban citizen.

Miss Riachi and her children were held without food, water or access to a bathroom overnight. After she had buried her loved one, she was barred for days from leaving Havana. It was only after Miss Riachi threatened to get the U.S. State Department's help that she was allowed to leave. The incident is alarming on its face and ironic considering Fidel's claims that Elian Gonzalez had been "kidnapped" in the United States.

Nothing of this sort will happen to Fidel in the United States, since most Americans will be only too happy to see him go, unless of course, he prolongs his stay behind bars. New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani has made abundantly clear his dislike of Cuba's despot. "Fidel Castro is a murderer," said the mayor. "America should not fool itself into thinking he is some kind of benign dictator. The whole reinvention of Fidel Castro is part of this philosophy that has misled America in the past," he added.

It is a shame that more politicians and world leaders haven't taken a similar stand. Regardless of politicians' differing opinions concerning the embargo on Cuba, they must continue to speak out against Fidel's repression. Fidel wasn't democratically elected and he propagates his own power through bare-knuckled coercion. He can't be allowed to pose as a legitimate ruler.

A 1947 U.N. rule requires the United States to grant visas to officials attending official U.N. functions. The agreement allows the United States to deny requests for national security reasons, which the State Department decided not to invoke in this case. So be it. But at the very least, U.S. taxpayer money shouldn't be used to protect such an awful man.

---

Insulted North Koreans snub summit after body searches

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
By Betsy Pisik THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/world/default-200096222627.htm

NEW YORK - North Korea's delegation to the U.N. world summit angrily turned around and flew home yesterday after several of its members were patted down at an airport in Frankfurt, Germany.

During the encounter, security officers for American Airlines closely questioned the group and then subjected them to a physical search.

"As a U.S. carrier we are obliged under Federal Aviation Administration regulations to carry out stringent security procedures for all passengers traveling on our international flights," the airline said in a statement.

The airline apologized for the incident and said U.S. security forces were not involved.

Despite early reports that the delegation was strip-searched, the airline statement said the North Korean diplomats were subjected to a "pat down and removal of only an outer garment, such as a suit jacket, and their shoes."

But the diplomats were unswayed by the apology, accusing the Clinton administration of "hooliganism."

"This was an unbearable insult to the sovereignty to our country," said Li Hyong-chol, Pyongyang's representative to the United Nations, in a hastily convened press conference yesterday.

He said that scheduled bilateral meetings with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will not proceed. Nor will anyone deliver the speech planned by Kim Yong-nam, chairman of North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly, on Friday morning.

North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon said at a news conference in Frankfurt that, although there could obviously be no meeting with South Korean officials in New York, he did not blame Seoul for the incident. He stressed that talks had been going well.

"I think there will be a chance for a meeting [in the future]. The chance is lost this time," he told reporters, referring to the dialogue between the two Koreas which began in June after almost 50 years of hostility.

The incident was the first major glitch before today's opening of a three-day United Nations diplomatic extravaganza that is fraught with protocol hazards.

Some 170 world leaders have been gathering in New York for the Millennium Summit, where international and human security will be the subject of carefully edited speeches, roundtable discussions and countless private meetings and social gatherings.

But the 15-person North Korean delegation will not be among them.

The airport incident, which North Korean officials described as "insidious and brazen-faced," could interrupt the thawing relationship between the communist Asian nation and the United States.

"This incident intensified our vigilance and hatred toward the United States," said Mr. Li.

"The United States should understand that as long as they resort to confrontation against us with such provocative acts, they are a destroyer of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world."

Mary Ellen Glynn, spokeswoman for U.S. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, said yesterday that "the United States regrets that this unfortunate incident occurred.

"We had looked forward to having the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] at the Millennium Summit."

The spokeswoman said she doubted their decision to turn back, rather than take a later flight, was premeditated.

Asked about the impact on relations with Washington, Mr. Li added: "I can only say that the United States should expect to understand that the price for this kind of provocative act will be quite expensive."

But other diplomats yesterday were assiduously cultivating peace wherever they could find it.

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami yesterday was the headline speaker at a highly touted "Dialogue of Civilizations" organized by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright sat in the front row among scores of other diplomats and listened to the reformist cleric praise continuing dialogue.

Meanwhile, the Millennium Summit, a rapid-fire succession of monologues by the heads of state, will begin this morning with speeches by some 60 leaders.

Mr. Clinton is to speak in the morning, followed by Cuba's Fidel Castro, Israel's Ehud Barak and many others.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters yesterday that the summit is "a defining moment for the world's leaders and for the United Nations."

Many officials say the most valuable aspect of big U.N. meetings is not the formal speeches themselves but the opportunity to schedule brief private meetings with far-flung heads of state and engage in the chardonnay-and-canape maintenance of diplomatic relationships.

Later today Mr. Clinton is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr. Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jordan's King Abdullah and Saudi Prince Abdullah. He also is to attend a dinner party for Third Way social democrats hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Tomorrow, the president will meet with Mr. Kim of South Korea, attend meetings of African leaders and Security Council nations and then host a reception for 1,000 guests at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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

World leaders converge for U.N. summit
Murder of refugee staff in West Timor casts pall

MSNBC 09/06/00
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
http://www.msnbc.com/news/454665.asp

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 6 - An unprecedented gathering of world leaders opened Wednesday to chart the course of the United Nations in the 21st century - particularly its efforts to forge peace. The meeting was clouded by a faraway reminder of the challenges facing the international body: the killings of three U.N. aid workers in West Timor.

September 6, 2000 President Clinton urged support for international peacekeeping activities.

President Clinton said he was deeply saddened to learn of the "brutal" slaying of the three workers and told the U.N. Millennium Summit - the largest ever gathering of world leaders - that the United Nations must be better prepared to confront such hostilities.

"Increasingly, the United Nations has been called into situations where brave people seek reconciliation but where the enemies seek to undermine it," Clinton said, citing U.N. peacekeeping operations in East Timor and Sierra Leone.

"But in both cases, the U.N. did not have the tools to finish the job. We must provide those tools, with peacekeepers who can be rapidly deployed with the right training and equipment, missions well-defined and well-led, with the necessary civilian police," Clinton said.

He specifically called on the Indonesian authorities "to put a stop to these abuses." Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was in the audience.

MINUTE OF SILENCE

At the urging of the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the leaders held a minute of silence at the start of the meeting to commemorate the deaths of the three aid workers slain Wednesday after an angry pro-Indonesian mob and militiamen attacked and burned the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Annan announced the attack to the summit, telling leaders it was a "somber" reminder of the dangers U.N. staff face every day.

Even before rioters overwhelmed the U.N. refugee agency in the Indonesian-controlled territory, there were no illusions that the three-day summit in New York would in itself change the world and cure it of its ills.

"The problems seem huge," Annan said, listing poverty, the AIDS epidemic, wars and environmental degradation. "But in today's world, given the technology and the resources around, we have the means to tackle them. If we have the will, we can deal with them."

While Annan is hoping for new commitments to the U.N. goals of ending poverty and wars, some heads of state are expected to use the three days of speeches, discussions and meetings to push their own agendas - including those critical of the United States.

In a taste of what may come, North Korea denounced the United States as a "rogue state" Tuesday, claiming the government was responsible for allegedly ordering the search of members of the delegation as they switched planes in Germany. The incident prompted Pyongyang to call off the summit trip by No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam, head of the communist country's parliament, who had been scheduled to meet South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

American Airlines apologized for the search and said no U.S. government agency took part. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the search was partially a result of misunderstandings.

FOES EXPECTED TO CHIDE U.S.

Washington also is expected to come under fire from Cuban President Fidel Castro, who arrived in New York on Tuesday for the first time in five years. He is expected to speak out against American domination of the United Nations in his five minutes on the podium Wednesday afternoon.

The United States also can expect an earful from more friendly countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, both of whom speak after Clinton on Wednesday, are likely to use the gathering to continue rallying international support against U.S. national missile defense plans.

Clinton's announcement last week that he would leave it to the next administration to decide whether and when to deploy such a system will be welcomed by many leaders who have criticized the U.S. plans as a threat to 30 years of arms control treaties.

But analysts have predicted that Jiang will use the summit - and a one-on-one meeting with Clinton - to pressure the United States to cancel the proposal altogether.

Jiang, however, will have his own controversies to deal with as members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement stage continuous demonstrations against the Chinese leader for Beijing's crackdown on the sect - part of the 91 demonstrations planned this week.

Other protests have been aimed at Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, including a demonstration Tuesday outside Iran's U.N. mission by a coalition of Jewish groups protesting the prison sentences handed down to 10 Iranian Jews convicted of espionage.

Clinton does have meetings planned on the summit sidelines with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to try to relaunch Mideast peace talks. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said Tuesday he saw little chance for a peace agreement to emerge.

When the hoopla of the summit ends, Annan wants the United Nations to monitor how every world leader is implementing the lofty goals in the summit declaration.

The declaration expected to be adopted Friday asks the General Assembly to review "on a regular basis" the progress made in implementing its provisions. And it asks Annan to issue periodic reports for consideration by the General Assembly.

"I am telling the world leaders not only to come here and approve a plan of action, but that I would expect each and every one of them to go back home and begin to do something about it," he said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

----

The Crimes of The U.N.

Joseph Farah - Between The Lines
2000 WorldNetDaily.com
http://wnd.com/bluesky_btl/20000906_xcbtl_the_crimes.shtml

You may have missed it over the Labor Day weekend when few of us are paying attention to the news.

But the London Observer reported that former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali played a leading role in supplying weapons to the Hutu regime that carried out a campaign of genocide against the Tutsi tribe in 1994.

As minister of foreign affairs in Egypt, Boutros-Ghali facilitated an arms deal in 1990, which was to result in $26 million of mortar bombs, rocket launchers, grenades and ammunition being flown from Cairo to Rwanda. The arms were used by Hutus in attacks which led to up to a million deaths. The role of Boutros-Ghali, who was in charge at the UN when it turned its back on the killings in 1994, is revealed in a book by Linda Melvern.

In "A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide," Boutros-Ghali admits his role in approving an initial $5.8 million arms deal in 1990, which led to Egypt supplying arms to Rwanda until 1992. He says he approved it because it was his job as foreign minister to sell weapons for Egypt.

Did you catch that? It was just his job. Sound familiar?

The weapons were smuggled into Rwanda disguised as relief material. At the time there was an international outcry at human rights abuses by the Hutu government as thousands of Tutsi were massacred. Asked about the wisdom of an arms deal at such a sensitive time, Boutros-Ghali said he did not think that a "few thousand guns would have changed the situation." His contacts with the Hutu regime have never been investigated.

I raise this anecdote from the past as the United Nations gets set to hold its much-ballyhooed Millennium Summit in New York beginning today. This is a meeting that, organizers say, could change the way the world is governed, increase the power of the U.N. and usher in a new era of global peace.

The record of the U.N., however, should lead every thinking person to the opposite conclusion.

The U.N. is not just, as many Americans suspect, a group of incompetent busybodies. It is, instead, a global criminal enterprise determined to shift power away from individuals and sovereign nation-states to a small band of unaccountable international elites.

Way back in June 1997, I first warned of the emerging pattern of U.N. peacekeeping atrocities.

WorldNetDaily raised the visibility of scattered stories appearing in Agence France-Presse, the South China Morning Post and the London Telegraph.

The London Telegraph, in a combined dispatch with AFP, reported that Belgian troops roasted a Somali boy. Roasted him! And what was the sentence for this peace crime committed during an operation dubbed ironically "Restore Hope"? A military court sentenced two paratroopers to a month in jail and a fine of 200 pounds.

Another Belgian soldier reportedly forced a young Somali to eat pork, drink salt water and then eat his own vomit. Another sergeant was accused of murdering a Somali whom he was photographed urinating upon. Another child, accused of stealing food from the paratroopers' base, died after being locked in a storage container for 48 hours. Fifteen other members of the same regiment were investigated in 1995 for "acts of sadism and torture" against Somali civilians.

The pattern of abuse was not confined to Belgian troops. Belgium is actually the third country in the peacekeeping group to charge troops with serious crimes against Somali citizens -- including rape, torture and murder. In 1995, a group of Canadian paratroopers were investigated for torturing a Somali to death and killing three others.

Gruesome photos were published in a Milan magazine of Italian soldiers torturing a Somali youth and abusing and raping a Somali girl. Paratroopers claim they were specifically trained in methods of torture to aid interrogation. According to one witness, Italian soldiers tied a young Somali girl to the front of an armored personnel carrier and raped her while officers looked on.

Few other news agencies -- especially in the United States -- have devoted any coverage to these atrocities. The Village Voice was one notable exception.

The South China Morning Post published an AFP report about an Italian battalion commander who sexually abused and strangled a 13-year-old Somali boy. There are also allegations that, in 1993, Italian soldiers beat seven suspected Somali thieves, killing one; that they beat to death a 14-year-old boy who sold a false medal and beat a couple in a car.

An Italian paratrooper was quoted as saying: "What's the big deal? They are just niggers anyway."

Remember all this when you watch the glowing TV news reports from the Millennium Summit this week. Think of all this when you read the coverage of the event and see it proclaimed as the greatest development in government since the Continental Congress.

This is the real New World Order, folks -- where, when you get right down to it, we're all just niggers anyway.

A daily radio broadcast adaptation of Joseph Farah's commentaries can be heard on TalkNetDaily.

http://wnd.com/bluesky_btl/20000906_xcbtl_the_crimes.shtml

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

Pentagon Security Gate Misfires, Injuring German

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06MILI.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 - Germany's defense minister was injured and briefly hospitalized today after a steel security barrier sprang up beneath his motorcade as it arrived for an honors ceremony at the Pentagon.

The defense minister, Rudolf Scharping, suffered a scrape on his head and a cut on his foot when his car was struck by the retractable barricade, just after 4 p.m. The defense attaché at the German Embassy, Brig. Gen. Peter Goebel, and an American security aide were also slightly injured.

The Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth H. Bacon, said that the injuries were not serious but that all three men were taken to Arlington Hospital in Virginia for tests. "His condition is, I think, very good," Mr. Bacon said. "His spirits are very high."

Mr. Scharping was released after slightly more than three hours at the hospital, where his eyesight was tested and he was reported to be fine. He received several stitches in his foot, according to Maj. Tim Blair, a Pentagon spokesman.

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen was with Mr. Scharping throughout his treatment, the spokesman said. Mr. Cohen canceled a dinner that had been scheduled in Mr. Scharping's honor, but they discussed business in the hospital, the spokesman said..

He said Mr. Scharping "was alert and in high spirits and was not in a great deal of pain."

It was the second time in two years that the Pentagon's security system had injured a visiting defense minister. In September 1998, Japan's defense minister, Fukushiro Nukaga, and five others were injured in a strikingly similar accident at the same barricade.

That accident, attributed to a faulty sensor, prompted the Pentagon to install a new system for controlling the barricades, which were installed in 1992 to prevent terrorists from driving too close to the building.

Mr. Bacon noted that thousands of cars had passed through the barricades. "We had no problems with the system until today," he said.

When Mr. Cohen arrived at the gate, Mr. Scharping was lying on the ground outside the car, which remained hoisted on the barricade.

Mr. Bacon said an investigation had begun, adding, "We're always looking for the right balance between security and access, and unfortunately, the system here failed to provide access when it was required to do so."

---

Grounded Ospreys Cleared for Flight

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/national/06OSPR.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (AP) - The Marine Corps V-22 Osprey aircraft that were grounded on Aug. 25 have been cleared to fly again, officials said today.

Two of the 11 Osprey aircraft resumed flying over the weekend and the rest are expected to be back in the air by mid-September, after they have been inspected, the Naval Air Systems Command announced.

The Ospreys, which take off and land like a helicopter but fly like an airplane, were grounded after one made a precautionary landing at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Aug. 24 and a subsequent maintenance inspection revealed that a coupling on the aircraft's drive shaft had come loose.

The rest of the Ospreys are being checked for proper torque on the coupling assembly, officials said.

The Osprey fleet had been out of operation for about two months after one crashed in April on a training flight in Arizona, killing all 19 marines aboard. Investigators said the crash was caused by mistakes by the pilot and the co-pilot.

The Osprey is built by the Boeing Company and Bell Helicopter Textron, a division of Textron Inc.

On the same day the Ospreys were grounded the Marines also took out of operation all 165 of their CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopters, based on findings from an investigation into the Aug. 10 crash of a Navy MH-53E mine-sweeping helicopter off the coast of Corpus Cristi, Tex., in which four people were killed.

Lt. David Nevers, a Marine spokesman, said today that the Super Stallions remain grounded and that no date has been set for their return to flight.

---

Air Force costs are soaring

September 6, 2000
By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200096222216.htm

The Defense Department has allowed Air Force operating costs to balloon out of control and failed to update security clearances for more than a fifth of its military and civilian personnel, according to the General Accounting Office.

The Pentagon is in "a death spiral" from rising aircraft operating costs, now exceeding $16 billion a year, because effective cost control has not been a priority, the congressional watchdog agency told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee last week.

The costs will top $20 billion by 2005, the report said, although the Pentagon has pledged to reduce operation and maintenance spending 20 percent by that time.

Military managers said skyrocketing operating costs were caused by delays in replacing aging aircraft because of procurement cutbacks under the current administration. They said cost control competes for priority with aircraft safety, readiness and combat capability.

"Unfortunately, we are trapped in a 'death spiral,' " the report quoted Jacques Gansler, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, as saying in 1998. "The requirement to maintain our aging equipment is costing us much more each year - in repair costs, down time and maintenance tempo. But we must keep this equipment in repair to maintain readiness."

The Air Force is buying 339 Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors to replace 522 F-15s, but the projected maintenance and repair costs will be the same - about $1.5 billion a year, the GAO said.

The F-15s, with all their problems due to age, cost $2.9 million each to maintain and repair, compared with $2.8 million to $4.4 million each for F-22s.

"There is no assurance that the fighter will cost 20 percent less to operate and support than the F-16 and A-10 aircraft that it will replace. Cost data provided by the program office and our analysis indicate that the fighter may cost more, perhaps considerably more, to operate," the congressional audit agency concluded.

The cost to operate the Air Force's 36 fielded aircraft systems increased from $15.3 billion to $16.6 billion a year from 1997 to 1999, and will continue increasing more than $700 million a year through 2005 despite modernization, the GAO said.

The Air Force has 1,372 F-16s with nearly 7,000 repairable parts that cost $509 million a year to maintain, the report said. "Of these, the 25 most fault-prone parts cost $224 million to repair in fiscal year 1998, accounting for about 44 percent of the system's repair parts total."

The F-16 has 16 engine parts and four radar components that break down regularly, causing most of the rising costs, Air Force flight line crews said.

The Pentagon disagreed with the GAO's claim that Air Force maintenance costs must be cut $7 billion a year for the next four or five years in order to cut costs 20 percent by 2005.

"The arithmetic that led to that conclusion is not clear," wrote George R. Schneiter, the Pentagon's director of strategic and tactical systems, in a response to the GAO.

Meanwhile, a backlog of 505,786 unrenewed security clearances has prevented military and Defense Department civilian personnel in sensitive positions from doing their jobs around the world and caused serious morale problems, military professionals told The Washington Times.

A separate GAO report to a House Government reform subcommittee blamed the problem on Pentagon carelessness, saying the current administration had not given sufficient priority to renewing security clearances for 2.4 million military and civilian personnel.

Top secret clearances must be renewed every five years, at a cost of $1,800 for each investigation, while personnel with secret clearances must be reinvestigated every 10 years at a cost of $250 each.

A third of the unrenewed clearances are held by more than 166,000 military contract employees, whose access to restricted facilities and data is affected by the backlog. Almost another third are Army personnel. More than 94,000 people with top secret clearances are in limbo because of the backlog, the report said.

Arthur L. Money, assistant secretary of defense, said the Pentagon had accelerated efforts to eliminate the backlog of security clearance renewals over the next two years, including turning over civilian investigations to the Office of Personnel Management.

---

USA Today
09/06/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Missouri

Grandview - Children in military families struggle with constant moves and new schools. But a new program in suburban Kansas City is working to change that. The Richards-Gebaur Youth Center gives military children a place to be with others facing the same hardships. It's tied to the Richards-Gebaur Memorial Airport, a former base that retains a military presence.

New Jersey

Brigantine - A contractor hired to salvage an Air National Guard F-16 fighter jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean last week hasn't located the aircraft. The jet is believed to have plunged into the water 1.5 miles east of Brigantine, but the marine salvage company has searched several suggested sites without success. The pilot ejected safely.

-------- OTHER
------- alternative energy

PUNA, HAWAII GEOTHERMAL GETS EPA GREEN LIGHT

AmeriScan:
September 8, 2000
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-08-09.html

PUNA, Hawaii, September 8, 2000 (ENS) - The EPA has signed the final underground injection well permit for Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV), which requires immediate safeguards to protect groundwater, ensure safe operation of the system, and protect public health and the environment. The permit, issued Friday under the Safe Drinking Water Act, authorizes PGV to operate three existing geothermal injection wells drilled into Kilauea, an active volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. The permit outlines specific requirements for future construction of up to seven new wells.

The Puna facility produces electricity using steam from groundwater that is heated by the underground geothermal resource. The condensed steam, super heated salt water and gases from the production wells are reinjected back into the geothermal reservoir at depths below 3,900 feet. Federal and state underground injection control programs regulate the injection of these fluids and gases. But despite regulatory controls, the geothermal development has raised much concern in Puna and in the Hawaiian environmental community. Gases, particularly sulfur, have created acute respiratory distress in Puna residents. Local herbalists complain that the plants they once relied upon for medicines and sacred uses have been destroyed by the geothermal development. Environmental considerations aside, Hawaii is always seeking new sources of electric power because it must import every drop of oil and gas state residents consume.

The final permit and public notice are available on EPA's Region 9 website at: http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/puna/uic

-------- environment

Sierra Club Endorses Hillary Clinton as Better Environmental Ally

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/politics/06HILL.html

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., Sept. 5 - Hillary Rodham Clinton today won the endorsement of the Sierra Club, one of the nation's oldest environmental groups, whose backing set off a duel between the Senate candidates over who has done more to protect natural resources.

Sierra Club officials said Representative Rick A. Lazio, the Republican Senate candidate, gave inconsistent support for environmental matters during his eight years in Congress. And club members said in an interview that Mr. Lazio did not demonstrate a firm grasp of the environmental issues the group studies.

By contrast, said Rhea Jezer, the chairwoman of the club's New York chapter, Mrs. Clinton "showed an unequaled depth of knowledge on a plethora of state and national issues." Mrs. Clinton told the group, which is nonpartisan but has historically supported Democratic candidates, that she had worked to push the Clinton administration to take greater account of children's health in setting air and water quality standards and, if elected, would pursue protecting forests and drinking water supplies from development and industrial pollution.

Club members said that although she does not have a legislative record, her attention over the years to children and health issues, like breast cancer research and treatment, indicated she would be a powerful ally for environmentalists.

"We believe she will continue Daniel Patrick Moynihan's legacy," said Robert Cox, the Sierra Club's national president, who stood with Mrs. Clinton as she accepted the endorsement at a park here bordering Long Island Sound.

Mr. Lazio defended his record and suggested that the club's endorsement was politically motivated. He said the club had not endorsed a Republican for statewide office in New York in more than 10 years, an assertion club officials did not dispute, though they said they had endorsed other Republicans in statewide races outside New York and in Congressional races in and out of New York.

"I've got to presume that it was not on merit, based on the fact that I have such a strong record on the environment and my opponent has no record on the environment," Mr. Lazio said after a campaign stop in Rochester. "So it's hard to make a judgment that it was about anything but politics."

Mr. Cox said that although the group endorsed Mr. Lazio in his 1996 Congressional race, he later cast votes that the club felt hurt the environment. The club said Mr. Lazio voted for bills that would weaken the Superfund toxic cleanup program and reduce spending on measures to curb suburban sprawl, and voted against attempts to strengthen protection of Utah's wilderness.

Mr. Lazio, his aides said, believed he had a shot at winning the club's endorsement because of his support, among other things, for legislation to clean up Long Island Sound. But Ms. Jezer said Mr. Lazio had a mixed overall record on environmental causes and fell short in his interview last month with club members.

In addition, she said, the group heavily weighs the opinion of the local chapter nearest the candidate's home, and the Long Island branch did not give a high rating to Mr. Lazio, who represents western Suffolk County.

Mr. Lazio pointed to endorsements by the League of Conservation Voters, another national organization, in some of his Congressional races. Neither the group's national nor its New York directors have announced an endorsement in the Senate race.

Mr. Lazio also noted his sponsorship of the Long Island Sound Restoration Act, which provides $80 million a year to help clean up pollution.

---

U.S. Sees No Final Climate Deal at The Hague

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/science/energy-climate-usa.html

LONDON Sept 5 - The United States on Tuesday reiterated its committment to endorsing a global climate change treaty but said it did not expect a watertight agreement to be forged at a key conference in the Hague in November.

At a briefing in London, Deputy Assistant to the President for Environmental Initiatives Roger Ballentine reasserted the current administration's pledge to fight global warming at home and abroad.

Unveiling budget proposals to boost spending on climate change initiatives to the tune of $4 billion next year, Ballentine said he was confident there would be progress at the next global meeting on climate change, the Conference of the Parties 6 or COP 6 to be held in the Dutch capital.

Under the Kyoto Protocol industrial nations must find ways to cut heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels that are believed to cause global warming by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels in the period 2008 to 2012.

``We are very optimistic about COP 6...We can and we must make significant progress,'' Ballantine said.

``But if your question is will we finalise, wrap up, every issue at COP 6 then the answer to that has to be no...There is too much work left to be done to wrap it up in November,'' he told reporters.

But Ballentine said he hoped that the meeting would generate more momentum towards final ratification.

``What we are hoping to do is to make significant progress towards finalising the rules, the mechanisms. And, getting the remaining aspects of this treaty if not wrapped up then certainly on a track to be concluded in the near future.''

Pressed on whether a comprehensive agreement was achievable in a couple of months time he replied: ``I don't know of anyone who thinks we will complete negotiations at COP 6 -- I haven't heard anyone say that.

``Our goal is to have a consensus that we have made significant progress and every country is going to move at its own pace.''

Ballentine said the bulk of the proposed 2001 budget, some $2.4 billion, would -- if approved by Congress -- be spent on a series of new initiatives to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposals, which include funding to develop clean energy sources, a clean air partnership fund to boost state and local spending, increased research and development, as well as a five-year package of tax incentives to spur clean energy technologies, represent a 43 percent increase over 2000 levels.

In addition the Clinton administration proposes more than $1.7 billion for global research, advisers say.

---

USA Today
09/06/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Washington

Long Beach - Officials fighting a weed that is taking over oyster beds in Willapa Bay hope a sap-sucking bug will help. University of Washington biocontrol specialist Fritzi Grevstad is breeding 10,000 tiny leafhoppers. They are scheduled for release next month to feed on the grass called spartina. Biologists say the bugs can kill the grass.

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

A Quiet Forum at Town Hall Opposes the East River Forum

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06PROT.html

If the 150 or so national leaders assembled at the United Nations yesterday were curious about where globalization was really taking the world, they could have ambled over to Town Hall, the concert auditorium on West 43rd Street.

There, opinions abounded:

"The current stage of the world economy is the cancer stage."

"We should continue in cutting back the powers of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund."

"What is the global economy doing to the Earth? It's killing it."

The remarks came during a teach- in organized by the International Forum on Globalization, a group based in Northern California that opposes the spread of an unregulated free-market economy.

More than 900 people came to hear about the evils of American- and European-dominated financial institutions like the World Bank, the I.M.F. and the World Trade Organization. Issues mentioned in the forum, "Globalization and the Role of the United Nations," ranged from dam building in the Philippines to the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement on the world monetary system.

Many involved had taken part in the protests in November that tied up a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In April, many of the same people, who represent causes ranging from environmental protection to the needs of indigenous cultures, took to the streets of Washington during a meeting of the World Bank and I.M.F.

But there were no black masks or tear gas in evidence yesterday, and the attendees appeared as well mannered as their counterparts in the United Nations complex overlooking the East River. An usher took tickets ($20 for general admission) and organizers handed out sheets the audience could use to rate panels (poor to excellent in various categories).

Relative calm prevailed partly because the teach-in was intended to be a discussion, not a demonstration, and partly because many attending were not ready to write off the United Nations as an unwitting tool of American corporations.

"The United Nations has traditionally had a mandate of social justice and peace and human rights," said Jerry Mander, founder of the forum. "But we've lately begun to worry that that mandate was weakening, and that the same ideologies that drive the W.T.O. will appear in the United Nations."

For the anti-globalization movement, the teach-in was not only a place to assess the role of the United Nations but also allowed participants to reflect on how far the movement had come since Seattle, and how much farther it had to go.

Many speakers said they did not oppose globalization per se because, in their view, the era of nation-states is coming to its inevitable end. But they oppose an emerging world economy where global policies are made by large corporations. Those policies, the speakers said, are paving the way for big business to exploit developing countries.

"We have entered the era of corporate rule," Mr. Mander said to the audience. "The familiar homily is this: The rising tide will lift all boats. Actually, it lifts yachts."

The four speakers on a panel introduced by Mr. Mander congratulated the movement for making its roar heard during the Seattle protests, but also rattled off a list of goals and strategies. Several panelists said economic boycotts would be the most effective way to get their message across to business executives.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, an advocate for indigenous people in the Philippines, implored listeners to urge the United Nations to adhere to its original goals. "More and more, we are seeing that the United Nations is abdicating its role in terms of social improvement, in terms of poverty alleviation," she said. "It is our role to still insist and assert that the United Nations is not a body that should be siding with the interests of capitalists or the interests of powerful corporations."

In some ways, the speeches at Town Hall echoed the goals of this week's summit meeting at the United Nations. The meeting there is intended as a forum where the voices of the smallest countries can be heard alongside those of the most powerful.

Hours before the teach-in began, President Muhammad Khatami of Iran said in his speech at the United Nations, "Global culture cannot and should not overlook the characteristics and requirements of local cultures with the aim of imposing itself on them."

And yesterday afternoon, a Matthew Garrington, 23, who grew up in Olympia, Wash., a world away from the Middle East, picked up several brochures on a table outside the teach-in and said, "Obviously globalization is going to happen, and I want to make sure it happens responsibly."

-------- police

Metro Briefing

New York Times
September 06, 2000
Iver Peterson (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/nyregion/06MBRF.html

More Studies Planned for Mars Project When NASA decided earlier this year to cancel its next landing on Mars, scheduled for 2001, STEVEN SQUYRES was a man with some very expensive instruments designed to explore Mars and no way of getting them there. But Dr. Squyres, a Cornell University astronomy professor who was responsible for designing the scientific payload for the Mars mission, got some better news in August when NASA decided to schedule not one but two Mars launchings in 2003. Once the 2001 launch was called off, he knew that it would take at least two years before another could be scheduled. Opportunities to launch to Mars come only every 26 months, when the planets are correctly lined up.

While Dr. Squyres waits, he will oversee the construction of a second set of instruments to study the planet's climate and search for water (past or present). He will also draw about a dozen undergraduates into the Mars project.

NEW JERSEY
TRENTON: FRANKS GETS POLICE ENDORSEMENT

Robert D. Franks, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate, has received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, a union representing 14,000 New Jersey law enforcement officers. The union president, Richard Whelan, said yesterday that Mr. Franks's voting record during eight years as a representative from Union County supported tougher sentencing laws and an increase in the number of police officers. In accepting the endorsement, Mr. Franks noted that he supported the death penalty, unlike his Democratic opponent, Jon S. Corzine. David Kocieniewski (NYT)

TRENTON: BRATTON HIRED AS CONSULTANT

The former New York City police commissioner, William J. Bratton, brought his team of law enforcement consultants to Trenton yesterday to begin a 6- to 12-month, $134,000 review of the city's police. Mayor Douglas Palmer said the city had hired the group to cut crime, lift police morale and improve cooperation between law enforcement and civilians. Mr. Bratton said that his group would do a "cultural diagnostic, like a CAT scan," of staffing levels, union contracts and deployment practices of Trenton's 374- member department.

---

2 Officers Suspended for Drinking at Parade

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By C. J. CHIVERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/nyregion/06COPS.html

The West Indian American Carnival Parade, held in Crown Heights each year on Labor Day, has long attracted its share of public drinkers. So when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and the Police Department announced last month that they were banning alcohol sales and drinking at city parades, they expected to catch a few offenders.

They were right. In all, 87 people were issued summonses for drinking alcohol in public. But the authorities could hardly have expected this: two veteran police officers, assigned to watch over the parade and enforce the alcohol ban, were caught sneaking drinks as well.

The officers - Anthony Zayas, 36, and Kevin Kryzak, 39 - were suspended without pay yesterday after being caught with open bottles of beer, the police said. The suspensions come after Mr. Giuliani was pilloried and booed at the parade by revelers and vendors opposed to the ban.

The authorities said the two officers reported to work at 6:40 a.m. Monday. After a long day, a sergeant who was supervising them thought he smelled alcohol on their breath about 9:30 p.m., the authorities said.

The sergeant followed them as they walked into the Rodriguez Grocery Store at 1478 Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, and when he caught up with them inside the store, he found each man holding a half-full bottle of beer, said Lt. Sean Crowley, a police spokesman. Both officers were in uniform.

Jose Rodriguez, a cashier at the grocery store, which is owned by his brother, said he had been at the counter when the officers were caught. He said police officers often visited the store.

"A lot of police officers ask me if they can come in and go to the bathroom," he said. "So I say, `O.K., it's in the back.' But I didn't know these two were drinking. It was busy. I didn't have time to go back and see."

The police said the officers were found with three empty bottles of beer but were not believed to have been intoxicated. "It appears only five beers were involved with the two men," a police official said.

The officers were charged with consuming alcohol in uniform, a violation of Police Department regulations. Both have been members of the department since the mid-1980's, and are normally assigned to patrol duties in the 44th Precinct in Morris Heights, the Bronx.

---

Man in coma after chopper crashes in river

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 02:57 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

TAIPEI, Taiwan - The co-pilot of a police helicopter was in a coma and four others injured Wednesday, when the chopper spun out of control and crashed into a river during a mock rescue. The pilot said it appeared that the French-made helicopter seemed to lose power and could not pull up after it dropped. The aircraft was trying to lower a man when it tilted and spun in place about 10 yards over the river. Taiwan Premier Tang Fei said the accident highlighted the country's need to improve rescue operations.

---

USA Today
09/06/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

West Virginia

Romney - A State Police trooper killed a man after the man refused to drop his handgun and pointed it at the trooper, officials said. Sgt. Aaron Zaltzman allegedly shot Larry Collins, 50, twice after the trooper was called because of a domestic dispute. The trooper is on administrative leave pending an investigation.

-------- spying

RICK: GET OFF THE FENCE ON POLLARD THE RAP ON HILL:
Rick Lazio, at a Manhattan press conference yesterday, says rival Hillary Clinton, campaigning in New Rochelle, wouldn't make an effective senator.

New York Post
Wednesday, Deptember 6,2000
By GREGG BIRNBAUM and ROBERT HARDT Jr
http://www.nypostonline.com/news/37584.htm

Rick Lazio called on President Clinton yesterday to quickly announce a decision about clemency for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard - and not to drop an "October surprise" on the Senate race.

Lazio charged Clinton has dragged his feet for more than a year and a half on the politically sensitive case, raising the possibility the president may try to give his wife's campaign a boost with Jewish voters by releasing Pollard in the next few weeks.

The president's delay in acting creates "this specter of some type of 'October surprise' for the purposes of having some influence" on the Senate contest, Lazio said in a meeting with The Post's editorial board.

In the wide-ranging, hour-long session, Lazio also vowed to campaign harder, predicted opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton would be ineffective if she wins, and backed greater school choice for parents.

On Pollard, President Clinton asked his lawyers and national security advisers to review the case by January 1999 and make a recommendation to him on clemency.

"The president owes it to America to announce if he is going to make an announcement or not make an announcement," Lazio said.

"The president, having made this commitment, ought to abide by this commitment - now 600 days late."

White House spokesman Jake Siewert responded: "The congressman clearly has a very limited understanding of how this process works ... This decision will be made on the merits, without regard to politics."

Neither Lazio nor Mrs. Clinton has taken a position on freeing Pollard, who is serving a life sentence in federal prison in North Carolina for passing military secrets to Israel.

The Post reported last week that the first lady intervened to keep prison officials from moving Pollard to a more dangerous unit and that Pollard's wife, Esther, wrote to her seeking a meeting to discuss clemency.

In the Post editorial board meeting, Lazio also:

* Admitted his campaigning has been hamstrung because of fund-raising, congressional duties and building a political organization - but he pledged now to run harder.

* Said the first lady wouldn't be effective in the Senate.

"Mrs. Clinton has a record of partisanship, of being closed to other ideas, of not working well with others. I don't think there's a person in the Senate who would give two hoots about what her name is," he said.

* Predicted Mrs. Clinton would never support tax cuts.

"I guarantee you with Mrs. Clinton, if she would ever be elected - and she will not be elected - she will never vote for tax relief."

* Backed school choice, saying: "Vouchers, scholarships, whatever you want to call them ... so that parents don't feel trapped in failing schools or unsafe schools, that is the difference between myself and my opponent."

---

Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School students who killed 12 peers and a teacher, are seen in this image from a cafeteria security camera. FBI tool weighs student threats Not a profiling tool, it insists, but concerns of misuse remain

MSNBC
09/06/00
By Miguel Llanos MSNBC
mailto:miguel.llanos@msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.com/news/456069.asp

Sept. 6 - The nation's most renowned analysts of violent criminals on Wednesday unveiled a model for assessing potentially violent students. It already is creating concern among some who feel it might be misused to stereotype children, but the FBI team and outside experts who created the model said it is not a profiling tool.

Do you think the FBI model can be useful to schools?

Yes, as long as it's not misused to stereotype students

No, even if it's not intended as a profiling tool that's how many schools will use it

Can't decide

Vote to see results

THE FBI'S National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes, a group made famous by the movie "Silence of the Lambs," studied 18 school shootings in devising its model, which is based on four categories: Personality and a student's interaction with family, school and peers.

The center also invited outside experts to prepare the model and incorporated ideas used in some schools already.

Indeed, Columbine High School uses a similar approach, psychiatrist Frank Ochberg, one of the contributing experts, told MSNBC.com. Two Columbine students last year shot 12 peers and a teacher to death before killing themselves.

ASSESSING, NOT PROFILING

There's "no simple formula," for identifying potentially violent students, the FBI report acknowledged, but "there are observable signs along the way that most of us can see if we know what to look for."

Some examples of what to look for, the FBI said, include recurrent themes of violence in a student's work, resentment over real or perceived injustices, a fascination with violent entertainment and families that keep weapons in the home.

In one actual case, the FBI cited a student in a home economics class who baked a cake in the shape of a gun. His school writings also were laced with violent themes.

The center emphasized that its model is not a tool to profile students before they make a threat, but to assess the degree of a threat. "... the list should be considered only after a student has made some type of threat and an assessment has been developed using the four-pronged model," the report said.

Moreover, the center said, it takes a majority of the traits in each of the four areas to identify a potentially violent student. "No one or two traits or characteristics should be considered in isolation or given more weight than others," it said.

But Vincent Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute, a youth advocacy think tank, worried that as well intentioned as the model might be, it might have the wrong result. "I'm fearful once we start putting these things out, every principal in America is going to come up with (the names of) 10 kids," he said. "Putting out a profile booklet, slapping a couple of cameras up, a metal detector or two are bromides while the ulcer festers beneath."

The FBI officials and experts who unveiled the model at a press conference insisted that "our message is going to be very clear ... this is not a profiling tool."

'ALL THREATS ARE NOT EQUAL'

September 6, 2000 NBC's Pete Williams on the FBI's new techniques.

Ochberg said that since the model deals with threats, not profiles, it did not consider gender or age factors. But, he added, "of course there is statistical likelihood that girls will be less violent than boys and the very young less violent than adolescents."

The FBI noted that while acts of school violence are falling, "the shock and fear" generated by incidents last year have led to intense public concern. "In this atmosphere," it said, "it is critically important for schools to respond to all threats swiftly, responsibly, fairly and sensitively, and with an understanding that all threats are not equal."

The FBI did not interview any student shooters but the model does follow several closed-door meetings the FBI held last year with the parents and teachers of several youths who went on shooting sprees. The report was made available on the FBI's Web site at www.fbi.gov.

The U.S. Secret Service has been conducting its own study of 40 recent school shootings, and has interviewed about eight shooters. It is expected to publish its report in a few weeks.

PREVENTION PLAN

While the FBI report focused on assessing threats, the experts it tapped for the two-year study also looked at ways to prevent school violence.

"Class size, school climate, respect for differences are very important," said Ochberg.

Another key conclusion: Staff other than teachers needs to focus on prevention. "Teachers need support as teachers - they can't be expected to be detectives, therapists or parent surrogates," Ochberg said. "That's why we emphasized the roles of non-teacher colleagues in preventing violence."

"We knew there was no single profile of a school shooter," he said. "We knew that highly publicized, but relatively rare cases created a climate of fear, and a risk of over-reaction that could stigmatize and isolate boys and girls who superficially resembled certain stereotypes. Therefore we reviewed and analyzed case material and national data to find consensus on a straightforward approach. This is prevention."

Daily metal detector checks Whereas 4 percent of mostly minority schools used this strategy, only a negligible percentage of other schools did. And while mandatory checks were used by 5 percent of schools where 75 percent of students are below the poverty line, the same was true of only a negligible percentage of schools where less than half of students were below the poverty line.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Education, 1998 figures

OTHER PREVENTION EFFORTS In-school prevention isn't the only approach, either. A coalition of police chiefs and prosecutors believes the key is more spending for child-care programs like Head Start as well as for after-school and intervention programs for older children.

Some 4 million to 6 million children 12 and under are unsupervised after school despite the fact that the after-school hours are "prime time for juvenile crime," the Fight Crime: Invest in Kids alliance noted.

The group released a survey this week of adults that showed two out of three believe that government should invest in educational child care and after-school programs before cutting taxes.

The survey of 1,010 people was conducted by Opinion Research Corp. International and has an error rate of plus or minus 3 percent.

Violence once again topped the public's back-to-school concerns, the survey found, and 85 percent of those polled felt that educational child care and after-school programs would greatly reduce crime.

SPEND NOW, SAVE LATER?

Research, the coalition contends, backs that gut feeling. One study cited as an example randomly assigned half of a group of at-risk high school kids to join an after-school program. The study concluded that those boys were only one-sixth as likely to be convicted of a crime as those not in the program.

The coalition noted that, at the federal level, while President Bill Clinton has asked for an increase of $550 million in after-school funds this year, the House and Senate have approved increases of only $150 million.

"I'm a conservative Republican, but this shouldn't be a partisan issue," Sheriff Patrick Sullivan, of Arapahoe County, Colo., said in a statement announcing the survey. "Child care and after-school programs save lives by keeping kids from becoming criminals. Preventing crime saves millions in tax dollars. By investing in these proven programs now, we will actually have more money later for tax cuts or anything else."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

---

FBI to schools: Be alert to violence

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 12:03 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/ndswed02.htm

WASHINGTON - The FBI said school officials should be alert to students who show ''preoccupation with themes of violence'' but cautioned that its two-year study of school shootings cannot be used to pinpoint teens likely to attack classmates or teachers. But news of the report, being released Wednesday, prompted concerns that schools might use the FBI recommendations to identify - and punish - students who behave suspiciously.

''The American public is not going to want the FBI profiling their kids,'' said Vincent Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute, a youth advocacy think tank. The FBI, which says the report ''will help those children who show a propensity for violence,'' evaluated 18 school shooting cases, which are not identified in the report.

High-profile shootings like the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., have heightened concerns about school violence. Another federal law-enforcement agency, the Secret Service, will present a school-violence report to the Education Department this fall.

The FBI report, written by its National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Va., lists dozens of risk factors gleaned from a study of school shooting cases begun in May 1998 - a full year before the Colorado deaths.

The report identifies risk factors usually found among the shooters in the cases studied. Such factors were grouped into four categories: personality traits, family situations, and school and social interaction.

It raises questions for educators to ask about a troubled child:

What is the culture of the school and how is it affecting the child?

Does she have problems expressing anger?

Does he show an inordinate fascination with violent movies, books and music?

Has she talked or written about committing violent acts?

Other traits listed in the 36-page report include poor coping skills, access to weapons, signs of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, alienation, narcissism, inappropriate humor, no limits or monitoring of television and Internet use.

The report also classifies levels and types of threats. Direct threats are clear: ''I am going to place a bomb in the school's gym.'' Medium-level threats indicate possible place and time; high-level threats indicate practice with a weapon or surveillance of a victim.

The report stresses over again that it is not a profiling tool: ''trying to draw up a catalogue or 'checklist' of warning signs to detect a potential school shooter can be shortsighted, even dangerous.'' It cautions that having more than one trait will not necessarily produce a shooter.

It says the roots of a violent act are ''multiple, intricate and intertwined.'' It cautions school officials not to use the results to predict student behavior, or use those predictions to violate privacy rights.

Bruce Hunter, a lobbyist who represents school superintendents for the American Association of School Administrators, said school leaders do keep an eye on children who act strangely, many who exhibit some of the behaviors listed in the FBI report.

Often troubled children are referred to the alternative classrooms and schools that have doubled in number in the last few years, he said. But officially profiling students is not the answer, he said.

''I doubt that would hold a lot of promise for us. Kids are forming their personalities.'' Schools should evaluate all the help they get, even from the federal government, said Bill Modzeleski, director of the Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools program.

His office worked with the Secret Service, feeling that such expertise that might be useful to educators. ''We're not saying law enforcement should not be a part of the solution; we are saying it should not be the solution,'' Modzeleski said. ''We welcome law enforcement as partners.''

But some child advocates say law enforcement involvement has clouded the response to fears fueled by rare, but deadly multiple shootings.

School suspensions and juvenile crime codes have increased in the wake of Columbine, said Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute. ''I'm fearful once we start putting these things out, every principal in America is going to come up with (the names of) 10 kids,'' Schiraldi said.

''Putting out a profile booklet, slapping a couple of cameras up, a metal detector or two are bromides while the ulcer festers beneath. ''I think when we're trying to figure out what makes kids tick, we ought to talk to parents, teachers, child psychologists, students themselves, not people called 'special agent,''' he said.

--------

Judge Questions Nuclear Case
Lee's Los Alamos Actions 'Seem Somewhat Less Troubling'

By Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 6, 2000; Page A02
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-09/06/086l-090600-idx.html

The federal judge handling the case of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee has raised serious questions about the strength of the prosecution's arguments.

In an Aug. 31 ruling that was made public over the Labor Day weekend, U.S. District Judge James A. Parker said new evidence makes the Taiwanese American physicist's alleged security breaches "seem somewhat less troubling that they appeared to be" earlier.

"Dr. Lee's actions may not have been as surreptitious, clandestine and secretive as the government originally indicated," Parker wrote in the 17-page opinion, which concluded that Lee should be released on $1 million bail pending his jury trial in November.

Lee, 60, was fired last year from Los Alamos National Laboratory and has been jailed for eight months for copying nuclear data from the lab's classified computer system to his desktop computer and to portable tapes, seven of which are missing. Defense lawyers insist that he destroyed the tapes but have not disclosed how, when or where.

Parker at first denied bail last December, saying Lee's actions were "of grave concern to national security." But the judge changed his mind after listening to conflicting testimony at another bail hearing last month. The government has appealed his decision to grant bail, and a higher court last week ordered Lee to remain in jail in Santa Fe until it can review the matter.

In his opinion, Parker said expert witnesses disagree over the importance of the data that Lee downloaded from Los Alamos computers. "It is no longer indisputable, as the government made it appear in December 1999, that the missing tapes contain crown jewel information about the nation's nuclear weapons program," he wrote.

Washington attorney John L. Martin, who retired in 1997 as head of the Justice Department's Internal Security Section, described the opinion as "very tough" for the prosecution.

"The judge is troubled, and therefore the government is in trouble," Martin said. "I think the government has lost some credibility with the judge. He is really concerned by the difference between the testimony and evidence now, and what was presented in December."

In charging Lee with 59 felony counts under the federal espionage law and the Atomic Energy Act, prosecutors originally alleged that he intended to harm the United States or to help a foreign government. But more recently, Parker said, prosecutors implied Lee took the tapes "to improve his prospects for employment abroad."

To that the judge added: "Enhancing one's resume is less sinister than the treacherous motive the government, at least by implication, ascribed to Dr. Lee at the end of last year."

The judge also noted that the "most startling incident of deception [by Lee] described by the government . . . has now been shown to be groundless." He was referring to testimony by FBI agent Robert Messemer, who admitted last month "that he incorrectly testified earlier that Dr. Lee had hoodwinked a colleague by saying he wanted to use the colleague's computer to download a 'resume.' "

In an unusual footnote, Parker appeared to criticize the government for the "unduly onerous conditions" in which Lee has been held. He pointed out that solitary confinement, which he had questioned in December, was not softened until April, and that only since July has Lee be allowed to exercise without shackles for one hour each weekday.

Parker's opinion, however, is far from an exoneration of Lee. "It remains undisputed that Dr. Lee's actions were certainly deliberate and not the result of a simple mistake," the judge wrote, adding that there is evidence of "several deceptions" by Lee for which "innocuous explanations have not yet been provided."

In particular, he cited Lee's failure to disclose to Los Alamos officials an "unusual secret meeting" in his Beijing hotel room in mid-1988 with two Chinese nuclear weapons scientists who asked him to discuss classified material. Parker said Lee "apparently did not give them classified information," but also did not report the incident for more than 10 years, until it came out during an FBI polygraph examination.

-------- terrorism

New Yorker Describes Harsh Imprisonment in Peru

New York Times
September 06, 2000
By SHAILA K. DEWAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/nyregion/06LORI.html

In her only interview from a Peruvian jail, Lori Berenson describes the harsh conditions of her confinement and tells how her captors have mistreated her fellow prisoners.

The interview was conducted in March 1999 by Pacifica Radio, and was made public only yesterday. The Peruvian government decided last week to grant Ms. Berenson a new trial and void her life sentence.

But in the interview, to be broadcast at 9 a.m. today, Ms. Berenson said that a new trial would be a delaying tactic for the Peruvian government, which has faced criticism from the United States government and the Organization of American States about the case. Ms. Berenson, a New Yorker, was convicted of treason in January 1996 by a military tribunal in which judges wore ski masks and her lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine witnesses.

"With such publicity that I've had, such negative publicity that I've had in Peru, I would never get a fair trial," she said, according to a transcript of the interview provided by Pacifica. She added that no evidence had been presented at her first trial.

The interview was conducted in the Socabaya jail in Peru by Amy Goodman, the host of the Pacifica program "Democracy Now," but was not broadcast immediately out of concern that Ms. Berenson would suffer repercussions, Ms. Goodman said yesterday. But last week, Ms. Berenson was moved to Lima, out of the reach of Socabaya prison officials.

According to the transcript, Ms. Berenson said that in December 1995 she spent 11 or 12 days in a cell with a woman who had five bullet wounds. "They had left her on a dirty mattress, naked," Ms. Berenson said. "A filthy mattress with five open wounds, which is pretty horrendous. I mean, there were rats in my bed and things like that."

Ms. Berenson, 30, has had health problems from the high altitude of Yanamayo, the Andean prison where she was held for the first three years of her imprisonment. But she told Ms. Goodman she was not moved to Socabaya until the day before the O.A.S. Human Rights Commission was scheduled to hear her case.

Ms. Berenson criticized the United States for what she said was its cozy relationship with President Alberto K. Fujimori of Peru. "There's been some pressure at certain times, but not heavy pressure, not heavy enough pressure, because I'm still here," she said.

---

Focus on terrorism

Washington Times
September 6, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-200096212732.htm

A Greek government official due here tomorrow plans to focus on new efforts to fight terrorism, an issue that has haunted Greek-U.S. relations.

Michalis Chryssohoidis, the minister of public order, will sign a cooperation agreement with Attorney General Janet Reno on Friday that will commit both countries to closer cooperation in crime fighting, including the use of U.S. laboratories to test evidence in certain crimes committed in Greece.

He is also due to hold talks with FBI director Louis J. Freeh, CIA Director George Tenet and other senior officials.

In Athens, U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns told reporters, "The fight against terrorism will be high on the agenda."

The United States has been critical of Greece's failure to arrest any member of the November 17 terrorist group. The government holds them responsible for 20 assassinations, including four Americans, and more than 40 bomb attacks since 1975. November 17 terrorists killed Brig. Stephen Saunders, British defense attache, in June.

"The assassination of Saunders by the November 17 terrorist group . . . has further strengthened the Greek government's determination to combat the scourge of terrorism in cooperation with the United States, Britain and other countries," the embassy said in a statement yesterday.

Greece is offering a reward of $4.2 million for information leading to the arrest of November 17 members and the "dismantling of the elusive group," the embassy said.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail morris@twtmail.com

-------- activists

U.S. Government Failed to Protect Early Nuclear Weapons Workers From Radiation Risks

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Arjun Makhijani: 301-270-5500
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 14:24:07 -0400 From: IEER <ieer@ieer.org>

Some Forgotten Workers in 1940s and 1950s Suffered Huge Doses of Radiation, Study Finds

Study Raises Question of Whether Early U.S. Working Conditions Were as Bad as Those in the Soviet Union

Takoma Park, Maryland, 6 September 2000: Many workers at privately-owned plants that the U.S. government used in the 1940s and 1950s for processing radioactive and hazardous materials for its nuclear weapons programs suffered large radiation doses, far in excess of then prevailing standards. The US government and its contractors were well aware of the dangers and deliberately misled the workers by providing false reassurances of safety, according to a study by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) based on official documents of the time. The study, which assessed radiation doses to workers at three of the dozens of factories that processed nuclear materials, was commissioned by the newspaper, USA TODAY, which is publishing a series of articles based on an extensive investigation.

"Until we performed these calculations, research indicated that working conditions in the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 1950s were far worse than in the United States," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER and principal author of the report. "But the highest doses we found were so huge that this assumption needs to be questioned. While we do not have data from comparable Soviet plants of the time, the data that we do have indicate that we should no longer assume that the worst exposed US workers during that period had greatly lower radiation doses and risks than their Soviet counterparts."

The study examined documents and radiation dose data from:

· The Simonds Saw and Steel Co., a steel rolling mill in Lockport, New York, near Buffalo, where uranium and thorium metal was rolled into rods on a part-time basis.

· The Harshaw Chemical Co. in Cleveland, where operations to make uranium hexafluoride began during the Manhattan Project. They continued at a great pace after World War II.

· The Electro-Metallurgical plant in Niagara Falls, NY, where uranium metal that would eventually be used in plutonium production reactors was made.

Workers at the private sites were exposed to a variety of risks, including toxic materials like beryllium, chemicals like fluorine, and radioactive materials, notably uranium, but also thorium.

"The most severely exposed workers had a greatly increased risk of dying from cancer," said Bernd Franke, a co-author of the report and a senior consulting scientist to IEER. "The risk of respiratory and kidney diseases would also be elevated."

The highest cumulative radiation dose calculated by IEER corresponds to a 40 percent chance of dying from cancer due to the exposure a 200 percent increase in the risk of fatal cancer compared to unexposed people, according to the report.

"Working conditions were appalling," said Dr. Makhijani. "Data from all three factories that we studied show that the radiation protection standards of the time were routinely violated. And there is incontrovertible evidence that the government, putting production first, failed to adequately protect the workers or properly inform them of the severe hazards that many of them faced."

Before the government built and opened its own large-scale plants for processing bomb materials, scores of private plants across the United States were used in the 1940s and 1950s to provide materials for the furious pace of nuclear-bomb building after World War II. Plant and government data clearly document that the air that workers breathed was contaminated well above allowable limits, at times dozens or even hundreds of times above those limits, for long periods of time. There is even documentation that the government simply did not want the workers to know the risks that they faced. For instance, W. E. Kelley, Manager of the New York Operations Office of the AEC, wrote, that "if popular opinion has any basis at all, a distinct hazard does exist" in a highly polluted part of one of the plants. But he also stated that "how serious a hazard exists is a matter of individual opinion." His letter documented that plant air sometimes exceeded what were then considered tolerable levels by hundreds of times, and that medical evaluations of radiation dangers were "becoming more conservative, and in some respects, more pessimistic about the eventual mass [?] outcome." Yet, in the same letter, he reported that a staff member of the AEC had told workers at the same plant that "all of our [AEC] records indicated that no unusual hazard existed."

"A full accounting of the failure to warn or properly protect nuclear weapons workers by the government is surely due to the people of the United States," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani. "And the first and most urgent step is to provide treatment to those who are sick and compensation to those who were harmed."

On September 7, 2000:

· IEER's full report to USA TODAY will be posted on the USA TODAY web site (www.usatoday.com).

· At 10 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, Dr. Makhijani will hold a press conference at the National Press Club, First Amendment Room, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC, where he will release the full IEER report and the associated documents.

· At noon, Eastern Daylight Time, Dr. Makhijani will participate in an on-line chat hosted by USA TODAY web site.

----

Arizona man pleads guilty to charges stemming from '72 protest

Nando Times
September 6, 2000 10:47 p.m. EDT
The Associated Press
http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500247965-500368862-502186130-0,00.html

PHOENIX ( http://www.nandotimes.com) - An anti-Vietnam War activist whose criminal past was uncovered when he ran for a suburban city council pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges related to his 28-year flight from authorities.

Howard Mechanic, 52, lived in Arizona under the name Gary Tredway, establishing a career as a successful business owner and activist whose role in the public sphere ultimately was his downfall.

After a reporter learned his identity earlier this year, Mechanic turned himself in on a 1972 conviction for throwing a cherry bomb during a protest at Washington University in St. Louis. He began the five-year sentence in February.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Roger Strand tacked on a concurrent four-month sentence for fleeing authorities.

Upon his Nov. 21 sentencing for falsifying information to obtain a passport, Mechanic will likely receive three years probation. A count of falsifying information to obtain a Social Security card was dropped.

In court, Mechanic spoke of the fear he had as a 22-year-old man, just two weeks from graduation and apologized to the people of Scottsdale.

"I lied to people ... and I regret that," Mechanic said. "I'd never recommend anybody do what I did."

Mechanic's spokeswoman, Athia Hardt, called the deal favorable in that it resolved outstanding charges in St. Louis and Arizona. "Once these are resolved, it will allow Howard's supporters to seek a commutation of his sentence," she said.

Mechanic and his supporters have appealed to the Justice Department and the White House to commute his 1972 conviction.

Joining their cause is St. Louis psychologist Larry Kogan, who Tuesday admitted to "Dateline NBC" and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he stood next to Mechanic that night and did not see him throw a cherry bomb. Kogan received a 90-day sentence for his actions and later was pardoned by President Reagan.

Kogan admitted he threw a bomb during the same protest. Other witnesses told authorities they saw both men throw fireworks.

"I think the unfortunate thing is that I've never forgiven myself for doing something so stupid," Kogan told Dateline.

---

Deal could end French fuel row

BBC
Wednesday, 6 September, 2000, 07:18 GMT 08:18 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_911000/911613.stm

Empty forecourts: After two days, many pumps were dry France's fuel chaos could be nearing an end as lorry drivers prepare to decide whether to call off their blockade of oil refineries and distribution depots.

Union leaders say the French Government has agreed to lower fuel taxes, the key demand of the drivers.

Last week, the government gave in to fishermen's demands to reduce taxes on diesel fuel after they blockaded French ports.

Lorry drivers have been blockading refineries and fuel depots for two days, causing severe fuel shortages and leading the authorities to ration petrol.

According to the unions, the government has said it will reduce the tax on a litre of petrol by 35 centimes ($0.05) this year, and 25 centimes ($0.03) in 2001.

The drivers had been demanding a cut of 50 centimes a litre ($0.07).

Union leaders are due to meet French Transport Minister Jean Claude Gayssot after consulting their members.

Daniel Chevalier, head of the national road-hauliers' syndicate Unostra, said he would recommend that his members accept the government's offer.

Rising prices

Earlier, Mr Gayssot said the European Union should deliver a firm and united protest to oil-producing countries over prices, which are at their highest for 10 years.

The organisation of oil-producing nations, Opec, meets this Sunday.

The issue is expected to be raised in New York on Wednesday when President Clinton and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, one of Opec's key figures, meet on the margin of the Millennium Summit.

Petrol rationing

The blockades have forced many French regions to introduce petrol rationing as filling stations throughout the country begin to run dry.

A spokesman for the French oil company TotalFinaElf said 80-90% of its 6,000 petrol stations had been closed.

Police say that in the eastern town of Dijon, virtually all petrol stations are out of fuel, and around the southern city of Marseille, nearly half of the petrol stations have run dry. Across France, steps have been taken to safeguard supplies to emergency services as panic-buying drained much of the country's remaining fuel reserves.

In the southern Var and Rhone regions, petrol stations have been ordered to sell a maximum of FFr150 ($20) of diesel to light vehicles, or FFr200 ($27) of petrol.

Authorities have also taken charge of 67 petrol stations in the Brittany region in the west of the country.

Meanwhile, some motorists have been crossing from south-western France into Spain to fill their tanks.

Filling stations in Italy, Belgium and Germany also reported brisk business.

Protesters also lit fires on the edge of a rail track on Tuesday morning, stopping the high-speed Bordeaux to Lille train.

---

Fuel blockade talks ruled out

BBC News
Wednesday, 6 September, 2000, 16:06 GMT 17:06 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_913000/913305.stm

Boats on the River Seine have joined the blockade French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has told lorry drivers who are blockading the country's fuel supplies that there will be no further concessions or negotiations.

The government has already made one offer to cut fuel taxes by up to 15% - but the proposal was thrown out by the largest union taking part in the blockades.

More petrol stations are running dry as the two-day-old blockade starts to bite. In some areas the pumps are under police guard to ensure that only emergency services vehicles fill up.

Last week the French Government gave in to fishermen's demands to reduce taxes on diesel fuel after they blockaded French ports.

Mr Jospin's refusal to talk further to the road haulage unions was announced on Wednesday after he held talks with Transport Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot.

"There will not be any other negotiations," said Mr Jospin. "The government will not go any further."

The federation which threw out the first government offer, the National Federation of Road Hauliers (FNTR), said the proposal was insufficient.

The federation, which represents 15,000 haulage companies, said its local representatives had unanimously rejected the deal.

In a statement released in Paris, the FNTR said it was holding out for further concessions.

"The proposals formulated last night by the Transport Ministry go in the right direction, but they were deemed insufficient," the federation said.

The FNTR failed to turn up on Wednesday for talks between unions and government ministers at the Ministry of Transport, where it had been hoped that the dispute could be settled.

The president of another road hauliers' federation, Daniel Chevalier of Unostra, had earlier said he would recommend that his members accept the offer.

But as he entered the meeting, Mr Chevalier admitted that the reaction from his members had not been positive.

"It is very tense and difficult with our members. They are not satisfied with the measures on the table," he said.

Lorry drivers have been blockading refineries and fuel depots for two days, causing severe fuel shortages and leading the authorities to ration petrol.

According to the unions, the government has said it would reduce the tax on a litre of petrol by 35 centimes ($0.05) this year, and 25 centimes ($0.03) in 2001.

The drivers are believed to be demanding a cut of 50 centimes a litre ($0.07).

The blockades have forced many French regions to introduce petrol rationing as filling stations throughout the country begin to run dry.

A spokesman for the French oil company TotalFinaElf said 80-90% of its 6,000 petrol stations had been closed.

Panic-buying

Across France, steps have been taken to safeguard supplies to emergency services as panic-buying drained much of the country's remaining fuel reserves.

In the southern Var and Rhone regions, petrol stations have been ordered to sell a maximum of FFr150 ($20) of diesel to light vehicles, or FFr200 ($27) of petrol.

Authorities have also taken charge of 67 petrol stations in the Brittany region in the west of the country.

Some motorists have been crossing from France into Spain, Italy, Belgium and Germany to fill their tanks.

---

New York Times
September 06, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/world/06BRIE.html

FRANCE: OFFER TO EASE FUEL TAX The government and leaders of trucking unions agreed to reduce fuel taxes after two days of truck drivers' blockades of fuel depots led to widespread rationing. But the proposal still has to go before protesting union members, who have been calling for deeper cuts. (Agence France-Presse)

---

Blockade of fuel depots in France continues

USA Today
09/06/00- Updated 02:57 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#un

PARIS - Gas stations in regions of France ran dry and local governments began rationing gasoline Tuesday as French truckers expanded a blockade of oil refineries and fuel depots to press for lower taxes. Motorists faced long lines at the pump as nationwide protests over soaring fuel prices entered a second day. Truckers - joined by farmers, ambulance drivers and taxi drivers - blockaded more than 85 oil refineries and fuel depots around the country. Union representatives resumed talks with Transport Ministry officials in search of a compromise. Negotiators have demanded a 20% cut in fuel taxes. In a late-night negotiating session Monday, the government agreed to a cut of 10%.

-------

OneList subscriber submissions:

NucNews - Please circulate -- help educate! - http://prop1.org

1. NucNews 00/09/06 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

2. PUTIN: BAN MILITARIZATION OF SPACE
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>

3. More NMD Items Sept 6-7
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <nonukes@foesyd.org.au>

4. NucNews 00/09/07 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

5. Fw: USA Today Expose -- Day 2
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

6. Ohio Radiation Regulator: "Lighten Up" on DOE Pollution, Crimes, Coverups
From: easlavin@aol.com

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

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>
NucNews 00/09/06 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements

1) Daybook, Washington Times and AFP, September 6, 2000 http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-20009621226.htm

Energy Department meeting - 2 p.m. - The Energy Department holds a public meeting on civilian nuclear-energy research and development, development of isotope missions and the Energy Department's draft programmatic environmental impact statement. Location: Crystal Gateway Marriott, 1700 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington. Contact: 202/685-5806.

U.N. forum - noon - The Cato Institute hosts a policy forum, "A Robust United Nations in the 21st Century: Benefit, Danger or Fantasy?" Location: F.A. Hayek Auditorium, 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Contact: 202/789-5229.

SENATE COMMITTEES

9:30 a.m. - Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing on pending nominations. Location: 222 Russell Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3871.

10 a.m. - Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing to examine electronic surveillance and privacy in the digital age. Location: 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-5225.

10:30 a.m. - Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on Taiwan's accession to the WTO. Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-4651.

Tribal strategies summit - 9 a.m. - The Justice Department and the Office of National Drug Control Policy host an Indian summit on tribal strategies to reduce alcohol and substance abuse and violence. Attorney General Janet Reno speaks at 9 a.m. and retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, speaks at 12:15 p.m. Location: Washington Monarch Hotel, 2401 M St. NW. Contact: 202/616-2777 or 202/395-6618.

2) Presidential Candidates

Al Gore - today September 6 - 9:30 AM EDT - Live Webcast - Cleveland, OH - at http://algore.com

George W. Bush
September 6 (today) - Milwaukee, WI 10:00 a.m. - Remarks at American Legion National Convention, Location: Midwest Express Center, 400 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53203, (414) 908-6000

September 7 - Westland, MI, Dayton, OH, and Pittsburgh, PA 8:15 a.m. - Remarks to Veterans, Harris Kehrer VFW Post #3323, 1055 South Wayne Road, Westland, Michigan 48186 11:50 a.m. - Remarks to Veterans, Wright State University (MSG), Student Union Center - Multi-purpose Room, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, Ohio 45434, (937) 775-5522 6:00 p.m. - Rally in Pittsburgh at Mellon Square Park, corner of William Penn and 6th Avenue.

Ralph Nader this week - New Mexico
Thursday, September 7- Albuquerque, NM 3:45 - 4:30 PM - Press Conference, Hyatt Regency, 330 Tijeras, NW 6:30 - 7:30 PM - Fundraising Reception, Fiesta Ballroom, Hyatt Regency, 330 Tijeras, NW 8:30 - 9:30 PM - Speech, Kiva Auditorium, 401 Second St., NW

Friday, September 8 - Santa Fe and Farmington, New Mexico 9:45 - 10:30 AM - Press Conference, Hotel Santa Fe, 1501 Paseo De Palarta, Santa Fe, NM 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Speech/Rally, Henderson Fine Arts Center, San Juan College, 4601 College Blvd, Farmington, NM

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3) Announcements

- A Force More Powerful TV Series Upcoming PBS series on nonviolent movements, "A Force More Powerful," to be aired Sept 18 and 25 in the US - two 90-minute programs showing how, during a century of extreme violence, millions chose to battle the forces of brutality and oppression with nonviolent weapons and won. The series, made by filmmaker Steve York, tells six stories: the student sit-in movement and boycott that broke the system of segregation in Nashville, Tennessee; Gandhis campaign against British rule in India; the consumer boycott campaigns against apartheid in South Africa; the valiant resistance of Danish citizens to Nazi invaders; Solidarity's factory occupations and strikes that won the right to free trade unions in Poland; and the peoples movement that challenged and eventually defeated the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Episode One will air nationally on PBS at 9:00 pm on Monday, September 18, 2000; Episode Two at 9:00 pm the following Monday, September 25. (Check your local listings.) Available on videocassette from Films for the Humanities and Sciences, (800)257-5126, or www.films.com.

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Putin: Ban Militarization of Space

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000
From: "Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space" <globalnet@mindspring.com>

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer
Weds., Sept. 6, 2000 12:59 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000906/wl/un_summit_putin_1.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called upon world leaders to come to Moscow for a conference to ban the militarization of space - a challenge to any American plan to build an anti-missile defense system.

Addressing the Millennium Summit at the United Nations, Putin described the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as a ``foundation´´ of the entire nuclear arms control system. ``Particularly alarming are the plans for the militarization of space,´´ Putin said.

Noting that the next year will see the 40th anniversary of Russia sending the first man into space, Putin said that Moscow will be the ``most proper place for such a conference.´´

He did not mention the United States in his address. But his statement came as the latest signal that Russia would continue pushing the United States to fully abandon its plans to deploy defenses against missile threats from rogue nations, such as North Korea.

Putin has welcomed President Clinton's announcement that he would leave the final decision on whether to deploy the missile system to the next administration.

In his speech Wednesday, Putin also proposed to bar the use of enriched uranium and pure plutonium in the world atomic energy production. ``Incineration of plutonium and other radioactive elements creates prerequisites for the final solution of the radioactive residues problem,´´ Putin said.

Putin is on his first trip to the United States as Russian president. Plunging into international diplomacy, Putin planned a series of bilateral meetings that would involve Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Indonesia's Abdurrahman Wahid and many others during the three-day conference.

Bruce K. Gagnon Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org globalnet@mindspring.com

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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2000
From: Ellen Thomas <prop1@prop1.org>

NucNews 00/09/07 - Daybook; Presidential Candidates; Activist Announcements

1) Daybook, Washington Times and AFP, September 7, 2000 http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-200097212257.htm

Report release - 11 a.m. -The Institute of Medicine holds a news briefing to release a report, "The Gulf War and Health," assessing the scientific evidence on the potential health effects of depleted uranium, sarin, pyridostigmine bromide and vaccines to protect against anthrax and botulism. Location: National Academies, 2100 C St. NW. Contact: 202/334-2138. Additional information from DU-List: The Institute of Medicine will release the report, Gulf War and Health. Volume 1. Depleted Uranium, Sarin, Pyridostigmine Bromide, and Vaccines, on Thursday, September 7th at 11 a.m. (EST) at a briefing for the public and press. The briefing will be held in the Lecture Room of the National Academy of Sciences Building, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. A live audio Webcast of the briefing will be available on the Internet at http://national-academies.org> and you will be able to ask questions of the panelists during the briefing via email. The Webcast requires free RealPlayer software, available at <http://www.real.com/player>. Additionally, the executive summary of the report will be available on the Internet through the National Academy Press website <http://www.nap.edu>

Iraq briefing - 5:30 p.m. - The New Atlantic Initiative and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs host a news briefing, "Saddam's Iraq and the Next Administration." The speaker is Richard Butler, former executive chairman of UNSCOM, the U.N. special commission on disarmament. Location: Wohlstetter Conference Center, American Enterprise Institution, 1150 17th St. NW. Contact: 202/862-4878.

Chemical emissions news conference - 9:30 a.m. - The National Environmental Trust, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Learning Disabilities Association hold a news conference to release a report on "Polluting Our Future: Chemical Emissions in the U.S. that Affect Child Development and Learning." Location: Nest, Willard Intercontinental Hotel, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Contact: 202/822-5200, Ext. 212.

2) Presidential Candidates

- Al Gore - Carbondale, Pa. 1 p.m. - Addresses employees of Gentex and discusses his specific budget goals for the future and details budget plans, Gentex Corp.,

- George W. Bush - Westland, MI, Dayton, OH, and Pittsburgh, PA 8:15 a.m. - Remarks to Veterans, Harris Kehrer VFW Post #3323, 1055 South Wayne Road, Westland, Michigan 48186 11:50 a.m. - Remarks to Veterans, Wright State University (MSG), Student Union Center - Multi-purpose Room, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton, Ohio 45434, (937) 775-5522 6:00 p.m. - Rally in Pittsburgh at Mellon Square Park, corner of William Penn and 6th Avenue.

---

- Ralph Nader this week - New Mexico

Thursday, September 7- Albuquerque, NM 3:45 - 4:30 PM - Press Conference, Hyatt Regency, 330 Tijeras, NW 6:30 - 7:30 PM - Fundraising Reception, Fiesta Ballroom, Hyatt Regency, 330 Tijeras, NW 8:30 - 9:30 PM - Speech, Kiva Auditorium, 401 Second St., NW

Friday, September 8 - Santa Fe and Farmington, New Mexico 9:45 - 10:30 AM - Press Conference, Hotel Santa Fe, 1501 Paseo De Palarta, Santa Fe, NM 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm Speech/Rally, Henderson Fine Arts Center, San Juan College, 4601 College Blvd, Farmington, NM

----

3) Announcements

- D.C. Statehood Green Party monthly meeting Thursday 7 September, 7 p.m, One Judiciary Square, 441 4th Street NW, room 700. For more information, call Jenefer 546-0940. [Note: The D.C. Green Party office was burglarized last weekend, for the second time.]

- Stop the Mobile Chernobyl! No Nuke Dumps on Native American Lands! Nuclear Utilities Would Transport 40,000 Tons of High-Level Nuclear Waste through Dozens of States to Dump on the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation in Utah. Make Your Opposition Known to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Before the Public Comment Period Ends September 21, 2000: 1. Submit Comments on the NRCs Draft Environmental Impact Statement 2. Sign NIRS petition opposing the Private Fuel Storage plan (go to NIRS web site http://www.nirs.org/roadsrails/skullvalleypetition.htm) 3. Print NIRS petition, get it filled out, and send it to us ASAP. You can also submit comments on-line at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/SR1714/index.html The DEIS itself is also available at this web site. From: michael mariotte <nirsnet@nirs.org>

- Star Wars (NMD) has been and will be astronomically expensive Since the 50s the U.S. has spent $122 billion on various missile intercept systems. Since Reagan's introduction of Star Wars in 1983 we've spent $69 billion dollars without fielding a workable system. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that, through 2015, it would cost $60 billion to build and maintain the system planned by the Clinton Administration. Current NMD budget for FY 2001-2005 is $12.7 billion, but is likely to rise sharply. Pentagon cost estimates for highly technical weapons systems are almost always much lower than the actual final cost of the weapon system (e.g. B-1 bomber, B-2 bomber, F-18, M-1A-1 tank, etc, etc, etc) <fdpeace@earthlink.net>

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

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000
From: "Vina Colley" <vcolley@earthlink.net>

USA Today Expose -- Day 2

Here are four stories from the second day of USAToday's coverage of "forgotten sites" -- tomorrow the focus is on environmental contamination.

Again, let me remind folks to buy a dead trees and ink version of the paper so you can have all the excellent photos and graphics. USAToday has again done a great job with an important nuclear weapons-related issue.

WORKER RISKS WEREN'T A PRIORITY USAToday, September 7, 2000 by Peter Eisler

CLEVELAND In January 1948, Bernard Wolf came here to assure workers at Harshaw Chemical Co. that the uranium they secretly processed for the government's nuclear weapons program posed no threat to their health.

In fact, Wolf, a medical director with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, had evidence of serious dangers. His staff had done classified studies at Harshaw's restricted "Area C" plant and found that concentrations of radioactive uranium dust in the air reached 200 times the safety limits of the day.

Having alerted Harshaw to the problems, Wolf wanted workers' urine checked for signs of kidney damage. But company officials worried that the tests might alarm employees, so they asked that he come out first to allay any fears among the men.

"It is easy to understand that extensive sample-taking of this character may cause (workers) to wonder about their health," Wolf's boss wrote to Harshaw executives just after the doctor's trip. "It was for this reason that Dr. Wolf (visited) to explain to them that all of our records indicated that no unusual hazard existed."

Actually, the severe hazards already documented at Harshaw were getting worse.

By late 1948, medical officials in the nuclear weapons program were reporting that nearly all of the 100 workers at Area C were overexposed to radioactive dust, with a third of them breathing 140 to 374 times the safety limit. Wolf, who is now deceased, raised concerns that the exposures could cause cancers, kidney problems and other illnesses that might not show up for decades.

"Workers (at Harshaw) will have to be followed medically very carefully in the future to detect the earliest signs of any damage," Wolf's staff reported.

But after Harshaw's work for the nuclear weapons program ended in the mid-1950s, no one returned to check the workers' health or tell them of their risks.

Here and elsewhere, thousands of workers were left in the dark about the often severe hazards they faced while working for private companies that were hired secretly in the 1940s and '50s to process radioactive and toxic material for nuclear weapons. Fifty years later, many of the survivors have increased chances of cancer, as well as kidney, lung and other diseases as a result of their work. But there's been almost no effort to learn whether such illnesses have occurred or contributed to any deaths.

Now, with Congress and the Clinton administration trying to account for illnesses among nuclear weapons workers, people who labored at commercial facilities employed by the arms program in its early years may be missed again. Congress is expected to vote in coming weeks on legislation to provide special compensation to men and women with health problems linked to nuclear weapons jobs, but that legislation promises mainly to cover those who were employed at government-owned sites that ultimately assumed most weapons-production operations.

"The people at these (private) places have essentially been forgotten," says Michael Sprinker of the International Chemical Workers Union, which represented people at some companies.

"They paid a huge price for fighting the Cold War," he adds. "It would have been one thing if they'd made the choice: 'OK, I'll take the risk because this is important for the country or because it's a good job that can support my family.' But they didn't make that choice. They were told this stuff wouldn't hurt them. The government has to take some responsibility."

As USA TODAY reported Wednesday, hundreds of companies quietly shifted their plants, mills and shops to nuclear weapons work under classified contracts and subcontracts with the weapons program in its early years. Many of the sites did only limited work, but dozens handled large volumes of material, sometimes for a decade or more before the government finally had its own weapons-making facilities ready to take over in the mid-1950s.

The newspaper conducted scores of interviews and studied 100,000 pages of records on the operations, many of them recently declassified and never before made public. Findings:

For decades, the government suppressed classified reports on dozens of contracting sites where workers faced extreme levels of radiation and airborne toxins from beryllium, fluorides and other dangerous chemicals. One 1949 survey of hazards at seven firms processing uranium in St. Louis and Cleveland and at facilities outside Pittsburgh and Buffalo found high radioactive dust levels at every one. Of 648 workers at those sites, the partially declassified survey noted, 40% had average exposures at least five times the safety limit; 10% were at least 125 times the limit.

Federal officials and executives at contracting companies often misled workers about their risks because of fears that they would seek hazard pay, sue for damages or demand safer conditions. The weapons program repeatedly killed plans to give workers details on their radiation exposures. "It is necessary to consider whether (such a policy) would serve merely to alarm employees unnecessarily, invite baseless claims, and complicate collective bargaining," noted a 1956 memo circulated to top program officials.

Recommendations for reducing workplace dangers often were shelved because the government thought they might interfere with production and the contractors didn't want to spend the money. In a 1949 report, medical officials in the weapons program urged that hazards be cut "despite existing operational pressures." But noting the need "to keep costs to a minimum," they suggested that an incremental approach "seems more logical than assuring safe results by over-designing" protections.

The lack of medical follow-up on people who did nuclear weapons work at private facilities makes it impossible to say how many of the 10,000 or so people those facilities employed over the years may have gotten sick.

But experts hired by USA TODAY to review some of the old health studies estimate that workers in the most hazardous jobs have substantially higher risks for cancer and other illnesses.

"Most all the guys are dead now. Cancer, kidneys, lung problems, you see a lot of that," says John Smith, 87, a Harshaw retiree who worked on the uranium-processing operation. "I feel lucky to be alive, but I'm worried. It makes you bitter, them knowing about the risks and not telling. If I'd known, I would have quit."

Wednesday, USA TODAY revealed the untold story of the role played by private companies in the Cold War. This is the story of what happened to the workers.

Chapter 2: Calculated risks Soon after the first private companies were hired during World War II to help build the first atomic bombs, the government launched a highly classified effort to measure workers' exposure to hazardous substances and monitor the effects. Plants were checked for radiation and air quality; workers got urine tests and physicals. Later, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which took over the weapons program in 1947, also collected tissue samples.

"All we did was pass the word among the physicians in the hospitals, if they run across any surgical cases or postmortem (exams on) uranium workers, that we would like to have kidney, lung, bone," Merril Eisenbud, a top AEC health official, said in an interview with federal officials before his death in 1997. "Did they get permission? I don't know."

By the late 1940s, workers at some of the companies were showing signs of kidney damage and respiratory ailments from breathing air laced with uranium, thorium, beryllium and fluoride compounds. Suspicious cancers also were surfacing. The numbers, while relatively small, bolstered concerns that more serious and widespread problems lay ahead.

But the immediate demand for more weapons tended to overwhelm such long-term worries.

"People doing health (oversight) were caught in the middle," says Gilbert Whittemore, a lawyer and senior researcher for a presidential panel set up in 1994 to investigate revelations that the weapons program did secret Cold War radiation studies on unknowing subjects. "They were trying to establish enough authority and credibility to enforce (safety) standards and on the other hand not interfere with the weapons-production effort."

Initially, the balancing act was a wartime necessity.

In June 1945, just two months before U.S. planes dropped atomic bombs on Japan, the weapons program's medical chief more than tripled the "maximum allowable concentration" of radioactive dust in air at contracting plants. Studies suggested the higher exposures would be tolerable, his directive said, and "given the extreme difficulty in maintaining (the prior limit) in industry, such a change will be of definite benefit in expediting the war effort."

The war's end in August did little to ease the demand for weapons, particularly once the Soviets' first atomic bomb tests kicked off the arms race in 1949. By 1951, more than 150 private facilities had received contracts to do nuclear weapons work. Violations of safety codes remained common, and the limited efforts to protect unwitting workers often fell short.

At Electro Metallurgical Co. in Niagara Falls, N.Y., which processed uranium from 1943 to 1952, radioactive dust levels often soared to hundreds of times the prevailing safety limits. (The company failed to even vacuum work areas, despite being "persistently instructed," a 1949 AEC memo noted.) But when AEC medical officials suggested that the commission could pay for new ventilation, higher-ups balked at the cost. It would be only a few more years, they reasoned, before federal facilities would be built to take over the work.

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which was hired by USA TODAY to review the records, estimates that during peak years workers' annual lung doses of radiation ranged from 50 to 6,000 rem -- measurements up to hundreds of times the limits of the day. Based on conventional risk formulas, exposures toward the high end of that range, even for just a few years, translate into a "very high probability" of cancer and kidney ailments, the institute reports.

The cost concerns that stymied action at ElectroMet were not unusual. But more often, the major obstacles were operational.

At Monsanto Chemical plants in Dayton, Ohio, for example, urine tests on workers processing polonium often showed levels of the radioactive element many times the "maximum tolerance." Health officials reported in 1946 that the plants could not meet quotas "without having certain individuals go above (the) tolerance level."

The Dayton project, run in an old playhouse and other leased facilities through much of the 1940s, was the sole source of polonium used to trigger nuclear weapons. So it was decided that workers with up to twice the allowed level of contamination in their urine would still be assigned to "hot" areas whenever necessary.

While big operations such as Dayton and ElectroMet tended to have the biggest problems with worker exposures, their troubles weren't unique.

Smaller steel mills and metallurgy shops that cut and pressed uranium and thorium metal into nuclear fuel rods - places such as Joslyn Manufacturing in Fort Wayne, Ind.; Bridgeport Brass plants in Connecticut and Adrian, Mich.; and William E. Pratt Manufacturing in Joliet, Ill. - often exposed workers to radioactive dust levels that were tens of times the safety limits.

Other companies had problems with non-radioactive but highly toxic chemical compounds such as beryllium, which causes lung disease. At Hooker Chemical in Niagara Falls, N.Y., which made additives for uranium refining, weapons program officials noted in a 1944 report that fluoride and chlorine vapors filled the air "to such an extent that breathing was difficult."

Most contractors "were supposed to do a certain amount of production work and be done with it, but it ended up being much more," says Alfred Breslin, 76, a health physicist in the weapons program from 1948 to 1980 and a co-author on many of the old studies of private facilities. "The initial controls were not always adequate. For the most part, (upgrades) were done, not as fast as we would have liked in many cases."

The federal facilities built in the 1950s to take over the work boasted special ventilation, mechanized operations and other safety features absent at private sites. At the government's Fernald complex in Cincinnati, which assumed uranium and thorium processing, new worker safeguards reflected "experiences encountered at the old (commercial) plants," a 1951 AEC memo noted.

Even so, in 1994 Fernald workers won a broad government settlement that included health monitoring, arbitration of disputed worker compensation claims and $15 million in compensation after charging in a class-action suit that they had higher risks of cancer and other illnesses from radioactive and toxic exposures. Hidden dangers

The frontline workers at Harshaw were practically the only ones involved in the weapons operation there who didn't know about the risks they faced.

By 1948, the plant was one of the weapons program's two biggest producers of uranium compounds. Te other was Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis. Both were notorious among AEC health officials for safety problems.

As radiation levels at Harshaw soared, commission officials repeatedly warned the company, but their recommendations for corrective action were ignored. "No significant progress has been made in correcting the hazardous conditions," one top AEC manager wrote in a testy 1949 letter to Harshaw executives. The AEC official added that the company "could correct all of these conditions (if) management were seriously concerned."

But such worries had no effect on the AEC's production quotas. By 1950, the plant was running up to 24 hours a day, and workers' radiation and fluoride exposures continued to climb.

It wasn't until the early 1950s, almost 10 years after Harshaw began doing weapons work, that new, dust-catching ventilation hoods were installed in the plant and the air quality problems began to subside. Records suggest the change was driven as much by the AEC's desire to recoup precious uranium as by health concerns.

Some workers suspected that their jobs might be more dangerous than they were led to believe. Suspicions grew as men were mysteriously taken out of the plant after urine tests. In one 10-month period spanning 1950 and 1951, nine workers were dispatched with kidney ailments diagnosed as uranium poisoning. But there were no explanations.

"No one ever told us there was a problem," says Smith, the Harshaw retiree. "The guys who got pulled out, we thought it was because there was something already wrong with them, maybe they were drinking too much and it showed up in their urine."

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, based in Maryland, estimates that workers with the worst cumulative radiation exposures at Harshaw got the equivalent of a whole-body radiation dose of about 1,000 rem. That level corresponds to a 40% chance of dying from cancer over a lifetime and a 200% increase in cancer risk compared with unexposed persons. Their chances for kidney and respiratory problems are also substantially higher.

Surviving workers recall dust coating the plant floor. It stung their faces, gave them rashes.

The men were told to wear respirators during some tasks, but "they were uncomfortable," says James Southern, 76, who worked on Harshaw's uranium operation in the late 1940s and '50s. He notes that many men used the masks only sporadically and rarely bothered to change the filters. "They never told us why we needed them. If they had, they wouldn't have had anyone working there."

Providing detailed information to workers was never seen as an option. Reports on operational hazards, like most weapons program documents, were "born secret": automatically classified unless specifically censored for release.

In 1949, when AEC medical officials sought to publish a paper generally discussing hazards at weapons-making sites, declassification officers directed that mentions of worker exposures at specific sites be deleted. The cuts "do not necessarily involve (secret) data," they wrote, "but (were suggested) on the basis that they are unnecessary references or might be bad from a public relations and an insurance point of view."

- -

BERYLLIUM WORKERS' PLIGHT GETS ATTENTION
by Peter Eisler

One group of companies employed by the nuclear weapons program has received a lot of attention for the risks imposed on workers: beryllium manufacturers.

Beginning in the 1940s, the government hired firms at about 30 private sites to produce or fabricate materials from the non-radioactive chemical compound, which causes a unique, sometimes fatal lung disease. When the Clinton administration began offering the government's first acknowledgments that weapons production jobs made some people sick, commercial firms that handled beryllium were singled out for attention.

Beryllium workers remain one of the few cases in which the government has given specific recognition to health risks faced by employees at private sites engaged in work for the weapons program. Legislation being considered in Congress that would compensate weapons workers for certain occupational illnesses makes specific provision for people at beryllium sites: The Energy Department would get 90 days to develop a complete list of companies the government hired to handle the material, and employees at those sites would automatically be covered by the bill.

Conversely, employees at other private companies hired to process and produce radioactive and toxic material for the weapons program get no promise of compensation for work-related ills. The legislation would allow future administrations to "certify" that such sites were involved in weapons work, which would make employees from those places eligible, but there's no deadline, or requirement, for doing so.

"There's no reason why these other people (employed by companies that did weapons work) should be treated differently," says Richard Miller of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union.

There's been substantial press coverage of illnesses among beryllium workers, led by a groundbreaking series published last year by The Blade, of Toledo, Ohio. Also, chronic beryllium disease, the illness caused by exposure, can only be contracted from direct contact with the element, so there's no denying that workers' illnesses are linked to occupational hazards.

USA TODAY turned up documents dating to the mid-1940s in which officials in the weapons program acknowledged that beryllium work was making people sick. By the late '40s, workers already were turning up with related respiratory problems - as were neighbors of the beryllium plants, which often pumped toxic dust into the air.

In May 1948, medical officials with the Atomic Energy Commission, which ran the weapons program, reported that "health hazards in the beryllium plants of AEC contractors" were severe enough to consider "a complete shutdown of beryllium operations while a thorough solution to the health problem is sought."

The idea was dismissed.

Records from that era show that some of the worst beryllium exposures occurred at Brush Beryllium plants in Cleveland, Loraine and Luckey, Ohio. But there were dozens of other beryllium contractors doing weapons work at private sites in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington.

Many had serious problems, often driven by the government's keen hunger for beryllium, an extremely strong, lightweight material used in metal alloys for a variety of weapons-making materials.

In August 1951, for example, AEC health officials reported that workers' already high beryllium exposures at the Brush plant in Luckey were rising steadily. "The probable reason ... is that greater production rates have been attained."

- -

RESEARCH IGNORES PRIVATE NUCLEAR CONTRACTORS by Peter Eisler

Academics and federal scientists have done dozens of studies on illnesses and deaths among workers employed at federal weapons plants.

But there's been virtually no research on people who had often-similar jobs at commercial facilities that the government secretly hired to do weapons work in the years before the government plants were built.

Some of the studies of federal workers found significant increases in the rates of cancer, kidney disease and pulmonary problems linked to radioactive and toxic exposures.

But USA TODAY found only two health studies that focused directly on workers at private contracting sites and one that touched on them tangentially.

A rundown:

A study of workers at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, begun after a 1987 series in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch detailed the company's role in early nuclear weapons production, concluded in 1998 that workers had a 10% higher death rate from all types of cancer than the general population.

The rate for lymphatic, esophageal and rectal cancers, however, was 40% above the norm. The study also found a 218% higher rate of kidney illnesses among Mallinckrodt workers.

A 1987 study of workers at Linde Air Products in Tonawanda, N.Y., one of the weapons program's big uranium refining operations in the '40s, found that workers died of cancer at a rate 18% higher than the general population.

The study, done in response to legal pressure from the union representing Linde employees, also found that workers in the uranium operation suffered respiratory illnesses at rates up to 200% above the U.S. average.

A study of workers at the government's Mound polonium plant near Dayton, Ohio, noted that workers at Monsanto's Dayton contracting operation in the years before the federal plant was built suffered significant increases in death rates from lung, rectal and other cancers. The study also found that death rates from respiratory diseases were notably higher than the national average.

In 1983, researchers hired by the government to do the Linde study proposed that they also look at workers employed at other private contracting sites, including Harshaw in Cleveland and ElectroMet in Niagara Falls, N.Y. But the proposal was rejected because it would be difficult - and expensive - to track all the workers.

- --

HEARINGS SOUGHT ON TOXIC EXPOSURE by Tom Squitieri

Two key senators said Wednesday that they will examine the federal government's role in exposing thousands of workers to dangerous levels of radiation during the 1940s and '50s.

Responding to a USA TODAY report that detailed the government's secret use of private companies to build America's early nuclear arsenal, the top Republican and Democrat on a Senate panel dealing with workers' safety said they will seek hearings.

The report, which continues Thursday and Friday, found that thousands of workers intentionally were left in the dark about their exposure to radiation and hazardous substances. Dozens of communities also were contaminated with toxic and radioactive waste.

"These facts sound an alarm beyond any doubt, and it is appropriate for our subcommittee to take a look at it," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of a Senate appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over labor and health issues. "The whole question of radioactivity is a very big one because it really can spread beyond those communities."

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, the ranking Democrat on the panel, and Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, will call on the government Thursday to disclose the history of the sites, re-examine surrounding areas and redress the damage done to workers and communities.

"The federal government must lift the veil of secrecy," Harkin said.

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

Ohio Radiation Regulator:
"Lighten Up" on DOE Pollution, Crimes, Coverups

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000
From: easlavin@aol.com

Good morning:

Whenever a government regulator leaps without looking to the defense of those organizations that he is supposed to regulate -- when he admittedly does not know the facts -- one is left to wonder "why?" Reflexive defense of the regulated by the regulators does not inspire public trust and confidence. Quite the reverse.

Here, an Ohio radiation protection regulator has jumped in with both feet, admittedly not knowing the facts, "vehemently" indoctrinating us to suppose that there is "no coverup" ongoing at DOE by DOE "professionals." This is wishful thinking, at best.

The DOE coverup is ongoing, as at Oak RIdge currently re: contaminated drinking water at K-25, where unsanitary water was joined to sanitary water supplies for decades.

Oak Ridge site's water was tainted for decades - Sunday, 7/30/2000
http://www.tennessean.com/sii/00/07/30/mynuke30.shtml

Where else in the world has any government agency besides DOE been responsible for so much misery, pollution, death and coverups? (Other than the Soviets at Chelyabinsk?) The truth is well-nigh irrefragable. "Slanderous" and "Specious" indeed! That is hardly "objective" as Mr. George Cicotte supposes from his viewpoint at the Ohio Department of "Health." George Orwell would understand.

In light of what DOE, its contractors and predecessors have done to the workers, residents, air, land and water of Tennessee and other states, calling often unsophisticated DOE and contractor managers "professionals" is to prejudge their honor and expertise if not to damn them with faint praise.

DOE's "profession" (besides manufacturing weapons of mass destruction) has been polluting, poisoning and covering it up for nearly 60 years, at a high price for the American people in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. This was a truly "risky business," poorly managed and unregulated.

A trip to the library -- and purchase of copies of "USA Today" series this week -- would be in order for regulators at Ohio's Department of "Health." Otherwise, anti-empirical conclusions (no coverup) are at best "unhealthy" for the people and environment of Ohio. NYTimes columnist William Safire recently identified the origins of the phrase "rogue state" -- it was apparently first used circa the 1970s to refer to Ohio's notoriously anti-regulatory climate, where pollution was tolerated under state officials who let it happened. Ohio was called a "rogue state" precisely because Ohio government agencies let industry do anything it desired to do and get away with it.

Ohio's Republican U.S. Senator DeWine held a hearing on compensation issues in June, with the Ohio Workers Compensation Bureau stating that the needs of workers in Ohio were different from those in Utah, and that states should handle workers compensation.

http://www.senate.gov/~labor/hearings/may00hrg/051500wt/dewine051500/mic haels/miller515/bwc515/bwc515.htm

This is arrant nonsense. Workers in Tennessee, New Mexico, Washington State, Utah and Ohio alike need food, clothing, health care, medicine, heat, light, housing, transportation, energy, recreation and entertainment. Workers in different states are not different species. Yet DOE and its CONpensation bill would leave workers with injuries from chemicals and heavy metals to the tender mercies of the likes of the Ohio Workers Compensation Bureau, leaving only radiation and beryllium injuries to federal law.

Let George Cicotte and other Ohio regulators learn from Tennesseans. Let those who defend DOE go to the plants in quo, breathe the air, drink the water and talk to the workers.

Let George Cicotte come to Oak Ridge, Portsmouth, Paducah, Fernald, Mound, etc. and learn from the workers and residents. Perhaps he might wish to volunteer his professional services to help those American who have been lied to by DOE for nearly 60 years. He should read more and emote less:

Deadly Alliance: How government and industry chose weapons over workers
http://www.toledoblade.com/deadlyalliance/intro.html

Secret project carried hidden dangers
http://www.usatoday.com/hphoto.htm

THE TENNESSEAN Special Report
http://www.tennessean.com/special/oakridge/part3/

Victims' Testimony, Legislative Proposals, News and Commentary
http://www.downwinders.org/victims.html

Thompson blasted on sick worker bill
http://www.downwinders.org/ed4.htm

DOE's Strategy in dealing with sick workers
http://www.downwinders.org/joyce.htm

DOE's Toxic, Hostile Working Environnment Violates Human Rights
http://www.downwinders.org/slavinhtml.htm

Perhaps with time for learning and growth and respect for the decent opinions of humankind, George will come to know the truth.

Ohioans familiar with DOE sites might wish to inform George of actual working conditions there, in hopes that he might become familiar with the permanent nature of the DOE covuerp.

I am sure that Ohio workers and residents would look forward to discussing these issues with George and other Ohio regulators, who IMHO need to be far more proactive, "humble" and understanding of the multiple sites in Ohio contaminated by DOE, listed in yesterday's USA Today articles. What do you think?

With kindest regards, Ed Slavin

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

trust and perspective
9/7/00
From: EASlavin

Dear George: You seem to have an urban/industrial bias that colors your Weltanschauung. The working poor were in Appalachia for over 200 years -- toxicants came to them and not the other way around. That is true of industrial plants throughout the South. Your request for definitions is rhetorical, I presume. If otherwise -- if I have to define terms like "independent" and "criminal" for you --the State of Ohio may need to rewrite its civil service examination(s). I suggest you read the literature about DOE and [nearly] 60 years of pollution and coverup, starting with my March 22, 2000 Senate testimony, my July 11, 1983 Al Gore testimony, and references therein. With kindest regards, Ed Slavin

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

DOE / slander
9/7/00
From: GCICOTTE@gw.odh.state.oh.us George Cicotte

Dr. Byrd, Mr. Slavin:
Lighten up, please.

That said, I take issue with Mr. Slavin's apparent lack of regard for the professionals (sic) at DOE. Although I don't know enough about the topic to speak knowledgeably on whether the DOE should have done more with the information available, I have to disagree vehemently that there is a current "coverup" occurring, and I personally find the statements moderately slanderous. On the other hand, I recognize the subjective nature both of Mr. Slavin's comments and of my own perspective.

Let's try to stay objective, folks. THAT, IMO (I hesitate to use H, not because of any great pride, but because I believe self-proclaimed humility is self-negating), is what is necessary in order to use "normative scientific institutions" and make "credible efforts to improve the quality of scientific information."

Sincerely, George R. Cicotte Health Physicist 3 Nuclear Materials Safety Bureau of Radiation Protection Ohio Department of Health

unofficial - I have absolutely no idea what the Governor would say about my opinions perspective - former US Navy nuclear operator on a ballistic missile submarine, commercial power health physics, Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector, and DOE site engineer, BS in physics, and parts of environmental science and industrial hygiene. Getting a paycheck from DOE or a contractor thereof does not make one a criminal, sycophant, or other hanger-on intent on suppressing justice in the name of silence.

Re: Trust and Perspective
Date: 9/7/00
From: GCICOTTE@gw.odh.state.oh.us George Cicotte

I decided I needed to respond separately from my short diatribe against acrimony:

I find the argument about "where you stand" somewhat specious. To argue that siting of industrial sites or toxicants is environmental and economic racism is to ignore cause and effect. The industry doesn't go in where the "poor" live. The "working poor" go to live where the industry sets up, because that's where the jobs are for which people with little education can qualify, and because the area is less desirable from the presence of industry and working poor, that's where most of the poor can best afford to live. I'm not an economics major, but that seems pretty obvious to me. In almost every situation I've observed, if a new industry is sited in an existing "economically disadvantaged" area, it's because the area is already an industrial area, land is cheap, a ready labor pool is available, or there's some other equally economically attractive factor involved.

OF COURSE someone who has more income isn't going to put their expensive home next to a foundry or mill, or let someone place one next to them - would you? I've lived next to contaminated sites, including in one case a Superfund site, and I've lived in nicer areas (though probably not as nice as River Oaks, or even as nice as my oldest son the attorney can afford). I much prefer the nicer areas, and I work hard to try to afford them, but I've BEEN on the other side of the tracks, and although I have some sympathy and empathy with people who have to live near waste sites, I'm not ready to accuse people of racism on the basis that they want to better their own lives.

Please define "independent science." I have to admit some suspicion of the term, as I've seen it used before to describe studies which support a specific agenda, rather than to describe studies which are independent. It seems to me to be used at least in part by people who aren't hearing what they want to hear. I think I know what it means, and if it was RJReynolds saying it, I'd be just as suspicious, but blanket (sic) indictments (sic) of scientific results just because they don't fit your agenda (sic) isn't appropriate (sic).

George R. Cicotte Health Physicist 3 Nuclear Materials Safety Bureau of Radiation Protection Ohio Department of Health

UNOFFICIAL - I have no idea whether the Governor agrees with me.

===================================

Re: [riskanal] Acceptable Risk Origins
Date: 9/4/00
From: <A HREF="mailto:EASlavin">EASlavin</A>

Good morning: What you "guess" -- or where you stand -- on the value of reducing exposures to toxicants depends upon where you sit (and breathe). Do you live near a large Superfund Site (like Oak Ridge), or have been sheltered from them by the pattern of environmental and economic racism in siting toxicants in this Nation (e.g., I don't see any Superfund Sites in River Oaks in Houston, or other places where the Dick Cheneys of the world live.) Industry sponsors most of the studies that you rely upon in condescending to public environmental concerns, with little in the way of independent science. Why should the American people (or future historians) believe conflict of interest prone studies sponsored by industries with criminal histories (e.g., petroleum, nuclear, petrochemical)? Doesn't your argument boil down to "trust us" -- and viscereal distrust of the legislative process and government regulation, (which established Superfund)? With kindest regards, Ed Slavin

In a message dated 8/8/00 3:06:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time, DCragin@ato.com writes:

My guess is that future civilizations will look back on this inefficient part of the war on cancer like we look at the Egyptian pyramids (i.e., amazement at the amount of resources expended). When the Egyptians spent a huge amount of the country's resources to build the pyramids, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. However, I doubt that future civilizations will be inspired with awe at the many piles of dirt that we dug up from one hole in the ground and placed in another hole in the ground, all at an enormous cost to society with little or no societal benefit. http://www.atofinachemicals.com/newelf/homepage.cfm
ATOFINA Chemicals


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

DOEWatch List ----A Magnum-Opus Project
DOEWatch page: http://members.aol.com/doewatch

1. U.S. covered up nuclear hazards at private companies
From: magnu96196@aol.com

2. USA TODAY Series-------About this series
From: magnu96196@aol.com

3. Ramsey wants feds to enforce law at Y-12
From: magnu96196@aol.com

4. Platts Wednesday, September 06, 2000
From: "Paul Maser" <pmaser@govmail.state.nv.us>

5. USA TODAY Series------- 'We'll continue to be aggressive'
From: magnu96196@aol.com

6. Report: Va. Nuclear Workers Exposed
From: magnu96196@aol.com

7. INEEL worker says workplace made him ill
From: magnu96196@aol.com

8. Awaiting K-25 water report
From: magnu96196@aol.com

9. DOE deadline for metal firms near
From: magnu96196@aol.com

10. Report reveals radiation threat over decades
From: magnu96196@aol.com

11. BWXT faces challenge at Pantex
From: magnu96196@aol.com

12. IEER Press Release on sick workers
From: magnu96196@aol.com

13. USA TODAY Series------Research documents------clickable URL links
From: magnu96196@aol.com

14. USA TODAY Series-----Day 2------Beryllium workers' plight gets attention
From: magnu96196@aol.com

15. USA TODAY Series-----Day 2------Research ignores private nuclear contractors
From: magnu96196@aol.com

16. USA TODAY Series-----Day 2------Chapter 1: Worker risks weren't a priority
From: magnu96196@aol.com

17. USA TODAY Series-----Day 2------Chapter 2: Calculated risks
From: magnu96196@aol.com

18. USA TODAY Series-----Day 2------Chapter 3: Filed and forgotten
From: magnu96196@aol.com

19. USA TODAY Series-------IEER Report-----Part 1 of 4
From: magnu96196@aol.com

20. USA TODAY Series-------IEER Report-----Part 2 of 4
From: magnu96196@aol.com

21. USA TODAY Series-------IEER Report-----Part 3 of 4
From: magnu96196@aol.com

22. USA TODAY Series-------IEER Report-----Part 4 of 4
From: magnu96196@aol.com

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

U.S. covered up nuclear hazards at private companies

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com
http://www.tennessean.com/sii/00/09/06/nuclear06.shtml

U.S. covered up nuclear hazards at private companies By Peter Eisler / Gannett News Service

The U.S. government secretly hired hundreds of private companies during the 1940s and '50s to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material, leaving a legacy of poisoned workers and contaminated communities that lingers to this day.

From mom-and-pop machine shops to big-name chemical firms, private manufacturing facilities across the nation were quietly converted to the risky business of handling tons of uranium, thorium, polonium, beryllium and other radioactive and toxic substances. Few of the contractors were prepared for the hazards of their government-sponsored missions.

Thousands of workers were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, often hundreds of times stronger than the limits of the time. Dozens of communities were contaminated, their air, ground and water fouled by toxic and radioactive waste.

The risks were kept hidden. In some cases, they have remained so.

A USA Today investigation finds that the government's reliance on a vast network of private plants, mills and shops to build America's early nuclear arsenal had grave health and environmental consequences. Federal officials knew of severe hazards to the companies' employees and surrounding neighborhoods, but reports detailing the problems were classified and locked away.

The full story of the secret contracting effort has never been told. Many of the companies that were involved have been forgotten, the impact of their operations unexamined for half a century. Yet their history carries profound implications for the thousands of people they employed, as well as for the thousands who lived -- and still live -- near the factories.

At a time when the nation is reassessing the worker ills and ecological damage wrought by large, government-owned nuclear weapons plants, the record of the private companies that did the work before those facilities were built has had little scrutiny.

Most of the contracting sites were in the industrial belt: through New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, around the Great Lakes and down the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. They were in big cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis. And they were in smaller communities, such as Lockport, N.Y., Carnegie, Pa., and Joliet, Ill.

Some did only minor amounts of work for the weapons program, but dozens of private facilities handled large quantities of radioactive and toxic material. "These places just fell off the map," says Dan Guttman, former director of the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, which was set up in 1994 to investigate revelations that government-funded scientists exposed unknowing subjects to dangerous isotopes in secret Cold War studies.

"People were put at considerable risk. It appears (the government) knew full well that (safety) standards were being violated, but there's been no effort to maintain contact with these people (and) look at the effects," says Guttman, a lawyer and weapons program watchdog who has returned to private practice since the committee finished its work in 1995. "There's no legitimate reason for this neglect."

USA Today reviewed 100,000 pages of government records, many recently declassified and never before subject to public review, to assess the scope and impact of nuclear weapons work done at private facilities in the 1940s and '50s. Reporters visited former contracting sites and archives in 10 states and interviewed scores of former employees, people living near the sites and government officials.

Key findings:

• Beginning with the development of the first atomic bombs during World War II, the government secretly hired more than 200 private companies to process and produce material used in nuclear weapons production. At least a third of them handled hundreds, thousands or even millions of pounds of radioactive and toxic material, often without the equipment or knowledge to protect the health and safety of workers or nearby communities.

The contracting wound down in the mid-1950s as government facilities were built to take over most weapons-building operations -- a move spurred partly by hazards at contracting sites.

• The government documented health risks at many of the private facilities doing weapons work, producing classified reports that detailed radiation exposure rates hundreds of times above its safety standards.

The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, hired by USA TODAY to provide an expert review of old radiation data on three contracting operations, estimates that workers in the riskiest jobs had a 40 percent chance of dying from cancer -- an increase of 200 percent over the general population -- as well as higher odds for respiratory and kidney ills. But there's no telling how many workers, if any, have gotten sick or died from their exposures; they've gotten virtually no medical study.

Dozens of companies doing weapons work contaminated the air, soil and water with toxic and radioactive waste. Secret studies done at the time documented some operations that pumped hundreds of pounds of uranium dust into the air each month and others that dumped thousands of pounds of solid and liquid wastes.

• Both the government and executives at the companies it hired for weapons work hid the health and environmental problems.

Federal officials misled workers, insisting their jobs were safe despite having evidence to the contrary. Surviving employees still have not been told of their risks, though screening and early treatment could boost their odds for surviving some illnesses they might face as a result of their work.

Likewise, communities were left unaware of toxic and radioactive waste spilling from behind the innocuous facades of businesses. The secrecy that shrouded the weapons program's contracting still masks residual contamination at some sites; other sites have never been checked for problems. "It was a different time, the Cold War was on," says Arthur Piccot, 81, who monitored health and safety at some contracting sites in the late '40s and early '50s for the weapons program.

Producing weapons "was the priority, period," he says. "People didn't (fully) understand the risks."

Peter Eisler writes for USA TODAY.

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

USA TODAY Series-------About this series

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com
http://www.usatoday.com/news/poison/about.htm

USA TODAY investigative reporter Peter Eisler spent 10 months on the "Poisoned Workers & Poisoned Places" project. He:

Examined more than 100,000 recently declassified documents that detail the work done by private companies for the nuclear weapons program and the information that researchers kept about the workers.

The reporting took him to archives in Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Albany, N.Y.; and College Park, Md. The records are mostly from the files of the Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Engineering district.

Visited sites where the work was done, or directed other reporters to them, in 10 states. Eisler and the other reporters interviewed more than two dozen people who had worked at such plants or are relatives of such workers.

Interviewed more than 30 medical and scientific experts, and current or former government officials. He also interviewed a dozen congressional staffers, union officials and activists.

Created a computer database that categorizes the information he uncovered about the sites where work was done. There is no index for the records at any of the archives.

Filed a half dozen Freedom of Information Act requests for batches of documents not readily available at the archives.

In addition to that work, USA TODAY contracted with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Studies, a non-partisan public interest research group, to perform "dose reconstruction" studies. Those studies, based on the records uncovered by Eisler, provide estimates of how much radiation workers were exposed to when doing the weapons work. The institute did similar research for workers at the government-owned Fernald manufacturing facility. The federal government later settled a suit by those workers, who alleged they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

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

Ramsey wants feds to enforce law at Y-12

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000
From: magnu96196@aol.com
http://www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/fm09062000.shtml

Ramsey wants feds to enforce law at Y-12 September 6, 2000 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel staff writer

Despite protestations to the contrary, security continues to be a concern at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

There are persistent reports of missing materials at the Oak Ridge plant, lax procedures in clearing personnel for work at the sensitive nuclear facilities and dissension between management and the guard force.

This despite much money and effort spent on security operations in the wake of the spy scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Another twist: Anderson County Attorney General Jim Ramsey suggests security at the Oak Ridge plant has been a deterrent to law enforcement.

He wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno earlier this summer asking her to use the "federal pre-emptive option" and take the lead in enforcing laws at Y-12.

Ramsey wrote the letter shortly before the Aug. 6 "Hiroshima Day" protest at Y-12, an event that annually leads to the arrest of protesters on trespassing charges.

This year, as in the past, Ramsey complained of minor offenses clogging up state courts, and he refused to prosecute those cases.

But Ramsey's concerns go beyond the peace protests and how those arrests are handled.

The attorney general said crimes on federal property in Oak Ridge have been handled unevenly in the past, and he said it's virtually impossible for police or prosecutors to get the access needed at Y-12 to enforce the law.

"I do know things are going on," Ramsey said. "Thefts are legendary."

He said DOE's inspector general staff even has problems getting needed access to investigate problems at Y-12.

Thus, Ramsey wants Reno to direct the feds to take over the law enforcement role and get serious about it.

He declined to release a copy of his letter until he receives a response from Reno.

*TWO HATS: There